First off, I just wanted to point out that - at the current time of writing this review - I am nearing the 100-review mark.

Out of all my reviews, I have NEVER been as disappointed by a game's sheer wasted potential since Game of Thrones (RTS) until I stumbled upon Postmortem: One Must Die.

Furthermore, this game is currently $6.99 on Steam, and I implore you all to NEVER even consider buying this UNLESS it is offered for free or in a bundle - I received this in a Bundlestars bundle and wanted to give it a try despite the endless amount of negative reviews. I try my hardest not to mention a game's price if I feel it is unnecessary, but DO NOT waste your money on this.

I've clocked almost an hour playing this at the time of this review, and I've played through the game a total of 4 times - my first playthrough took about 10-20 minutes because I explored and read everything possible.

The aesthetics are not bad, the character sprites and art models are decent; however, there are only a handful of characters in the game. The game takes place in a mansion fundraising party, and the background is decent. The music and ambient noises give a classy, upperclassmen vibe, and this is probably one of the better parts (the soundtrack is actually very good and probably the best part of the game).

The controls are very simple, and the tutorial is super quick. There is always feedback on what you can do and when you can do it. There is no learning curve at all - you can literally finish the game in less than 5 minutes if you wish because all you have to do is press Tab, walk up to someone, and then press E to kill them. The game ends within a few minutes after selecting your target (you have a brief dialogue and overview of the epilogue).

I am so utterly disappointed by this game. You are an agent of death, tasked with ending the life of one partygoer at tonight's fundraiser. Upon entering the game, you can choose to look into the political conflict and instability plaguing the city/area. When conversing with each guest, you are given a variety of dialogue options, and at the end of each conversation you will be able to "nudge" people into a certain direction with your arguments.

BEGIN SPOILERS This REALLY interested me at first (I momentarily forgot about all of the negative reviews) - I sincerely thought I had convinced both the Oldagers (lower/middle/working-classmen) and Newagers (industrialists, upperclassmen) to settle for a compromise and decided to kill a foreigner who was interested in brutal animal testing in the name of science and potentially moving on to using cadavers (dead human bodies), whether they were obtained legally or not. After choosing her to die, you are taken to another scene (remniscent of a "gray-area" Purgatory), where you have a brief discussion with the victim and reflect on your choices. After this, you are given an overview of your choices, and this part REALLY annoyed me, as you can so very easily determine what the obvious opposite choices/outcomes will be.

My first playthrough outcomes: Political turmoil lasted for 3 more years before settling. During this time, violence escalated because I had lightly sided with a young idealist who believed that sometimes violence was the only way to get your voice an audience. Animal disappearances ceased (since I killed the crazy scientist), and the bill for giving the public a stronger voice (especially the lower/middleclass) was successfully passed. Yay.

That's it. You LITERALLY kill ONE SINGLE person, and the game is over. I was hoping for at least a few more levels, so you could truly steer the course of the nation, however, this was not the case.

I tried a few more playthroughs, and really found that the differences in the outcome were so bland and predictable. Ex: In my next playthrough - Bill for equality was NOT passed, animal disappearances escalated, violence/riots stopped. Wow, that seems like the complete opposite of my first playthrough. There aren't many alternatives.

END SPOILERS

Overall, this is a very shallow, extremely short, and absolute waste of potential, and I am so disappointed to have experienced this. My only positive thought is the hope that this review will help save at least ONE person from wasting even 5 minutes on this game.

DO NOT RECOMMEND.

Cheers,
DJSF @DJSF's Rogue Reviews

If this is the extended cut, I have a hard time visualizing what the length of the initial release was. For all of the promise the premise of investigating several characters and picking one to die carried, the execution including perhaps 6 rooms and less than 10 characters left me feeling as if there was much more possibility to be played with and explored than is offered here.

It held my attention while I played it, and I was very interested to see how my decisions might influence the outcome of the game, but ultimately I don't feel as if I got enough play time out of the title for it to have been worth the dollar value I paid for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6jT_BYXPZI

The indie scene is more prominent than ever boasting a diverse selection of games that often serve as bite sized reprieves from major triple A releases. While the indie scene isn't immune from uninspired copy and paste designs, there have been a string of recent releases that depart from traditional game design in a major way, challenging what we think of as games. One of the more overlooked releases that fits into this growing segment of games is Postmortem: One Must Die which tries to test players by forcing them to make a single decision that promises to have far reaching consequences. While major releases have tried to accomplish this same goal on a large scale, most have come up short. Does Postmortem's smaller and more focused scope deliver more satisfying results?

Playing as an agent of death, it's your duty to take the life of one person from a fund raising gala in a fictitious turn of the century setting on the cusp of an industrial revolution. The nation is split with conservatives that believe in upholding tradition at the expense of progress for women and greater economic development. Meanwhile progressives are riding a wave of industrial prosperity at the expense of their workers. Both sides have admirable qualities and some absolutely abhorrent qualities which quickly muddies the line between noble and contemptible. Unbound creations has expertly balanced the qualities of each side of the conflict to tear gamers and make who they choose to snuff out a real struggle. Your potential targets rage from an influential member of the media to a young, idealistic student. Each person leans strongly in one direction and by thoroughly exploring the dialog tree you might find that your conversations with these characters may have quite an impact on them in the future...

Gameplay in Postmortem simply involves wandering around in an isometric world slathered in Victorian decor, scavenging details from news articles strewn about and talking to the patrons of the gala. Each character has a lengthy dialog tree that will allow you to acquaint yourself with them as well as current events. A wide variety of responses and questions are available and not asking questions can also have an impact on how the events play out. Dialog is generally well written but it can be a bit too purpose driven. Postmortem never creates the illusion that you are just another patron making small conversation, your pointed questions make each interaction feel like an interrogation rather than a conversation. The blatant agenda to your questions never allows the characters to show you who they are, they merely share what they perceive themselves to be.

Your interactions with the gala patrons ultimately culminate in your character deciding who should meet their end. Once your decision has been made, a series of newspaper articles show the results of your involvement at the Gala. It's not the most invigorating way to see the consequences of your actions unfold but there may be a few surprises for some players to uncover based on your actions. Also, a link to detailed player stats is viewable upon completing a play through to show how your behavior compares to other Post Mortem players. A thorough playthrough exploring all of the dialog options will take in the neighborhood of an hour and subsequent playthroughs will take less time. It doesn't take long to figure out what dialog has what impact so many players may not want to take the time to explore every possibility. The beauty of Postmortem however is that you are not required to buy it to enjoy the core experience. By purchasing the game, players are given an extra character to chat with as well as wallpapers, concept art and some behind the scenes development materials.

Like its triple A predecessors, Postmortem falls short of delivering a wholly satisfying choice based narrative. That is not to say that it isn't a worthwhile experience however, it's morally ambiguous world and intelligent and fresh setting remain engaging and some of the conclusions are engaging and surprising. It's brevity makes it easy to pick up sporadically and enjoy. I for one hope that Postmortem is simply an amuse-bouche, tantalizing our pallets for something a bit larger and scope and more accomplished in execution from Unbound Creations.

★ — 5/10 - Not entirely bad but little replayability despite the possibility of different outcomes.

When I first stumbled upon this game, I thought the idea behind it sounded quite interesting. Unfortunately, that's what happens with a lot of games, they sound interesting in theory but are far from as interesting when you actually get to play them.

In general, I wouldn't say that Postmortem: One Must Die is entirely bad but once you've played through the game and have taken the time to read everything available, it's not only quite short but that's pretty much it. Sure, they may be the possibility for different outcomes depending on your choices in the dialogues but they only vary slightly so there really isn't much that would motivate one to replay it.

What would've made this game better, in my opinion, is if there would've been more levels with different settings and scenarios as well as characters to play through.

I'm a little torn here because I do like the general idea of the game but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. Since there isn't a neutral option, I'll have to give this a thumbs down.

This is a nifty adventure game for those that like to read. Unfortunately it can be very short or as long as you want it to be, this is because there is essentially one "map" and literally you only get to kill one person.

The concept behind it all is that you talk to everyone and pick the choices you want. Those choices will then affect the ending you gain. Essentially you then play through again and again, each time picking different choices and the person you "claim"

Overall, there should be more to this game as I was hoping there would be something after the first level but literally the game can last 2 minutes (if you randomly pick someone and don't care about the choices or how they affect the story) or hours long if you decide to explore and go deeper trying to find every combination and choice

The country is at war, and the choice you make can change the fate of an entire Nation…. or, you know. Not.

In this extremely, extremely, super duper extra short game that is definitely NOT worth the full price you play an angel of Death, or Reaper if you will, sent into a fundraising Gala to reap the soul of one person. Who you reap is up to you: You must move around the only map this game has in existence, talk to people, discover secrets, and eventually choose one person to die.
That, or you can go in, pick the first one you talk to, and you’ll be done with the game in under 5 minutes.

While the story it’s trying to tell about the nation is great (the socio-political talk and opinions placed into the characters speech and the history of the place is quite deep), and while the idea that who you choose to take in the end might affect the fate of the Nation is pretty darn awesome, the game falls on its face once you’ve played through it once.

There’s no new maps, only the fundraising gala, to replay over, and over, and over. And there’s not even a reason to do that. The choice of who you kill in the end is not as important as they make it sound (it does affect the end, but it doesn't -feel- as important); and not even the reactions of those you kill in the very end are different: they always react the exact same way and say the exact same thing.

And this was the extended cut...

In all, the game had a great idea, but fell short on the execution. I would only advise getting it if it’s under a dollar (or even less), free, or perhaps bundled. Otherwise, it’s really not worth the money as you’ll only be playing it once and it’ll take less than an hour to get through it fully. Just watch a Let’s Play of it.

Well...

Like the reviews say, it is a short one.
Definitely not worth the full price, but on a 75% sale for 1,25 euros, I don't really regret getting it.

Basically you are one of the many reapers, sent to an event to collect a soul.
You're introduced to the case by a secretary, who you can't flirt more than say: "Tell me about you"
She then asks whether you'd like to be seen as a male or female by the mortals, but I'm not really sure if it makes any difference.

The guests are the same and the conversation may end up in the same way despite your dialogue choices.
It feels kind of clumsy when you play it again and pick different choices, only to see them answer the same way as they did during last time.

You CAN just go up to someone and kill them there, but the purpose is to learn about the guests, and then make a choice on who you will collect.
The annoying thing is that if you want to see the results in the same situation, only with a different person dead, you have to do everything again in the same way.
Talk to same people, pick the same dialogue options, etc. etc.
Also, I've only played it 2 times, and both times, the person you kill seems to talk the same way, even if it is a different person...

I think that one thing that could've made this far better would have been options to better interact with people, and maybe add a few things that switch by random each time you play.

Ultimately, the controls feel a tad bit clumsy, and the game does seem a bit laggy time to time.
That may be just my own PC, though.

But, in the end, I can not recommend the game for the full price.
For 1,25euros though, sure, it gave me some amusement. This could work on a phone, be a reaper and kill a person each time you go take a ♥♥♥♥.
But when at computer, nah, I don't think I'll end up playing this that often.

Potentially a good game, but possibly one of the shortest I have ever played with little to no replay value what so ever.
It seems like a fantastic 'first level' but for an extended cut/release? I was left dissapointed. The universe drew me in but the game left me wanting more, It was like watching a film and just as the protaganist is introduced the credits roll. Save your money on this one in hopes for a more final release but keep your eye out.

This is hardly what I would call a game, it is more of a glorfided demo. You basically just read and make ONE decision. No interactivity. The concept has a lot of promise, but charging people for this "game" is almost criminal.

Game thrusts you unceremonially into a dinner party and tells you to kill one of the six guests you can speak to. You can read a few newspaper clippings strewn about and go into very superficial conversations with the guests, mainly concerened with a conservative/liberal conflict in their imaginary country. Conversations are often ended abruptly and guests would stop speaking to you afterwards, leaving you with very little to go on. Once you've made a choice, an epilogue is shown, presenting the results of your choice and any influences you may have had on the guests due to dialogue options.

Overall, it feels incomplete and the story and characters are uninteresting and the resolution is very anticlimactic. Seeing one resolution is enough as it gives you a fair idea of what would've happened if you had done things differently. Game is short, took me a bit over an hour and I did go into all dialogue options and actions available.

For a game that handles choices and their consequences better, check The Novelist.