I just finished Karoshi 2.0 by Jesse Venbrux. It’s the sequel to the game Karoshi, which I discussed in Episode 009. It’s interesting what choices Venbrux took with this sequel; the original had gameplay centered around pushing boxes and touching switches, with rules that were generally understood by the player ahead of time. The sequel, however, is much more metatextual.

Karoshi 2.0 still has the basic goal of trying to die in each level, but the methods are less puzzley and more gimmicky. Many, many of the levels rely on the player pressing R to restart a level, but having the level not actually completely restart. If this were done once, it would be a betrayal of the player’s trust in the developer, but doing it again and again makes it sting a little less. If I was stumped on a level, I’d just press R, and more often than not, it was the right step toward a solution. I’d restart in a different place, or with my score not reset, or some other gimmick. The player doesn’t know what pressing R will do in any circumstance, so that takes away some of her choice. Instead of deciding to do something specific, the player just crosses her fingers and presses R, and the developer gets to show off how clever he is. That sounds bitter, but it’s not; it’s fun, even if it takes away some interactivity.

Venbrux also tosses in the mouse for some levels, and the player is expected to figure out that, because there is a cursor on screen, the mouse is relevant. This is often quite cleverly done, but since the mouse is only an option for certain levels, it’s easily missed. And one level expects the player to take advantage of what appears to be a bug in the mouse handling for the game, another instance where the trust between player and developer is broken.

The game does a lot of that. One more case in point: one level tells the player that the Q key will quit the game. “Ah,” I said, “the game is tricking me. That must be how I beat this level.” So I pressed it, and the game quit. Frown. The next level tells the player that another key will erase all saved games. I had to look up a walkthrough to satisfy my doubts enough to press that key (which actually is the solution to that level).

So the game is fun. Very meta, with references to Venbrux’s other games and other games from the Game Maker community, gimmicky trips to the main menu, and an interminable ending sequence. I do think the game is weaker, though, for all the times it betrays the player. With Karoshi, I knew it was a cruel game, but I trusted the game not to break its own rules. Karoshi 2.0, however, lost my trust, and that is a very risky thing to do. When a player feels betrayed, she may just quit and not come back. Which would be a shame, because I enjoyed the game quite a bit.