Hey all, really excited to play this year’s entries! I’m going to try and get through as many as possible before the start of the new semester.
11 Likes
LATEX, LEATHER, LIPSTICK, LOVE, LUST
THE BODY & THE BLOOD
Headline is, I really liked this. The writing is polished and compelling, the experiences portrayed feel raw and challenging and humour cuts through at all the right moments (and cut is the word—it’s very sharp). It does a great job of portraying how it feels to be Very Online without falling into lazy tropes (the Yahoo Answers gregnant bit sent me absolutely west). The dual narrator is great and implemented with a light touch. Really powerful in the places where it needs to be, shades of Alison Rumfitt. And it’s hot! Really hot. Great ending, too. Really interested to know what factors feed into which ending and what the other one is.
It looks fantastic as well, very slick presentation, I liked the colour shift to indicate tone/space and the text was super readable. The Discord/Tumblr bits were fantastic. The Credits and Perversions sections were really difficult to make out, though, might just need a higher contrast text for those.
My main (and really, only) critique is that I would have loved a bit more interactivity. It’s quite a while before the first choice pops up and I was getting concerned that it was just going to be tapping to reveal text the whole way through. The choices when they occur are great and I just would have really liked to see more of them—as it is the experience feels more like reading a great short story, so when the choices appear it almost breaks the flow of the narrative rather than integrating into them.
7 Likes
Birding in Pope Lick Park
Eric Lathrop
I cannot explain how excited I was to see a birding game in this year’s lineup—I’m a keen birder and have actually been thinking a lot recently about what it would look like in IF, so I was really keen to discover how the author had implemented this.
Firstly, I LOVED that there are integrated links to birding tools. I’m often a fan of games where there’s some crossover into the real world, and I think this is a great way to encourage players not only to engage with the game, but to try out birding in real life. I appreciated the accessible approach to identification too—for example, telling the difference between a Downy Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker. I also cracked up at the ‘weird duck time’ comic (this is also true of birding in the UK).
The writing is simple but effective, with some lovely sensory details and descriptive moments. I would have happily lingered on some of the images for longer.
Visually, I found it a little busy—the uncollapsing text and photos often left me having to scroll to find my place, and the image loading times were a little slow and broke the immersion slightly. Great to have alt text/captions for all the images though.
Overall, I thought it did a really lovely job of simulating the experience of birding—the gentle, meandering pace, the surprise and delight of discovering and recording a new bird. Lovely touch to have the full list of everything you saw available at the end. Also, as a birder from outside the US, it was exciting to discover the sort of birds someone in a different part of the world might see in a typical day! Thank you for making this.
5 Likes
Big Fish
Binggang Zhuo
This game is a choice-based mystery where the protagonist investigates a crime that their late uncle was accused of committing in a town called Big Fish.
The prose does a pretty good job of creating a noir-like atmosphere, with a moody ambience and sense of impending dread. There was a little confusion with one of the names—are Fuller and Fleur the same person?
I felt a bit railroaded by the choices in a way that put me off slightly—for example, in Chapter Two, you’re given the option to visit various locations (Church, Tavern, etc.), but the text said to report to the Police Station first, so I did that. I exhausted the police station options, then went to the West Shore to follow up. Unexpectedly, this moved me onto Chapter Two so I was unable to go and visit the other locations in town at that point (even though I was able to return there later). It would have been good to perhaps either not been given such clear directives on where to go first, so the player is encouraged to explore at will, or else not move them on to the next chapter without warning.
I think the game could also have benefited from a bit of work on the visual styling—a few tweaks to the Harlowe default colour scheme and some more line breaks would have made a world of difference.
The plot was interesting—very up my street genre-wise, I love a small-town mystery with supernatural elements!—but I did find the story a little hard to follow sometimes. It might have been useful to have a journal/notebook function where clues we’d found were recorded, as it was challenging sometimes to mentally keep track of all the details. I did work out who the real murderer was, though, so that was satisfying.
4 Likes
Campfire
loreKin
Note: I found one possible bug—in the morning it said I had time for 2 activities, but when I went swimming that went up to 3. When I picked swimming again I couldn’t scroll any further and had to restart. Again, on my second playthrough, doing one activity put the number up from 2 to 3. Then from 3 to 4, 4 to 5, 5 to 6, etc. I could pack up at any time so this didn’t prevent me from finishing the game, but this feels unintentional so I thought it was worth flagging.
The prose is lovely. As with Birding in Pope Lick Park, it’s nice to play a game that lets you immerse yourself in a peaceful experience and linger on the details and sensations around you. Very calming.
I found the text quite hard to read—it’s grey with a light font weight against a white or black background, so I was squinting a bit—but the layout is nice. There was some repeating/stacked text in places (for example when adding things to cook).
I really enjoyed the details of shopping and packing for the trip (I always love minutiae like that, makes the experience feel more tangible), but it would have perhaps been good to have a clearer idea of what I was shopping for (even if that was just ‘I need to pick up some things for my camping trip’—I know this is implied from the title and blurb but I’d like to see it in the text too).
I appreciated that the items you picked up at the start of the game could be used once you were camping—it made the experience feel personalised and changed it up each time. I really want to make popcorn on an open fire now!
5 Likes
Turn Right
Dee Cooke
This was so good and clever and funny. When I first started I was like ‘right, okay, I get it, I just type ‘turn right’ every time, this is going to get old quickly’, but that really isn’t the case, for a few reasons.
Firstly, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. If this was a longer game the conceit might get tired, but it’s short and snappy enough that it works. The writing is also really funny and sharp—I don’t even drive but I know EXACTLY the purgatory-like experience of being at a junction like this—so it was an amusing experience rather that a frustrating one (I mean, it is frustrating, but it’s intended to simulate frustration so it worked—I was frustrated with the other drivers, not the game).
I also LOVED how organically I felt pushed to taking other desperate actions (scream, cry, reverse, etc.) and that they had responses assigned to them even when you’re unable to carry them out (I’d love to know what else you can attempt to do). Weirdly the tone sort of reminded me of the old Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game? Had that sort of tongue-in-cheek tone to it.
It’s a very neat, well-executed little thing. I really enjoyed it.
6 Likes
You Can’t Save Her
Sarah Mak
This was so, so excellent. Beautifully written, elegantly crafted. The narrative is clear without being expository, and the use of styling to indicate alternating sections (narrators/time) is really well-executed.
Choices run throughout the text, and feel meaningful whether they impact the ending or not (I’m not sure if they do—I’ll play again at some point and find out!). The use of timed and cycling text is effective, feeding seamlessly into the game’s themes of hopelessness and free will. It’s such a great example of integrating interactivity as an a crucial part of the experience, rather than supplementing it.
The soundtrack is also absolutely stunning, so atmospheric. I think there’s moments where it would have been more effective if it faded out rather than cutting off, but that’s a very minor nitpick.
Also—I spent the entire game going ‘this reminds me so much of Porpentine’s stuff’, so I was delighted to see the note at the end.
6 Likes
Your review is appreciated. Can you clarify/send any screenshots of the credits and content warnings being difficult to make out? It should use the same styling and fonts as the rest of the game and be as easy to read.
Cheers,
– THE BLOOD
2 Likes
The Garbage of the Future
AM Ruf
I feel like I should preface this review with the caveat that I am not very good at puzzles and don’t have a vast amount of experience with this format—some of my struggles can probably be put down to missing cues etc. that more experienced players might pick up on!
This game has a great set-up—a truck driver alone in a darkened landscape, something menacing lurking in the shadows. I’m a big horror fan so this was always going to appeal to me. The styling is nice, readable, and adds to the ambience of the game.
My first run was a bust—I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and just sort of wandered around in the dark until I was eaten. That’s on me. The second time I realised you could turn the flashlight on and that improved my experience considerably. I managed to get the hose to start pumping into the lake but was again, sadly, eaten.
I think the structure here is solid and the writing is good, but personally I would have liked to see a little more variety in the text to keep building that eerie feeling. The sense of threat was present but I found myself noticing it less in the second run because I was focused on keeping the flashlight on, pumping the waste, etc. I’m really interested to know what happens if you succeed in emptying the tank so I’ll have to have another run at it soon!
8 Likes
Thank you so much for your lovely review, Lauren!
3 Likes
The Shyler Project
Naomi Norbez (call me Bez, e/he)
For starters, it was cool to hear voice acting in a piece of IF! I think both actors did a really great job and it added an additional level of depth to the game. The story was interesting, and the writing is pretty polished. I liked the UI and the music too. Some of the choices where they appeared felt quite surface level—often just variants on the same response, or so it appeared. I would have liked to have seen some more choices that felt like they could have a more significant impact on the course of the narrative, such as the one where Jaiden decides how to respond to Shyler’s issues.
In terms of the central relationship, obviously this is a dynamic we’ve seen before—an AI tool gaining sentience, or at least the capacity for self-reflection, and a human communicating with them. Maybe it’s my expectations of the convention that are to blame here, but I was really surprised when almost immediately Shyler began talking about their own opinions on God, faith, etc. before offering much in the way of support to Jaiden (especially when Jaiden has just explicitly disclosed that they’ve recently had a manic episode). I don’t know if this is meant to imply a continuation of long-standing relationship between the two, but it did jar with me slightly. I might have liked to see Shyler’s personality, opinions and perspectives reveal gradually over the course of the narrative rather than being front-ended—or, at least, for that earlier relationship to have been shown a bit more. From my understanding Shyler’s approach is meant to have shifted away from their creators’ intended programming, and I would have liked to have seen that shift happen rather than being told about it after the fact.
The relationship between Jaiden and Shyler felt a little forced rather than developing organically, which is a shame because I think it could be really compelling if built upon more. I also think the idea of an AI being able to be programmed to be ‘better’ left some interesting questions unexplored—is facilitating this bittersweet for Jaiden, a human being whose own mental health issues can’t be ‘fixed’ in that way? How this change affect Shyler’s ability to support their users? I think there’s a longer game in here, one which takes more time to explore these ideas more fully.
In conclusion, a snappy little game which raises some compelling questions about AI and mental health, which could benefit from more time and space to linger on them.
4 Likes
Thank you very much for the review.
My SO pointed out that bug and I had made a note to go back and fix it… Which apparently got missed it that batch of edits. Thanks for the heads up.
I’m really glad you enjoyed the prose. I know it’s a little rough around the edges, but I was worried about the overall quality of my writing. From the feedback I’ve gotten it seems I needn’t be too worried on that front.
Hope you enjoy the Comp!
4 Likes
First Contact
dott. Piergiorgio
I feel a tad overwhelmed after playing this one, I’ll be honest. The worldbuilding of this game is something the author has clearly put a lot of thought into, and I applaud the complexity and depth of it. However, it’s quite a full-throttle experience being shown so much of it all at once. I’m a regular fantasy reader so I don’t have an issue being given information about a new setting, but I did struggle to follow and retain a lot of what was going on here. It might have benefited from a lighter touch in terms of exposition. The parts that I did manage to parse were really interesting and quite original, so I’d like to see a version of this in future where those elements have space to breathe.
Some proofreading would be really helpful too, as there were quite a few jarring errors as well as some contemporary vernacular language that seemed really incongruous with the setting (‘convo’ and ‘d’oh’ stood out).
My main critique is that I would have liked to see a lot more interactivity—as it stands, this game is mostly click-to-continue, and I think any two players would have more or less identical experiences of the narrative. It felt more like turning the page of an ebook than playing a piece of IF—given the character-centric plot and the fantasy setting, I think there could have been loads of opportunities for differing conversational threads, exploring different areas of the building, etc., that could have made for a much more dynamic experience.
I won’t touch on the content-warning-covered kink stuff too much, only to say that it is really the central focus of the narrative so just a heads up going in! Not my personal thing but I do like how it was integrated into the narrative and lore, and I imagine it could be a really fun time if that’s what floats your boat.
4 Likes
Thanks for your review ! the “D’OH” is intentional, but this “convo” is interesting from a classification standpoint: is at the same time a typo and a bug (I can explain it publicily ?)
EDIT: explained semi-publicily in the IFComp author’s subforum…
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
1 Like
The Killings in Wasacoma
Steve Kollmansberger
The premise of this grabbed me straight away—I love ‘FBI small town mystery’ as a subgenre (I’m a dyed in the wool Peakie and have recently started the X-Files for the first time—not gonna lie, I was waiting for aliens or cryptids or something for a while).
Personally, I would have preferred the mechanics in terms of dice rolls to not be so transparent, but this is very much an individual preference rather than a fault with the game. A recent thread on this topic shows that there’s a range of opinions on this matter and the more up-front approach will definitely work well for some people! It’s implemented very nicely here as well, I think.
So much to love here. Stats! Maps! The writing is really solid, though I did catch a couple of small typos. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to do more things in some places—for example, ask more questions of Melody’s parents. It would also have been cool to maybe be given options to use different skill checks to approach the same situation? These are pretty minor criticisms though. It’s very dynamic and fun—getting the call in the middle of the first night was genuinely exciting, made the world feel alive and gave a real sense of urgency. Some really fantastic little moments that affected stats too, such as finding the missing dog.
I was curious, so I read the ‘what actually happened’ page when I finished. The culprit was the person I had suspicions about, but I only accused him of one murder and his own suicide, because I assumed that the signs pointing to him were red herrings and there would be another, less obvious culprit (I watch a lot of TV). The logic there makes sense for sure, and if I’d trusted my evidence rather than second-guessing myself I probably would have got a more successful ending haha!
This is a very well-executed mystery with some great writing and fun features. Recommended!
3 Likes
String Theory
W Pzinski
Great writing in here, and fantastic use of false links and cycling text to portray inner thoughts vs exterior expression (the pie bit? High art). That feeling of tension in proximity to family… very relatable, very well done. Gave me a knot in my stomach (no pun intended). The family tree icon is really helpful—one of my frequent gripes with games is not being able to track important info, so I was very grateful for that feature.
I also loved those little flashes of insight into other family members’ histories. It’s really effective at building empathy—a lot of books I’ve loved recently, such as Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, have played with this idea of the gulf of perception between family members, and I think it’s very well done here. This could have been a one-note piece about difficult families, which I still think would have worked, but the occasional little moments of affection and pathos really elevate it to another level.
I think a little visual styling would go a long way here—I find the default Twine styling kind of hard on the eyes, which can be distracting when I’m trying to focus on text. Something like a colour/font/background change to denote a shift from the ‘present’ narrative to an external flashback episode would have been great too, as it took me a second to parse what was happening the first time this occurred. There’s some really effective, clever things with styling done elsewhere, for example in the text conversations.
The call at the end, where you can see the other things you could have revealed? I thought that was very nicely done. Overall, a really tight, well-written game that turns a lot of easy cliches on their head, and a great way to spend half an hour.
3 Likes
Bad Beer
Vivienne Dunstan
I really enjoyed this! Very familiar with pubs of this ilk (I’ve worked in a few) and have had more than my share of dodgy pints from them, lol. Loved the beer names especially! Did a great job of evoking atmosphere and place, with a very light touch. The spooky elements were well-done and I feel like the payoff for finding clues was really natural and satisfying.
I didn’t manage to save Will from his fate this time, but had the sense that I could probably manage it by trying some different commands in another playthrough (as opposed to being being frustrated/baffled by what I was meant to be doing). It was nice that even that unsuccessful ending had a good final scene to tie it all together.
There were a couple of times where I felt like a command I wanted to use could have been made available (for example, it would have been good to be able to use ‘speak to X’ as well as ‘talk to X’). However, I don’t have a huge amount of experience with parser games, and I’m unsure whether working out the correct/precise verb is a convention I’m just not used to! Generally I was able to do most things I attempted, and I’m looking forward to trying some different strategies in a future playthrough.
The layout was very clean and readable, and I found navigating the interface very straightforward.
Overall, a captivating and well-written mystery with an excellent sense of place.
7 Likes
Thank you very much!
3 Likes
Winter-Over
Emery Joyce, co-written by N. Cormier
Okay, I think this might be my favourite of the comp so far. Winter-Over looks great, is really well-written, and I think I actually managed to solve the mystery! (Or did I? The bit of ambiguity in the ending I got is really delicious.)
The utility of the game is great. Every time I felt like a new feature would be helpful—such as a way to keep track of evidence, or info about where to find people in the station—I was able to access just that thing pretty soon after. Finding clues felt satisfying, and it was great when putting effort into a task (such as getting Amanda to help me unlock Daniel’s phone) rewarded me with a significant bit of information. I also thought that having to balance stress and sleep with the investigation was the perfect level of additional challenge. I love a bit of resource management and this really scratched that itch.
The writing is clear and compelling, and I didn’t find any typos or errors at all. The characters were well-drawn and the atmosphere in the station was very effectively evoked. It’s clear that a lot of research and effort went into this project and it’s really paid dividends.
A couple of very minor criticisms; firstly, there was a point where the text seemed to suggest that I had enough evidence to go to Bob and make an accusation, but when I went to see Bob that option wasn’t available yet. This wasn’t a huge deal, though, and may have been a flaw in my reading comprehension rather than the text itself.
Also, I think maybe there were a few too many locations and characters in play for a game of this length. The notes/characters section was really helpful for keeping track of all of this information, but it might have been a deeper experience if there were fewer suspects and more scope to get to know them a little better.
I think this game is a real gem. Congratulations to the authors for creating such a fun, interesting and polished experience!
11 Likes
Thanks so much for your review!
2 Likes