Trapped with Jester Review

Art the Clown made people absolutely freak out when Terrifier hit the silver screen earlier this year, and Anta and Neoclassic Games look to continue the trend with their visual novel Trapped with Jester. Should players send in the clowns, or is this game a joke?

Trapped With Jester Review

Players wake up on a cold hard wood floor in a strange predicament from the get-go – bleary-eyed and confused, players will come face-to-face with a clown that only calls himself Jester, the Demon of Betrayal. With more questions than answers, this mystery causes players to question why they are being called “a pure soul corrupted by betrayal” and why their memories are missing in action.

This visual novel has a couple of choices players can make – along with a few different endings – but players will quickly come to know how they were betrayed and how they are seeing out bloodthirsty revenge.

However, players need to be careful with their words – one wrong move and one’s life will quickly slip out of their grasp. One needs to carefully think out what they’re going to say too – death is just a few minutes away.

While we were able to figure out a way to dull the pain, we did not like the guessing games that came about with Trapped with Jester. It is most certainly a game of life and death – one wrong move can mean a game over in less than 10 minutes.

However, planning out the right thing to say can oftentimes be an exercise in futility. It is all too obvious that the bold and brash approach isn’t going to get one out alive, but the alternatives given don’t provide much guidance. We were able to kiss him, forge a contract, and find some sort of salvation, but it seems like the type of game that would greatly benefit from a walkthrough – or at the very least something just a little less cryptic.

If anything, Trapped with Jester seems more like a proof of concept more than anything else. We were able to try out multiple options in less than 20 minutes. We absolutely understand where the development team is coming from – this is a free title where the majority of the game is looking at a single jester as he is talking to you – but something a little more would have sealed the deal.

If there is any consolation, it is the fact that this title features full voice action. The Jester absolutely steals the show, but he has to – he’s the one that is doing all of the talking. He provides an absolutely sinister presence, and while the lip syncing does not quite help with the follow-through, we do appreciate the nefarious vibes that he ends up bringing to the table.

Trapped with Jester is a proof of concept and nothing more. The voice work is at the top of its class, but it serves as more of a portfolio than a real game.

This review of Once Again was done on the PC. The game was freely downloaded.