Of the games for this week, I was most intrigued by “16 Ways to Kill A Vampire at McDonald’s”. Initially, I was struck by the shifts of color along with the narrative, moving between black, red, and green that effectively mimicked the feeling of movement throughout the space. Relatively dark, more ominous colors envelop the space in darkness.
After completing my first playthrough of the game, I was caught off guard upon entering the final screen, revealing all 16 possibilities for killing the Vampire. The presence of this screen evoked a very game-like atmosphere, despite having gone into my engagement with the piece.
For me, the game-like atmosphere took away from the ability to actually read the piece more than once. While reading through the alternative endings, I thought back to our conversation in class surrounding the role of guides and/or walkthroughs when engaging with electronic literature. “16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonald’s” complicated this conversation. Though I find the use of external cheats/guides/etc. to disrupt the reading of electronic texts, Abigail Corfman’s intentional inclusion of the possibility list and hints makes the help part of the internal, textual experience.
Subsequent gameplay ultimately was affected by viewing the list and hints. In my own experience, even after only my first playthrough, reading the hints I was familiar enough with the game space to recognize what the hints were pointing narrator Lucy/the player towards. With each successive playthrough, I found myself going through the motions, increasingly aware of the space and the choices presented to me rather than using the narrative to find a way to get rid of the vampire (as I had done the first time). Though the narrative progressed in unique ways depending on the choices made, knowing the possibilities made engagement with the text feel limited.
Overall, I enjoyed the game-like atmosphere of the piece, especially being caught off-guard by this feature in the beginning, however; I find my enjoyment based more upon the play-ability of the piece rather than the literary/narrative merit (though the world was well-crafted, the text became less of a focus).