Mercy

by Chris Klimas

Science Fiction, Slice of life
1997

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Number of Ratings: 19
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- Edo, September 25, 2021

- kierlani, May 12, 2020

- erzulie, September 27, 2019

- Cory Roush (Ohio), July 29, 2017

- magicnumber, January 14, 2017

- odysseus (Ontario, Canada), August 23, 2016

- BlitzWithGuns, June 25, 2016

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A shortish hospital parser game; strong writing and compelling story, February 3, 2016

Mercy is an interesting game from a couple of decades past. Not entered in IFComp, it nevertheless managed to earn recognition, including a nomination for Best Story Xyzzy.

You play a euthanized at a hospital. The game is a linear thriller type game and has a branch and bottleneck structure which became the characteristic of Twine games many years later.

You wander around a relatively small map with a gloomy, moody atmosphere strongly reminiscent of Vespers, but less disgusting. Your goals begin to change around the halfway point, which is also where the game becomes more ambiguous and confusing.

I recommend this game for fans of a great story and/or atmosphere.

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- Thrax, March 12, 2015

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Nice story, but somehow it didn't really click for me, September 10, 2013

As mentioned in reviews, this game is more an "interactive story"; it is plot-heavy and doesn't have any puzzles. The setting is pretty original, and although I would have liked to know more about this outbreak, the fact that the plot develops around something way different is not a big deal. This plot is indeed interesting, and it's a nice story to tell; the pacing is well-done, as well as the gradual reveal. I don't mind being more or less guided into a story if that story is good, and in that case it was well-done (however, I felt like I had no control over the story by the choices I make, contrary to other reviewers - sure, paths fork at some point, but then merge again one scene later).

The main problem I had with this game is that I think I didn't really understand it the first time. Most notably, I think I got too distracted by what was happening in the computer to see that the character was actually having a realization that was changing his course of action (and to be fair, this big realization is expedited in about 4 sentences). I just thought (Spoiler - click to show)the PC had been having an affair with Leslie - or does he? I'm confused.. I also didn't connect the characters together, so I didn't really understand what happened until it was laid out explicitly in front of me. I did find all the endings, or at least I think I did, but they didn't really click emotionally for me; the writing was a bit trite and the implications of the actions weren't presented or were too subtle to have any emotional impact on me; I did feel the ending was a bit abrupt. So all in all I don't know if the game's really to blame : maybe it was attempting to be evocative and subtle and I just didn't understand what it meant because English isn't my native language!

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- E.K., May 14, 2013

SPAG

Chris Klimas says that he hopes "Mercy" is something new in the interactive fiction universe. I don't know if that's true or not, but it certainly was a breath of fresh air for me to play and it clearly is different. I love the feelings it stirs in me, the disturbing moodiness that hangs over the whole thing, the "love story", as it were... I kinda wish he'd kept it until the competition. It would have grabbed *my* highest rating.

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- verityvirtue (London), January 9, 2013

- AADA7A, September 21, 2012

- Mark Jones (Los Angeles, California), May 20, 2011

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A haunting piece of humanity, April 24, 2010

This is one of those games that you either love or hate. Personally, I loved every word of it. The PC is a doctor euthanizing patients in a hospital amid a widespread outbreak of smallpox. The atmosphere is colorless and numb – a fitting metaphor for the numbness one feels after being injected with antibiotics. The game moves at a perfect pace, allowing the player to mull about the hospital and take everything in before continuing on.

Mercy makes you think about death, humanity, life and yes…even love. The prose really pulls on the heart strings and combined with the subject matter, it makes the game almost too painful to play. I know that this may sound terribly sentimental, but at one point I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. There are so many directions this game can go and I wouldn’t say that there is really a “winning” ending. There are several endings which I would consider a better outcome for the PC than others, but ultimately it’s interesting to try out every branch of the story and read every ending.

There are moments of Mercy that are truly haunting – presenting death in a way that is beyond a corpse or an illness. Mercy deals with the death of the soul – a complete lack of feeling in the PC that becomes quite alarming toward the middle of the game.

Puzzle-wise, Mercy is nothing special. There are no puzzles, per-say – only choices. The game progresses at a set pace, giving the player the option of making certain choices in the process. The thing is – those choices actually matter. Every little choice you make will impact the ending you get in some way.

I strongly recommend that you play through Mercy several times to really get the full experience. The imagery sets the scene perfectly, but to get the full story, it’s best to visit all the locations and examine everything available. You won’t be able to do that all in one play-though.

But be warned: the theme of death is a very prominent one in the game and you should not play it unless you can handle the emotional impact. And believe me, there is an impact.

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- Karl Ove Hufthammer (Bergen, Norway), January 12, 2009

- George Shannon (Pittsburgh), September 17, 2008

- Dave Chapeskie (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), April 23, 2008

- Pseudo_Intellectual (Vancouver, Canada), October 25, 2007


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