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Entertaining, minimally branching CYOA parody of Lovecraft, November 15, 2015The Ritual is a game about summoning a tentacled god with the blood of a pesky inspector and a bunch of loyal but none too bright followers.
Tone-wise, it feels similar to Hunger Daemon or Pratchett, with its irreverence for cult-like events and its matter-of-fact treatment of the eldritch. The Ritual is quite wordy, with paragraphs of text at each decision point, but it is redeemed by Turner’s strong and snappy writing. There are also hints of a more fleshed-out backstory. There is some ambiguity, though, about the PC’s true feelings about this B'tek Mer character - it's not always clear what the PC thinks about this god and why the PC might be summoning it/him - and a smattering of typos.
In terms of structure, The Ritual has only one decision point, and then minimal clicking through. This made it easier to replay the game to tinker with the possible outcomes - and Turner is generous with each of these. It's a bit like a simpler, pruned-down version of Magical Makeover.
So... play if you like parodies of Lovecraftian horror, tentacles and all, and if you want a mildly entertaining twenty minutes!