A Kiss from Death

I absolutely love this CYA! It has a lot of super replay value and keeps you coming back for me. The romance is really satisfying too. But the discussion around mortality within the story was the main pull for me as it made me think about the tragedy that would be immortality.

Amazingly written game. A poignant and meaningful look on immortality. The mature themes are handled wonderfully. There's a ton of replayability as well, there's SO much you can achieve and do with your lifetimes through just learning, being in relationships, or living out the side stories. It does lean very heavily into the bitter side of bittersweet. But I, for one, love the existentialism and tenderness the author conveys here. Also, minor, but you can be trans! Really liked that :)

This game is really fun. Originally I disliked it because I believed that the only ending was nihilistic, but there's a secret, true ending that takes many in game life times to get to.

A fantastic idea about a game as an immortal that's weighed down by its own pretentiousness. While I can't say there was much depth to most of the characters, I did enjoy filing in the blanks of my character's life and imagining what could be. This was destroyed, however, when the ending came more or less out of nowhere and began spewing pseudo-intellectual, cryptic nonsense all over the place. Granted, that had always been on the sidelines of the story, but it got really bad when (slight spoilers, I guess) the protagonist gets stuck in a time loop. No matter how many times I played through it attempting to increase my attributes, so I could, theoretically, get a decent ending out of it, the game said no. After several hours stuck in this loop, I realized the game is forcing you toward a very specific ending which you have no control over; not even the vaguest illusion of choice. You are, essentially, battling it out with the author himself, who wants this to end in tragedy. Which I suppose is the whole "point" of the game, but only works if you already agree with its nihilistic point of view, or else are willing to be shamed and bullied into agreeing with the author that all life is meaningless and will ultimately end. The author seemingly can't figure out that the story only ends a specific way because he made the decision to end it that way, and wouldn't consider any other scenarios. Ultimately, the game just left me feeling disappointed and annoyed. If that's what the author was going for, then kudos, I guess? Anyway, if you're looking for a game about playing an immortal in a fun way... Given the chance to do it again, I'd pass. On the other hand, if you're looking to be railroaded through a philosophy treaties loosely disguised by vaguely interesting Cthulhu concepts, far less interesting smut, and random, not-even-trying-to-hide-it twilight rip-offs? This is the place for you.

I have played around 20 choice of games and hosted games and this was the worst. The characters were very 1 dimensional to the point I didn't care what happened to any of them (contrast this with the incredibly realistic characters in way haven). You also couldn't get out of relationships once they started, and it's very pushy with its gender fluidity concepts. I get it, but if I say im a straight female quit pushing relationships with female characters. Respect your audiences preferences.