- You worry time won’t pass unless you consciously decide to wait.
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You don’t understand the big deal with high-tech copy protection these days, because back when YOU were younger, copy protection was near to customer service, being lumped in with feelies like Popular Paranoia!
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You once told a hooligan trying to burn something “That dangerous act would achieve little.”
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When someone asks for help to push a stuck vending machine item, you’re all, “That’s fixed in place.”
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You ask for disambiguation and not clarification, or if someone asks for clarification when you thought you were being clear, you yell “Aigh, disambiguation.”
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You cut people off at 9 letters to a word because really that’s enough to get what they’re trying to say.
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You hate semicolons at the end of a sentence. They belong at the beginning, when giving feedback.
- It is biologically impossible for you to run in a circle. You can only manage rectilinear motion and sharp ninety degree turns.
- Jimpajop mywtaepi chitulu magtpe gotpeiw yaqidane tati loquranci gigotichampi lustanirampin liju karasto homphe.
- You just looked around for a babel fish wending machine. And a gown. And a towel. And satchel. And mail. And whatnots.
I beg your pardon?
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When you pick something up, you mutter “Taken” to yourself.
(True story.) -
You get nervous when trying to interact with multiple identical objects.
- When you search the web, you find yourself typing things like LOOK UP WEATHER ON GOOGLE into the search bar.
1 Like
my sign of too many time into IF is typing x or l (and IIRC, even i) instead of ls (or dir, eons ago)…
but that I use the commandline (shell) interface as main, if not sole, computer handling tool should be considered a sign of age or excess of IF time ? 
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
1 Like
- When you’re hiking IRL you don’t go off the path ever because the forest is too dense in that direction.
10 Likes
- Your front door is boarded up.
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Dreaming in Commands: Finding yourself dreaming about typing commands or solving puzzles as if you’re in the game world (> get sheep).
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Real-Life Narration: Catching yourself mentally narrating your own actions as if you’re in a text-based adventure (“You enter the kitchen and search for a snack”).
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Obsessive Inventory Checking: Constantly mentally checking your inventory or imagining your possessions in terms of an IF game (e.g., “I possess one automobile key, three cough drops, a receipt from Walgreens, an albuterol inhaler, and a pair of glasses (worn).”).
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Automated Responses: If someone asks you a question, and your brain instinctively generates options like in the game (“Choose: A) Answer truthfully, B) Dodge the question, C) Make a sarcastic remark”), you might be playing too much.
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Saving and Loading Mentality: Often imagining if you could save your progress in real life or have a “load” option after making a decision.
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Dialogue Tree Fantasies: Imagining conversations as if they were branching dialogue trees with different outcomes.
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Implementing reality: Seeing something in real life, like a location, or a phenomenon, and trying to work out in your head how you might implement that.
6 Likes
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Alternate Realities: What if I could UNDO and choose another option?
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Pack Rat Mentality: Why would I ever DROP (throw away) something? I might find some use for it later.
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Imagined Security: I am pretty sure if I PUT this UNDER my bed, nobody will find it!
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Imagined Coolness: (augmentation to Sign 227): Hey I can create an absolutely cool and totally original IF by implementing my own home!
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Grasping for Plot Ideas: Going through the fantasy and SF works you have read in your mind looking for the Next Best Thing to implement.
5 Likes
- You find you can carry an enormous number of items.
5 Likes
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If you have a goal task which is obstructed by multiple smaller tasks, you automatically imagine someone typing in commands for you at a parser prompt, and wonder what the game is called.
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When you meet someone new online, and you image a choice menu appearing after every message. (Slight augmentation to item 8)
4 Likes
Question about reviving a decade old topic
500 Signs You Play Too much IF
Just for posterity. There are some amusing items in the old list, including things that have been since relegated as inconsequential by incremental advances in IF over the preceeding decade.
ETA: Nevermind, OP added the link to the original post.
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236.) You find yourself saying Inform standard responses and error messages out loud. Look at yourself in the mirror and murmur, “As good-looking as ever.” Hunt all over for your glasses, saying, “You can’t see any such thing.”
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The Mod has Frankensteined this post. If you’re not going to finish the first 500 in the list, you may not start another with the lofty premise of reaching 1000. Remember how I said you can’t have another juice box if you’re going to take one sip and then set it down and forget about it?
Yes, I’m harshing the mellow, but this tweaks my mostly-under-control tidiness obsession and likely other completionist folks.
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Okay, #218 plus 18 more is 236. Which means the next one would be #237.
I say we combine goals and try to hit 1500 by Christmas 2033, a decade from now.
ETA: At 240 right now, that leaves 1260 more entries. Christmas, 2033 is 3,686 days from now.
That’s roughly one entry every 3 days.
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- You are constantly shocked by how many readable pages are in actual books.
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Edited my numbering to line up. 
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- You necro a nine-year old thread to express how much IF you play.
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Same!
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