Chloe's IFComp 2024 Reviews

Competitions IFComp
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Hi everyone! Longtime IF player here, I’m new to the forums and this year, I’m going to try to review as many games as I can. I’m not playing in any particular order, just whatever catches my eye!

Deliquescence by Not-Only But-Also Riley

This is a very short conversational game in which you spend time with your best friend in her last moments before she melts into goo. The writing is sharp and nostalgic, and the friend is a well-realized character who I became attached to as I replayed the game over and over, trying out all the options. The custom web implementation is beautiful, and enhances the mood of the game a lot. The background dot pixel grid made me think of a grid of molecules lined up in order, in contrast to your friend’s sickness.

Unfortunately, in the approximately fifteen minutes I spent playing Deliquescence, I encountered two different major glitches that blocked the game from continuing. For such a short game, it’s no hassle to restart and just play options that don’t lead to glitches, but I really wish my experience with this game had been less buggy.

I got pretty emotional playing this one because it made me think of a close friend of mine who died very suddenly a few years ago- I sent her some messages when I learned she was going to the hospital but by the time she got there she wasn’t in a state to read them, and I often think about what I would’ve liked to have said if I had the chance. Instead our last conversation was about something totally mundane. In Deliquescence, the most mundane conversation options seem to comfort your friend the most. This game really encourages you to be a thoughtful friend and cherish every conversation.

Uninteractive Fiction by Leah Thargic

I don’t know what I expected.

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KING OF XANADU by MACHINES UNDERNEATH

This is a short, surreal fantasy piece that I really enjoyed after playing through it twice. I won’t go into too much detail on the actual content as it’s much better to be surprised, but I was struck by the tense and haunting prose, which is crafted really well at the level of the sentence and contributes to an unforgettable atmosphere. Some of the imagery- the black stalks, the sunbeams, the clockwork- really stuck with me in a way that keeps me wondering about this story hours after I ‘completed’ the game. I would definitely play any other game by MACHINES UNDERNEATH (although I don’t think they’ve published any others) and if I found out that they had written a novel, I would buy it on the spot!

I did notice a handful of spelling and capitalization errors, which was a shame because the rest of the game was so well polished. I always feel that in very short games where each individual word carries so much weight, it’s important to craft each of those words carefully. Even so, I think MACHINES UNDERNEATH did a really great job on this game and I’m going to be thinking about it for a while!

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LATEX, LEATHER, LIPSTICK, LOVE, LUST by THE BODY & THE BLOOD

Right off the bat, this game caught my eye with its title and interesting blurb- and as soon as I started the game, I was greeted with some of the best Twine text styling I’ve ever seen! WOW, this game does amazing things with its visual interface. This game gets points for STYLE because it has got style to spare! The multimedia backgrounds, the styling on text and online messages, and even the typography all form a strongly unified whole that must have taken a lot of hard work. I was really impressed by how seamless all of it looked, too- I never encountered any technical issues displaying these beautiful multimedia flourishes. The switching between light and dark backgrounds was a little difficult on the eyes- I recognize it’s thematically important though.

Aside from how darn PRETTY this game is- let’s talk about the content. This is a down to earth, sexually explicit coming-of-age story about a young British trans man (the same age as me, actually) as he comes to terms with his identity and relationships with others, including his experiences meeting a love interest at a kink club. I absolutely loved the realistic and thoughtful consideration of queer kink culture. Anyone who wants to step into the mindset of somebody with an interest in kink would really enjoy these portions of the game, and it helps that the description of the main love interest makes him sound super cute! This game really reminded me at times of talking to some of my own friends, since we’re also mostly queer and share a lot of the interests, anxieties, etc as the characters in this game.

In addition, the narration is very perceptive and funny about the tiny everyday anxieties and awkward social interactions we all face- trying to suss out what Valentine means when he texts “yay!” was funny and relatable. The writer has a very good eye for the absurd- maybe this is strange to say, but I think they’d make a fantastic stand-up comedian!

However, it’s not all just sexy fun and games for our hero- he’s very socially withdrawn and doesn’t really connect with his real-life friends, and instead he prefers to do most of his socializing online. Although a very realistic depiction of a certain type of queer experience (and I have absolutely met people just like this before… could even be me, if I were way more online), this element is where the game started to lose my interest, because most of the guy’s online friends are ANNOYING JERKS. I understand that that’s the whole point of a lot of those scenes, and they’re absolutely realistic, but I really just didn’t enjoy reading the circular, negative conversations about who slighted who, etc, etc, etc. I think I would have preferred a more exaggerated take on those online interactions, because I could easily go watch a bunch of people have the exact same fight on Discord right now if I wanted to- no need to play an IF game to get the same experience. Also, a pretty pivotal scene involves the characters arguing about a Youtube video I haven’t seen (which the narration implies is a waste of time to watch, so I wasn’t about to go watch it either) so it was hard to understand the conflict.

Not all of the internet stuff lost my interest. The person in the Discord server who just sends links to weird videos was a fantastic comic relief character and constantly made me laugh, and the scene where the main character keeps blurting out memes to express his attraction to a woman he meets is both hilarious, and a really thoughtful look at how online culture can mediate a lot of queer experiences. Overall, though, I thought some of those scenes dragged down a really compelling and emotional narrative.

Ultimately, I’m really glad I played it, but in the end there was just too much internet fighting and not enough latex in this game for me- and unless it’s behind a branch I didn’t see, I never encountered ANY leather (and no, the pleather jacket does not count!). I’m looking forward to exploring more works from the collective behind this game!

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Where Nothing Is Ever Named by Viktor Sobol

This is a very short, but clever little riff on an adventure Alice had in a forest where nothing has names. So, you need to figure out what the things you’re interacting with are, and how to escape. It’s a very clever idea that relies on the author withholding information. I did find the implementation a bit confusing as ‘thing’ only refers to the ‘other thing’, but once the answer ‘clicks’ it made me smile! I also appreciate the author implementing some of my favorite ‘pointless’ things to do in parser games, considering how short this game is. Try >SING!

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Your review is appreciated. This game actually wasn’t built in Twine; it’s built in a tool called “inkrunner” by isyourguy, which serves as a more robust version of the default ink player.

Your lament at the lack of leather content has been noted. This will be rectified in future works.

Cheers,
– THE BLOOD

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re: LATEX, LEATHER . . .

i enjoyed your review! Good point about online culture mediating queer experiences

I also came out of Act 2 like “did I miss the leather” :joy:

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Metallic Red by Riaz Moola

A meditative, gentle sci-fi game dealing with esoteric themes. I was really impressed by the simple but very effective text styling and the detailed, thoughtful prose, especially in the cooking and gardening ‘minigames’. I also enjoyed the sections where the main character browses different computer tabs, which were a great way to develop the world of this setting and establish a strong atmosphere. I was tickled by the planet overgrown with swiss chard- I love a good chard so I would love to go hang out there. The ending was also very touching.

Eikas by Lauren O'Donoghue

‘Eikas’, a communal feast celebration help in honor of the Epicurean philosophy, lends its name to this perfectly charming and captivating slice-of-life game. You play as the new chef of a communal food hall in a fantasy village; the setting reminds me of Studio Ghibli films. Your assistant is a magical bat creature. With his help, you need to plan and serve multiple village feasts over the course of a month while the village council decides whether to keep you on for the long term.

This is an RPG-style cooking simulator with a REALLY impressive amount of depth. Every single recipe you can cook (and there are a LOT) has its own little blurb, and it makes the food sound delicious! You can visit multiple locations in the town, buy or forage ingredients, decorate the food hall by growing flowers, do mini quests from a message board, read books with background lore, and more. None of the individual game systems are particularly complex, but taken as a whole, this is an RPG with impressive depth that encourages you to slow down and take note of the little things- the beautiful descriptions of nature, the quirky sense of humor. The implementation is fantastic as well, with a number of helpful features for helping the player keep track of what they’re doing and what ingredients they have. There’s even a notepad feature that I really loved, and used a lot to plan out my meals. During my experience playing the game, I never encountered any glitches or typos either, which speaks to an impressive amount of polish and playtesting.

My favorite part is that you can befriend a handful of NPCs who are all impressively well-sketched characters. It’s hard to decide which one is my favorite, but all of them feel like complex, dynamic people with their own worldviews, hopes and dreams, and favorite meals. When the historian opened up about his background, I’ll admit I got pretty misty-eyed. If this game were much, much longer, I would relish the opportunity to spend more time with these lovable characters, especially the aforementioned bat creature!

My only complaints are the difficulty and the achievement system. While a gentle pastoral fantasy doesn’t need to be difficult, I found it a bit TOO easy to finish each character’s storyline, max out my approval in town, cook four-star meals, buy every book, and so on. By the last ten or so days, I had completed every side story and had enough money to buy all the ingredients I needed, so I just sort of clicked around to fill time until the day ended. The pacing was great early in the game when I had a bunch of different quests, but by the end it had slowed down a lot. If there were a bit more time pressure or trade-off with the decisions you make, I think it could add some more excitement to what should be a particularly tense last few days.

Also, I wish that you could see your achievements once you reach the ending screen! Possibly also with a list of all the possible achievements, to encourage the player to try again and unlock them all.

Overall, I had a lovely time playing Eikas and have already recommended it to some friends. This game feels like eating my dad’s famous chicken soup with matzo balls on a cold winter day… nourishing and heartwarming.

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Act 2 discusses the role of leather in LGBTQ+ history. There’s also leather physically present in Act 2: the scene with the pink leather bag, which triggers a flashback to the evening with Artemis. Maybe different branches have different scenes?

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Thank you for the correction!

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Ohh, good point! I must have overlooked those elements (and I did forget that the handbag was specifically made of leather). Thanks for pointing that out!

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The Bat by Chandler Groover

I had high expectations for this one- I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every other game by Chandler Groover I’ve played, and I have a real fondness for Batman. I’m delighted to report that The Bat is fantastic. This is a laugh-out-loud slapstick comedy that starts out with an absurd premise and just keeps escalating from there. Your goal, as the long-suffering valet to billionare Bryce Wyatt, is to keep a fundraiser party from going off the rails… of course, things immediately devolve into chaos. From Master Wyatt’s, uh, eccentricities to the conflicting agendas and desires of his guests, the player spends most of the game in a mad dash around the manor, desperately putting out fires both literal and figurative.

The limited parser is deployed to great effect. Other than the standard directions, LOOK, and EXAMINE, the verb ATTEND TO is an all-purpose interaction that covers pretty much everything you need to do. A more standard set of verbs could have easily been overwhelming in this scenario, but instead, the streamlined parser keeps the action moving at a snappy pace. It feels quick and fun to dash around the party, trying to ATTEND TO problems as they escalate to absurdity. The verb THINK pulls up a set of your current goals (which can be quite a long list), which is an extremely helpful feature that I used a lot. I also appreciated the detailed walkthrough, which is written from an in-character perspective. I only needed to consult it once, but I thought this was a really great touch.

The storyline is hilarious. I actually laughed so hard at the part where the moose falls on the bishop and gets stuck that I had to get up from my computer and catch my breath before I could play anymore, and the whole situation with the twin mixup and Emilia was SO FUNNY, particularly the narrator’s extremely discreet descriptions. Most of all, Master Wyatt is such a lovably hilarious weirdo that just about everything he did made me laugh. As with every game I’ve played by Chandler Groover, the prose is crystal sharp. There are moments of reflection that I found really touching as well. The description for looking at the stars was a poignant moment that made me stop and reflect on my own love of stargazing.

This is one of my favorite games of the competition so far and I’m looking forward to replaying it soon.

A few hours later in the day of The Egocentric by Ola Hansson

This brief but enjoyable interactive comic strip tells a hard-boiled tale (a chapter in a larger narrative, it seems) about a grizzled cop attempting to bust a gun runner. The artwork is great, with a lot of charm and lived-in grit, and the main characters are interesting and memorable- particularly the titular egocentric and his inability to understand that the world exists outside his immediate perspective. The choice-based gameplay revolves around one puzzle, which I found fiddly enough to use the walkthrough after giving it a few tries, but the concept is cool and I intend to check out some other comics related to this story.

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after some IRL things diverted my attention, I’m back with some more reviews- I’m going to keep these a bit shorter so I have time to review as many games as I can. I hope to play a few longer games and review them by the time judging ends as well.

Miss Duckworthy's School for Magic-Infested Young People by Felicity Banks

This is a well-polished fantasy adventure with some really nice touches. The introduction is fantastic, and I’m impressed by the inclusion of four different potential origins for your character, each with their own act 1 story. I also really enjoyed the main NPCs, who are likable and well fleshed out.

The narative’s uneven tone is the game’s biggest flaw. This world is presented as a high-surveillance dystopia full of censorship and casual violence, but the day-to-day interactions at the magic prison often felt more like high-school drama. The emphasis on the high standard of living at the prison, with a movie theater and delicious food, made the setting seem downright luxurious (there’s an implication of a ‘gilded cage’ but I would’ve liked to see this discussed more explicitly). Because of this, it was hard to predict the stakes of my decisions and get invested in the story.

Civil Service by Helen L Liston

The story, told through fragmented and poetic writing, revolves around somebody like a guardian angel trying to improve the almost supernaturally bad vibes at an office job. The atmosphere of alienation and ennui is done well and figuring out the underlying story of what’s really going on was enjoyable. Unfortunately, this game has a lot of spelling and grammar issues that really took me out of the flow of things.

A Dream Of Silence: Act 3 by Abigail Corfman

Initially I was hesitant about playing a game based on Baldur’s Gate 3 (which I haven’t played), not to mention starting with the third act, but I loved this game and replayed it a few times to try for different endings and interactions. The central NPC, a snarky but tormented vampire, is well-characterized and his vulnerability within the game is very effective in getting the player to emphasize with him and try to protect him. I also enjoyed the central gameplay loop where the ghostly main character has to use their limited ability to affect the world at just the right moment to win over allies or fight enemies. After IFComp ends, I look forward to playing the first two acts of this game!

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