To Be or Not To Be

I tried to give this a thumb up, but the game didn't let me. And I tried to refund with less than 30 min playtime, but Steam didn't let me. And so I'm never spending a cent here again.

Real Funny, Great Story, 100/10 Good Baked

It's not as funny as it thinks it is. Which could be okay, but the problem is that trying to get all the endings means sitting through the same dialogue trees over and over and over again, remembering to choose option C instead of B in choice 5001 after doing everything else right because for some reason it doesn't allow you to go back to specific choices, only 'chapters.' It's poorly designed and I would sit through the less than great humor if not for that.

This game reminded me of the books I used to read when I was a kid. I remember one about Dumbo and another about a princess (I think), and in both you had to choose what was going to happen next. Maybe that was the beginning of my love for the "choose your own adventure" type of games? In any case, Ryan North's version of Hamlet is a very fun way to learn about the story (in a general and "friendly" way, of course) while enjoying changing it at same time. If you don't like reading (or having someone read to you, if you turn on the narrator's voice, which I recommend because his voices are really fun to listen to) then this game isn't for you. However, I do recommend it if you are a completionist who wants to have all achievements/endings~

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is this supposed to be funny?

Just as fun as I had expected this to be! As someone who has never read/watched Hamlet, I really appreciate the 'canon' options being marked, so you can speedrun a Shakespeare play.

I had fun with this, Shakespearian shenanigans indeed! It's a lot of reading and absurdist humor. Every now and then, after the game rewarded you for a wild choice, it will punish you quickly for the next wild choice, and... well, there's a lot of death and dying involved there. I suppose death and dying is sort of its own reward in this game, though, as every time you find a new way to die, you get to see another piece of illustrated art, and if you feel like it you can try filling up the whole art gallery! (I don't feel like it, that's too much work.) You also get art pieces when you reach an end, SOMEHOW, where you don't die! The deaths definitely feel more frequent, though. I do think there is, at the base, an appreciation for the original (stolen) work of Hamlet in this. It sure refreshed my memory of what happens in that play, in a way I think I will never forget.

I've had this game for longer than I care to admit, and just sat down last night to play it. Finished it 100% in 3 hours, but was likely the best 3 hours I've spent reading Shakespeare in my entire life. I'm only ashamed I did not play this sooner, so if you come across this in 2023, it's still fantastic, now.

Quite a neat little game that you can easily spend some time looking through. I really liked going through the story time and time again trying to find different endings :D