I chose to explore the game this is how you will die by James Nelson. I chose this game since this past week my grandfather is dying, my childhood dog has to be put down soon, my cousins dad killed himself, and my great aunt and and great uncle have stage 4 cancer. I morbidly clicked on this game figuring “eh what is a little more death this week?,” but it was actually pretty funny and enjoyable. The game acts a slot machine where you push the button and five little sentence boxes appear describing your death. The last one or two boxes describe events that happen after your death, such as what happens to your body or obituary. The options are all either humerus or dramatic deaths from movies and other literature. On the website, the slot machine is framed with an antique looking picture frame. When you push the button the text begins to roll with what appear to be ripped up pages from books. Circles and lines bounce around the page that mimic annotation. Little windows above and below the slots show you other lines from other deaths that you just missed. The game features sound effects and music similar to Inkubus.
(Here is a screenshot of the layout of the game. The red button in the bottom right is how you spin.)
There are only 15 possible options, so it does begin to repeat itself after a few tries. Occasionally boxes pop up with extra points and little cards appear that play videos. The videos are much darker in nature than the text. The most frequent video I spun discussed burning witches, and I frequently got another one about a car accident. The voices were a little fuzzy like they were off in the distance, which is why it reminded me of the game Inkubus. The game was created by using parts of the code for an online slot machine game.
I think my favorite death was “and sperm you donated in college accidentally impregnates a tornado victim.” This one was probably the least possible death seeing as I am female and live nowhere near tornado alley. My second favorite was “”you will die chasing an adorable family pet into the less touristy areas of the Grand Canyon.” This was the first death spin I received, and probably the most probable. I have my adorable dog tattooed on my ankle, so it is safe to say I probably would chase her into some pretty sketchy places.
I found this game to be helpful to my situation. I have witnessed some unsightly things in the hospital this weekend, so putting a funny spin on death was a little helpful. It was a hard to lose this game since you only needed 10 points to keep spinning. I spun dozens of times, but kept gaining points. The more bad things happen, the more points you gain. All in all, if you like fortune cookies or dark things you should give this game a try.
http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/nelson_thisishowyouwilldie.html