I blasted through this because I didn't have anything better to do on a thursday night, I guess.
I like the idea of the game, and I loved the art, but I felt like... The story needed to be tuned up?
For starters, I get what the message was supposed to be, but having the killers come off as crazy minorities who needed a Strong Proud White Man to talk them down from killing all the hot white buff guys because of how jealous they were about not being as buff or white felt... Well, real gross to be honest. Lars's death and Eric calling Kang a race traitor were both kind of... uncomfortably senseless?
Ugh I kind of enjoyed myself but I also kind of didn't. Let me try and organize my thoughts better now that I've thrown out a weird thesis.
Starting from the beginning,
Lars's death and the setup of the killers doesn't make a lot of sense. Why did Eric, Lucky, or Vince have to be in the game? Vince I can maybe get since he was the bait for the (much more blameless, compared to everyone else) juicy media exposure fish that is Adam, but Lucky and Eric didn't need to do anything other than be naked in a pool of blood together and stab to death anyone who stayed out in the halls. It can't be to see if they can be redeemed or anything, because they absolutely went in with the mindset to kill them all, so why did all three of them have to take part in the game, even though they could have just thrown in two other vapid wehoans (easy to find, tbh) into the grinder to keep all the rooms? Normally when that kind of thing happens in a "I am a mastermind making you play a game" kind of story, the villain has legitimate reasons to have boots on the ground (Dangan Ronpa has the reasoning of "they need to have a chance to figure me out, because I win when I lose too", and 999 had June as bait and Santa there because lmaopsychicsiblings), but Eric, Lucky, and Vince didn't need to be found out for any of their plans, and they didn't need to keep such close contact with their victims.
Also why did they need to establish the presence of a killer? I mean, everyone knew there was some spooky shit going down when Lars drowned (have I still not gotten to that? Christ), but why did they need to establish a goat-headed killer? Wouldn't their plan have remained the same, minus the victims knowing what was stabbing the ones left behind to death? Couldn't they have just built a longer chase or something to run from Vince in, or a final room/escape thing to really make it look like there's one killer before the three? God this is nitpicky at this point. Sorry.
But to Lars. Why kill him? Sure he's a gay sex symbol, but so is Adam in a lot of ways, and he's firmly established as completely innocent, just a victim of his body (not unlike the villains but I feel like that comparison was unintentional). Adam is the masc4masc dudebro with a shitload of followers, and it's super likely you'll get the same kind of visiblity with his death than you would with killing a completely innocent dude, which Eric mentions once or twice. It's even weirder when you take into context that you talk Eric into letting you go because you're innocent in a way that lead to your insensitivity, which is something obvious about Lars from the jump to Eric. Lars honestly is an even better version of Adam in every way, not just in story The Pinnacle of White Gay Perfection,
but in the sense that he's genuinely done nothing even a little wrong, at least from what's in the game. Also Lucky really has been trying to hint to you about symbolism, but this room and the next one don't... seem to have a lot of meaning? I mean, neither does the third one but I can make a little bit of a case there. But even then, is it a hamhanded interpretation of how everyone here is going to die for being wicked? Why that? Why is the deathtrap not a part of the symbolism there?
Phew. First pair room.
I actually don't have as many complaints on this one?
I mean, the hamhanded imagery about whiteness is hamhanded, but the flowers are... kind of a weird touch that makes the overall theme weird? Like, it'd make more sense if the flowers were white kind of to drive in the point? Unless the black flowers are supposed to mean something else, like... minorities kept away from the white? Even though there's still plenty of black accents in the room, which kind of muddles it a little. I will bring up though that the lack of punishment for failure or taking too long is kind of weird and negates the "if you fuck up you'll experience a sudden terrible death" thing. Like I get the deathtrap thing is mostly a lie, in that there's just a lot of knockout gas and crazed killers with knives,
but it's another weird thing to establish as being true when the victims wouldn't really behave any differently than if you'd just gone "if you fail, I turn on knockout gas and brutally disfigure you with a knife" or some similar cheerful message.
The third room is where I kind of start to get lost, as far as symbolism goes.
Are the lights supposed to be white? Because it's... kind of pinkish to me? And also if it's that it and it's white that outshines and looks over the other colors, it's basically the same metaphor as the last time which...
Isn't the funnest thing. My notes on the weird execution of the metaphor would be the same as the last one if that's the case, it's really not super well communicated and is mostly pretty. Kang's death is weirdly unceremonious too, and again with Eric NOT REALLY NEEDING TO BE THERE is done super weird. Steve didn't need like, a left behind to die kind of death (nobody really did), and it would have been easier to say "STEVE KILLED ERIC, TIME TO DEATHTRAP" instead of trying to force the psychological Drama of leaving someone behind, especially someone who was a weird dick nobody liked before the reveal.
The fourth room has the super irritating sudden inclusion of
the seven deadly sins. I... I like that this adds the chimera symbolism finally, but it leaves two people weirdly left out (Lars and Kang/Adam) and a few of the sins seem redundant, especially considering that you could throw Kang/Adam as pride, Bart/Lucky as wrath, and most of rest as lust. I also don't really understand the thoughts of Eric here? So, if Bart was somehow able to convince him to let him live instead of just...
I don't know, killing him immediately later on, how come he's still tied up and still in danger,
if he's already proven himself? How is he still in trouble if, say, you were an asshole and picked Pierce and Lucky to go with you, where he graciously accepts his death and calls you all cowards?Wouldn't he have the kind of sexy moral victory Eric's looking for in the first place? It's weird,
especially after Eric spares him once. Also, since there's not really anything in this room, can we briefly mention how weird it is to bone down in there? Especially when earlier you can tell Pierce that it's a bad time for it? Why on earth is it suddenly a good time when you're in the last room,
surrounded by a (actually slightly metaphorically solid) slaughterhouse of perfect body forms,
covered in pepto bismol blood?
For the last puzzle, it's... It's not very well broadcasted and there's not even any clues that would really point you to the right culprit. In 999 and stuff like that, even if it takes multiple loops to set up, you get enough information each loop and the story subtly changes each time. The details needed to even hint at the villains are very very minor and, unless you want
sex with Pierce
that badly, show up in almost every path you take. I would absolutely have not been able to guess it if I hadn't super cheated super hard to get the perfect ending
because I wanted to have and eat my cake at the same time. It's all small visual or one off lines that are supposed to be the key, but they're all overly subtle to the point a lot of it went over my head.
I'm gonna once again bring up how the moral seems to be "minorities, listen to your white savior", because again, it's super weird, tonally. Like, the chimera could easily be taken at face value as "political correctness gone wrong", which I know wasn't the point, but the way it ended up working out got really gross really fast, especially when your reward for surviving the evil fat fem and asian deathtrap to punish you for being a white man only interested in buff white men, is getting a boyfriend who is a buff white man who is ALSO only interested in dating a buff white man.
And as my last little nitpick, why on earth are they sitting across the aisle from one another in the perfect ending? I know Adam needs a window seat for let the cute new guy sit down (to show Character Development), but it's so weird that the two of them would be full on "TWO BROS, CHILLING IN A HOT TUB, FIVE FEET APART CAUSE WE'RE NOT GAY" if they're together in some manner.
Also, a super minor thing: It is driving me nuts that I can't skip past scenes I've already technically done because I did something different leading me up to it. I only lightly have dabbled in renpy, so I am probably wrong, but I think flags and stuff would be helpful to just throw in "I stood with Pierce, who was jerking his hog super hard" in scenes where you'd be with him instead of Lucky, for example. Plus when it stops skipping it'll actually be somewhere you're unfamiliar with, as opposed to the same thing as before with minor variations.
I'm gonna admit to my failings and say I've only gotten the bad, okay, and perfect endings, because I don't know what combination of things would lead to the good and to be continued endings. Thank you for reading this all if you have! I know it's a lot, and I'm a neurotic nightmare who writes a lot, but I like the idea that's going on here in places and I'm trying to be constructive. (May not come off as constructive, but oops)