Life In The Fast Lane

If living in the fast lane is this fun, then I want to do more of it! Except, you know, without all the crime, car chases, and shoot outs, but a little risk taking always makes life interesting and worth living.

I really love the way that the title echoes the theme of the story, and I feel like Chris does a really good job staying true to the soul of the story in his clipped and minimalistic prose, comic-book style metaphors and imagery that really pop and stay in your mind, and almost breakneck sense of pace.

This might be the gold standard for fast paced action on CYS, the kind where you may not get a lot of info, but there's a lot of catharsis in playing such a determined and single-minded protagonist on a mission. Chris did a good job with understanding the scope of the story, and keeping it focused on the main revenge mission at hand.

If you want to learn what makes an action scene work, read this piece and take notes. The rhythm almost sings, and I could almost hear the crack of a bone, see the brain matter spill everywhere. The imagery is vivid, and yet the scene itself doesn't lag at any time to describe exactly what is happening. You see brain matter spill everywhere, then hear a groan from your downed opponent, and then strike. It's almost like a dance, and there's a real sense of fluidity in the way that Chris writes his fight scenes. I struggle with spatiality in my action scenes, and so many of my scenes are the protagonist doing the hitting because I sometimes forget who's where, and then there can be a sense that my bad guys aren't fighting back like they should. But Chris grounds his fight scenes in seedy alleyways and the backs of strip clubs, places that feel claustrophobic and box our fighters in, increasing the tension and building up to the fight scene with a chase sequence. There's a real sense of payoff when you have to navigate all these back streets and hidden passages before pouncing and starting the dramatic climax, and I just love that.

I really love so many lines in this one. They're just so inspired and evocative.

"Heart racing like a jackhammer. Blood pumping battery acid. Eyes darting around quicker than a hare on cocaine."

I love how these lines get repeated in one of the endings, almost like the protagonist is reaffirming to himself what it is he loves about his job.

Another thing that I noticed about this story is that our protagonist isn't someone who's afraid to get into the midst of things, and there's a brutality to the violence that grounds it. In many of the endings, we bleed out or get jumped, so the game also rewards you by making you want to backtrack to find endings where you do win. Since if you beat them in all of the endings, what's the point of replaying to get a slightly different beatdown.

That brings me to my point about variety. Even though the game itself is pretty short, there's a good 5-6 endings where you get different outcomes, and each one feels like an additional layer to the revenge story that I really enjoyed. I think the funniest one was where you end up shooting someone's dick off, I did not expect him to go that route, but that was a pretty cool scene.

In the midst of all this violence, there's a bit of romance. The dynamic between Elise and our protagonist is interesting, and I like that the narrative never makes it clear exactly what the relationship between Elise and our protagonist is, but it utilizes the trope of a mysterious woman from the past saving our protagonist, so we the audience kind of get an idea of what exactly is going on.

Ultimately, at the end, if we do survive, there's no real sense of resolution. Which honestly makes the story more memorable since it isn't trying to be a story of redemption. It's merely a glimpse in the life of a man who lives life in the fast lane, exacts swift and unrelenting retribution, then drives off into the night. It's almost somewhat archetypal, especially since he goes in, does his job and dies, then leaves. He's almost a composite of every great Neo-noir revenge protagonist from cinema history. We don't even know his name, just that he's a getaway driver who was wronged, and sets out to take revenge on his former compatriots.

I was a bit confused by the random arrows shooting at our protagonist in one of the endings. I think that was a good inclusion, because even though it felt jarring initially, it kind of fits into the rest of the story, because the point of the story isn't to establish an entire world and explain each and every bit of lore.

The point of the story is the danger, the rush of adrenaline, and the feeling of being alive one feels when they exist on the edge of reason and sanity.

And it's truly exhilarating.

8/8.

This game rocks, pleased to see that the 8 I gave it at some point is well-merited.

I think Chris here very self-consciously is working with pastiche, and you can see the DNA of a lot of movie tough guys floating in the Petri dish; I think a lion's share of the endings end with "you drive," which is a nice little nod to some of the major inspiration. Despite that, Chris has a very developed sense of style and writes in a very punchy way. I love how the dead guy is "dead as disco" and how the game gives me the opportunity to relieve a guy of his pecker at gunpoint.

One of my major questions right away was why can't I go to a hospital, and where are the cops during all this? Chris answers that in, I think, a very clever way by revealing halfway through that this is some kind of post apocalyptic nightmare world where loincloth wearing tribesmen shoot at cars with arrows. That's a fun bit of world-building, and I greatly appreciate how it isn't exposited until it's directly relevant. If I had to make gentle criticism, I would say that it wasn't really necessary to tell the audience that this district is inhabited only by Scavvers because everyone else moved on; that's something that could have been communicated by context clues, without interrupting the narrative.

I also like how Elise and the protagonist's history is left totally to the audience's imagination, because it doesn't matter. In this kind of story, which is having so much fun with action tropes and the familiar language of gritty tough guy revenge, there's a dame who patches him up (probably by pouring whiskey on a rag and dabbing his wounds). This is a fact as immutable as gravity, and also shows Chris' excellent instincts as a guy who can get directly to the good stuff.

This story really feels noir-like in execution. It's dark and seedy, written well and concise, with one objective for the reader to achieve. Of course that objective turns out being dishing out revenge, and throughout the writing, I felt like this story-game had a very atmospheric way in which it was told.

For a story-game that isn't too long in length, the world and the things that occurred in it, made it feel quite lively. Chris does an incredible job in not keeping the reader wanting in any ability to make choices, or start interacting with the worlds he creates. It's for that reason that I seem to find his stories to be ones that can be enjoyed in different ways, because there isn't just one way that the story that is present here can be approached. There are branches, and with these branches, different scenarios can play out that makes one experience quite different from the other.

Life In The Fast Lane is an enjoyable game, and it's not one that one has to wait long for things to pick and ramp up. With the character whose shoes you find yourself being in, being that of an experienced getaway driver's, I feel that aspect of the story is rather apt, all things considered.

In the end, this is another stellar work by Chris. There's some gun action, and of course some vehicular action as well. I was not disappointed in any manner after reaching several different conclusions that this story offers.

Check this one out. Once more, this is fine work, Chris.

This is really good! Chris has a way of making music with words.

I think a lot of authors lose themselves in choices (not to say this story doesn't have choices, and high-stake ones at that!) and quantity and forget the very basic thing that makes a story worthwhile to read, and that's rhythm and style. It's so obvious when an author enjoys what he's writing, and it makes it enjoyable for the reader too.

This entire story reads like a quick-paced episode from an action/noir show. And I'm not even a particular fan of action nor noir shows or stories, and definitely not the nitty-gritty and bloody, but I read every word of this one.

It's a lot of fun and would transfer very nicely to a visual medium! Or maybe I'm just particularly imaginative. . .

I am a unredeemed fan of Chris's writing, and Chris=8. I hope everybody heeds my words. Eight.

But in spite of the fact that I came here to give Chris an undeserved-but-well-warranted eight, this story was actually really good *also*.

"He fires, hot steel tearing through the back of your seat like a knife through butter and lodging right into your back." This is a writer who uses cliche because he's writing in genre, not because he's a lazy sonofa. Chris has the voice down, and he's able to write sentences that just *get there* without meandering around for half a dozen sentences.

When Chris asks you whether you speed up or drive slow, you know you better speed up, because driving slow gets a fool shot.

Better--when Chris asks you if you want to just shoot them, you know there's going to be a bloody and satisfying resolution. And indeed there was, with--I want to say, loving attention paid to the places I shoot. Neither the "ass" nor the "pecker" were neglected.

Honestly, I laughed and laughed, but I was also impressed by the plotting and forking here. There's a decent amount for a short game. I read every word.

We need a SEQUAL STAT! GIVE US THAT LETHAL DIE HARD LIFE IN THE FAST LANE PART DEUX! NEAT!

So aside from the blatant fact that it was a little short, from my understanding of your story unless I miss read it it seems like pretty much the exact plot one of the sin City movies the black and white movies guy chases the guys in the whole town and his car ends up killing him finds out there were cops and so on and so on and so on but, it wasn't bad I mean the the story was all right, slightly better than homework.

Slick writing, but too quick to be much of a game. More like a very short story?

This one was written by a child that watches too many movies and t.v. shows. Swearing in your story and in your choices is just bad. Not believable or accurate.

Pretty cool. Definitely some inspiration from sin city