Klinika smrti Gamebook Review

Klinika smrti, an interactive book for players 18+, brings you a fun zombie apocalypse experience. Choosing rotting enemies with a craving for flesh and brains is a breath of fresh air for the otherwise traditional fantasy gamebook genre.

Gamebook kicks off its plot with a blow to the head. The protagonist you step into the shoes of wakes up barefoot, with a bleeding head wound and a nasty case of amnesia.

You are completely alone. The group of survivors you were with is nowhere to be found. Only signs of a struggle and a few scattered clues hint at the horrors that took place. Your good friend and former police officer, Paula, has been kidnapped to a place the locals call the Clinic of Death. You have to save her.

Mario Steinmetz is the author of many horror books, so he has years of experience with the genre. In Klinika smrti, he dives into the world of gamebooks for the first time. It must be said, he does a good job. The plot is pleasantly dynamic, and he knows how to build tension and disgust. Steinmetz intentionally and quite blatantly splits the action into several references to create suspense. He often resorts to descriptions you would rather skip, and the words "mold" and "filth" appear in the book more often than the zombies themselves.

The combat system is a bit too mathematical for my taste, but on the other hand, it is quick to learn.

During your journey, you can find all sorts of items – from a simple piece of chewing gum to an axe. You also acquire various types of clothing. During my playthrough, I collected many items and geared my hero up from head to toe. What struck me, however, was that most of the items were completely useless.

It might have been the game, or perhaps the fact that I only played through the story once. That said, I always tried to explore every branching path in each location. It was precisely this branching that often proved quite irrelevant (though not always!). It just filled my backpack and gym bag with items I never used.

I see a major gameplay flaw in the navigation around the city where the gamebook takes place. You move through the streets. Even though you have a map, it has no street names. Yet, the author pompously specifies the name of every street, where it leads, and which ones it intersects. What for? I don't know. Maybe the streets reflect a real city, providing a better experience for locals?

To me, it felt rather negative.

Despite this annoyance, I managed to reach the Clinic. Along the way, I chatted with a stranger, looted a church, and gained an animal companion. The book never told me what happened to my stray shepherd dog due to subsequent events.

The gamebook is divided into three chapters. This makes navigating the physical book very pleasant. You don't have to jump too far between references, like from 2 to 899. Each chapter has a limited number of references and defines a new game area (shelter – city – clinic). It likely also acts as a "save game" feature. You don't have to return to the very beginning of the story if you die.

If you make it to the Clinic, prepare for a place full of perversions, monstrosities, oddities, and, of course, mold and filth. In Steinmetz's eyes, a society struck by the apocalypse turns (instead of to primary needs) to sex, fetishism, and sadism. It is an interesting idea (though, in my humble opinion, misguided), and I wonder if this is another case where the ends justify the means. The need to provoke disgust and controversy through mentions of oral orgies with the undead.

It is a strange quirk some authors have. A brief digression – as a teenager, I read several books that posed as archaeological novels, enticing readers on the covers with stories about uncovering treasures of ancient Egypt or Asia. But every third chapter contained some sexual escapades that had nothing to do with the plot. And as a reader, you start to ask, "what was the poet trying to say?"

Why doesn't the author just write porn instead of hiding behind an adventure archaeological story?

One could debate this topic for a long time. In the final paragraph, I will touch upon the revelation of the origin of the entire apocalypse. I won't tell you why it happened, but this twist on everything you thought you knew will definitely seem very cool and unconventional to some! I, on the other hand, was disappointed because it shifted the entire plot from one genre to the edge of another, much more traditional one. But judge for yourself.

Klinika smrti is a dynamic horror story with codes, puzzles, and tension. You won't avoid zombie fights, gruesome torture, or feelings of despair. Although it doesn't offer a particularly rich story, uncovering the individual plot details of the game is definitely satisfying. The gamebook is suitable for beginner players. However, I recommend taking into account the violence and perversions of all kinds you will encounter. Klinika smrti is not for the faint of heart.

author Eva Lassler