Part of the allure of moral choices in games is the ability to take the path less traveled. You can be an outright villain or hero without repercussion nor acclaim. Unfortunately, some developers lack the deft skill to properly pose moral choices to their players. This can quickly ruin an otherwise promising narrative.

The Kickstarter campaign for Femida promises a interesting story from a unique perspective. Playing as a judge, you must make tough decisions and render verdicts on criminal cases. The story develops based on the choices you’ve made and the outside forces they’ve influenced.

Femida3Unfortunately,  it quickly becomes apparent that Femida doesn’t care about you solving the case; it only wants you to feel conflicted about what you decide. Even at the cost of the slightest bit of subtlety or ambiguity on the narrative’s part.

The demo doesn’t present Femida as a game about solving cases or finding the truth. Instead, the demo focuses exclusively on forced moral dilemmas and questionable ethics. With better writing it could have been clever satire, but in its current state it is merely a poor caricature of the criminal justice system. It’s a demo that tries to tell more than it shows and the end result isn’t pretty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3Pl2pRyjf0

About the Author

Joanna Mueller

Joanna Mueller is a lifelong gamer who used to insist on having the Super Mario Bros manual read to her as a bedtime story. Now she's reading Fortnite books to her own kiddo while finally making use of her degree to write about games as Cliqist's EIC.

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