It’s like an old choose your own adventure book, were a ‘wrong’ choice gets you an ending just not necessarily a particularly long experience.

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Still, pretty crafty how many choices there are despite the small amount of areas, and an interesting set of outcomes.

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That said, the game makes me feel really old. Still, it gets under my skin; I don’t find it irritating.

–SPOILERS FROM HERE ON–

I was gonna get all snarky at its shifty philosophical bits (‘cos our poor boy believes in chance), then I noticed the the perversion of the dawn-of-cinema blond/dark-haired virgin/whore stereotype. The dark-haired “prophetess”, who reminded me immediately of an Onion gag (and not because of the Sam and Max poster) will give you a good future regardless of what you propose (and, let’s face it, there can be only one order: philosophy – starting with “you know, baby,the ae-dipthong doesn’t change your root from thanatos to aisthesis”, and eventually ending up somewhere on the ropey side of the principle of individuation –, the 1000-yard stare, asserting free choice, going all out and saccharine, finishing with vids). but the blonde princess, whom everyone else openly hates (even that farmboy just wants her for her ermine undergarments) constantly whines about how hard it is to be herself, and getting only mouse-driven sympathy from me, well the queen – excuse me (for calling her a princess, not for the anacolothoun) – she needs the perfect combination of being able to put up with her constant whining and just hint of bad boy even to consider a future with Mister Baghead (let’s call him Perry Herman).

–if I said that in-game, the prophetess would then chew me out, and I would be forced to apologize, saying something I didn’t mean. See, that’s what’s annoying about these games–

Okay, so maybe it’s wrong that, at the key moment in the game, I thought it was better to be out in the real world, in real time, and it seemed like more fun (well everything before staring into her eyes all night. She should have added “And that was my worst-selling book ever.”).

Alright, so there’s the philosophical bit concerning free choice, and that’s when I went out for whisky (after a few weeks in the US, I had plenty of fear to mix it with). So it did cause some concern, complete with the whole nastiness involving prophecy, future contingent propositions and free choice, but fortunately it was unfounded. There’s no follow up or impact.

As an aside, if using the “choose your own adventure” model for your game, your position on free choice has already been defined as Augustinian: the player can exercise free will only by turning away from you, and shutting down the game. And we do exactly that with some regularilty (cf. my stellar performance in Abe Lincoln Must Die). Everything else is according to your will, not the player’s. So get over it.
(that goes for you Sandbox developers too: if you spend so much time trying to keep the cats out, don’t be surprised if we foresake your Pelagian sands for the high seas.)

Theory: the game has a limited number of items. Except for the cash (which you use as liberally as possible), use each item once, and in the proper order, and she’ll go out on that date with you. I still haven’t figured out how to get her to effect social change. But then, I never really was in that fight. Come to think of it, I’ve never been in a riot, either.

–END SPOILERS–

So yeah, thanks. Cool game.

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Also: It’s developed by a Girrr-illl! (said in that uppey-downey intonation kids use). Is this kind of thing no longer a Big Deal?

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Thanks for spreading the word of this joy Alec :)

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Anyone knows of an alternate link?

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Nex-gen.

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