Appalling. If any one
word best describes this game, it is the word, “appalling”.
I am a pretty open-minded person but this game seems to have been
created with the purpose of offending. Most reasonable people allow
and even embrace a certain degree of offensive material in their
world. That the world is a harsh place is a reality we must face.
But how much reality do we want in an adventure game? Does a game
that flaunts racism, misogyny, mass murder, obscene language, and
sexual violence deserve to be played? This question can only be answered
by the individual who decides to download and play this adventure
game.

The game is one of many
free games that uses the AGS engine. It can be downloaded from
the AGS
website.
The game plays in 640×480 resolution maximum and runs without a hitch.
I did not experience any crashing to the desktop or freezing for
the 90% of the game that I played. You may ask why I stopped playing
after coming so far. I would have played it to the (bitter) end but
unfortunately, I ran into dead end after dead end. In most cases,
I restarted my game from an old save and worked around the dead end
by doing things in a different order. After hours of being unable
to extricate myself from the quandary I am in now I emailed the maker
of the game ([email protected]) about my difficulty. Failing
to get a response, I decided to cut my losses and review what I had
played.

Created in Poland, it is very evident from the beginning that English
is not the primary language of the creator. His (?) sentence structures
and spelling are understandable given his country of origin and mostly
comprehensible but it does not make for a pleasant gaming experience
when you have to decipher the intent of the text. There were even
odd occasions when descriptions rendered on the screen were in Polish
instead of English! Though his English is limited, it is evident
that he has really applied himself where swearing is concerned. If
there were a University of Coprolalia anywhere in the world, I would
have to assume that the author was Valedictorian of his graduating
class. I suppose it could be seen as a small blessing in this case
that there is no speech in the game.

Having spent most of my
life until the age of fifteen living in countries around the world,
I am sensitive to cultural differences
and try to respect and view customs different to my own as diverse
parts of a global whole. Despite this, I was genuinely uncomfortable
with some of the text that made joking reference to rape, misogyny,
and racism. Although I was aware of similar sentiments being raised
at soccer games in Eastern Europe, it is confronting to be exposed
to these hatreds in what is supposed to be a form of entertainment
in your own home. I am not yet ready to accept that the author’s
biased ideologies are just reflections of his “cultural differences”.

In a similar way, the
game’s cavalier attitude toward schoolboy
revenge through violence is disturbing to say the least. The story
centers on a young man who has returned to his hometown to kill his
schoolmates. The eponymous Rem is the man’s best friend and
final target of his revenge. It is unclear whether this intended
violence is a provoked attack but the matter-of-factness of the protagonist
in committing these acts is chilling given the increased frequency
of similar events that have occurred around the world involving disgruntled
students. Given that this game is free to download, access to this
game is unhindered whereas a commercial equivalent (if it were even
released) would probably require a classification warning at the
least. Does a game that jokes about killing students put ideas in
people’s heads? Probably not, but do warped individuals need
to be supplied with ideas of how to create mayhem?

On a more esthetic front,
the backgrounds in the game are static but attractive, many “borrowed” from other computer artists.
It is unclear whether the author had permission to reproduce these
images in the game but it is almost certain that he did not receive
permission from Tracy Chapman or her record label to use her songs
in the game! Other music I did not recognize was of an easy-listening
vocal-less quality. It is fortunate that the author included music
for there are no other sounds in the game! Characters in the game
are rendered as pixellated sprites with truly awful robotic movement.
The storyline is a boring one with dull, inane dialog trees that
repeat ad infinitum because the game does not recognize when quests
have been completed. As I said earlier, this is further complicated
by dead ends that seem to relate to being able to complete tasks
out of order. All these features are tied together with a clunky
interface, one that features an inventory which is so poor that it
is not clear whether the character is using an inventory item or
not! Although a word I used earlier was “appalling”,
in reflection another word that may be more apt is “unplayable”.
Play this one at your own risk.

The author, in his readme,
states that this is his first game. His website seems
to be down now. All
I can hope is, unless he experiences a life-changing transformation
in his fundamental attitudes towards others, that this remains his
one blemish on the cyberworld. This game deserves an F and ought
to be nominated for entry into JustAdventure’s “Hall
of Shame”.

(20)

Final Grade: F