Death Collector

I’m going to start this out by saying some nice things, mainly because I don’t want this review to be entirely negative, and there were some things I liked about this. The concept is really interesting. The idea of being “death’s little helper” is interesting, and the cloaks are super fascinating and a cool mystery to try and unravel. Plus, the concept of cutting dead/dying people’s tongues out to collect their stories is super fascinating and unique

So, now, the negatives

The story can be oppressively depressing. I mean, I know the subject of collecting people’s tongues after they die is dark, but come on. Everyone hates each other and constantly argues to the point where it stops even being interesting storywise, and it felt like half of the time, even when leaning on my character’s strengths, I would never be able to succeed at anything. I’d try calling in some of the favors I’d earned, only for nothing to come of it. Yet I feel like I still had more success than the average player considering I’ve gotten achievements that 13% of people who played it had. If I had more success than average, I can’t imagine how obnoxiously hard it must feel for other people to play this game

There were a lot of times where it felt like what I would choose didn’t matter, and I was destined to ruin things, which is really not what I like to see from a game that’s supposed to be based around your choices. I felt like I was frequently being railroaded, and the choices didn’t do nearly what I expected them to do, so I never had any idea what would happen based on my choices other than me failing in some way or another. It made it difficult for me to keep playing the game-- when I’m trying to do something enjoyable, I definitely don’t want to constantly feel like everything I do is futile and that I’m screwed no matter what I do

For example, at one point my character was hit with a court summons for apparently antagonizing Kara, the librarian, and causing problems in the library. Which is weird because I never did that. Throughout the library scene, I took Kara’s side and did what I could to be polite, so I have no idea why my character would have been put on her blacklist. I feel like this is also related to an issue with the characters seeming to hate you no matter what you do. Kara specifically felt like this, since throughout my entire interactions with her in the early part of the story, we seemed to be getting along well. Suddenly, she dislikes me enough to put me on her blacklist for seemingly no reason, despite the fact that it still says the she “finds (me) amenable”. I wanted to like the characters, but stuff like this made it really hard for me to connect to them since it felt like no matter what, they wouldn’t like me

It seemed like my character stats hardly changed throughout the entire story. Maybe I was just picking all the wrong options, but I feel like most of the time, a good portion of your choices will affect your stats in some way or another with all the COG and Hosted games. However, several of mine remained exactly the same from the first chapter to the end of the story, which made it feel even more like my choices didn’t really matter. This feeling was only made even stronger by the fact that there were a lot of long pages of text, some of which would end without even giving you a choice of something to do. It felt more like I was along for the ride than actually able to make a choice in things, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, for a game where the whole point is you making choices, I felt like nothing I did really mattered

I also encountered tons of glitches that made it nearly impossible for me to understand what was happening at times, sometimes things that I assume are from the code would appear alongside the actual text, and characters I’ve never met before would be referred to as though I was supposed to know who they were. I believe one other reviewer here mentioned that these could be easily patched out, and while they probably could be, it’s been 2 years since the game came out and the bugs are still there, so. Not really a great sign. At one point, I ran into a glitch where I was supposed to be interviewing three tongues. One of them needed to basically be resuscitated, and I managed to do that. Yay, based on the rarity of the achievement, that’s something kind of difficult to do. The excitement of having done something difficult on my first try was marred by the fact that I ran into a glitch where even after having gotten the thoughts from the resuscitated tongue, I could select to hear from it again. Assuming that there was more from it, I chose that option, and since the game was apparently only programmed so you could make three choices in this segment, that means I completely missed out on one of the stories

The worst glitch I had was an issue where what I assume there could have potentially been a conflict between myself and another one of my coworkers. However, there must have been a coding error or something, because instead of there actually being a person that I was up against, it would say “no one”. I assume what was supposed to be happening is depending on relationships with coworkers, you would have to try and succeed against one of them here, but since I had a neutral to positive relationship with all of them (allegedly, it felt like they all hated me), it just said there was no one

To show how completely incomprehensible this was, again with my character being called to court, and I tried to call in a favor with Pedita. It said that “no one” had the same target, so I thought “oh, okay, that’s good”. Then the next sentence says “she throws you a hateful look”, and context says it's not Pedita doing that, which implies that someone else is. But the only other person who could be involved here is Roza since no one else uses she/her pronouns, and Roza’s not involved. Then several times throughout this page of text, it again refers to no one as if there’s a person that should be here. It got to the point where I thought that this had to be some kind of intentional thing, like the author was trying to play with my mind somehow. Honestly, I wish it was because then I would have at least been able to figure out what on earth was happening in hindsight

My ending also felt highly anticlimactic, and like countless plot threads had just been abandoned. I never learned what was up with the ministry and why my house was hated so much, what was going on with that assassin, what was up with the cloaks-- really anything about any of the mysteries that were set up throughout the story. I didn’t even get anything happening with my RO, though granted, with how I was treated by them sometimes, I'm not even sure if I was successfully romancing them. I’m sure I probably just got a bad ending, but even the bad endings of other stories from COG/Hosted don’t leave every single plot thread from the story unanswered. Maybe one day I’ll replay the story to try and get something better so I can at least have some answers, but I doubt I’ll be doing that any time soon due to just how hard this thing was to slog through near the end

I’d probably give this game a 3/10. The concept is interesting, but there are so many issues and the plot was so difficult for me to follow that I finished the game feeling unfulfilled and lost. Kinda disappointed I spent my money on this, especially when the demo was so promising, but at least I got it on a sale

I'm sure there are many out there who will enjoy this game. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. The story is definitely unique, and some ideas caught my interest, but it ended rather abruptly and with too many loose ends. It honestly felt like the story was going somewhere but the author cut it short/didn't have time to develop it. I also didn't like the ROs, which is a deal breaker for me.

Death Collector is mess of a narrative, a poor story, and a poorly told one at that. Paragraph after paragraph where you do nothing but read. That would be fine if this were a novel, I love reading novels. But this isn't a novel, it's a Choice of Games game, emphasis on game. There are few player choices, fewer still that actually matter.

Even if they did, it would be negated by the cast of characters. They're all totally unlikable, and the entire narrative framework is structured around that fact, meaning you've gotta be just as terrible as everyone else. Maybe that's just the style the author was going for, but it makes for a slog of a read.

Aside from that, the story is just plain boring. So much of the opening half hour or so is sitting around, reading about lore and characters and not actually doing anything. Endless paragraph droning on explaining who everyone is, what your job is, and how this world works without actually letting us do anything for ourselves.

I've finished every single Choice of Games game and Hosted Games game I've ever played, but this marks the first time I was unable to do so. I can't take anymore of these utterly unlikable gits standing around yelling at each other, or reading about lore or other fun stuff I don't get to do myself.

Death Collector is a very interesting game by Choice of Games. A 300,000+ word interactive novel makes for a story that can be rather in-depth and full of choices - telling us a tale worthy of being remembered.

Now see... Death Collector is memorable. The story has great depth and sets up an interesting world narrative that you end up thrust into... but it feels like it lacks in many aspects in more ways than I can really grasp at for particulars. The story is intriguing, the basis interesting and rather novel. But... the ending feels rushed and many of your own options feel like they don't make much of a difference. I felt as though no matter my choices the ending seemingly would end up the same. It also doesn't really make me want to replay it either to find out if that is the case.

The story is well thought out, has depth, and I just wish there was more angles to have taken for who you were to make yourself out to be. It is a good story, but personally not my favorite Choice of Games game. It isn't like Choice of Robots or Hollywood Visionary. Choice of Games has made many great games through this and Hosted Games but this just... it lacks in many areas.

Most of the choices are petty and insignificant. The charaters are unlikable. And if author wanted to put words in the players 'mouths and force out some feelings that just aren't there, at least make them feel they MATTER in this story, which this game still fails at miserably. If you want to have a taste of what kind of quality Choice of games and Hosted Games have stooped to these days, just try this game.

interesting concept unfortunately the choices are poorly worded and can lead to your character doing exactly what you didn't want them to do. it also so stonewalls you into doing choices that you didn't pick for example you are given the choice to not eavesdrop but end up being accused of eavesdropping anyway. also makes your character do things opposite to what you want them to do regardless. at that point why are you playing a choice game with no choice?

I disagree with the other review - I have been reading COG Games for a long time now, I even have a tattoo to do with the company. This story is well written, I found the concept quite intriguing and I could tell the authour put thought into their story. I agree that I was quite surprised to find the script error however it has nothing to do with the writing and can easily be patched out, it is rather hard to proof read every scene in a 300,000 word book. I found the charcters all interesting in their own right and I found that each had a distinct personality to bring them to life. I eagerly await what may come next for our charcters. This is certainly one of their top books out this year, and if you have time to spare and want an engaging read, give the Death Collector a try - I think you will be pleasantly suprised.

Not the best work by this author. Choice of the cat was excellent. This... This is just mediocre. You're stuck in an awful, soul-crushing job. Everyone hates you. Sure, there's intrigue, and sure, there's some interesting ideas, like the cloaks, but the whole thing is a bit of a mess. There's problems where things are just mentioned as [script error], or something akin to it, rather than just the normal spelling and grammar errors. What skills apply to what are completely unclear, and the game is damn unforgiving about it. A character can have a high relationship, but still call you an idiot. If you've had a crappy office job that involves some manual labor, that's this game, except in this game, people also cut people's tongues out. I recommend Choice of the Cat instead. This is just excruciating.