Second Thoughts

A really short game about regretting who you execute & who you release. Did I regret any of my decisions? Not really. if I had a choice to go back, I'd find it useless. The Game highly depends on your Beliefs & Morals, interestingly enough it was easier to execute people then to release them. The First Chapter has you pick who to execute, then the final one is released. The Second Chapter you pick who to release & the final one is executed. The Game barely has any replay-ability making it shorter then it should be, the morale of the game feels like common-sense, most Characters are really predictable making the Game over simplified. So, do I recommend this Game? Would it give you Second Thoughts? It is a interesting Game, but it didn't hit that "Good Game" list nor is it a "Bad Game". As I said earlier, depending on your beliefs & morals & if you successfully predicted a Character. You won't regret anything. You may have Second Thoughts at the start of the Game, but once you figure out the Game you can make choices you won't regret. It has an interesting concept, but hasn't reached it's full potential.

Very strong game in most respects and one I would recommend. I have a special fondness for games where the mechanics are utterly simple yet extremely absorbing. There isn't a dull moment in the story, and the backstories of all the characters feel well-written, real and filled with unexpected surprises. In terms of a premise and mechanics it feels refreshingly unique. The odds are you haven't played something quite like this before. My one main complaint is that I wish there was a bit more to it. Not so much in terms of mechanics as I think their simplicity kind of makes the game what it is, but perhaps something like an audio file the last survivor sends to you when the game ends. Or pictures/documents pertaining to the characters as you learn more about them. Or more details as to personality (such as personality types or other psychological details). I was tempted to complain about how the game makes it very difficult (if not impossible) to determine who deserves to die in which order, but then I realized I felt any guilt or frustration about that I was probably missing the point (if anything, the person forcing you to execute all those people is arguably worse than all of the worst people in the game combined.) The main point seems to be that absolutely nobody whatsoever should be sentencing someone to death without knowing all the facts - and this to assume that we ever have enough facts to do so in the first place. The secondary aim of the game is likely to have us question our assumptions and biases regarding crime and punishment and guilt. TLDR: Excellent game I would recommend, wish it was a bit more fleshed out. Play it if you enjoy a good story, refreshingly unique and fun premises and like to think about very difficult ethical choices. Don't play it if you're into achieving 100% perfect runs of everything because (if it wasn't obvious already) it's not possible here and that's not the point.

A lot of fun. I've always loved the "who should be saved/killed" kinds of though experiments, and I liked learning the information as the game progressed. The links between the characters (these two characters being related, this character having killed this previous character's relative, etc.) was also a nice touch

I love it. As someone who regularly overthinks this is a nice exercise.

Originally I complained that this game gave no warning about the permanent choices and if you missed reading the info on each character, you were out of luck. The developer has since responded and fixed that gripe. This game is a nice premise with a low price tag. You sit at a computer and choose each person to remove one by one. For 2$ there isn't anything else to really complain about now. If you expect a grander type of game then look elsewhere. It definitely gave me entertainment that i can enjoy when i want to, and that's all I really asked of it.

I loved this game! A simple concept with intense details and decisions. A retro-style display and audio made the feel of the game realistic. This game made my stomach turn, as simple as it was, it is a very effective psychological horror/thriller. Very affordable. And a great experience.

Amazing game and had a cool message at the end, very entertaining could even play with a group of people if you all were in the same room.

Can execute a 12 year old, 10/10 game

I wanted to like this, but I cant even finish it, at least not right now, which is a shame. Theres a few things that really get in the way of me wanting to continue playing. 1. The game is frustratingly slow, theres a lot of slow text parts that you cant speed up, you just have to sit there and wait. I'm a fast reader, I dislike this sort of thing generally, but I'd be ok with it as an artistic decision if it actually added atmosphere, I don't think it did. 2. There's no settings apart from volume. I can only play it in full screen, and if its not active, the game pauses. This is super frustrating, because of how long it takes to just display text, and particularly the time when you wait for each execution, that takes way too long for no reason, the fact I cant alt-tab or have another window active to do something interesting, idk, its not great design, not if the game isnt engaging enough to make someone want to sit there and wait for a fake loading screen. 3. The twists of each persons crime and history are very predictable, very quickly. 4. Personally, the idea of wanting to go back and change my decision after having more info, its not relevant. I don't believe in the death penalty, I dont think any of these people deserve execution, the information you get after each day in playing just isn't relevant because ultimately the last one left isn't more deserving than any other. If thats the message the game wants to convey, i hope it reaches others, but it didnt feel worth finishing for me when I'm already there and the game is artificially slow.

By far my favorite of the Gestmorph Games catalog with Trikumax probably coming in close second. A psychological horror that puts you in the test chamber of a demented trans-national shadow government organization; presented with a list of prisoners and forced to make choices daily about who lives and who dies. Some experiments have you free people while others make you choose who to execute. You start off with zero knowledge of the individuals other than base stats and learn more about the other subjects as the week goes on. As you're being forced to kill or free them this can have an effect on the player as you come to regret killing or releasing certain people when more information comes to light. Near the end the choices get harder and harder and it'll be entirely up to one's own logic to decide who's more worthy of living, the game never directly outlines who's a 'good' or 'bad' guy and there's no real punishment for player decisions. A really fun experience that's best done blind and can only be done once. I've seen players, myself included, descend into madness upon making self-realizations about just what thought processes and internal logic are being used to make these choices. Constructive criticism? Personally I'd enjoy visual representations of the characters, or at least a Hair/Eye color stat, that and the feature for future experiments to be able to tell what choices one made on previous weeks. Overall amazing game. 10/10, would release serial murderers again.