A vibes-based review thread by KA Tan

[KATan]

I’m hoping that I’m not too late to the party, but this is my review thread for IF Comp 2024!

A bit of context about me as a reviewer: I’ve been a casual player of IF over the last few years but would still consider myself a newbie in many areas (especially parser-based…) and have made a tiny game or two here or there.

What you can expect from this thread: mostly unstructured impressionistic feelings and vibes I got while playing through each of the games. There are so many thoughtful and considered reviews already out on the forum that I doubt I will be able to add much else of similar substance, so this will be a more relaxed and casual series of reviews. grab a sparkling water and kick back on the patio at sunset kind of thing.

List of games

198BREW
Account of Your Visit to the Enchanted House & What You Found There, An
Apothecary’s Assistant, The
Awakened Deeply
Bad Beer
Bat, The
Big Fish
Birding in Pope Lick Park
Breakfast in the Dolomites
Bureau of Strange Happenings
Campfire
Civil Service
Curse, The
Death in Hyperspace, A
Deliquescence
Den, The
Deserter, The
Doctor Who and the Dalek Super-Brain
Dragon of Silverton Mine, The
Dream Of Silence: Act 3, A
Dust
Eikas
Few hours later in the day of The Egocentric, A
Final Call
First Contact
Focal Shift
Forbidden Lore
Forsaken Denizen
Garbage of the Future, The
Hebe
Hildy
House of Wolves
Imprimatura
Killings in Wasacona, The
KING OF XANADU
LATEX, LEATHER, LIPSTICK, LOVE, LUST
Lost Artist: Prologue, The
Master’s Lair, The
Maze Gallery, The
Metallic Red
Miss Duckworthy’s School for Magic-Infested Young People
Miss Gosling’s Last Case
Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value
Redjackets
Return to Claymorgue’s Castle
ROD MCSCHLONG GETS PUNCHED IN THE DONG
Saltcast Adventure, The
Shyler Project, The
Sidekick
String Theory
Traffic
Triskelion Affair, The
Turn Right
Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe
Uninteractive Fiction
Unreal People
Verses
Very Strong Gland, A
Warm Reception, A
Welcome to the Universe
When the Millennium Made Marvelous Moves
Where Nothing Is Ever Named
Why Pout?
Winter-Over
Yancy At The End Of The World!
You
You Can’t Save Her

[KATan]

Sidekick by Charles Moore Jr.

I’m a simple person. I see cowboys and a Western setting, and I put Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstasy of Gold (2004) on repeat. Also the WestWorld soundtrack.

This game felt like a dusty, sweaty, tired adventure, like riding your horse hard across a dusty plain while simultaneously trying to stop your toddler from eating sand and juggling 5 balls at the same time. Sincere kudos to the author for depicting the environment and interactable objects so succinctly. Also spent some time contemplating the difference between a sidekick and a lackey, which did eventually pay off in a delightful “aha” moment at the end!

As far as jaded cowboy stories go, this felt like a particularly true parable of our modern society of the jaded office worker just trying to get by. I felt like sitting on the edge of the train tracks and blowing away soulfully on my harmonica.

I was absolutely horrified by the ants sideplot. As a child I was so traumatised by that scene in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull where the bad guys are devoured alive by giant ants, so that was an unpleasant reminder of the treachery of nature. Post Black Bill, everything sort of goes down the route of classic James Bond, with showier and showier hijinks in a sort of Kingsmen vein. The thing that impressed me most about it was the length of the game – how long must this have taken to put together? How does one come up with something this in the first place?

Admittedly, after fiddling with the game for almost an hour and being killed by Black Bart twice in the pantry even on easy mode, I gave up and decided to go for the walkthrough, which didn’t really hinder my enjoyment of the game as a whole. One gameplay/quality of life aspect I really liked was having all the possible commands already available on the page, and while I think the tactility of typing in possible actions in a typical parser is great, I’m also the kind of person who has to type in “help” every single time to be reminded of the commands. Puzzle-wise, I was suitably impressed with the creativity of it all, and even the hints were really thoughtfully structured.