Autumn Chen's IFComp 2023 streaming/reviews

Competitions IFComp
,
1

Hello! I’ll be streaming some comp games at approximately 4PM Pacific Time (probably a bit later) every week on Sunday. Link: Twitch

2023-10-01T23:15:00Z

22 Likes
2

Just finished my first stream!

Video: Twitch

Youtube link (also including my playlist for previous IF streams): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-z_0v8DQu0&list=PLuohED5tFTJuSyATxTU2IshuDi7qijDl-&index=8

Games played:

  • Lonehouse
  • Escape your psychosis
  • Help! I Can’t Find My Glasses!
  • DICK MCBUTTS GETS KICKED IN THE NUTS
  • Into The Lion’s Mouth
  • We All Fall Together
17 Likes
3

Great to see you posting these reviews! We’d have loved to have you in the author forum, but the support is really cool. Also, nice job covering that many more entries so that every one gets closer to one review on the spreadsheet (whether or not you were planning to do that.)

7 Likes
4

Stream starting now!

Stream done!

Twitch video: Twitch

Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmaEt5PDaxA&list=PLuohED5tFTJuSyATxTU2IshuDi7qijDl-&index=9

Games played:

  • The Engima of Solaris by jkj yuio
  • The Sculptor by Yakoub Mousli
  • 20 Exchange Place by Sol FC
  • All Hands by Natasha Ramoutar
  • Xanthippe’s Last Night with Socrates by Victor Gijsbers
15 Likes
5

Okay, stream starting now, again

Done (a while ago, but I just got to editing this post now, sorry). I played 4 30-minute games this time. If I want to get through more games, I’ll have to increase the frequency of these streams… maybe after next week?

Twitch: Twitch

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHMx3S9egwc&list=PLuohED5tFTJuSyATxTU2IshuDi7qijDl-&index=10

Games played:

  • Trail Stash
  • All the Troubles Come My Way
  • Fix Your Mother’s Printer
  • GameCeption
9 Likes
6

Stream done!

Twitch: Twitch

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilV3Lt862NQ

Games played:

  • Who Iced Mayor McFreeze?
  • Last Valentine’s Day

I didn’t get to The Whale’s Keeper or In The Details today, as I took too long on the puzzles in Mayor McFreeze.

10 Likes
7

Thanks for your video review of Solaris. Appreciated!

2 Likes
8

Twitch: Twitch

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-0EoAKFl8I

Games played:

  • The Whale’s Keeper
  • In the Details
  • The Finder’s Commission
  • My Brother; The Parasite
10 Likes
9

Just had an impromptu stream, playing LAKE Adventure and Gestures Towards Divinity without narration.

Twitch: Twitch

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaXNeleRny0

10 Likes
10

Stream starting now! Playing: Dysfluent, LUNIUM, possibly CODENAME OBSCURA and Tricks of light in the forest if there’s time.

Stream done! Played:

  • Dysfluent
  • LUNIUM
  • CODENAME OBSCURA

Twitch: Twitch

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j87IJgm9Efk&list=PLuohED5tFTJuSyATxTU2IshuDi7qijDl-&index=14

Next time: Tricks of light in the forest, Meritocracy, One Does Not Simply Fry (if there’s time)

12 Likes
11

Thanks for playing LUNIUM, it was fun watching you play through it all. Glad you managed to solve the case (with no hints needed!).

4 Likes
12

Hi @cchennnn ,

Thank you so much for playing Codename Obscura and streaming it. :innocent: Other reviewers have also pointed out some points in the game where the parser should definitely accept also other forms of commands than it currently does. There will be a ZX Spectrum Next version of the game coming out too, and before that I’ll go through all those difficult spots and make some changes. Will also update then the browser version :innocent:

Since this is my first ever Adventuron game implementation, also my first entry into IFComp, all this feedback about game design is very valuable, thanks!

-Mika

5 Likes
13

Thanks for watching, and I’m glad that it was fun/helpful…

I’ve also started to write brief textual reviews:

My Brother; The Parasite

I think pacing is one of the most underrated skills in IF, especially in twine/hypertext. This game is an exemplar of pacing. Each click doles out a small amount of text, a sentence or a fragment of a sentence, sometimes appended, sometimes replacing existing words. It’s hard to describe exactly how or why it works, to isolate the base components that make up “pacing”. But it does work in this game, and the effect is to create a constant rhythm that reflects the state of the main character and the world, adding another dimension to the totality of the story in addition to the words, almost like music. I was reading it out loud on a stream as I played, which I think made the effect work better.

In addition, the visuals of this game were superb - the character portraits, backgrounds, visual design, etc. The combination of everything - the writing, the visuals, the rhythm - made the story feel all-enveloping, sucking you into its world.

DICK MCBUTTS

This is the SPY INTRIGUE of puerile sex jokes (oh wait, maybe that’s just SPY INTRIGUE). I guess what I mean is that it starts out deceptively simple and immature, and then unfolds as you play to reveal a story that’s more interesting than it seems at first, while never losing sight of its initial “crude sex jokes” nature. Like SPY INTRIGUE, this takes some effort on the part of the player to fully explore, with a lot of places where the player could potentially fall off before experiencing everything (starting from the very beginning, with the whole “randomly getting a completely different game”). It’s as if this was deliberately engineered to get the Golden Banana of Discord.

Whereas SPY INTRIGUE has all sorts of heavy themes and ideas, this game doubles down on the initial crude sex joke to an absurd extent. And for me, it worked. It was a fun game. It knew what it wanted to be and committed fully.

10 Likes
14

Probably the final IFComp stream - starting now. Playing: Tricks of Light in the Forest, Meritocracy, One Does Not Simply Fry, more as time permits (or if anyone specifically requests a game). I’ll try to do a longer stream today…

Done. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a headache so I mostly stopped narrating for the second two games.

  • Tricks of Light in the Forest
  • Meritocracy
  • One Does Not Simply Fry

Twitch: Twitch

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib67VDoUU30&list=PLuohED5tFTJuSyATxTU2IshuDi7qijDl-&index=15

8 Likes
15

Thank you so much for taking the time to stream Dysfluent! Watching someone else play the game in real time was such a cool experience (and just a little bit nerve-racking, hahaha).

It was really interesting to hear your thoughts, and especially your experience with speech therapy! In an earlier version of the game, speech therapy actually played a big role in the story and the player could choose whether to start trusting professionals again after a bad childhood experience, but the focus and structure of the game ended up shifting too much and that narrative thread was dropped.

I’ll keep all your reactions and comments in mind while working on the post-comp version of the game :blush: I’m looking foward to watching your future streams/videos!

6 Likes
16

Thanks for playing and the comments!

And sorry that you hit what I consider a bug (the player doesn’t notice, but an event that should have happened didn’t happen; really have to fix it).

5 Likes
17

Thanks everyone for watching the streams! I’m glad to hear they were somewhat interesting…

My (most likely) last IFComp 2023 stream of The Whisperers:

Twitch: Twitch

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rip6V5n_qF8

I won’t be streaming this Sunday because of the IFComp announcement stream. After that, I’ll probably stream Ectocomp games and/or games from other smaller jams.

6 Likes
18

So, this stream will be continuing with EctoComp 2023 streams, starting now.

5 Likes