Escape from Death

It can be really difficult for an author to strike a balance between over-exposition and leaving the reader confused. This is particularly difficult when the setting is intended to be surreal, bizarre, alien, or similar. I think some titles from CoG that manage to pull this off include Choice of the Deathless, Changeling Charade, Tower Behind the Moon, and Faerie's Bargain. All of these titles are able to throw allusions and the unknown at you in a way that you are still able to make sense of it. They have crafted the Potemkin illusion that every little random thing is imbued with depth and meaning, that the fictional world is infinitely complex and yet comprehensible. Escape from Death aims to insert you into a surrealistic - and awful - afterlife as a fish out of water. Some amount of confusion comes with the territory. Unfortunately, I was just baffled throughout most of it and not in a good way. More along the lines of "Ok we escaped from that person" only for two scenes later we are going back to that place and one of the options is to go meet up with them. Like, did I miss something important? Aren't we on the run? There's also a politicking mechanic that is really odd, and you don't have enough information to understand anything that's going on in a story sense. A lot of it only makes sense *as a game.* I get it, ok, I do this or talk to this person to raise their relationship level so they will trust me more - but few actions seem coherent as part of the story or the character's motivations. Anyway it's just confusing. It isn't badly written really - like I said, surreal storytelling is hard. But the world of this game just never really clicked for me, I never "got it."

Good

I like spiders, is that wrong? If someone took a handful of spiders and put them in my mouth, and I would have to eat them. Maybe I could do it. But I know I would feel guilty about it.

Неплохая интерактивная книга, от которой в целом осталось положительное впечатление, хотя и слабое. У истории большой потенциал и довольно сильный старт в виде первой главы. Отличное начало, которое во второй главе резко обрывается. Начиная со второй главы сталкиваешься с не очень хорошо сбалансированным развитием персонажа: мало возможностей для повышения навыков, высокие требования к ним; но при этом некоторые навыки требуются почти всегда, а некоторые лишь изредка, что мешает полноценному отыгрышу возможных персонажей, делая предыстории из первой главы неравноценными в плане возможностей. Даже с регулярными провалами игру можно успешно пройти, но довольно неприятно, когда практически в каждой ситуации тебе предлагают выборы на очевидные три навыка, игнорируя остальные. С отыгрышем характера немного похожая история - тебе часто предлагают однобокие выборы, не допуская другого взгляда на ситуацию. Это игра про смерть, загробный мир и преждевременный уход из жизни! Это не такая простая тема, чтобы смотреть на неё каким-то одним типичным образом (который заключается в [spoiler]абсолютном небезразличии к окружающим и полном игнорировании собственных потребностей/желаний. Да эта игра не даёт тебе нормально отыгрывать эгоиста или хоть какое-то отклонение от типичного героя фэнтези[/spoiler]). На эту тему можно много сказать, поднять много вопросов, обсудить различные взгляды на одну ситуацию. Много потенциальных отыгрышей, которых нет в самой игре. Вместо этого мы быстро получаем типичное фэнтези с попаданцем. И уже не важно что речь про мир мёртвых и что все мы рано или поздно там окажемся. Нет, это просто другой мир, где мы постоянно оказываемся в центре событий и где за нами таскаются люди, которые даже не могут правдоподобно объяснить почему они помогают тебе, т.к. их реакции слабо зависят от твоего отыгрыша. Итого: Неплохо, но в целом слабо. Загублен потенциал идеи. Первая глава - лучшая в книге, потом так себе.

This is a really tricky recommendation to make, as Escape From Death is such a weird book. Well, deep down its actually a pretty normal fantasy book, but the execution has some quirks that makes it both really interesting but also kinda abrasive to read. Do make sure to check out the demo if it sounds interesting; I've rather enjoyed my time with it, but maybe not all parts of the book. Escape From Death is a very fragmented book. Scenes, environments, world building, characters; they are all more or less disjointed and feel like they are formed from irreconcilable fragments. Some scenes feel like vignettes more than a connected story, where shorter moments in sparsely described environments sort of appear without much connective tissue. And this is not a pacing issue, scenes are given the room they need to feel properly weighty and slower paced when needed (apart from maybe the final chapter). Still this disjointedness makes for a reading that's not very engaging in itself -- it's easy to forget yourself and get distracted or simply not attach emotionally to the story when it doesn't feel like it's giving you a single idea or object to desire / want to know more about. But it also makes for a really unique and thus interesting read compared to the (admittedly limited) number of other Choice of Games novels I have read. Sparsely described environments and fragmentary world building only amplifies this sense of disjointedness that the form of the text evokes. While some scenes do feel like anchors where you have a firm and cohesive world to orient yourself around, the majority do not. Some settings are sparsely described to the point of feeling barren, while others are described in ways that make them difficult to comprehend or with features that are actively made to feel incomplete. This book can really feel alien and strange yet familiar in a very compelling way, but it can also feel empty and undefined. The world building feels equally fragmented; a feudal society that has jazz but no fire arms, immortal beings that can shatter and be put back together yet nevertheless decompose and wither away, a society experienced through a set of buildings and social functions that are separate and barely put in relation to each other. It's like the book is actively trying to make it impossible to reconcile its parts from every single direction. Difficult to immerse in and pretty alienating, but the part of my brain that likes to take a step back and think a bit is having a lot of fun. If there is any one thing I have straight up disliked about the novel is that it sometimes can get a bit naive in a way that has made it felt awkward and off putting at times. In part there is something about how the characters, MC included, can jump to emotional conclusions that just haven't been built up to by the text. An example of this: when the companion character Desi is introduced as an intimidating guard in a cellar the MC discover that she has been made to guard an empty room mainly to keep her away from interfering with whatever the big baddie is doing. The MC is very quick to sympathize with her having fallen victim to such a horrible betrayal, but since I as a reader haven't been made to get over the absurdity of the situation I'm just rather put off by both the MC as well as the overall framing of the situation. Further I think some of the naivité comes from dialogue that gets a bit too shallow and yet sincere at times. But overall I don't think it overshadows the cooler parts of the book.