Marie's Room

There are some things I look at when selecting a game, especially in terms of things that might hint that it's not going to be a good time. For one, free games tend to get more praise. This is somewhat surprising, as the low barrier of entry should mean more people who aren't as likely to like it will try it, but perhaps the bias from rating something highly because they didn't have to pay for it outweighs it? The other relevant thing here is that story games tend to be rated higher. I also can't quite explain this, but perhaps the group of people that likes games without much or any gameplay don't like leaving negative reviews? Well, games like Marie's Room reinforce these preconceptions in me.

It's a short free game rated at 93%, but it used to be overwhelmingly positive. I beat it in 30 minutes. You explore a room and recall the general life details of yourself (a girl) and your friend (another girl) during your teenage years. I found both the storytelling method as well as the story to be utterly unremarkable. In the rare case you would want to try it, I won't spoil it, but I've heard more interesting stories from real people I know. I mean, sure, in the context of a real story of a friend, it would be a very interesting tale, but in the context of a probably fictuous tale of someone I don't know about, it's garbage. Is that really the best they could come up with? And why do people like it?

I don't get it. It's not revolting, but it's boring. There is not a single memorable or interesting moment in the whole game. Free or not, there's so many better stories out there to read, preferrably not in a walking simulator or even a "game" format at all.