On Repeat
“Love at first spin.”
Slice of life • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Twine
This game has really lovely presentation, with a three-stage emoji UI to display the player character’s emotion. The core of the game is about managing this state, and we learn as we go that we are less in control of it than we would like to be.
I tried a couple of different combinations but only seemed to get one ending. I suppose the ending needed to be the same in order to make the author’s point, but I would have liked to have seen a little more branching.
That being said, I really enjoyed the amount of reactivity to the player’s emotional state that was baked into each scene. A particular highlight was an interaction with a barista, where in a good mood, my player character imagined they fancied me, but the next time I clicked this option, in a low mood, the player character mentioned having imagined this. The game seemed to know that my mood had changed and that I had seen this screen before, which I appreciated.
Residual Income
“Corpses don’t have bank accounts.”
Crime • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Twine
This is my favourite game of the comp so far. The prose is stylish and snappy in a way that supports the criminal premise and gives the reader a strong sense of who the player character is.
I enjoyed the unique take on vampires here—familiar enough that we understand what we’re dealing with, but with eating hours of potential as a pleasantly surprising twist.
I also enjoyed the flip of the vampire-as-aristocrat trope with “corpses don’t have bank accounts” and the portrait of the vampire as a thief and scavenger, killing out of necessity rather than extravagance.