Death Collector

[i]I should really say sorry to you, my readers. My thoughts are a bit jumbled these days – holidays, summer, ice cream overdose. You know, the usual. However, I will try to do my best to share my feelings about this game.[/i] To be honest, I am on the fence as far [b]Death Collector[/b] is concerned. Here is a short backstory: I first learned about it when the demo was released in December 2018, if I remember correctly. I got immediately hooked after playing it, but for some reason, I did not buy the full game right away. So, now almost 8 months later, I finally got a chance to complete it – better late than never, right? And, hm, I should say, it was not what I expected – in a bad way, unfortunately. My review turned out to be neutral with a positive mark in the end because there are some aspects of Death Collector that are worth the praise; but downsides cannot be overlooked either, and trust me, some of them are noticeable enough to spoil your playthrough. [h1]The story[/h1] As a Death Collector, you have to harvest tongues from people who are about to die. You may ask, ‘Why on Earth do we need tongues if souls cost a lot more in the market?!’ And you will be quite fair to…

Death Collector is a very interesting game by Choice of Games. A 300,000+ word interactive novel makes for a story that can be rather in-depth and full of choices - telling us a tale worthy of being remembered. Now see... Death Collector is memorable. The story has great depth and sets up an interesting world narrative that you end up thrust into... but it feels like it lacks in many aspects in more ways than I can really grasp at for particulars. The story is intriguing, the basis interesting and rather novel. But... the ending feels rushed and many of your own options feel like they don't make much of a difference. I felt as though no matter my choices the ending seemingly would end up the same. It also doesn't really make me want to replay it either to find out if that is the case. The story is well thought out, has depth, and I just wish there was more angles to have taken for who you were to make yourself out to be. It is a good story, but personally not my favorite Choice of Games game. It isn't like Choice of Robots or Hollywood Visionary. Choice of Games has made many great games through this and Hosted Games but this just... it lacks in many areas.

Most of the choices are petty and insignificant. The charaters are unlikable. And if author wanted to put words in the players 'mouths and force out some feelings that just aren't there, at least make them feel they MATTER in this story, which this game still fails at miserably. If you want to have a taste of what kind of quality Choice of games and Hosted Games have stooped to these days, just try this game.

Death Collector is mess of a narrative, a poor story, and a poorly told one at that. Paragraph after paragraph where you do nothing but read. That would be fine if this were a novel, I love reading novels. But this isn't a novel, it's a Choice of Games game, emphasis on game. There are few player choices, fewer still that actually matter. Even if they did, it would be negated by the cast of characters. They're all totally unlikable, and the entire narrative framework is structured around that fact, meaning you've gotta be just as terrible as everyone else. Maybe that's just the style the author was going for, but it makes for a slog of a read. Aside from that, the story is just plain boring. So much of the opening half hour or so is sitting around, reading about lore and characters and not actually doing anything. Endless paragraph droning on explaining who everyone is, what your job is, and how this world works without actually letting us do anything for ourselves. I've finished every single Choice of Games game and Hosted Games game I've ever played, but this marks the first time I was unable to do so. I can't take anymore of these utterly unlikable gits standing around yellin…

I'm sure there are many out there who will enjoy this game. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. The story is definitely unique, and some ideas caught my interest, but it ended rather abruptly and with too many loose ends. It honestly felt like the story was going somewhere but the author cut it short/didn't have time to develop it. I also didn't like the ROs, which is a deal breaker for me.

I’m going to start this out by saying some nice things, mainly because I don’t want this review to be entirely negative, and there were some things I liked about this. The concept is really interesting. The idea of being “death’s little helper” is interesting, and the cloaks are super fascinating and a cool mystery to try and unravel. Plus, the concept of cutting dead/dying people’s tongues out to collect their stories is super fascinating and unique [b]So, now, the negatives [/b] The story can be oppressively depressing. I mean, I know the subject of collecting people’s tongues after they die is dark, but come on. Everyone hates each other and constantly argues to the point where it stops even being interesting storywise, and it felt like half of the time, even when leaning on my character’s strengths, I would never be able to succeed at anything. I’d try calling in some of the favors I’d earned, only for nothing to come of it. Yet I feel like I still had more success than the average player considering I’ve gotten achievements that 13% of people who played it had. If I had more success than average, I can’t imagine how obnoxiously hard it must feel for other people to play this…