Nachdem ich es zum ersten mal durch hatte habe ich eine Steam Review in die Tasten gehackt.
Diese ist relativ kurz weil ich an die Zeichengrenze für Reviews stieß ^^;
Weitere Playthroughs und ein ausführlicher Blog-Artikel sind noch geplant.
tl;dr: I played both games once and enjoyed them a lot. I do recommend picking them up.
Vampire: We eat blood and all our friends are Dead
WritingThe game has each and every interaction handeled by texting. Which takes maybe a bit of a stretch of imagination but, after a view minutes, has one immersed into it. The text sounds natural, is evocative of the situation the character is in and reflects the various characters you interact with.
In regards of themes it various from serious scenes in which philosophical items are brought up and discussed, horror scenes that might make one flinch a bit, absurd scene if one chooses to head into the direction of absurdity - which is a surprisingly valid choice -, funny scenes like a conversation with a certain person in power (I had a blast blasting that one) and actually quite exiciting action sequences.
There were a few scenes where I tilted my head and wasn't agreeing with my character at all and didn't see how they came to be, like when put down how easy it would be to get by as a vampire, though it remained the minority.
The game did mange to nail my requirement of presenting a cool piece of modern Vampire horror fiction.
In my opinion both authors did a great job.
MusicThe background music works with guitar strings, is mostly instrumental and is used as an item to emphazise what happens. So don't be confused when it doesn't start right away. I did find it quite enjoyable.
Graphics / IllustrationsThe graphic design in regards of gameplay is rather minimal. You will have a wallpaper per chapter, your phone and various people to act with. I did find the design to be working better on my screen than on my mobile. Specially with effects like broken glass or liquids dropping on the screen.
An aspect where the game truly shines is its illustrations.
The artworks by Zak Sabbat and Sarah Horrocks did a great job to set the mood and immerse me into the story. It is more abstract then lets say Tim Bradstreets pieces for the old books, yet if you like comic books like Sandman (Neil Gaiman), Dave McKean it should be right up your alley. If you don't you can ignore them too.
GameplayThe game is basically a gamebook and thus the gameplay is somewhat limited to basically pressing forward, and at times, answer prompts to make decision. The phone design does mask it a bit, but yeah, it's a choose your own adventure.
Something I consider neat is that if you die, you don't have to start the whole thing over, but get back to a recent point to make another choice. Though you can choose to start a whole chapter over if you don't like where your story is going.
I didn't consider the game overly lethal, though I might be battle hardend by "Long Live the Queen".
I died less then five times till the end chapter and I only died a handful of times there. I went through a certain dialog in one go and I am pretty sure the options are weighted as I took a bit different part than what other presented as "the solution".
In general the game offers a good replayability. From the chapters I visited I do assume that I have to play it at least three times more, likely four, to see each chapter once. You might assume about 2 1/2 hours for a single playthrough if you play at my speed.
Some improvement would be to have a tap/confirmation when you die. So that you can read up what actually killed you. Before getting to the "Ya dead!" screen.
SettingI am an avid fan of the World of Darkness and specially Vampire and found the game to be very cool and fitting.
The adjustments to the setting rules, like the feeding ones, were presented smoothly and do have me curious for more.
Within the setting it does make a lot of sense that the character will die upon certain choices.
Neither the Tremere nor the Camarilla will have a 15th gen thinblood caitiff punk from a breeder continue unliving his existence
I did as well did like the aspect that it is a quite inclusive game. Portaying people along the non-cis spectrum with respect and including them in a manner that is more casual than most times. There are, for example, two transexual characters, one so smoothly integrated that I haven't seen any fuzz about it. The other one, after an a bit crude introduction, proving to be a quite capable ally and possessing other traits than her gender identification.
In regards of drugs, after one misunderstanding thanks to the aspect that english is not my native language, not a lot of drugs have been mentioned.
In regards of politics, it's rather light on that topic and focusses more upon personal horror.
ConclusionI would give it 9/10. Maybe the interface could be made a bit more game like and it would be cool if it were longer. In general I would assume the game to be a good 8 to 10 hours fun.
Thema: Vampire: Prelude - We Eat Blood and All Our Friends Are Dead [V:tM] (Gelesen 1205 mal)
