En Garde

Despite the title, this does not, in fact, involve any amount of swashbuckly goodness. Instead, we begin knowing and understanding nothing, with only the ability to travel ... and to eat. As we consume the brains of the creatures we meet, however, we absorb their personalities and their understanding of the world. More abilities and commands become available to us, and soon the whole story becomes clear....

I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that zombies are involved. I mean, we're eating brains, after all.

It's a new take on the zombie apocalypse story, though. We're atypical as a zombie because we were given some kind of flawed experimental antidote earlier, hence the absorption of personalities. These personalities exist discretely within our consciousness and interact with each other. They're distinct enough from each other that I often found myself just sitting around and waiting, just to watch the conversation flow. I thought it added a slightly comedic spin to the story.

The interface begins with a single, unlabelled, coloured button, representing our much-reduced awareness of the world. Rather annoyingly, this didn't work in GIT, nor would the html files work off a local system. I had to go to the online game at ifcomp.org to play it. I get that this is part of immersion, but I wonder if any non-clicky alternatives might be possible.

But I did enjoy it. I think that if it were a breakfast, it would be an extra-eggy French toast with a side of blood pudding (or boudin noir) and a very strong coffee to Wake You Up.