baezil's Ectocomp 2025 reviews (latest: When the TV decides to Murder your Girlfriend - The Game)

Competitions
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This is a thing people do, right? This seems like a fun way to keep track of the games I play during Ectocomp. If you see an egregiously bad opinion, just know that I’m relatively new to playing community-made IF games, and this is all subjective opinion anyway. Also, I’ve got a game in the comp. (While I hope it’s clear from my reviews that this isn’t a psy-op to sabotage other participants, I wanted to mention it.)

On to the games!

Les Petites Morts

Every day I get emails (Emery Joyce)

Well-constructed, scaled perfectly for the LPM category, entirely too real. I loved that the workday felt a little like a mini-game (match these emails with the correct colleague) while still conveying the story. I could feel the pit of dread every time a coworker [redacted]; not much is scarier than being expected to do something you’ve not been trained to do. This felt like it could’ve been the premise for an episode of I am in Eskew (horror podcast with a similar late stage capitalism horror-satire vibe), which I say as a huge compliment. This one is setting the bar high for the other LPMs.

Normal Morning (Damon L. Wakes)

A neatly constructed little parser that’s also scaled perfectly for the LPM category. That’s always going to impress me; fitting the scope of your concept to 4 hours of actual creation is hard! This game works in a clever way to reward replay, and I really appreciate how this used parser mechanics and default responses to craft a dynamic scene and simulate anxiety/panic. It’s a very tight, well-crafted experience.

A Walk in the Hallways (augustgloom)

I don’t love tight spaces or dark hallways, and the narrowing hallways freaked me out a bit in a fun way. I’ll admit this is a perplexing one conceptually; played it several times and I can’t tell if there’s something specific happening or if it’s just creating an effectively dreamy (nightmare-y?) atmosphere. Apologies if I’m missing a clear connecting threat. Still, it’s not easy to convey a weird, surreal experience in a game, and this does it well. Technically very tight and, like I noted, has some evocative moments.

The Walking Man (mathbrush)

This was really great! This is a matter of personal taste, but this is exactly what I want fro a spooky little game. It felt like a classic short horror story condensed down into a bite-sized parser: the kind of cozy but genuinely creepy experience that you want around Halloween. Make sure not to close out too soon after the game ends, as the “post-credits scene” was a fun surprise. (I said “Ohmygod, he’s in my computer!” out loud.)

Grand Guignols

...Grind exceedingly small... (DissoluteSolute)

This game is mean and grim in a way I really liked. I don’t know if this makes sense, but it had a crunchy, lo-fi, PS2 graphics sort of vibe. I really liked the gnarly moment of that first “in” command when you realize where the rest of the game is going to take place.

It seems like this was probably meant to be a LPM that juuust missed the 4 hr cut off; as a GG, I would’ve liked a little more detail and context. Some of it really works as nightmarish surrealism (maggot skinsuit, bone architecture), but I wish I had little bit more of an idea about how this hellish little world worked. (How and why did the flies actually kill a human? What’s up with the spider magic?) Still, it’s an icky, fun little game. Also, it’s got bugs!

Dad's Shiva (Cidney Hamilton)

Really bleak! Does a good job evoking overlapping types of discomfort. There were some rough edges on the construction that led to some awkward dialog sequencing options (topics that had been touched on in a previous option that later were written as if it was the first time we’d talked about them, e.g., or having the option to call Jamie stick around even after it wasn’t something you could do). This was more noticeable because the conversation was so central to this game. It seems to end quite abruptly (at least the two endings I got did), but the more I think about it the more that might be very intentional. Not sure resolution is possible here; sometimes the only way out of this kind of swamp of trauma and family tension is to abandon the hope of resolution and get out.

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Rambling about GES

Thanks! A very nice vibe to evoke.

Pretty much this exactly—I was also writing it on the 28th, wanted to upload it on the 29th, and I’d already finished off I Have No Verbs… from the 27th and had already written Night of the..,. In retrospect, I could’ve still written more though.

With knives in order to create the very flesh-hive that’s the setting of the game. Yes, that’s just repeating the introduction there, but the introduction is the image that first struck me and I thought leaving the rest to the player’s imagination was more satisfactory than anything I could come up with. As for the spider magic, once again the vagueness is deliberate—I think the general idea of “spider fuelled by dying curse fights non-stop for days” + ‘pun’ between spider silk and silkworm silk.

I do wish I’d managed to actually fit more 'sharp-steel’ type pseudo-kennings into the game proper to increase the sense of alienness but perhaps that’s perfectly alright…

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Thanks for playing, and I’m honored that you felt like my game set a high standard!

I Am In Eskew was on my to-listen list for a while, but then I got into audiobooks as background listening for driving and/or crafting and stopped listening to podcasts very much. Sounds like maybe I should try to fit it in, though!

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Thank you for the great game!

I really enjoyed Eskew; I think it’s definitely one that requires a certain mood. One soft-voiced British guy delivering a contemplative monologue to rain sound effects WILL put you to sleep if you listen to it at the wrong time, no matter how spooky it can get.

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A couple more!

Heatsick (Ormulum)

I, too, would jump down a well to escape summer heat. This did a really good job of building a a nauseously oppressive atmosphere. I could smell that damn incense and weed smoke. I love when an ending’s horror comes from a perverse relief that they’ve escaped the horrors of the mundane.

Annual Country Market (dougegan2)

Funky little game! Some of the info about the main character is dropped in at odd times in a way that feels a little awkward, but this is a very self-absorbed person. The clash between the main character’s carelessly condescending, light tone and the actual harm being done was effectively depressing.

There’s something interesting happening with using the items to exorcise the vendors, a procedural argument that I want to chew on a little more. I did a full circuit of the barn before trying to use any of the items and was worried there’d be a horde, but there’s no possibility of a worker solidarity here; the vendors seem to be bound to their stalls. The main char uses their own creations to neutralize them, just as he uses his socioeconomic capital to trap rural ag workers irl… I think this game is about Marxist alienation inherent in commodified, cottagecore aesthetics, is what I’m saying, and I think that’s neat.

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Fit a couple more in!

One GG.

Sparks Fly (RatNibbles)

Mechanical body horror! I always forget this sub-genre exists until I encounter it, and then I always remember how messed up it is. It is, full disclosure, a type of horror that I find to be purely unpleasant to think about rather than pleasantly spooky, and this influenced my personal experience of the game.

On top of the body horror is a skin-crawling stalker. Andrew is monstrously entitled and totally convinced he’s in the right. I got two endings, neither of which were great for the PoV character; I hope there’s one where Andrew gets what he deserves and is stripped for parts. A very hateable villain, which I like.

I wanted to know more about that PoV character. Though they’re intentionally a blank slate (there’s some clever customization involving your driver’s license details, the only time I’ve been excited by a surprise DMV-style form), something about them has attracted Andrew’s attention. I wanted more of a sense of their personality, something that explained why Andrew was fixated on them.

There are some noticeable rough edges—a menu with a repeated description of Andrew walking away, some weird pronoun usage in response to the customization, a minor code error. Nothing game-breaking, though, and I sympathize. (The game Tabitha and I submitted apparently has some awkward spots with CYOA pages that we didn’t catch… sigh. There’s always something.)

And one LPM.

Non-humain (BenyDanette)

This game clicked with me right away. Like the titular non-humain, I, too, am a weird creature who constantly wants to avoid being perceived and escape situations.

I loved the mechanics and the interface used here. I’d never encountered a Decker game before, and I was immediately delighted. The verb choice mechanic was intuitive, and it gave the game a very flexible, varied feel without being at all overwhelming. (Though I did accidentally tear a pigeon in half getting used to how it worked. :frowning: Sorry, little buddy.)

I was also impressed by the visual design. Like the game, it’s simple but very evocative and tasteful.

This game is so perfectly calibrated and lovingly crafted on every level. A really beautiful little creation.

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A couple more reviews. Going slower than I hoped, but this week’s been weird and busy.

Night Ferry (kaetts)

A while ago I lived on Vancouver Island and would take the ferry to Port Angeles, WA a couple times a year. I love a ferry. Something about the scale–it’s roomier and slower than most kinds of travel, but you’re on the ocean which is so immediate and so vast–really plucks a string deep in my brain. It’s the quintessential liminal experience, in my opinion.

This game is set on a ferry, which really resonated with me. It’s too mundane to be scary, too unusual to be dull. It offers varied “rooms” for encounters, and the use of the car deck as characterization tool is very clever.

The variable text mechanic doesn’t always click for me, but it did here; the different options can give the story very different nuances, it felt engaging and interesting and well-integrated with the rest of the text and options. The writing and design create a haunted, lonely, oddly tranquil atmosphere. There’s no panic, no hurry; the horror is behind us, but we aren’t quite on the other side of it yet. I liked this one quite a bit.

Nothing in my Veins (Coral Nulla, Naarel)

This is the second Decker game I’ve encountered ever, the first being Non-humain. I’m really impressed with what I’ve seen. I think the authors are known for their work with Decker, so maybe I’ve just been lucky. Even not having a wide experience with Decker, though, it’s obvious that this game is extremely… I want to use the term professional, though I don’t like what that says about my unconscious assumptions about skill. Sometimes you engage with a creative work (game, book, movie), and the craft is so evident that know immediately that the author is doing something. This game is very clearly written and designed with taste, intention, and skill.

I think this is a must-play LPM; I’m surprised it’s only got 8 ratings. It’s a little more opaque and experimental than a lot of games, but I think it’s worth the short time it takes to experience.

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Two very different, very smart games, one that takes maybe 10ish minutes to play and one that I had open in a tab since day 2 or 3 of the comp that I only finished this evening.

Slop (Milo Mesdag)

Listen. I was tired. I didn’t realize it was going to be about genAI, though the title should’ve clued me in. A couple paragraphs in I was like, “huh, this is reminding me a little of… oh.” Gave me a good chuckle.

This is a clever system, used cleverly, and I’d love to see a multiplayer IF pushed a little farther in a longer game. It probably has been; feel free to name drop similar games below.

Anyway, I won, subjugated everyone and everything to my will. My player 2 was unfortunately requisitioned for raw materials, but as they say in my eternal and unchanging kingdom, slop la vie!

Stagefright (Dercomai)

Okay, I’m about to confess something and I need everyone to be cool about it. Are we cool? Okay… I don’t, generally speaking, like parsers. If my account isn’t insta-deleted, I’m the first to say that it’s a me problem. I’m not a smart flesh construct. Parsers are often puzzle-focused, and I don’t love puzzles and am not good at them. (These may be connected, who’s to say?) I find the verbs are often unintuitive, and getting the “no such action/thing” messages is a real momentum killer.

I’m fond of this parser, though. I loved the verb limitation as a way to simplify and focus gameplay and create a progression/gating system. I was excited every time I found a new script, and I was delighted when I finally found a use for formfind. There’s a balance to the different abilities that I really liked, with some being more common and a few that have a narrower use case that makes them feel really special when you do use the successfully. This game is making great use of the form/genre, and it’s having a lot of fun doing it.

I found that the bottom UI took up more room than I would’ve liked. Not a huge issue, just something I found mildly annoying after I’d read a few scripts. (I loved the glow effect on the map, though. I just liked lookin’ at it, and it had an old timey stagelight glow.) I found some puzzle bits hard to figure out (see paragraph 1), and I had to ask for help to figure out the use for vanish at that one critical moment, e.g. This was probably not a problem for most/any other players.

The writing here is also really great throughout. Special shout out to whoever took point on the metered sections toward the end. Still, this game is full of smart choice and clever writing, and I hope it gets more love and attention by the end of the comp. (I’m sure it will, I’ve been informed while writing that this crew won last year’s GG category.) I will say that we may be stretching the definition of horror with this one, unless it’s the horror of fantasy workplace safety violations; my primary emotion was charm.

Also, is this game set in Zork world? I’ve never played Zork, but I have played Marbles, D, & the Sinister Spotlight by @kamineko, which I know is set in Zorkland, and that game has dark lights, and this game has dark lights… are those a Marbles & D easter egg? Are dark lights a Zork thing? Is IF just Zorks all the way down?

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Thank you for the review, and we’re so glad you enjoyed it! The metered section was Ada’s work in particular.

And yeah, it is perhaps not the most horrifying of IF. But we figured as a Phantom pastiche it fit.

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I can’t speak to the various (and unfortunate) extended universe Zork titles, but there isn’t an “aughtlight” in the core six games.

edit: and when I say “unfortunate,” I mean Infocom’s other Zork stuff. I’m not talking about games made by members of the community!

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I should say that the bit about horror wasn’t at all a complaint. A lot of the games I’ve played so far aren’t squarely situated within the horror genre, which is fuzzy anyway. Halloween comedy is a staple of the season, too; a gloomy setting and some lighthearted weirdness is classic October, so this definitely feels seasonal. I wasn’t kidding about the OSHA violation horror, either; those buzz saws were unattended!!!

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Just one for now, so not hiding this one under a dropdown. I’m stealing the convention of putting the latest game reviewed in the title that I’ve seen others use. As internet art thieves like to say, “credit to OP.”

Beneath the Willow Tree

This is a really solid effort. While I was playing I kept forgetting it was made in four hours and evaluating it like it was a GG. There are several components to this game– a ticking clock, a mystery, different things to look at or try to interact with, a narrative– and they all come together so smoothly it’s easy to forget that the game, like its protagonist, had a hard deadline.

I felt a very real anxiety about getting my guests’ attention before they went to bed. What if I ghosted too hard and scared them? What if I tried something that didn’t work and wasted my time? I got the good ending on the first try and went back to poke at the game and see how easy it was to run out of time. It seemed pretty hard to fail, but then I’ve seen a couple people say they didn’t succeed at first, so the 9:30 deadline is apparently a real threat, which I think is cool! (Also, as I’ve always suspected, I will would be very good at haunting people.)

I like this game’s idea of a ghost. You’ve got angry ghosts, you’ve got grief-driven ghosts, and you’ve got wispy Minnie who is so insubstantial she can’t even hold memories or emotions. It’s not a totally novel concept, but I think the fading ghost is an underappreciated concept. This game’s tone is fairly gentle, but our unraveling protagonist and her death are both horribly sad.

Finally, mushroom foraging is a daredevil hobby, and fungus enthusiasts don’t get enough credit for being hardened badasses.

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Thank you so much for the review!

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This game just got bumped to the top of my list once Iron ChIF is over!

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One Fifty-Nine: Drowned Secrets (Jacic)

I made a mistake. I opened the game to take a quick look, not intending to play, and when I was asked to choose a merfolk name I typed in a reference to a meme I’d just seen. When I came back to really play through this game a couple days later…

poot
poot332×335 37.8 KB

Was I surprised and confused every time the hardened military guy called me “poot?” Yes. Was it always funny? Definitely.

Anyway, this was a fun adventure story. A spooky wreck, a mysterious force, a missing military team, some creepy underwater moments. It felt like a classic choose your own adventure printed book (in both good and bad ways). I love ocean/merfolk spookiness, I think it’s underappreciated in horror (shoutout to Underwater, no rotten tomatoes score could ever make me hate you). This game sets a delightfully spooky tone, and I like using military use of aquatic mammals as an inspiration.

Because I liked a lot of this game, I wanted more. There’s clear motive here, but I wanted more about this world so I could really get into character as, uh, poot. It’s mentioned that you’ve been in captivity for a while, but also that you’ve been drilled in how to deal with cursed Atlantean artifacts. By a family? By the military? You seem to think there are free merfolk out there; how does the existence of sapient aquatic humanoids and magical remnants affect the sociopolitical landscape? Your jackbooted thug captors are mostly absent thanks to a spooky equipment malfunction, but I would’ve liked to get a bit more from them just for worldbuilding.

I liked a lot of the choices; some felt intuitive (the jellies) or had a built-in trade off (use your voice and draw attention/stick with your knife and risk injury). Later on some (not all) seem to fall into the classic “choose right or die” CYOA mode (jellies, coral) or seem fairly inconsequential (flashlight off or on, e.g.), and overall I’d have liked more weight and less immediate consequences to the choices.

It was easy enough to go back and choose differently when you did die, and I didn’t find the health management burdensome or complicated. My full playthrough ended quite well for ol’ poot, though; I saw someone mention an extra health mechanic, which I didn’t encounter even when I went back to try different choices, so maybe it can get more complicated if you choose poorly?

Overall, a fun little adventure in a unique setting that I really liked. My apologies to the author for undermining the intended tone with my name choice, haha.

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A couple more, both of which I enjoyed quite a bit, and which couldn’t be more different from each other.

Costumes and Candy (Leon Lin)

Review

Okay, if you aren’t in the U.S., you need to understand that a lot of this is spot on for trick-or-treating in the 90s. A whole IF LAN party-style meet up isn’t something I ever encountered, but very weird neighbors doing elaborate bits that are clearly for their benefit more than the kids’, dogs who should NOT be in the yard because they hate kids, that one house that set up a whole maze, plotting your route, and the candy competition were all perfect. The only thing missing was candy swapping, but that mostly happened in the day or two after Halloween. I do have to say that I’ve never heard the word dragée in my life; I trick-or-treated/lived in Illinois and WNY, so if it’s regional it isn’t from there.

I got stuck in that maze, somehow; it didn’t seem hard, but it took me a couple tries to get out. Like I said in an earlier review, not a puzzle guy! I also couldn’t figure out the timing mechanic here. Passage-based, maybe? I skipped at least one house, but I did end up doubling back (it’s been over twenty years, I’m rusty) and wandering a bit wondering how to trigger the end. That, honestly, is also classic Halloween. Sometimes you just ended up meandering, not really lost but kind of ready to go home but also not quite done.

Really cute, very authentic and charmingly retro, and the game-within-a-game is impressive. Had a great time with this one.

the lamp of your body (Naarel)

Review

Ah, the allure of an enigmatic, cynical goth with an ex they just can’t forget who’s a little mean and a little condescending and a little bored and who you might be able to fix. You can’t, and you know it, and she knows it, but it’s fun to pretend, and she’ll like it if you’re naïve enough to hope.

So, is it really just a story about Satan, or is it a metaphor? There’s something happening here with the PoV character being “tested” with the same questions Satan poses to Jesus in the desert (I was, I’m afraid, religious until my early 20s). Do you want to be safe, fed, and at least a little bit in control? Perfectly reasonable desires if you aren’t trying to exercise divine discpline, but interestingly there are perfectly mortal reasons to say no to all of them: fear of obligation, disillusionment with The System, and a perfectly healthy fear of base jumping. The only actual choice the player, the only the real temptation, is whether to believe the Devil can repent.

It’s less about the actual answer (can you ever really know? The game won’t tell you) than it is about your answer. Per Jesus in the verse referenced by the title, how “good” your eyes are (the word in the original text has some connotation of generosity), how you perceive the world, affects you. (Not entirely clear how, this is one of Oily Josh’s vaguer aphorisms.) How generously you look at this game will affect your experience, too. I think players’ worldviews, experiences with religion, and how much time they spend thinking about the game will result in very different interpretations. I think this is extremely meta and clever. As an ex-Christian and and ex-lit grad student, I was delighted.

There are other things going on here, too, with references to socioeconomic/political context. The PoV character is skipping breakfast, disgusted by politics, a little too into pain/unhealthy habits. The verse the title’s referencing comes, a little incongruously, in between more classic Jesus-isms about not dwelling on earthly concerns like money & food security. (I’m very much not religious anymore, I swear; I had to look this up to refresh myself on the context.) Not sure what to do with that parallel yet, but I’ll enjoy thinking about it on and off for a bit longer.

This is a dense little work, not in its writing style (it’s short, very well-written) but in how tightly it coils ideas around a relatively simple narrative. This, of the games I’ve played so far, has the most going on conceptually, though I think I deserve some compensation for having to think about Bible verses so much. Or not! Maybe it’s just a simple story about an encounter with the Devil. Depends on how you look at it.

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Thanks for your review of Costumes and Candy! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

On dragées

To tell the truth, I never heard that word before either before I wrote this game! I learned it because I was wanted to avoid referring to candy using brand names, and for a certain colorful candy with purportedly unmeltable shells, I wondered, exactly what kind of candies are those?

How time works and ending the game

Time in the game only passes when you travel down a street, or when you leave a house. Time does not pass when you’re doing something at a house (so you have an infinite amount of time to wander the maze if you wish). Perhaps it would have been less confusing if I hid the clock when you were visiting a house so players wouldn’t be confused about time not passing during those parts.

There are three ways the game will end: 1) when it becomes 8:00 PM, 2) when you visit all 19 houses, or 3) when you press the “End Night” button in the sidebar.

Again, thanks for your review of my game!

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The brand name thing was my best guess! It’s a useful word, those things are a whole genre of candy, we can’t call all of them M&Ms!

I… didn’t even notice the End Night button. Sight. It’s not the first game with an interface option I ignored. I’m still getting used to all the slight differences in interfaces between systems and I think my brain just skips over all the things that aren’t the text. It wasn’t a problem at all even without that button, I was just worried I’d missed a really good house and the game was prompting me to find a specific address I’d skipped.

Thanks for the fun game, and the little behind the scenes peek at candy names!

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It’s definitely a fault of my game if the controls aren’t obvious to the player. I wonder what would be a better way to make the sidebar controls easier to see? I did mention the button near the start of the game but perhaps I should have changed its color in the sidebar at that point (or even permanently) to make it more visible. Or I could have briefly displayed an illustration of the sidebar in the main body of the text with an explanation of what each part did.

Thanks again for your review!

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Thanks for all your thoughts on my game @baezil ! It’s always great to hear what seemed to work or could be improved.

Some paths make it harder to keep your health up depending on the choices made, especially if you’ve maxed out your voice use. Congrats on managing to keep poot alive and well to the end of the game even on multiple playthroughs :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Quite alright, I found it amusing as well. Thank you again for the lovely review :grin:

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