The King of Shreds and Patches

by Jimmy Maher profile

Game Adaption, Horror, Lovecraftian, Historical
2009

Web Site

Return to the game's main page

Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(31)
4 star:
(34)
3 star:
(7)
2 star:
(4)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 76
Write a review


Previous | << 1 2 3 4 >> | Next | Show All


- Arioch, October 30, 2023

- mg51, August 8, 2023

- Drew Cook (Acadiana, USA), July 26, 2023

- Ms. Woods, July 24, 2023

- elysee, May 1, 2023

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Wake up, recieve infodump, sleep, repeat, March 31, 2023

--Spoilers--

Over the last two weeks (though its felt more like a month) my partner and I have been playing this game together. We're casual IF players so perhaps our little experience with these types of puzzles has something to do with our negative experiences, but besides that we've found finishing the story difficult due to flaws in the writing and game design.

Our first issue is with the bluntness and amount of exposition. John Croft's house was the first investigation of the game, but the papers in his house explained so much backstory and implied events so clearly that the mystery was dashed from the first scene of the game. Had the notes been more cryptic or sparse, we could have formed theories and made predictions. George, the pub guy, has a memory so good it eliminates intrigue by dumping so much exposition. It robs the player of the chance to investigate Barker ourselves by, for example, noticing him in the pub when we visit and then asking George about him, and perhaps trying to talk to Barker. Even better, had Moore not been in the asylum yet we could have listened to the two interact, but instead much of the story seems to have already happened. The investigations are fun when the information is garnered from a number of sources, but when it isn't worked for the gameplay is unsatisfactory.

The knowledge system also discourages exploration and validation of hunches. Rather than being free to explore the city and conclude for ourselves after firsthand examination which areas aren't relevant to the task at hand and which are, getting to discover locations that make us wonder what will happen there when they do become relevant, we are simply told up front by the game (in a meta narrative way that breaks immersion) what places are relevant. Moreover, through these knowledge flags we are forced to go through every motion the author planned in the order that he planned them. Again, when that linearity is unavoidable, without even getting to discover for ourselves that's the order they have to happen in. An example of where such linearity is purely unnecessary would be when we find out that Lucy has left her house. We left the Henry's and went to Barker's, and we were unable to enter, we instinctively tried to go to St. James Palace because it was nearby. The game prevented this because we had not found Lucy's burned note in the fireplace, so our instinct was worthless given the way the game was programmed.

The sleep system is egregious and heavily restricts freedom in a number of ways, including by even more rigidly forcing us to do things in certain orders via the time of day mechanism even when they don't have to be done in that order necessarily, and also limiting what we can do. Its worst use is after Barker tries to kill us and kidnaps Lucy. Being forced to go directly to sleep after her abduction and being frozen as Barker absconds with her is patently absurd storytelling. If we weren't supposed to find her yet, we could have tried to give chase, gotten lost in the city, and then decided with a heavy heart to go home /for ourselves/. Instead the game forces us go home, which since that we believe she's going to be tortured to death, is infuriating.

The writing itself brought particular irritation to my partner. Besides the historical fiction kitsch of interacting with famous people from the past, the use of cliches and poor imagery became annoying and made immersion difficult. Maher only describes the main character's feelings explicitly and directly, telling you how to feel, or gives objective descriptions of locations, never anything in the middle. He prefers to tell everything rather than using atmospheric description to convey emotion indirectly through superfluous set dressing, metaphors, similes, and deft emphasis.

The topics list hurt immersion as well as making conversation feel boring. If you are told explicitly what a character knows, all the player must do is loop through that list rather than think about what information you might be able to collect from them. This gives a lawnmowering effect to the conversations and feels less like a game. The conversation system also makes you repeat 'ask ___ about ___' until you've exhausted the character's knowledge and returns a summary, which is again a meta narrative break in immersion.

In sum, the game feels railroaded even though a lot of IF is linear, because it is constricting to play. It doesn't let you find things out first hand, directly experiencing the story; instead, it tells you about things that have already happened. Similarly, it gives too many answers and too little choice. Goals and their means are given cheaply. There should have been some balance between knowing exactly what to do next and having no idea, but this balance is only rarely struck (the very clever gun puzzle, for example). It was a fascinating and large game made with obvious dedication, but it felt like wake up, get infodump, sleep, repeat.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- Cody Gaisser (Florence, Alabama, United States of America, North America, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Known Universe, ???), January 26, 2022

- NorkaBoid (Ohio, USA), November 14, 2021

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
ambitious and enthralling, September 9, 2021

i have (overall) been really impressed with this game. i love the setting and of course the Lovecraftian vibe is great. some of the parsing and phrases are a little clunky, and there's a lot of "guess the verb." i think i'm about 3/4 through, but it's hard to say. it's a lot of fun to play, and the HINTS feature comes in very handy, as does the THINK command! i think 4 1/2 stars is a more accurate rating for this game, but, alas, this is not an option...

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- arslonga, August 21, 2021

- getlostdont, July 8, 2021

- sw3dish, April 22, 2021

- KathB (Toronto, Ontario), January 22, 2021

- tekket (Česká Lípa, Czech Republic), December 26, 2020

- kierlani, April 24, 2020

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A stroll through Shakespeare's London. (oh, and unspeakable horror), April 24, 2020
by Rovarsson (Belgium)
Related reviews: Horror

It had been a long time since I seriously played IF. The King of Shreds and Patches pulled me back in.

Right from the back cover description, I got a tingling feeling in my brain about this game. A Lovecraftian horror set in the historical London of Shakespeare. Uhm,... Yes please.

The player is invited to empathize with the protagonist in a simple but very effective way: neither has the abilities needed to bring the story to a good end. So they have to be learned and practiced. The first few times you try a certain action, you have a rather high chance of failure. The more you perform it, the more proficient you get at it. Nice.

This learning curve also shows in the guidance of the player in solving puzzles: use a certain simple way to get an object in the intro, then complicate things in the middle game.
Two other puzzles are long but completely logical mechanical puzzles. These were great, as puzzles. I loved tinkering and fiddling with the objects needed. However, one of them in particular completely breaks the immersion in the character. (Spoiler - click to show)You are a printer of pamphlets, yet you somehow have to learn how to operate your own press...
One puzzle is frustrating as heck. I could not get my visual cortex to envisage the situation. I even thought it might have been better to implement this puzzle or sequence as a graphic mini-game. ((Spoiler - click to show)yes, the rowing boat)

Storywise, TKoSaP is very engaging. It's long and sprawling, with a good division into chapters that have to be handled in order. Two seemingly separate story-arcs meet eventually. Allthough you can see this coming, it is still very satisfying. That means good writing.
The adventure takes place in historical London, and the author has gone all out with this. There is an illustrated map of the city, the descriptions of background noise and activity puts you right in that time, and of course there are the characters you meet.

All of the NPCs that are of any importance are extremely well fleshed out, with many topics to discuss. Some have different opinions or viewpoints on one topic, filling in the backstory tremendously.

One of the non-player-characters is William Shakespeare. Nuff said.

The suspense leading up to the finale is long drawn out, as it should in a Lovecraftian tale. Books of lore, tales of myth, whispers and rumours,... it's all there, getting you to the very edge of your chair.

And then there is a very good and also very Lovecraftian finale.
(Spoiler - click to show)Of course, the story ends up shooting itself in the foot with a classic Lovecraftian backfire. Showing the tentacled monstrosity from the deep makes it laughable. But that's also part of the genre.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- querent, November 15, 2019

- erzulie, September 24, 2019

- whjohnson22, August 28, 2019

- Laney Berry, January 30, 2019

- C. W. Gray , May 12, 2018

- Guenni (At home), January 28, 2018

- ArthurB, July 19, 2017

- Lucifalle, April 25, 2017

- nosferatu, September 20, 2016


Previous | << 1 2 3 4 >> | Next | Show All | Return to game's main page