As a fan of sci-fi horror with rogue AIs (who doesn’t love 2001?) I figured that it would be a good idea to check out the demo for the visual novel Quantum Suicide. Unfortunately, the point of the story that they chose to feature left me with many more questions than answers. The premise as a whole caught my interest but the demo had left me wondering why I should continue to back the Kickstarter. Honestly, they could have picked a better slice of the game to give us an idea of what to expect for the entire experience.
The demo for Quantum Suicide takes place pretty late in the game. Day 63 according to the overlay in the corner. Frankly, I have no clue why they chose to go with it but I had a hell of a time trying to follow the story. You start out already established on board the Everett and apparently everybody already knows you. Some much more intimately than I would have expected. I know you’ve got potential love interests, including the captain, but seeing it come out of nowhere really jarred me. My initial reaction when she ended up all over me was “We did what?! When did this happen?!”
Demos, especially for visual novels, usually take place during the beginning chapter of the game, letting you get to know the characters before the insanity happens. Quantum Suicide dumps you right in the middle of the craziness without a clue, even if you did read the pitch. If you’re on the fence about this one it might be a good idea to stay away from the demo. Because you might end up just as confused as I did by the end. At the very least they could have given us a taste of one of the mini-games. As it currently stands I’m not even sure this is worth backing just based off of what’s been shown.
The premise definitely looks interesting, curious why they would pick a random spot of the game for the demo though?
I was asking myself the same thing when I was playing the demo. It’s such an arbitrary starting point that it’s jarring. Honestly, it put me off.
I didn’t even realize this was further in the game. I thought it was just one of those stories that drop you in halfway through the conflict.
I liked the characters but I did feel like the pacing was a bit odd, it seemed to jump around a lot and was a little hard to follow.
I did get the impression that maybe we were put into one of those starts where the protag is dying and then we’ll go backwards to what led to that point. But the demo definitely gave us a bit too much info to start with, making any impact of the violent parts feel distant and abstract. I better understand now why you felt the demo was off to say the last. Sorta felt like they should have copied the intro style of 999 and Dangan Ronpa.
There is new prologue beta now, ppl might wanna check out that too. 🙂
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cccn/quantum-suicide-a-visual-novel-in-space-kill-or-be