Online Game Review: "Kafkamêsto"

A video game based on the works of Franz Kafka (no, I'm not kidding).

And before you scream in terror and run away, let me tell you a few details.

PLAY THE GAME AT: http://www.abc.net.au/gameon/kafkamesto/

REVIEW:
The game was first created for Gameon.com, an Australian-based website that brought together a bunch of up-and-coming flash animators to make up ten online games to boost interest in the digital gaming industry in Australia. Smoking Gun Productions was one of the ten groups recruited, and what they came up with was a cerebral game called Kafkamêsto.
In the game, you play someone who wakes up one morning in a small apartment in Prague, in the mid-winter of 1922, with no memory of who you are or how you got there, and you must wander around the city (in a point-and-click environment), collecting clues and trying to figure out who you are and what you're supposed to do.

I found this game while exploring the site for another game, "Chasm" (but that's another story), and having some knowledge of Kafka, I figured that this would probably be pretty funny. And it was, in its own way, but it also stuck remarkably close to Kafka's tones and themes.
If you know anything of the works of Kafka, you've probably already guessed that that means that it's confusing and morbid. And you'd be right.

The game was apparrently inspired by a quote in a letter Kafka wrote to Max Brod in October of 1922:
“…and in that recurring dream, I found myself trapped in some sort of gigantic game of which I was unfamiliar with the rules; lost in a labyrinthine town of dark and damp, criss-crossing streets, ambiguous characters of uncertain authority having no idea of why I was there nor what I had to do, and where the first sign of the beginning of understanding was the wish to die.”

I recognized the references to two Kafka stories right away, "The Castle" and "The Trial." The references to "Mr. Josef K," and the two men in dark suits who claim that you have committed some crime of which you are unaware.
However, I then noticed that the game takes place in Prague, in winter of 1922. 1922 was when he wrote that letter, and Prague was the place of Kafka's birth. And as I wandered around the game, I realized that the game was a pastiche of Kafka's own LIFE, just as much as his works.

You can tell from the presentation on Gameon's page that the folks at Smoking Gun Productions had tremendous fun making it. When the site's creators interviewed them, they wrote down some quotes from Kafka instead of answering the questions.
In fact, they even made up a fictitious scholar, Emeritus Professor Janusz Kazmierczak, and printed a letter they had written for him in which "he" bashes the game and decries its attempts to emulate the feel of Kafka (yes, Professor Kazmierczak is NOT a real person. I looked it up).
Unfortunately, this humor, while appropriate and witty, came at the expense of actually saying anything about the game. And since the game was so confusing, then for the better part of a day, I was thoroughly convinced that there was literally no way to get anything important done in the game, that it was just a lot of wandering around town aimlessly, looking for answers to no riddles (which would really be in sync with the overarching themes of Kafka's work).

But then I Googled the game's title just to be sure, and found http://jayisgames.com/archives/2005/11/kafkamesto.php , an archived thread at jayisgames forum, and found that there is a way to achieve an end to the game. In fact, several endings, and though none of them is entirely happy (Kafka didn't go in much for happiness), there is one possible end that is slightly more sweet than bitter.
Of course, other endings include having your romantic rival tattoo you to death with an industrial drill (and it's a good sign that this ending is just as hard to achieve as the happy one) and literally dying of old age waiting for the law (now THAT'S a Kafka-esque ending), or, my favorite of the unhappy endings, sitting on a chair in the doctor's office and suddenly turning into a cockroach (the obligatory reference to "The Metamorphosis," the most famous of Kafka's works).

Superb graphics, by the way. The backgrounds are almost photographic, though a bit choppy when moving, and the characters are surprisingly well-animated (without being too over-the-top). I was very surprised to learn from the gallery that the backgrounds were entirely rendered on computer from scratch, I was almost sure that at least a few of them were photographs.

Overall, I like the game a lot, although it's probably not to everyone's tastes. I like it partially because it was just so funny to see a video game based on the works of Kafka (really, how ridiculous an idea is it?), and because they managed to somehow stay true, to some degree, to Kafka's themes of surreal futility.
Obviously you need the walkthrough on jayisgames.com to get anywhere, but even if you only want a few hints without having the entire path laid out for you, the forum does that too, since jayisgames.com has a special feature on its forums that puts each spoiler in a separate tab, so you have to click on special tabs to read each post fully. You can scroll down the entire thread and not get any spoilers you don't specifically want to.
Anyway, this game won't be to everyone's tastes (especially since there isn't a perfect ending, although there is a pretty happy one), but I highly recommend it if you want to waste some time with a surreal experience.

DETAILS

Development: Smoking Gun Productions

Shane McNeil, writer/producer
Kristian Moliere, producer
Nahum Zierch, designer/animator
Trevor Boyle, programmer/developer


OVERALL:
The Game Itself: 4.75/5
Smoking Gun's presentation of the game at Gameon: 4.5/5
Jayisgames.com walkthrough: 5/5