Los Dangerous by Camero2K

Review by Deckrect

Right... Let me try saying something useful to someone, intead of ranting around like and internet troll...

I see the author ha really really good intentions and put a lot of work here. It brings to us all a good lesson about little things to polish, like removing the "take" verb from the list if the object cannot be taken anyway. Little things like these.

What actually bothers me is that despite all the good intentions and efforts, much of the game is trying to make the feel of something like "GTA" get hammered into a parser game. And it won't happen. But... You can get a sort of mood, if you focus on adapting what the type of thing you want doing into the new media you're exploring.

All that stuff about time of the day, money, health and the like is posing there as a way to simulate a freed form sandbox. The first thing you should be doing is questionng if it is REALLY necessary and if it is actually what you want doing. Is the game actually about managing time, taking care of health, hoarding money and so on? The sensation I had playing the game for about one hour was that it actually didnt need that things. You wanted the game could work with it, but it is not a must. Set your game system based on what you need to make the game work. Don't try making a game around a game system just because it looks cool. (Ok, there are very few exceptions, I must admit. So, it makes a rule)

I believe that the major flaw in the game - That happens to many dating, procedural, loop, freeform, sandbox games - is the lack of a driving force. If you look at GTA, there is a lot of cutscenes to set driving forces. Mario has a driving force. Perhaps you could be far more successful if you try telling a story and then place some freedom in it, than setting a sandbox and hope it fix itself.

It kind of brings me to a certain type of discussion where I admit I'm very open to debate right because I'm not 100% sure what I'm saying, but... I think you woul be happier by using a Gamebook instead f a parser, because the material you have is far more story oriented than puzzle oriented. Parsers are for puzzles. It demands the player to understand a situation and the try to combine things and solve it. You may set any sorto of puzzls. What piece goes where, what symbls to press, mathermatical, logical... You may even set social or emotional puzzles. Track the behavior an change people's mood.. follow the tips on statements and try to make people more friendly... But still puzzles. And the try and error nature of prser makes storytellng a little weird. So, a change in style would be nice for the game.