Cannibal Apocalypse

Synopsis:
Play as a cannibal on a crushed shuttle thousands of years in the future. On a risky trip to the upper levels you become embroiled in the battle between the white bannered faction and their foes. Will you fight or flee in fear? Either way, as a cannibal, a feast is certain in this gory game.

Positives:
-The POV character has some sort of rugged likability to him, which I wasn’t expecting due to the fact all he does is kill people and his first scene is literally him hunting a young girl for food. Despite this I found him somewhat funny and charming with how matter of fact he was about the situations, which was a nice juxtaposition with the rest of the overly dramatic cast of characters.
-This story is a great example of ‘showing’ not telling when it comes to worldbuilding. If we had been told straight up that we were on some sort of feudalistic star ship that had somehow descended into depravity over several generations the world would’ve lost all the wonder it gained from environmental descriptions. From what I can gather this world is pretty unique as well and the idea really stuck with me: excellent creativity.
-Spelling, punctuation and grammar were all excellent and I couldn’t find a single mistake in the several times I played through.

Things to improve:
-This story suffers due to the fact it is linear. So linear. None of my choices mattered: one would simply lead to a dead end and the other to the progression of the plot. I’d have preferred a story that was half as long but doubly as detailed when it came to choices, since this could’ve just as easily been published as a story with a single narrative thread, no CYOA needed. There are also only two ‘true’ endings, which both come at the end of the game and don’t focus at all on previous choices.
-The antagonists the game presents (the four eyed alien guys) are really generic and run of the mill. Sure there’s some endings where they slaughter you, but I found no reason to hate them or even particularly care of their existence apart from the fact the plot pressured me too. If I’m going to be forced to fight a group of goons, at least set up some motive other than ‘this other group of goons told you too’.
-Theres a moment with no real context in any of the other paths where it’s revealed your character used to be someone else: someone more noble. This never goes anywhere and could’ve been cut, but the problem is it’s an interesting idea. All these little hints of a superb story are scattered around this one, but it’s like digging through shit to find sweetcorn. It’s annoying because I know, given more time, Enter could’ve constructed an absolute masterpiece, but this is rushed. So rushed.

Overall this game needs more time put into it, more endings and paths needed to be added before it can ever be more than a 4/8 rating, and I want to log in one day and see this has happened so I can rerate the game at the level it could be.

CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE: 76%

Preview: Can you, an unhinged cannibal with a high-tech space suit, successfully defeat the invaders threatening your generational ship?

=SPOILERS BELOW=

RATINGS:

Plot & Characters: 7/10
As far as I could tell, in this story, you’re a cannibal living on an incredibly chaotic and disorganized spaceship. The ship has come into contact with some other people, who are threatening the resources the ship needs to sustain itself, so the ship’s AI contacts you to take out the invaders.
However, everything is seen through the lens of the narrator, who is largely only driven by slaughter and searching for his next meal. The narrator has a limited understanding of the world around him, he calls elevators “Beasts”, and speaks in disjointed phrases. The narrator’s limited understanding leaves the player to piece together what is really going on in this world, giving a sense of uncertainly and mystery to the world. I thought this added to the plot, the world the story takes place in is confused and uncertain, it makes sense that the player should feel the same way.
It’s a pretty short story, so there’s not much in the way of character developement. The narrator is a simple archetype (though with some intriguing hints that he may have once been something more), and the other characters are not on screen long enough to have any meaningful development. The most interesting, I thought, was “Bella”, who I understand is in command of the ship, and quite probably an AI.
I thought the death scenes and loss endings were well written, and appreciated the attention given to them.
Overall, this story left me wanting to know more about the world. It was full of little details, (such as 40 being considered “quite young”) that implied a deep history. The idea of an enormous spaceship fractured into different political factions and the chaotic lower levels is quite interesting. I wanted to learn more about ths ship’s origin and purpose, what happened that made it descend into its current chaos, and more about the history of “Bella” and “Gregor”, who I assume is the narrator. This story feels like a very small dip into an expansive and much larger world.

Grammar: 5/5
Mastery of Language: 3/3
The writing is evocative, and does a perfect job of setting the grim tone.

Mechanics & Coding: 0/0

Branching: 0/2 (usually 3)
This is a pretty straightforwards linear story, without presenting any real choice to the player. The only choices are save-or-die type choices, and there’s only one real plot for the player to follow.

Player Options/fair choice: 1/1 (usually 3)
The options the player is given are good, and the outcomes are logical. Never is the player cheated into a death ending.

CONCLUSION: 16/21 = 76.19%

this was bad very bad dissapointed.

No real options. Everything either results in death or continuing the game.

Fun and twisty little blood fest. The worldbuilding is interesting, if exactly who is part of what faction or has connections to you in some way is a little vague. Even with as short as it is, there seems to be a fair number of branches without a lot of overlap or circling.

I did notice a few places where there were extra words or odd phrasing that could probably be fixed with a round or two of proofreading. The overall flow of the text and quality of the writing is high, and worth the time to read through.

Great, Although I died really fast.

good game

The author clearly has some writing skills, but they definitely need a lot more honing. For instance, there are a disturbing number of verb tense mismatches in this ultra-short game.

Sadly, as someone who's seen all of the 1980s cannibal movies, even the awful Italian ones, this story was a complete disappointment to the genre. Who is the protagonist? Why does he speak in pidgin English? Why is he so fixated on cooking people before eating them? Nobody fucking knows.

That being said, cannibals in space is a genre that has barely ever been explored, so perhaps future endeavors might yield richer narrative veins.

Lmao

This was pretty intense.

You know, though I can see that it was a game you typed up in three hours, the prose was pretty good and as vivid as I would like to see!

Although it's not for the faint of the heart, it's nice entertainment for a few short minutes.