Cursed Shorts

The game uses AI to generate several of its video shorts. To the developers credit, they are honest about the use of AI. Normally that would be enough for me to scroll past this game. However, given that this game is a mutation of the popular anomaly hunting or anomaly spotting trend, part of me hoped that the twist would be that the cursed shorts would be the AI generated shorts. And that I would have to parse the cursed AI generated shorts from the interesting and original shorts. That to me would have been thematically gratifying and an interesting exercise in gameplay. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Instead, the developer of Cursed Shorts leans into AI generated content to support the game's story and mechanics.

That being said, I do want to affirm the innovation that can be found in this game. Among the anomaly trend, this game has a fresh concept and a tight execution (except the AI). I would enjoy to see a more fleshed out version of this gimmick in between levels of an RPG game, or as a sort of mini-game within the game (i.e arcade games in Cyberpunk 2077). The 'reels' mechanic is fun and relatable. I found myself curious about the content when it did not seem AI generated.

Additionally it was interesting how the screen was bifurcated between first-person and third-person perspectives. It infused the game with a contemporary feel. The fact that you could like the videos was also a nice detail, and I would have liked it if you could check for comments or share the videos with contacts. Maybe those interactions could help spot the anomalies.

As mentioned, instead of AI vs original, all the shorts had safe and cursed versions of them, but the criteria for whether one was safe or cursed was arbitrary and confusing. Sometimes I would get the same AI generated hamburger short but nothing seemed to change. Other times the main protagonist would start to fall asleep and at first, I thought that was a cue that the short was cursed but I later found out that it wasn't, much like the red hands that start appearing in the window....all in all it's a commendable effort, and I appreciate the $0.99 price tag, but I cannot recommend the game given how it uses AI generated content.

I like anomaly games, and the idea of spotting anomalies in short videos picked my interest enough to convince me to try Cursed Shorts and... it's ugly, everything in this game is bad and ugly:

- 90% of the game is generated by AI.
- lack of animation in cutscenes.
- apparently in some short videos there is an anomaly, but it's nowhere to see.
- there's a cheat to guarantee a win in every run: keep swiping to the left in every video, it's more likely you will incur in an anomaly. I tested this method 3 times in a row, and I've always won.

Cursed Shorts isn't worth the single dollar it costs, I wouldn't play it even for free. The developer probably didn't even work on this game at all, it's almost entirely AI slop.
Don't buy Cursed Short, please don't.

Even though you use Artificial Intelligence for short videos in this game, I still enjoy your horror game. I hope your next game does not use too many Artificial Intelligence features, except to make the antagonists smarter and more cunning