花母·序 (2023)

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花母·序 is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This Chinese Choose-Your-Own-Adventure ebook tackles a creepy school but of course with ample narrative space for the authors favourite topic, his imaginary girlfriend. Needless to say this is a cringefest, and the "horror" aspect of the game isn't in the writing, it IS the writing. It's bad, really bad. Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time you wanted to read the next sentence, inste…