Scatter Review by Frogge

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Screwdriver Fantasies

Frogge
05/23/2017 08:51 AM
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Scatter by kanattakun
Length: ~10 minutes

Scatter is a short 10 minute long game made for mcbacon jam 4. I believe both of the developers are new, but they still managed to pull of a neat little game. It does have it's flaws, however.

I'll start with what bothered me the most: The graphics. No, they aren't bad, it's just that the quality seems to vary noticably. For example, the character sprites look very well made compared to the beds and windows and such. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind at all how these graphics look on their own, it's just that they don't go as well together, almost like they were made by two seperate artists. It's not a particularly huge problem, though, I'm just being a little picky.

There's a few grammar issues, but I don't really mind. This isn't a professional commercial game being sold for money, it's a little thing made for an event, and a few grammar issues are not going to change my gameplay experience. Well, except for that one other game in the event that I enjoyed solely for the spelling issues. You know which one I'm talking about.

Anyway, the music in the game is quite nice. They have that fairy tale-ish feel to them. They are also quite recognizable as they have been used in some other popular rpg maker games.

The gameplay is pretty basic. In fact, there's little to none at all. You walk around a room and interact with stuff, go to bed a few times, and that's it. The game's supposed to be a visual novel esque thing so I don't mind the simplistic gameplay. There was one tiny little amateur rpg maker mistake though, where the sprite of the character disappears before she goes to bed for a split second. This could have been fixed if the developers faded out the screen before erasing the character's sprite.

The story is the thing that's been nitpicked by other reviewers. Beware of spoilers beyond this point!

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In the end of the game, the main character commits suicide, and it is presented in a way that suicide seems like the right choice. Other reviewers were mainly mad about this aspect of the game. Personally, I don't mind the message, because let's be honest, who's gonna play a ten minute long rpg maker game and think, ''wow, she made suicide seem good. I should do it too!'' I was more bothered by the fact that it's sort of a cliche ending and that it doesn't exactly resolve the conflict of the game.
The rest of the story isn't particulary unique either. The main character's ''secret'' is commonly in other media, alongside being gay, raped, having killed some, et cetera. It's not bad to use cliches, especially in, you know, an event game made in a short amount of time, but I would've liked to see more things being done with the story.

Overall, I think scatter is a decent enough game that had potential to be something greater, but missed it marginally. I do, however, look forward to seeing what the developers' other games will be like, and wish them the best of luck with all their future projects! I give it three screwdriver love interests out of five.