I Hate My Flatmates

The gameplay and plot

This is a quirky and lovingly made little game about Player and his flatmates, who are told that one of them will be killed, and so they seek to avoid that fate by basically trying to get the hell out of there any way they can.

The gameplay is basically a connect the dots plot, with one location taking you to the next and then revisiting locations once you've run out of new places to visit or have reached a roadblock in order to unlock new locations until you reach the end, but as tedious as my novice writing is making the game sound, it is the GOOD kind of connect the dots plot. The personalities of the characters make for a funny and entertaining collection of conversations and cutscenes and you will forgive the repetition just to see what will happen next. There are various branching paths that promote replayability as well, so it'll keep surprising you for a little while longer. The game has multiple endings depending on your choices in the game, some of the endings are not comedic though.

Content Analysis

Despite the short duration of the game it was made with care using some RTP elements and some original sprites. The modern, urban-themed tilesets are a welcome sight from the traditional medieval themed universes. The face art, by April Liu, does a good job of characterizing each person. The author implemented a font size changing script of some sorts that does wonders when emphasizing funny dialog or onomatopoeias.

There's an effort to give each room a different touch that suits the character it belongs to. The game truly does give the impression that these people have been living there for a good while now and have learned to live together despite their differences.

The music, by Triple-Q, goes hand in hand with the theme of the game, giving it an urban atmosphere. It gets quite videogamey at some points, but it is still quite pleasing to the ears.

Comedic Aspect

The game summary warns the players about the game's offensive language and boy it wasn't kidding. There are plenty of "fucks" and "shits" to satisfy even the most exigent palates. It amplifies some of the punchlines, and feels excessive on some parts, but that's subjective and depends on the player.

The characters are unique and wacky in their own regard, the player character appropiatedly called "Player" with his fascination with weapon crafting, the artist chick with a grumpy and psychotic personality, the otaku gamer chick that trash talks with a love for boring maze games, the muscle obsessed saiyan-like mutant bodybuilder, and the enigmatic white haired guy are well rounded and different from each other. There's a hint of a deeper plot underneath the swearing and wacky bits, but i did not pay much attention to it, after all the comedy was enjoyable and the deeper plot wasn't exactly comedic.

There are quite a bit of gags, take that's, and references that provoked more that one smile from me, the bits where you play a game inside the game were some of my favorites.

All in all, I reccomend it. Geh.

Score: 4.5