Studying titles and tags and making up plots

Competitions IFComp
1

I don’t think I’ll have nearly enough time to play full games and do ratings/reviews, so instead (blatantly ripping off of Max’s reviews) I’ll just analyze the titles and the tags of each game.

There will not be spoilers other than what you can find on the IFComp page (the title and tags, obviously, plus occasionally the blurb and cover art).

The edit count shows how many games I’ve done.

9 Likes
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198BREW: The Age of Orpheus by DWaM

Sci-fi, mystery, experimental, world-building • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Web-based

“198BREW” immediately draws some sort of science-based vibe, like a manufacturing code. Based on the cover art it seems like it involves a robot. The “198” refers to the year, which is sometime in the 1980s (“198X” as the blurb states). Orpheus was a Greek bard who I only know of because of Hadestown. So the “age of Orpheus” may suggest Ancient Greece, or it may just be a time when some other person named Orpheus existed. That would probably be the future. Orpheus is probably the protagonist. That would mean that Orpheus is the robot on the cover, possibly with the manufacturing code “198BREW”. Except the story is set in 198X, so maybe it’s an alternate reality future where technology is/was leaps and bounds ahead of our time, like in Back To the Future.

The “sci-fi” part is fairly obvious, since there’s clearly a robot on the cover. It is, again, interesting that the story is set in the “past”. Maybe it’s an alternate reality period piece of 1980s stuff plus science fiction stuff. I don’t know.

The game is also a mystery, where you apparently need to find coffee by exploring the world around you. That’s where the “world-building” part comes in. Maybe you’re a sheltered robot who really needs coffee, and so you venture out into the concrete jungle outside. Why do you need coffee? It’s unclear. Actually, the game is called 198BREW so maybe Orpheus is a coffee-making robot whose sole goal is to make coffee. Kind of like the paper clip problem of a robot who makes paper clips as efficiently as possible. But you’re Orpheus the coffee bot and you really need coffee.

The game is parser-based and also web-based, although you can download it for your own interpreter. The “experimental” and “web-based” parts, though, make me wonder whether the game does anything interesting with, say, Vorple. The tags do not say what platform was used, but since the Play Online button links to the interpreter that bundles with Inform, I’m guessing it was that. There could be fancy graphics, which would be cool for a world-building-heavy game, but it seems unlikely. The “experimental” part could just be in the gameplay, or it could mean something else entirely.

The tags list the game as an hour and a half, yet the walkthrough (which I’m not afraid of looking at since there’s a very low possibility I actually play these games) is brief, while noting that the walkthrough does not contain secrets, bad endings, etc. This situation reminds me of an open-world game, where the main story is short compared to what the entire game offers, and the majority of the playtime is spent wandering the world and doing side quests (and fetch quests but we don’t talk about those). It would be great if there’s something like that in this game, and parsers naturally lend themselves well to wandering. But a big map can also be off-putting (I’ve started and quit Counterfeit Monkey more than once because the map was so large).

TLDR: Ancient Greek coffee-making robot in the future-past can’t make coffee so they explore the world for three times as long as the main questline while also maybe doing fancy graphics things

3 Likes
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An Account of Your Visit to the Enchanted House & What You Found There by Mandy Benanav

Fantasy, Humor, Games for Spooky B*tches • Two hours • Choice-based • Twine

An entry with a very clear and descriptive title that lets you know exactly what you are going to encounter. There will be a house, and it will be enchanted, and you are going to visit it. You will find something there. The game will be an account of what you found there. The overly long and literal title is reminiscent of some anime, like:

  • Banished From The Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in The Countryside
  • I’ve Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level
  • Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon
  • I’ve Somehow Gotten Stronger When I Improved My Farm-related Skills
  • The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You

where you know by the title exactly what is in store for you and yet are intrigued by what it suggests and what it leaves out.

The ampersand is an interesting choice, and I wonder whether it was really to shorten the title. Maybe there’s a character cap and “and” wouldn’t be able to fit. Maybe the author just wanted the title shorter. Maybe the ampersand has real, relevant value in the plot and is crucial and I should stop talking about it in case I inadvertently spoil something.

The game is listed as “fantasy”, which makes sense considering the house you visit is enchanted. It is also “humor”, which is immediately exemplified in its next tag, “Games for Spooky B*tches”. This suggests there’s some ghosts involved, or at the very least paranormal activities. Why “b*tches”, though? Is it because there’s some sort of adultery that will go on within this haunted(?) mansion? Is it just for the shock factor of swearing in a game tag? Why not “spooky fuckers” or “spooky cunts” or “spooky [insert person-swear here]”? Why “spooky”? Why not “jumpy” or “scary” or “eery” or “creepy”? Though “creepy b*tches” has a very different connotation compared to spooky ones. Why “games”? There’s only one game. It’s in the style of a category, like “games for people who like candy” or “games for traumatized war veterans”. Since there aren’t (I don’t think) standardized tags for IFComp, the tags here are, like in what little I’ve seen of fanfiction, used with the blurb and title as yet another marketing tactic to draw potential players/readers into the work, while also demonstrating to those whom the game will not appeal to (like people against casual swearing in their games) that they are not the right audience.

It is a long choice-based game in Twine, taking, by the author’s estimate, about two hours to finish. I haven’t seen a lot of long Twine games (or maybe I just don’t play them), but I imagine there’ll be some interesting twists and turns to keep the game interesting enough to keep clicking and reading for two hours.

TLDR: anime title with mysterious ampersand and fanfiction tag

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The Apothecary’s Assistant by Allyson Gray

@Ally
This game is meant to be played over a minimum of six sessions of approximately 5 minutes each, across a period of multiple days.
Half an hour • Choice-based • Twine

Max already commented on this game’s strange cover art (a forest) and description (opening hours of, presumably, the apothecary). The title, tags, and note just add to the intrigue.

The Apothecary’s Assistant, unlike Mandy Benanav’s An Account, describes not a situation but a person. An apothecary is someone who prepares and sells medicine and drugs, much as a pharmacist would today. The bluntness of the title contrasts with the fantastical and historical setting that is naturally associated with an archaic word. But the apothecary is not the focus of this story; the assistant is. Perhaps you are this assistant, helping a medical expert cure ailments and sell herbs.

The simple tags mimic the simple title. The game takes half an hour, and was created in the choice-based system Twine. There isn’t a lot to write about this except to mention again the conciseness of the language, leaving few unnecessary words. No, the more interesting part about this is the note, which I’m considering separate from the blurb.

The game is meant to be played over at least six sessions, across multiple days. This just so happens to correlate with the number of days that the apothecary is open: every day of the week except Wednesday. It is more than likely that the game takes place over six days, as it is intended to in real life, each day bringing in patients new and old and young.

TLDR: blunt title, blunt tags, strange note, quotidian quest

3 Likes
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Awakened Deeply by R. A. Cooper

@seabass

Action-Adventure Sci-Fi • One hour • Parser-based • Glulx

This game has a strange title that immediately draws you in. How can you awaken deeply? Is that different from awakening lightly or shallowly? Is it from a deep sleep, or a deep awakening? “Deep awakening” sounds very grandiose and important, as if someone crucial to…something has awakened, about to change the world, for better or worse. I get a sense of a cryo chamber or something, or someone sinking underwater—someone waking from unconsciousness with that close-up of the eyes opening. Or, maybe it’s not a physical awakening at all. Maybe it’s an intellectual or spiritual awakening, where you gain a deep understanding of something. Either way, it’s a good opportunity for eye-opening cinematography.

“Action-adventure sci-fi” is very straightforward. Stuff will happen, and the stuff will be dangerous and vaguely sciencey. It’s also parser-based, which lends itself well to the action-adventure genre. … There’s not a lot to say about the tags.

TLDR: eye-opening

2 Likes
6

Bad Beer by Vivienne Dunstan

Content warning: alcohol (the game is set in a British pub selling beer), some spooky stuff and death
Mystery • One hour • Parser-based • Glulx

“Bad beer”. What is bad? Is the beer bad? Maybe the beer is old (does beer get old? I don’t have enough experience to know). Maybe it tastes bad. Maybe it was prepared poorly. Maybe it’s not the quality of the beer, and instead something about the beer. Like a “bad boy” conjures a specific stereotypical image: leather jackets, motorcycles, dark eyeliner and an ever-present smirk. A “bad beer” isn’t afraid of doing wrong to do right. It lives for the thrill of life and doesn’t care if it gets caught while doing it. Chipped glasses and spilled foam are marks of honor for these bad boys.

The content warning suggests that the player works behind the counter selling beer. But there’s also some spooky stuff and death. The way that the blurb is worded suggests that it’ll be somewhat lighthearted and not extremely gory or angsty. The “spooky stuff” makes me think of ghosts, or maybe poltergeists, or at the very least some hauntings of the bar. Maybe the person who died haunts the bar? I like the idea of a cynical, shaggy-haired ghost winding down at the bar, smoking, as the bartender cleans glasses next to them. A guy just done with life (figuratively and literally).

The game is classified as a mystery, which likely revolves around the death in the content warning. It’s a parser game, too. I can only think of one parser at the moment that’s a mystery (granted, I’ve only played one), Toby’s Nose, which revolves around a SNIFF command. Maybe this game will have something similar, where instead of sniffing things you’re haunting them to uncover their secrets. Solving the mystery of your own death? Sounds very much like a certain other parser mystery game in IFComp… (Miss Gosling’s Last Case by Daniel M. Stelzer). Maybe I’ve been reading too many blurb revisions.

TLDR: drunk ghost done with life

3 Likes
7

The Bat by Chandler Groover

Superhero • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content

This game seems to be a play on Batman, what with the Bryce/Bruce and Wyatt/Wayne Manor parallel, as well as the snobby rich setting. The title and first tag help solidify my theory as well. You seem to be the servant in this setting, contrasting with the usual thing of Batman being the one with the servant, and it will be interesting to see how using bat-like abilities helps you help your master more.

It is fairly long for being set in a single evening, taking about two hours to finish. Maybe it’ll be like one of those efficiency puzzles, where you slowly grasp what you need to do before performing everything at once. There’s definitely examples of this in other parser games, but I can’t think of any. I remember playing one involving a caramel-covered apple, though.

The fact that the download includes additional content is interesting, and I wonder what it includes. It seems rare that a game include feelies now that stuff is digital, but it could be a unique addition to the game.

While poking around to see whether I could find the extra downloadable content (but I guess it’s not DLC), I noticed the cleverly-written walkthrough, which has formal prose and is worded as instructions to the butler. That was interesting!

TLDR: bat butler batler helps alt-verse Batman for a very long time

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I think the title is “batler”.

4 Likes
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Big Fish by Binggang Zhuo

@zhuobinggang
Content warning: Maybe violence, gore, or sexual themes
Crime, detective • Half an hour • Choice-based • Twine

“Big Fish” suggests a big fish, and the cover art seems to support that theory, illustrating a building-sized fish floating above what looks like Venice, with bridges over water and water taxis. It’s a very surreal and bizarre title with an equally strange cover. The stranger part still is that the blurb does not discuss the fish at all, instead mentioning a lakeside town and a murder mystery.

The content warning is also interesting, as if the author doesn’t quite know what is in the game. And maybe they don’t, since it is a choice-based game, and endings can differ depending on your actions. But violence and gore are rare, if present, in murder mysteries, the violence often already having happened by the time of the story. Sexual themes is also unique, and I’m not quite sure how the titular big fish, the murder mystery, the crime, and the sexual themes all fit together.

But here’s my pitch: there’s a big fish. A huge fish. The fish on the cover, floating over an alternative Venice. Its tail swipes left and right, obliterating the centuries-old buildings and terrorizing the citizens and tourists alike. Of course, not everyone makes it out alive. One of them is someone very dear to the PC. Very, very dear. You’re traveling the world with your detective work, as famous as an Italian Sherlock Holmes. But by the time you return to Venice, the fish is gone, leaving only destruction in its wake. Witnesses insist that there was a flying fish, but you know that isn’t right. The game revolves around you trying to figure out what happened, while flashing back to scenes with you and your loved one and revealing that not all was what it seemed.

TLDR: big fish + Venice = no more UNESCO World Heritage Site

4 Likes
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Birding in Pope Lick Park by Eric Lathrop

Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based

Birding is bird-watching, or observing birds in their natural habitats. Pope Lick Park is a beautiful-looking park in Louisville, Kentucky. The game looks like a cute little slice-of-life game where you go bird-watching in a park that is presumably where the author themself goes birding. The cover art has a screenshot of the game, which includes an image of the Pope Lick Park sign. So maybe the game is just the player basically reliving the author’s experiences, fairly linearly but interactively, as they go about their day.

That’s the obvious description, but since I only have 90 words let’s add some more. On the other hand, this game could be about a place where you’re supposed to pope, park, and lick, but instead of doing that, you decide to bird. Or it could be an anagram for something. Bing said it could be “Bricking a pond like pip”. I’m not a hundred percent sure what that means, but AI is always objectively correct, and it sounds like something someone would say.

TLDR: pretty literal unless you’re bricking a pond like pip

4 Likes
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Breakfast in the Dolomites: A play just for fun comedy by Roberto Ceccarelli

@strawberryfield
Screwball comedy • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content

The Dolomites are a mountain range in northeastern Italy and part of the Alps. The subtitle is very interesting, since it can be read in different ways:

  • “a play-just-for-fun comedy”: it’s something lighthearted that doesn’t require much thought
  • “a play, just for fun comedy”: more plot and importance, but still just for fun comedy

They basically mean the same thing, but it’s still interesting, and I wonder whether the author intended it that way.

“Screwball comedy” is a term I haven’t seen before, but it is a film genre of romantic comedy that satirizes the typical love story, often involving a female character dominating the relationship with the male character. The genre emerged in popularity during the Great Depression around the 1930s and remained popular until around the 1950s.

The additional content mentioned in the tags seems to be a booklet/walkthrough of the game, which also contains AI images in an uncanny valley cartoonish style.

Guess the plot: A couple go on a road trip to the Dolomites where they get a pancake breakfast…and maybe learn more about themselves on the way…

TLDR: couples’ therapy in the mountains with an interesting subtitle

3 Likes
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Bureau of Strange Happenings by Phil Riley

@rileypb

BOSH includes:

  • A fun help feature for beginners
  • Extensive contextual hints
  • A Zarfian Forgiveness rating of “merciful”
  • Only one use of the word “reification”, which most players won’t even see, we swear.

Comedy investigation • Longer than two hours • Parser-based • Glulx

A game that Mr. Phil Riley has been advertising through his profile picture for a while now, to the point where I associated his digital self with that smart (in both senses of the word) reptile (Riley the Reptile?).

The title naturally invokes curiosity with the contrast between the decisive officialness of “bureau” and the eccentric vagueness of “strange happenings”. It is reminiscent of the book titles of Douglas Adams, such as A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, where the first part sets you up for one thing and the second part changes your viewpoint. It creates a comedically incompetent vibe, further compounded by the abbreviation of the game, “BOSH”, which, for whatever reason, reminds me of Dirk Gently, although I’m not sure if he ever uses the British slang term.

I thank Phil for including such an extensive hint system, as I am someone who struggles with maintaining a good to-do list (even my IRL list is split among three separate locations: my reminders and notes apps, and a physical planner). The “merciful” rating only makes me happier, although due to the length I probably won’t get to this game for a long time, if at all.

“Only one use of the word ‘reification’” is one more use than I’ve seen before. For the curious, “reification” means to make something abstract more concrete. The author swears that most won’t encounter the word, but I’m curious to find out how it will be used. Maybe an abstract painting turns into concrete. That would certainly be a strange happening.

The comedy shines in the notes, tags, and title alone, and the “investigation” clearly has something to do with the suited reptile in the cover, which in itself is also a strange happening.

TLDR: Bureau of Strange and Concrete Happenings (BOSCH)

4 Likes
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Big thanks to you and @SomeOne2 for sharing your first impressions!! :slightly_smiling_face:

I shouldn’t blab too much about my entry but I just wanted to mention that I added “or weeks” to the end of the Apothecary blurb, to make sure that people know they can take their time and don’t have to play on consecutive days.
You don’t have to edit your post, of course; I just wanted to add my own note about the change so that folks would know about it!

(I also wanted to say that I found your comments on BOS(C)H hilarious :joy:)

3 Likes
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Campfire: Enjoy some time away in nature by loreKin

Slice of Life • Half an hour • Choice-based • Ink

This seems to be pretty much what it says it is: a slice-of-life relaxing nature experience. Although I could totally imagine a 30-minute video of “Relaxing Cozy Nature Campfire Ambience 30 Minutes with Crackling and Crickets for Sleep, Meditation, Relaxing, Study”, it’s probably a little more involved than that. Most likely it’s a little story about hanging out in the woods around a campfire, sharing stories.

Less likely, though, it’s not a retreat camp, but a concentration camp. CW because this gets dark and gruesome.

They don’t use regular fire here. Regular fire isn’t strong enough for what they want to do to them—to us. No, here, they use Campfire. Every color you can think of and hot as all hells, making your skin burn even just thinking about it. It’s some cruel sort of joke, calling it camp, because it’s extravagant. But they weren’t all bad. They give us breaks. “Enjoy some time away in nature,” they said, “away from the pain and suffering. You can come back when you’re ready to join us again.” Then they lock the doors and left us in the woods, where the previous campers killed all the game and chopped all the firewood. We would wait, growing hungrier, growing colder, until finally, mercifully, they open their doors again, smiling as they ask us how our little trip was. But they didn’t hurt us, not really. They tortured us, showing video footage of our libraries, our schools, our homes going up in those ravenous rainbow flames. We sat there and watched, grown men breaking for the lives they’ve lost, toddlers bursting into tears for atrocities they were too young to understand. But we didn’t comfort them. We couldn’t, or what happened in the videos would happen in the camps.

To us.

TLDR: enjoy nature…or else

3 Likes
15

Civil Service by Helen L Liston

@Helen-L
Mystery, experimental, contemporary, dynamic fic • Half an hour • Choice-based • Twine

“Civil Service” refers to hired civilian government personnel. The title seems very straightforward, referring to the player’s occupation.

The tags are a lot more interesting. Despite the fairly mundane title, the game is advertised as a “mystery”, meaning something happens in this admittedly monotonous job that requires your personal attention. The next three tags (although technically they are part of the same tag) suggest that the game has unique features, although what those features are remains to be seen. Most games in the IFComp are fictitious, and calling a game “fiction” seems somewhat redundant. The “fic” part of the tag thus seems more reminiscent of fanfiction, though I don’t know what this implies. “Contemporary” suggests a more modern-day environment, so this won’t be a 1960s period piece or something. “Dynamic” is confusing. Is it dynamic because it’s a choice-based game where your decisions change the plot? Is it dynamic because it is action-packed? Is it dynamic because the tone shifts throughout?

TLDR: simple government job has a dynamic and mysterious twist

3 Likes
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“Dynamic fiction” is the sort of IF where you can’t meaningfully affect the narrative—there’s a static story, and the interactivity is in how you experience that story. The classic example being a book with “click to continue” links (though some have a lot more interaction than that).

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Yes, and I think it’s written as “fic” because of character limits on the genre field. Though I feel it should be noted that Civil Service actually branches quite significantly and thus doesn’t fit the usual definition of dynamic fiction.

3 Likes
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The Curse: Cronoboy’s adventures by Rob

@Rob
Surreal. Comic(?) • One hour • Parser-based • Windows executable

Two questions presented by the title right off the bat: what is the curse, and who is Chronoboy? It feels like science fiction with the “chrono-” prefix, but “curse” suggests fantasy. So maybe it’s both? Science fiction-fantasy (or sci-fantasy) is a book genre, so maybe it’s a game genre now too.

The first tag is funny to me, with the two different punctuation marks. The tag says “surreal” with certainty, on a topic that is by nature vague and confusing. But “comic”, which should be much easier to quantify, is presented with a question mark in parentheses, as if the author is not sure how to describe their work.

The Windows executable part is strange, but the author promises that the file is “absolutely safe” and to temporarily disable anti-virus to play. A little worrying, but I believe that IFComp vetted all the games in advance, so you shouldn’t be in too much trouble.

TLDR: contrasting title and contrasting tag

3 Likes
19

A Death in Hyperspace by Stewart C. Baker et al.

@bakerstewart @smessenger
Content warning: blinking text; additional content notes listed in game
Science fiction, murder mystery • One hour • Choice-based • Twine

The title immediately implies a death in a science fiction environment. This is immediately supported by the tags, which state a science fiction murder mystery. I think there’s a game I played about traversing a red-text-colored ship (as well as some other color-themed dreamy environments, one of which involved a spade?), and the title reminded me of that. Maybe it was the red/blood correlation.

The game probably takes place on some sort of ship travelling through space at high speeds, possibly time travelling. Actually, time travelling would be a cool murder mystery. While you’re jumping the timeline, everyone on the ship goes with you, so whatever information you get is from outside of the ship (radio comms?). Could be an interesting game idea.

The blinking text is almost certainly used as some sort of computer interface, like the blinking line cursor I’m staring at right now while typing this draft. It could also be used for an alert (WARNING: OXYGEN LEVELS DEPLETING). Or maybe a little ASCII robot blinks at you.

little ASCII robot 
      [ ]
     (   )
      |>|
   __/===\__
  //| o=o |\\
<]  | o=o |  [>
    \=====/
   / / | \ \
  <_________>

I wonder how comedic this game will be, since science fiction settings often lean very political and dark. But with a little blinking robot buddy and time travel, what could go wrong? (Everything. Everything goes wrong.)

TLDR: time travel and little ASCII robot buddies

2 Likes
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Deliquescence by Not-Only But-Also Riley

Content warning: Brief mention of suicide
Experimental • Choice-based • Web-based

Deliquescent is an adjective referring to the property of a substance to absorb water from the air to dissolve itself and form an aqueous solution. It also refers more generally to a tendency to melt and dissolve, or having repeated division into branches. I believe one of the latter definitions is what titles this work.

The “brief mention of suicide” suggests that the thing dissolving is in fact a person, not a substance or inanimate object. Perhaps you’re trying to move on, or help someone else move on, or maybe there’s moving on (to the afterlife). That last has potential to have deep analogical meaning. A substance absorbing water to dissolve itself and form an aqueous solution becomes basically one with the water, or perhaps one with the sky where it got that water. Maybe it’s all an extended metaphor for peaceful death.

The subtitle in the cover art adds a bit to this theory, reading: “a game about betrayal on a molecular level”. So maybe the passing is not entirely peaceful. Maybe it is peaceful for the solute, but not for the others around them. Maybe there’s another reaction to the event. A precipitation reaction, perhaps. Precipitation. Rain. Water from the air. Deliquescence.

Okay, that was a bit of a stretch. But, hey, it ties it back full circle, so I’m leaving it there.

TLDR: absorbing precipitation to die while others form a precipitate

3 Likes