Condemned

Baf's Guide

The story and atmosphere are great (and that in spite of the fact there are some minor problems with the writing). The game uses a device I'm personally very fond of - gradually melting together two realities. The gameplay, however, probably isn't to everybody's taste, since it's pretty linear and includes long sequences where the player just has to press "z" turn after turn. Puzzles are rather easy and shouldn't be a problem. All in all, Condemned is a huge, incredible improvement in comparison with this author's previous games, and one of the most moving works of IF I've ever encountered altogether. I'm really disappointed it ended up so low in the Comp.

--Valentine Kopteltsev

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Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 3 Write a review

Disturbing, and too ambitious for its own good, October 8, 2009
This game is unhealthily disturbing. It's what I have to say first and foremost.

Second and, er, secondmost: this game is an excellent example of what it is to have an abmitious project, a dramatic story, and simply not having the skill to completely pull it off.

The story, revealed to the player in two different levels (Spoiler - click to show) (one real and the other one symbolic. Not that this is much of a spoiler - it's pretty obvious) , is a dark, bleak affair. It's so filled with despair, I feel like I've just watched Requiem For a Dream twice in a row, followed by Pi and Saw.

Ok, ok, bit of an exaggeration. Make it just Requiem for a Dream twice.

It's a story which, truth be told, has a lot going for it. The pacing isn't bad, and the elements of the story are recognizable enough to be effective. We can easily relate to the PC's background, or at least recognize it: his relationship with his sister is common enough, and while his parents feel overly dramatized, it's still rather believable. So, there's a good, solid starting point for all that comes later, which I won't go into as it would spoil the whole thing.

But the author was too ambitious, and couldn't carry it off. For starters, either he isn't an English native speaker (not a problem per se, of course) or he just needs to practice his writing. A lot. Too many of the sentences are just too awkward, and dialogues in particular are rarely realistic - they feel extremely artificial, and many words and expressions feel way out of place. It looked like it was written by someone who knew the language very well, but had never actually spoken it out loud, or hear it in action, or read it often outside the grammar books.

Another thing that really grated me was background exposition. It was very badly done, in a very artifical manner (a long dialogue with your sister). The golden rule "show, don't tell" would have helped the author here. Yes, exposition is a notoriously hard thing to manage. This game didn't manage it, sorry.

These are common enough mistakes, of course. Only further writing - and a lot of reading - will help the author here. It's a shame, too, because he clearly knew where he wanted to go, and what he wanted to achieve with each sentence. The concept was good. The execution needed extensive input from a couple of... er... beta-readers.

The problem with the game's ambition, apart from it having helped cripple the writing...

...at least so it seems: it looks like a typical case (and I know, I've been there) of an author going 'Wow, what a red-hot story I'm writing, this is big, this is huge, this is the best thing I've ever done', and in the ensuing excitement the writing's usually the first thing to go...

...is that it falls a bit flat. The game works best when it's not trying to overdo it, and because of the game's tendency - like so many others - to go back and forth between the two levels of the story with little explanation, it rarely overdoes anything, leaving us to piece it all together (not a difficult task. This game isn't Photopia; the story is very clear from the word go).

And then, near the end sequences, the game feels that the player has figured it out all (which is true) and then starts rambling about the collision of the two worlds, and starts trying to symbolize way more than it's good for itself.

Now, I kinda like this sort of stuff, especially in Chancellor, which I've recently played. But "Condemned" really overdoes it all. A lot of the endgame, the climatic conclusion, while visually interesting, feels tacked-on. It's like the game feel it has to justify itself and its existence.

As a result, the very final scene, which was supposed to feel cathartic, just feels "meh". The obvious symbolism was powerful enough, it didn't need all that clarification, and it certainly didn't need that mystical-ish merging of the worlds. Without it, the story would have worked a lot better.

Ah well. Maybe I *just didn't get it* (which is doubtless what the author must be thinking). Fair enough. We each have our own tastes, and do our own readings. My reading of this story brought me to these conclusions. Other people might think differently, and think that the story would be lessened without that which I thought was too much. Everything's game.

Apart from all that, there isn't much to add. Detail and implementation are pleasantly thorough, even if the odd first-level noun isn't accounted for (a rare ocorrence (sp?) ). Puzzles are pretty much non-existent.

Bottom line - the story is disturbing, and for me the catharsis didn't work, leaving me feeling hopelessly bleak. It overreached itself (in my opinion, of course), past the point where it should have stopped (in terms of scope, not in terms of "the point where the story actually ends"). It was mostly because of this, and because of the writing, that I couldn't rate it any higher than 2/5.

PS - Then again, one could argue that if a game manages to leave such an impression, it must have done *something* right. I agree. My main gripe is with the things it didn't.

Condemned, October 16, 2009
A highly linear game with painfully drawn out cut scenes, Condemned appears to be the work of a teenager, and a 'disillusioned' one seems as good as any. The language is often awkward (both of the 'void' instead of 'devoid' variety, and a general attempt-at-a-literary-tone turgidity that makes reading through the often exceptionally verbose text more of a chore than it need be). Prolixity notwithstanding, the story does repeatedly achieve a sense of suspense and disquiet, at least until you get sick of pressing 'z' eleven times in a row (as is specified in the walkthrough not once, but twice!) and begin skimming the text waiting for the inevitable to happen.

The dialog is almost always hopelessly clunky, the game is dark and depressing in the manner of an overbearing "teen angst"-spawned melodrama, and your literal martyrdom is thrust in your face in a manner so brazen as to edge towards the absurd. Still, I did find myself on edge occasionally while waiting for the terrible to occur, and the game was technically competent and bug-free. A slightly lighter touch with the story and more natural language would have made this game something to remember. As it is, Condemned has more in common with the pained, quiet kid's creative writing project than any truly affecting work should.

Ok, It's not photopia, January 5, 2010
No, it's not. But it tries very hard to be it.
The genre is similar, a dramatic, plot-driven gameplay, several flashbacks putting the story together with only some puzzles, and lot of text. A LOT.
The problem is that it's very ambitious, and ultimately it falls short.

Plot driven IF works if the plot is very good, and the writing is very good, but here it's needlessly verbose, to the point of being boring.
The game has its moments, it's a pity that they are buried under screens and screens of text. (Spoiler - click to show) The garage is good, and the doll head was genuinely creepy, but the exposition angel at the end really killed the immersion.

Another problem are the "puzzles". I can understand having little or no puzzles, but the problem here is that the plot is ON top of the gameplay, and often i tried doing something while the dialogue went on in the background...distracting.

I'm sure that by pruning a lot of dialogue and repetitions it would be worth 4 stars.

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