Final Words
Well, that was Escape From Detroit. It was every bit as awful as I expected it to be.
The plot, when it's not clumsily trying to rip off Lisa, is uninspired, the gameplay is dull, the graphics are extremely crude, the coding is subpar, and the writing, on top of being in desperate need of a spellchecker, reminds me of what a 12-year-old would see as mature. (And the creator reportedly made this when he was in college!)
Just about the only enjoyment I could get from this game was tring to see how much it was ripping off the above-mentioned game. Aside from what is obvious at first glance, both games feature the following:
- The first party member who joins the party being incredibly weak compared to the main character, with a skillset mainly involving speechcraft
- The main character experiencing hallucinations brought about by his perceived shortcomings
- The main character experiencing flashbacks which exhibit his self-destructive tendencies
And those are just what I can think of off the top of my head.
It doesn't surprise me at all that this game is nowhere near finished, especially considering how the game "ended" with an infinite dialog loop, and didn't even give me the courtesy of notifying me that there was no further content past the cruise ship area. This appears to be a pattern with badly made games uploaded to web platforms like GameJolt: the developer simply does not have the dedication to see their idea through to the end, and simply uploads the game regardless of the state that it's in, sometimes without even playtesting it.
Yes, I am aware that the game's webpage has screenshots featuring more polished graphics, but that doesn't fill me with much hope for it, given that the developer has not updated the page in years.