Alright this is gonna get self-indulgent for a hot second so apologies in advance.
So I actually started Enchanted House in 2016, right after finishing my first-ever IF (a Lovecraftian noir which has been lost to the mists of time). Growing up with the Spooky House games of yore, I wanted to do my spin on one. So I opened up Twine, mapped out most of the puzzles, wrote a first draft of the foyer, and figured out the conversation UI (the last one was important to me - I wanted something that simulated the conversation trees you’d see in a point & click adventure). I hadn’t yet figured out the ending or really the point of it all, and before I got any further I landed my then-dream job at Telltale and my free time evaporated. I continued to play IF kept telling myself that one day I’d start seriously making text games of my own. Because they’re the best, dammit!
In the years that followed I went through career highs and lows, which culminated in February of this year when the project I was working on suddenly lost funding and the team was laid off. It had been a particularly rough project, one of a few in a row, and I was creatively burnt out. I was fed up with corporate game development and frustrated that I rarely got to do the type of writing that made me fall in love with writing as a wee tot - prose! I thought back to my Twine game and decided to take a few months off and Actually Make the Damn Thing.
It was only a week or two into development that I was struck by the thought - “I wonder when IFComp is this year?”
I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw the dates - a solid few months, and I think we all know how helpful having a real deadline is (cursed though they may be).
So, I dusted off the project - upgraded from Harlowe 1.0 to 3.0 (lol) and dove back in. I asked myself why I was so interested in the concept, why I love games where you just explore a space, especially houses. I thought about how I love going to people’s homes in real life and seeing what I can glean about them just from the environments they create for themselves. I’m a firm believer in making your own magic in life - as a quasi-homebody I’ve put a lot of time and care into my own surroundings - and with that I had my ending and purpose. Of course, as so often happens, by the time I got to actually writing the ending I was in a rush but I’m happy to have at least finally made something that expressed a thought that belonging to me and not my corporate overlords.
Despite the deadline-induced stress, by the end of the project I was feeling so creatively reinvigorated that I signed up for freelance work again as soon as I submitted for the comp. I said as much in my speech at the award ceremony, but this goofy little game about a magic house has been incredibly healing for me - and this competition was a huge part of that. So allow me once again to express a TREMENDOUS thanks from the bottom of my heart to everyone who took the time to play my game and leave feedback/reviews and ratings.
IFComp!! I love you! I learned a lot and had so much fun. I loved playing through everyone’s games (still trying to get through more!), and I promise it won’t take me nearly 10 years to do my next IF