The Ghost of Joe Papp

[b]Molly: "...you want to fight me, God?" (Zap. The power goes out, leaving her in the dark.) Molly: "Apparently, God would win."[/b] [i]The Ghost of Joe Papp[/i] is a spoof for Shakespeare, blended with some part surreal comedy. It isn't particularly brilliant or even engaging, but still a refreshing one that breaks away from your ordinary visual novel. Is it a good game? Nah, not really. It is something experimental which ends up being too chaotic, at least for my taste. It is one summer in Tahoe, the town of Joe Papp - named after the big daddy of New York's theatre scene - and the local Shakespeare company is trying to get ready in their production of both [i]Hamlet[/i] and [i]The Merchant of Venice[/i]. Apparently, there has been some changes about the production; thus, similar changes for the future of performers of the company. Some stars shine brighter, some others pass their peak to die and as expectedly, drama gets ensured: both at the scene and behind the scene. In this short little visual novel, we will pick one of the star performers of the company, witness their troubles behind the scene and potentially affect some of their choices. Beware though, this company is like no other! Casual drama, daddy issues, casual drug use and plenty undead humor is involved. Be ready for a lot of nonsense and some unintentional wisdom buried under it all. What else can be said about this game? Well, not much. The whole experience takes half an hour in your life and leaves you with more or less of a "meeeeh" kind of feeling. Most plotline is directly dumped on you rather than processed properly. It's personal traumas one minute, and you get to listen to the zombie apocalypse version of a Shakespeare play the other. This kind of narrative display is a kind of art that surreal comedy takes pride in, but it just isn't for me. Even within surreal comedy, I'd prefer some kind of depth that I'd be able to read about characters. Here, it's like everything has been thrown into a chaotic soup with Shakespeare references, and hoped that someone would be able to relate to it. It is obvious that the game comes from an educated mind, but is that enough to make this a good or enjoyable visual novel? Sadly no. I wanted to like this game quite a lot, but ended up feeling like "well, that happened too" and got on with my day. The game sure has its bright and especially comedic moments; even some brilliant comments - but everything moves around so fast and so chaotic, you end up not being able to relate to anyone or anything. Neither visual art, nor music is especially interesting. If you get this game in a bundle or at a discount; sure, it might be an experience. But you have to keep your expectations low, so you wouldn't be disappointed. Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/11672469/]here[/url] - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!

I changed the review to Thumbs up The developer really cared about what we had to say and removed the DLC needed for achievements and fixed the broken achievement so you can 100% the game with only the base game no DLC I am thankful! Thanks

This one feels a bit like an experiment. Depending on how you navigate through conversation, there are a plethora of choices to pick from, which is nice when compared to the usual 2 to 4 choices one often has in VNs. Buuut that was about the most memorable part of the game to me, to be honest. I'd want to give a neutral thumb, but since that's not an option and I can't outright recommend it, red thumb it is. The art is pretty decent and there certainly is a diverse cast, and mayhaps it is somewhat ironic how inter-personal drama can affect drama performances (or perhaps 'ironic' is 100% misattributed here, what do I know). Was kinda hoping for a ghost/ massive murder mystery of some sort, but I guess that's like expecting to see a giant grey mammal when someone tells you about the elephant in the room.

A good Visual Novel game. I recommend it. interesting story. some choices. music is good. graphic is alright. price is in offer alright. all achievements work.

The plot twist is that Joe Papp is not the ghost. The Ghost is a lady. Joe Papp is a town.

Short and pretty dull. You play one of two possible characters (or you can select none and just watch it as a kinetic VN). Problem is that everything is dumped on you as if you were supposed to know everything that happened to the characters before the game started. It would maybe work with a longer game but at 20 minutes a session it doesn't. And what's with those characters' faces? It looks like they're snarling when speaking.

Le VN n'est pas mauvais en soi, il plaira sans doute aux amateurs du genre j'imagine. Ce qui me gêne ici c'est la politique DLC qui a été pratiquée, pour un temps de jeu effectif loin du compte. 6 euros pour le jeu de base est déjà beaucoup demandé, au vu du peu de fonctionnalités offertes par l'expérience (pas de support manette, pas de cartes Steam, anglais uniquement). Dommage.

What did I even read? This was a try to make Visual Novels HIGH LITERATURE... they basically picked a Shakesspear play and shoved it into a visual novelmaker [it is not a proper play, but they use the gist of them to make something on their own that is too high for the format and not fitting at all/feels copy pasted] ... the characters DONT LOOK, FEEL, OR BEHAVE like the original... the cast even sometimes changes... characters talk that are not on the stage.. emotions missmatch... genders wrong... modern version that tries to add things that are not in it.. and the choices make you wonder what you are supposed to do. This got to be the worst visual novel I have ever read.. and shakesspear would die again if he had to read this.. I like shakesspear and all.. but this was too much... 2/10... 2 because the idea is good.. just everything else feels terrible. This would need to be longer, less choices and more hints as to what is supposed to happen. The pictures need to fit the play... they are supposed to be the actors that perform the play... But the locations, costumes and persons are not fitting at all.. design them yoursel instead of using the defaults by the engine and call it a day.

Has a bunch of characters, failed to make me care about any of them. I skimmed maybe 50%(?) of the Molly route and skipped the rest because it just didn't hold my interest. It has easy achievements if you're into that kind of thing, but I wouldn't recommend it for the story. Reading the story is kinda like overhearing arguments between strangers in a parking lot - random bits of drama with little context.

[EDITED] The developers listened to the community and made changes to the achies. Glad they did it. So now I'd like to recommend it. My achie was down to 50% AGC thanks to the recenty released DLCs. Would spend that $6 somewhere else, even if it is for charity.