I entered this game having played its two prequels, eager for another abstract RPG. Gingiva, the second in the trilogy, unexpectedly became one of my favorite RPGs of all time. I expected this game to be comparable hidden gem, only to slog through a broken, incomprehensible fever dream.

One of this game's omnipotent flaws is the controls. WTCTR boasts the most unconventional, uncomfortable and convoluted set of controls I've ever experienced. Even after remapping everything to a controller, I still fumbled through my playing experience.
"Point-&-Click Adventure" elements are shoved in through additional mouse controls, adding further complication. While the game expects you to discover secrets through clicking on suspicious areas, the interaction hitboxes on those areas are miniscule and disjointed from the object. This leads to the entire concept devolving into blindly clicking on every notable piece of scenery trying to stumble into a secret.
The menus themselves can be difficult to navigate due to the lack of proper labels outside of the game's manual. You'll find yourself navigating through a labyrinth of submenus within submenus, most of which serving seemingly little to no purpose.

WTCTR attempts to make itself stand out from its turn-based contemporaries by attempting to be a real-time open world action game. This is quite possibly the decision that singlehandedly ruins the game for me. Combat never evolves from button mashing, whether it be with your normal attack, your skills or your items.
Most weapons are hardly distinguishable from the others. A good majority of the special attacks seem to be broken and unusable. A good majority of the game's items are completely useless. Skills are acquired at what feels like random, with only a handful being useful.
The game attempts to introduce an elemental weakness system, summarized by enemies being weak to attacks of the color they appear as. However, nowhere in the game can you learn which elemental damage types your various attacks deal, making the entire system essentially irrelevant.
Enemies are HP sponges with multiple seconds of invincibility frames after each hit. They deal damage mostly through contact damage, occasionally using indiscernible skills at random. NPCs are capable of defeating you without warning, whether it be through bypassing your invincibility frames, inflicting lethal status effects, or just by you interacting with them in the wrong way.
The constant risk of death during any interaction is cemented by each Game Over sending you back to the title screen, forcing you to reload a previous save file. This results in having to save the game after every encounter to minimize the potential of lost progress. The game attempts an Afterlife area similar to Hylics. yet doesn't allow the player to retain their progress. This is despite the entire narrative revolving around the protagonist being denied entry to said afterlife due to unfulfilled potential.

The plot itself is hardly comprehensible and is never developed. Every cutscene is nothing but a numbing monologue trying to hammer in the feeling of pessimism and nihilism. Every NPC serves no purpose but to regurgitate a philisophical word salad that further enforces these nihilistic ideals. Nothing feels like it has any significance to the world around it.
As a successor to Middens and Gingiva, WTCTR feels completely disconnected. The few locations that are connected to the previous games are optional and do nothing to expand on those predecessors. There are no returning characters aside from one hamfisted in at the very end. The few callbacks to this game's prequels are few, far between and minute.

Even if you want an unconventional game with abstract visuals, do NOT buy WTCTR. There are many alternatives that are more fun, well written and completely free. Middens is a simplistic RPG with unique environments to explore and Gingiva is an interpretive narrative filled with memorable characters and dialogue.
I bought this game out of love for the previous two titles, only to be let down by this disaster of a game. I couldn't even finish it due to a crash occurring every time a specific endgame NPC appeared on-screen. That alone should tell you not to spend money on this game.

WTCTR is quite possibly the worst game I've ever played. Every minute of the 10 hours I spent playing it felt like a chore I was wading through just for the sake of it. I wasn't playing because it was fun or even out of curiosity. I endured this mess just to be able to lay it to rest. There's nothing here worth your time. Your playing experience won't improve at any point. Do not play this game.

TL:DR WTCtR features spelling/grammar errors, underdeveloped gameplay, and basic scripting errors that will genuinely break your game. It's not only a pile of half-realized ideas built over an rpgmaker engine, but even with a team on this project (contrasted to Clowder working alone on his previous games), there are basic errors where I can accidentally sequence break the entire game due to coincidentally going back to a previous point.

If you like atmospheric games with a flair for stressed angles, shuddering walls, and surrealist mish-mashes of old pop-art collages, you may like this game, but you'd likely prefer Middens instead. It's free, more functional, and less railroaded. When I say functional, I don't just mean the 'gameplay', which usually takes a backseat in walking sims or 'art games', but not Where They Cremate the Roadkill.
This game is tightly bound to vague schizo-conspiratorial-core plot: of cycles of characters being groomed into serving demons, or lesser gods, or aliens. These cycles occur in the past, present, and future; where creativity and mental connection is a Neo-platonic projection given off by psychic, self-shaping beings.
This can sound cool, but it goes by quick and without explanation or development. It flies by in a David Cage-ish (specifically Omikron) sense, where it doesn't mean much beyond some cool imagery and call-outs to the Illuminati worms living inside every pill.
This could all be fine if a player had some breathing room. One could non-narratively or disjunctively explore a series of themes, but this implies there's a world to explore through these themes. There isn't. You are told there's a world and real cemeteries that fill with everyone you kill, but don't mistake this for an open-world game, or a game with decent pacing (between combat, exploration, and reprieve in towns). It isn't. The combat is smashing two keys and cycling between obtusely named items while getting hit until you pull out a middle finger and win. The plot and world are grandiose-seeming, but hollow. You are given aesthetic devices (a tamagotchi and smartphone used to explain objectives and act as a manual) with awful UI that sequence breaks your game. You're given 'cool' explanations of an elemental system that namedrops astrology and eastern esoterica, with enemy colors aligning with Saturn's rectal-spot. It's all gish-gallop.

(This section is written with one of Clowder's other games - Middens - in context)
It seems the further Clowder games stray from the origin of Middens, the more nonsensical and less functional his games become in terms of gameplay, writing, and atmosphere. Middens was a maze taking place at a junction between broken worlds. It had a habit of inconsistent pathways that eased off the moment I lost patience. It was clever and euphoric. The take-turn combat allowed one enough time to push through its name-swapped elemental system (the combat tic-tac-toe all rpgs follow). You were a man with a talking gun. You could kill others or not, and aside from a few confrontations on your actions, the story was unobtrusive.
WTCtR is the opposite.

awesome, just a shame that the dev's a chomo

DO NOT PLAY OR PURCHASE: CREATOR GROOMED A MINOR!!!!

I was a fan of John Clowder's games for a long time, starting with Middens. In fact I made a tumblr post about that game that had the man message me to promote this game. I also supported the Kickstarter for this game.

Literally the day I downloaded it, I discovered that the man who's games I've come to admire artistically was grooming a minor and soliciting nudes from her. After this was made public, John all but disappeared from the internet. There was no witch hunt. He wasn't dragged through the mud. He dropped off the face of the earth as soon as his victim came forward. Take that as you will, but I'm in the habit of believing victims. I'm left disgusted that I ever supported this man, and that his game is forever stuck on my games list.

Also, on a far lesser note, he apparently stole music and sound effects for this game, which is also super skeevy.

I'm sorry I ever supported this man, and this negative review is the least I can do.

I've only struggled through around four hours so far- I purchased it after being a big fan of the first two games, especially the most recent installment, Gingiva.
It's a game in the same surreal, acid trip style as Middens and Gingiva.
Maybe it's my old PC, but it runs surprisingly poorly for a game on this engine, partially because every action comes with large screen covering effects.
I feel like he tried to do something new with the combat system and replace the turn-based combat that the first two games used. This is fine, except that the engine runs very well with turn-based combat and does not facilitate a beat-em-up style approach. It doesn't work very well in RPG Maker.
I don't mind the moon logic of how to progress-that's part of the charm, even if I have to view a walkthrough once or twice to find NPCs who have wandered behind some set dressing.
I'll struggle through a bit more, but it feels like a better funded step down. Maybe I'm not an esoteric enough thinker, but it feels like the word salad which is so iconic of Takamo is less focused, so it feels like he's just filling out text boxes to make the world feel less empty. It feels like I'm reading my middle school essays, trying to satiate a word count when I've got nothing else to say. I'm not even having a good time.

I'd suggest you save your money. Stop at Gingiva, and you'll end on a high note.

WARNING: The creator of this game has notoriously been known to respond to criticism disrespectfully and allegedly solicited a minor for nudes.

The main reason for the negative review is because this game contains stolen music and sound effects, one of the most noticeable being a jingle from Capcom's "Okami."

I love art games and I love creepy walking simulators. While the art and music is impressive, and the only thing bringing me back to this game every once in a while, this is more of a surreal RPG than anything with wordless "visual" menus that take some getting used to.
There's a lot of reason to like this game as mentioned above, but it's just a little too chaotic with "deep" dialogue that every single NPC repetitively says and it all begins to feel a bit pretentious and numbing after a while.

I have pretty mixed feelings about this game, and to be honest I don't know if I'd recommend it or not. I think it depends entirely on your taste.

I liked the art, and the way the styles were distinctly different for each of the player characters was a nice detail. I think the characters and story were interesting, and I felt invested in them. The world & game are very surreal and unique, which I love.
However, I really struggled with liking the game itself. The battle system really frustrated me, and battling is a central part of the game. Also many times the game felt so aimless that I thought I wouldn't ever be able to figure out where to go next just to finish it. I think it took me 24 hours to play through it once, with a lot of doubling around and wandering. I also ran into several errors that caused me to restart the game (so if you play this, make sure to save often :-P)
If you're here from the games Middens and Gingiva like me, this game is pretty different (especially the battling, which isn't in an RPG-style at all and is basically a giant free-for-all). It maintains the surreality and is exploration based like them though.

turns out clowder is a big old creep

Imagine if Ralph Bakshi just know how to create a video game and just made one of the most insane looking world he ever come up with, you got Where they cremate the roadkill. A game that base on what I research for this review is this is the third game created by a developer who had successfully launch at kick starter and previous of his games included Middens and Gingiva. Which I heard those two were made in RPG Maker and has a small fan base over those two games. I only briefly looked at the gameplay and is…different to say the least.


This game took me a long time to finish mainly of how bizarre everything is, I can’t exactly explain the story because the plot is the most confusing one there is. I can only say that this game tries to tell us in an abstract setting of this “world” where an unhappy guy named Coolio decide he had enough of his life and decide to kill himself, only to be resurrected by I can assume the devil to do some unfinished business? The story is so hard to follow, I had to look up the wiki to make some sense of it, I get what he is trying to show, and in fact the art style is very eye-appealing because each scene you go has a different stuff that you just keep asking why. Like a mad man artist trying to portray some symbolic meaning into his art work which is exactly what this developer wants to share with us is through its cryptic message and its background art. However, the biggest problem of this game is that this is an RPG and it really acts like it you and it just fails me honestly.

What I mean is that since it wants to play as an RPG you have to go to certain paths to progress through the story, and how you fight through enemies. The problem is that the story itself is so confusing not to mention what is the motivation of its character and the world around him I can’t tell anything what is going on. I can only scrap up the ideas of what is showing us like is telling us about some war is happening, how Coolio’s world was formed, politics and I think it tackled depression. Yet, despite of grasping the ideas around when I pull out my phone which had contacts I thought those were like his friends or something until I realize after I watched a play through is that those are your targets to kill them for making Coolio’s life miserable, but how am I supposed to know that!

Throughout the game it does not hold your hand, half of the time I have to use a walkthrough because the game does not tell you absolutely nothing, despite having your kat phone as a companion through the game by teaching you how to fight, the rest if you want to know how to progress through the story you might as well be talking to a wall because your kat phone won’t help you at all. Oh, and the NPC, you can forget about them getting answers because most of them are just cryptic message after cryptic message they will tell you, as if you are listening to a different language in another world and the only companion that somewhat you understand is your kat phone! Trust me you will get lost a lot in this game and you might as well just wonder around killing almost everything in sight because first the NPC are not important, not even your targets. Secondly, some enemies attack you, some don’t, can’t tell unless they attack you so might as well massacre everyone in sight.

You are supposed to have a bond with Coolio, including how he had a spiritual passage with two other characters that you only played them once and they never returned. I think I should relate him as the average Joe whose life is a dead end and the world is just cruel, but I just don’t feel for him enough, except the part of talking to his wife. There is an antagonist but honestly he is very forgettable, the only antagonist is the world itself because almost everyone wants to kill you which I guess makes sense since I am killing them around towns. Usually in RPG the world tries to have a language that the player can follow even in books like Alice in Wonderland, you can understand the insanity the world is and how the characters talk, but here is like every single scene and dialogue is just word salad that the game wants to act philosophical but it doesn’t know at all of what its main message was. If this just a game removes the RPG element and stick with telling you a story based on visuals alone than I would not critique so harsh on it, but I have to because the gameplay is what I have the most problem in.


Firstly, the controls on the keyboard is one of the worse placement for an RPG, because you attack with alt, Z for defense, S for using your items and D for using magic skills and don’t get me started to how to switch gears with W and E. You navigate your eye with the mouse to interact certain objects which all of this just tells me you can’t navigate smoothly with all these key placements. Especially pressing the wrong key so many times even on my windows button. How the hell the key setting isn’t like any other games is beyond me. Fighting is frustrating because sometimes some enemies are very weak but some are so strong that can kill you easily and have overly huge amount of HP which takes forever to kill them. The items are some of the most confusing once to use because half of them the pictures are hard to memorize of what they do, you need to pull out your menu and check what it does. The other half is full of useless stuff that I bought some very expensive loot but it does not do anything. Your stats are so confusing to follow unless you look up the manual in your steam library right where your game is, then it makes more sense. I wish the game has steam overlay, or have an option button to change the control schemes or some set up but I guess not.

I encounter some glitches or errors where some background you clip behind the scenes like you are floating and enemies attack you when dialogue is showing. The game cannot make up its mind for weapons and stats to be super weak or being OP because there is an actual item called break the game and I’m suddenly in god mode. Even there are some exploits I can have infinite amount of coins and bombs which I don’t know if it was on purpose or not.


This game was frustrate to complete, but is one odd ball of a game that I played. Is probably not for me for these types of games, but I still have a good learning experience in the game. Through the art style, the music which I honestly have to say is my most favorite which I want to have the soundtrack of it. The bosses (yes there are bosses) are fun to beat around though it depends if you bump into them. I give it a 4.5/10 it has great potentials but it has problems that it made me frustrated to play and to invest on the main protagonist and its motivations. I hope the developer can improve and maybe make another one of these since this one does show its skills. Other than that if you like this sort of game give it a try, I don't know if it can drop the price on a Christmas sale but I hope so. To me is just one game that I think no person will believe me that I played Where they cremate the road kill

Title: Where They Cremate The Roadkill
Genre: Ação, Indie, RPG
Developer: The Gunseed Collab
Publishing company: The Gunseed Collab
Release date of: 29 Set, 2017

Well, first of all I have to tell you that this game was offered to me and I thank the developer, for giving me the game Where They Cremate The Roadkill. Where They Cremate The Roadkill is supposed to be an Action RPG with exploration elements. well, I have some things to say about this game but they are not perhaps the best. Firstly the least I liked was the game has no menu or mode of options, we can not change the resolution of the game, the sound, change keys nothing, the game seems to have been developed by a Spanish or French because the images of the game lead we were able to travel through paintings by Salvador Dalí or Pablo Picasso, that is, I could not perceive anything of the history, I tried to investigate a little about the producer The Gunseed Collab and I did not find anything about it. Sinister, but normal ambient music for this type of game. My game can not get printscreens because an error appears and the game exits the system. can be played on keyboard or command. It does not have achievements nor collectible cards, I think that for the type of game, this should not be so expensive because for 8.99 euros we can buy games more attractive. Again this is what I found of this game, but I recognize the effort made by the developer and maybe they can improve some things.