Last Mile Demo

Knowing when you are going to die is not exactly a blessing, at least not most of the time. There are many theories about the state of the world if everyone knew exactly when their death was due, but it’s pretty tough to figure out. Hence, we can only resume to stories and the power of fiction, although even that can be better than real life sometimes.

Last Mile is a visual novel in which you play the role of a character who’s diagnosticated with a terminal illness, which means that he is about to die in a matter of weeks or months. Hence, the whole game revolves around the decisions you have to make when you know that your life is coming to an end, but it’s also worth mentioning that there’s a lot of humor involved as well.

The story begins at the doctor’s office, after the main character receives the grim news. Contrarily to what the doctor believes, you actually take everything in stride and even make a few jokes about it. In short, it’s not the usual reaction people have when they are told that some kind of terrible disease is going to kill them in the near future.

Since this is an interactive visual novel, you are allowed to make certain choices every now and again, choices that affect the outcome of the story. Granted, the demo at hand does not have too much content yet, so you might not feel like you are making a difference at all. However, there are multiple junctions that may allow you to pick one route or the other over the course of the plot.

The artwork is not bad either, but it would seem like there are few backgrounds to admire along the way. In fact, the background is blank on multiple occasions, which is not something you want to see in a visual novel that features nothing but text and images. The music is nothing to write home about either, but it’s not annoying or too horrible.

In the end, Last Mile is both sad and funny at the same time, depending on how you choose to look at it. On the other hand, it might help those who find themselves in similar positions, even if some of the scenes are quite sad and depressing.