IFComp09 reviews: Condemned
This was submitted semi-pseudonymously, but since the contact info was his name, just enl33t3d, I feel comfortable pointing out that this was by the same author as Press [Escape] to Save and wHen mAchines aTtack. It's actually good that I determined this, because it colors the review a bit.
For you see, this work is serious business. It will even chide you about it if you try to XYZZY or SING. And it's also a Work Of Teenage Angst, which means that On Optimism is the other local touchpoint.
And it's actually better than all of these, all told. This is the first game by this author where I was never actually stymied by bugs; I only had to go to the walkthrough when I missed a cue. I'm not sure if that's because he forgot to cue them or if I simply missed it in the reams of breathless text that are Jones's signature style.
The writing is, as you might guess from this, still pretty bad; but the reaction is, for most of the game, more just the kind of faint embarassment you would get when flipping through a teenager's composition book. Even taking the tortured metaphors, strained phrasings, and breathless naration into account, though, this is miles better than On Optimism, which was cringeworthy all the way through.
Then the personification of the PC's guilt causes him to, uh, crucify himself in the garage and then set himself on fire, if I followed that bit of the plot right. So if you're here for the trainwreck, it does come eventually.
I can't really recommend this to others to play any more than I could its predecessors - but if you did like those, this does deliver, and more generally competently.
In particular, my recommendations to the author would be to focus now on improving his writing, perhaps joining a composition seminar or the like for additional practice and faster feedback. The programming ability shown in this one was a dramatic improvement over its predecessor, and was indeed solid enough to stand unashamed alongside the other entries this year.