Latter-Day Pamphlets

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Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 2 Write a review

This Ectocomp game takes the form of a series of pamphlets which describe the current state of the British Empire.

Each one presents a conundrum, which you can solve in several (usually 4) ways. At first, your options are to Acquiesce (which guarantees a moderate stat loss) or to attempt to fix it using one of your strengths (which gives either a slight stat loss or a strong stat loss). Eventually the option to acquiesce disappears.

There doesn't seem to be any way to improve stats; it seems to be a simulator for the long death and decline of the British empire.

I had a couple of sticking points with the game. There were several typos; I myself am prone to them, but if this is in Twine you can print out a 'proofing copy' with the 'proof' button and run a spellchecker on them.

The other issues were mainly taste; I would have liked the stat decrease to remain on the screen a lot longer, as I couldn't even see it as first, with my eyes near the top of the screen. Second, it's hard to figure out what true effect your losses have. I ran through part of it a second time and there didn't seem to be any changes in the pamphlets that depended on my earlier failures, although perhaps there were subtle differences here and there that escaped the eye.

In any case, turning the many negative actions of the British empire into a horror game by just printing what happened is pretty amusing.

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You lose or your lose... the question remains, how bad can you lose?
Well, pretty badly depending on your choices. But that's fine... end up fine, right?

You are given a pile of scenarios, randomly ordered, for which you must choose a course of action. Each action has a different level of success (which is 'lowest loss') for different faction of society (Culture, Military, Religion, Social Classes, Colonial power...). The further you go into the game, the worse your success will be, the deeper you fall. [I picked the worst options on purpose :P]

The writing in this game is humorous, taking jabs at different historical events, groups and countries (the French, the poor, the communists, women wanting to get votes...). Though, it is very much a British kind of humour: dry and prickly. And that's what makes the whole thing funny.

Still, there were some confusing aspects to the game (which I ended up figuring out after replaying). Such as what the percentages next to the choices were: where they success rolls? difficulty rolls? Even with different percentages in one list, since the links are all the same colour, it wasn't clear whether an option was "good"/passable or not.

Another one regarded the statistics. When choosing an option, the changed state blinks* at the bottom of the screen indicating the amount of loss. However, it was hard to make any informed decision, or targetting a specific element, without knowing the starting states of each groups. Some stats bar would have been welcomed here**.
*this happens way too fast. If your eyes are not staring at the bottom of the screen you will miss it.
**and also at the end of the game, to see how bad we messed up with which group.

Still, always fun to destroy the British Empire.

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