I’m really enjoying these reviews, and it’s really awesome how far you’ve come (in terms of games played) already! I was recently thinking about your time, but as long as you’re enjoying this, that’s the best thing!
8 Likes
I think you’re doing great! I’m always excited when I see you’ve posted a new review - they’re thorough, constructive, the format is clear, and I think the ‘what I’ve learned about IF’ sections are really unique and insightful. Speaking for myself, it’s really useful and interesting to see impressions from someone who’s relatively new to the form. It gives a fresh perspective on things more experienced IF players might not notice or think to comment on.
I hope you keep going for as long as you’re still having fun with it!
10 Likes
Ahaha, well great minds and all that! 
And I agree about the dragon, that made me a bit sad. RIP 
I’ve very much enjoyed all your reviews, especially the depth and thoughtfulness you put into examining both the positive aspects of each game and the areas where there’s room for improvement.
7 Likes
36 | THE DESERTER
36 | THE DESERTER
by: Memory Canyon
Progress:
- I reached an ending of the narrative after about 11 minutes (in this ending, the objectives I met were “made it to safety,” “helped save the boy in the cave,” and “found Sophie’s silk ribbon.”) I continued playing/reading for a few more minutes to check some of the alternate branches of the narrative, and felt satisfied that I had encountered a majority of the game’s possible text. In total, I played for about 25 minutes.
Things I Appreciated:
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Something I really appreciated about the interface for this game was that, when making choices, I wasn’t pushed through to a new screen and instead, new text simply extended the existing narrative. This helped me feel like I was reading a short story and could scroll back up at any time if I needed to in order to recall details.
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I like the way that being in a mech impacted the experience of wandering through the world. For instance, you can scrape it in a narrow canyon gap, make a difficult jump and bust its mechanical ankle, lose it the depths of a river, its electronics can help you (GPS) or hinder you (when your captain calls in for you to report), and its weaponry can be used to kill or to help others. This story treats the mech as an extension of your character with advantages and disadvantages, and also forces you to abandon it (I didn’t find any branches that didn’t result in the mech being abandoned in the river in my playthroughs, other than a branch where I died before even getting to the river), leaving your character vulnerable to others that still have them. Overall, I appreciated the thought put into navigating in this bulky, dangerous machinery.
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I liked that it was not always obvious which choices were better. While there isn’t a huge amount of branching, Joad will offer an assessment of the pros and cons of each choice, and it seemed to play out in a reasonable way. For instance, the game offers you the choice to try climbing out of the canyon to get past the river, but it realistically fails immediately if you attempt to do that.
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I find it emotionally interesting to engage with stories that take a concept with “negative” cultural associations and humanize them. For instance, if you consider what the prevailing image of “a deserter” is, it’s pretty negative, right? Someone who is disloyal, cowardly, puts the people depending upon them at greater risk? And I know that this is not the first time this type of war narrative has been done (not a criticism by the way: there are infinite ways to tell a creative and worthwhile story using narratives/tropes that have been “done before”), but I liked that Joad could express a range of perspectives and behaviors during their desertion that explicitly casts doubt on this prevailing image. Joad is a character in the midst of finding a new moral center, and desperation realistically challenges (and depending on what choices you make, erodes) that morality.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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I found that I was experiencing a gap between what I believe was intended to be the impact of the writing, and how the writing actually landed with me. Surprising, exciting, scary, etc., things are happening, but I didn’t feel that tense while playing. Since I think this is an unproductive (or at the very least, underproductive) critique, I wanted to use the space of this response section brainstorm some suggestions of strategies that might facilitate the emotional impact.
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Suggestion #1: For non-choice click links, these occasionally soft-spoil an upcoming moment. Because the links are bold and in a bright, eye-catching color, when a new link that pops up and says something to the effect of, “right at that instant,” it disrupts the pace of reading as I now know about an upcoming interruptive event before having read the preceding text (as my eye has jumped ahead). So I would try experimenting with more subtle link colors that don’t attract as much attention, as well as more neutral descriptions (like “Continue,” which is used a lot of times, or even just a symbol that you can click on to proceed that will not distract the player as much).
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Suggestion #2: I think the cave scenes could have a heightened sense of sound, paranoia, and disorientation to them. In my first playthrough, I found it too easy to glide through the cave section. I think this is a place where it makes sense to intentionally slow the pace of reading with more description, so that when action pops back in the reader is in a state to react to this more. I would recommend thinking in static fiction terms here a bit: adding in some longer paragraphs, and having some sequences that are just one-sentence or even one-word paragraphs can release or create tension.
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Suggestion #3: Related to the above, since this is an IF piece, I bet there are subtle ways you could use the speed of text-reveal to influence the player’s mood. I noticed that text seemed to always fade in at the same rate. The consistency of this rhythm is at odds with the tension of the piece. For example, when describing sudden movements or sounds, they could appear quicker (set to a shorter fade-in duration), and for more contemplative sections, the text could fade in a bit slower (not to an extreme but just, a bit slower). I feel like a tool like this could in theory be used to create more “valleys” so that the reader is refreshed to feel the impact of the next action beat “peak”.
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Minor continuity error: on one of the branching paths I tested looking for new text, I abandoned the mech in the cave by where a bear is, wandered around in a valley with some blackberries/quail eggs, and then ended up returning to the main path to help the person buried in rubble. However, this branch didn’t account for the fact that my mech was abandoned, and played out as if I still was using the mech. I would either add in a mention that you got back in the mech, or continue an alternate path in the story without the mech (for instance, without the mech, maybe you can’t help him get out of the rubble…)
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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I thought it was interesting in this piece how the environment is made to dictate player agency, a layer of realism. There are certainly choices you can make as a player that matter, but other choices that are presented and prove to be non-choices because of the unyielding environment. Having choices “not matter” can lead to the player feel like they are being railroaded/cheated out of agency, but here, it feels essential to the narrative that you can’t do all the things that your character thinks of doing—this is a tense situation where there are factors beyond their control. So this feels like a good case study of how to build a narrative where denial of agency can feel appropriate, rather than feeling like it’s a branch being trimmed to ease the burden of the writer to create a massive fractal choice map for what is meant to be a more tightly bound narrative.
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Related to an above suggestion, I’m really thinking here about how the text-fade in creates a reading rhythm that can either intensify or blunt the impact of writing. In static fiction, things like punctuation, paragraph breaks, scene breaks, etc., manage the pace for the reader. These are all still present here, but with the added element of the digital text fade-in. I haven’t thought too critically about this before, but now I think that, especially for more narrative-focused pieces like this one, not taking that fade-in for granted and intentionally adjusting it could be a rewarding tool in influencing the reader’s emotional response.
Quote:
- “‘Joad, report now. over.’ The voice is as firm as a gunshot.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- When I made the reckless choice to cross the river as my only option, and felt truly exposed by losing the power and protection of the mech that I had brought this far into the narrative.
7 Likes
37 | STRING THEORY
37 | STRING THEORY
by: W Pzinski
Progress:
- I reached the end of the game in Venice (California, not the European vacation you perhaps thought you might be going on) in around 30 minutes. I checked a few more branches to pick up some text I missed, and spent around 45 minutes total with this game.
Things I Appreciated:
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Despite the often difficult subject matter in this game, something that really came across to me was the playfulness of experimentation with interactive text. For example, I thought the mini-golf puzzle was a charming use of interactive text—I can’t say that I’ve seen anything like that before.
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I found the semi-unreliable narration to be a really engaging element. I’ll give an example of what I mean. In my playthrough, Aunt Mary “lowers her bifocals, then reaches down for her 16" chainsaw. She pulls the cord, staring maniacally at Uncle Jimmy while she rips through her turkey breast.” In the moment, I took this to be a joke/exaggeration from Jay’s point of view. I imagined that she just clumsily cut the turkey breast using an electric knife since I could not take seriously the idea of using a chainsaw inside at the dinner table. Much later on, if you try to tell Ben about this incident, the actual dialogue will switch to something else (another technique that is used a lot). Similarly, Jay imagines things that could happen but then don’t happen, yet the supernatural visions he experiences seem to be real. I found it enjoyable in moments like this (at least, on topics that weren’t as dark) to engage in this kind of cat-and-mouse game with the narration. The interactive elements really intensify that aspect of Jay’s narration.
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It’s interesting to me how the idea of an “awkward Thanksgiving dinner with your right wing uncle” is such a cultural trope/stereotype at this point, and this narrative really plays with that trope. On one hand, it presents the uncle in exactly the kind of stereotypical way you’d expect, yet also challenges that with moments that show different sides to his character. It’s like this game is a pastiche of a Thanksgiving dinner that frays these tropes at the edges to give glimpses of something much weirder.
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The game also seems aware of player behavior in an interesting way: in the bathroom, I naturally snooped in the medicine cabinet (a link appeared, so naturally, I should click it!) and then suddenly came to my senses and was like, maybe I shouldn’t have this character just take a bottle of pills because I’m in parser-mode where I will just take anything the game puts in my path. From that point on, I was a lot more cautious about not automatically clicking links that appeared, with the mindset of trying to help Jay survive Thanksgiving without becoming too miserable. I just find it narratively interesting that the game takes advantage of the impulse for the player to click on everything to kind of simulate the more destructive impulses that Jay is feeling, and put the player in the mindset to do some emotional labor to manage my own impulses.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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This narrative is unresolved. I find it structurally unusual that the majority of the game takes place on Thanksgiving day/night, there’s the nightmare scene, and then a winter break denouement that felt like it could have gone on longer. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I think it is realistic for there not to be a resolution—the idea that one could make perfect choices that will resolve (or even make progress on) all of the personal issues that are plaguing you is wish fulfillment that this game explicitly denies with this structure. I felt like the version of Jay that I played as wasn’t able to make any headway on the issue that I had the most anxiety about (for me, it was the food issues. I desperately wanted Jay to just get to choose to eat the pecan pie he wanted to try and not have to feel terrible about it, but I worried if I picked that, it would give him intense self-loathing, so I actively chose to “put off” that issue for “later” in the hopes of just, managing potential harm to Jay (and by proxy, myself). There’s something realistic about this in a way: when in difficult family situations (like the emotional pressure cooker The Holidays™ can instigate), it is too easy to make reckless choices, and perhaps the food and body image issues, for me in this character’s body in this evening, would be better confronted at a less fraught time. But the mixed feelings I have are that I still craved some kind of sense of healing from that. It felt like I was almost missing out on the full version of the winter break at Venice, CA, which if given as much narrative weight as the Thanksgiving dinner, might offer more opportunities to at least come to an understanding on a lot of Jay’s issues (even if they aren’t so neatly resolved).
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As I discussed further above, this game is very playful, creative, and experimental with its use of interactive text. My recommendation would be that a similar level of attention be paid to the overall UI. I’ve now played enough of these games to recognize the “default Twine” look on sight. And while I don’t necessarily think it’s bad (honestly, much can be forgiven in the face of engaging writing), I think it serves this piece poorly when it comes to the visions. Because so many of these happen, and it is always so disorienting, I feel like these sections should have their own distinct visual style to set them apart from Jay’s point of view. They’ll still be disorienting due to the nature of abruptly switching point of view (I gather than some disorientation is desirable here), but at least help mark the point of view shift a bit more clearly.
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I thought the family tree graphic was too small to be easily readable without zooming way in, especially with the cursive font used for the names. When I first looked at it, I thought, “Who the f— is ‘Joy’?” and it took me a minute to figure out it was actually the narrator, Jay. So if there’s any way to allow players to zoom in, or for the box containing it to be larger so the image appears larger, that would be great.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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The writing technique that stands out the most here is the use of choice-replacement. That is, you are offered things that Jay wants to say, but won’t due to the social circumstances, so when you click on those things, the actual dialogue said is something different. This creates a specific kind of relationship between the player, protagonist, and narrative that I thought was distinctive and interesting.
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Another interactivity flourish is the comedic use of links to add more and more description to the pecan pie description before the punchline. What I loved about that joke is how it really could only have been made in this medium because of the structure of the reveal. So I appreciate the invitation to think about how cycling links or clickable links building toward a “final text” can be structured according to a sense of comedic timing.
Quote:
- “Oh, pumpkin. You’re not weird, you’re sensitive.” (This really made me laugh for some reason. It reminded me of the “is he… you know” meme. Sensitive. At that point, you might as well just call me an f-slur, etc. But, well-meaning and cute in context. I think it stands out to me so much because it reminds me of when my mom once told me that I got along so well with another relative because we were both "eccentric”.
)
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- My favorite moment was when the family tree graphic suddenly tilted. It had been such a staple of the corner of the screen that it was quite a surprise when it moved like that, and very fitting for the moment that it was attached to. I thought that was especially clever.
9 Likes
38 | KING OF XANADU
38 | KING OF XANADU
by: MACHINES UNDERNEATH
Progress:
- I reached the end of the game in 15 minutes, and spent another 15 minutes exploring alternate branches to get a sense of the text that I missed. So in total, I played for around 30 minutes.
Things I Appreciated:
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The most engaging thing this piece did for me was create a gap between the stated/informed agency of the king, and the non-agency of the player. The king is, in-universe, a despot whose word is law. You can, for instance, order the entire army to fight itself, and it will do that. But, as a player, you will always be unable to stop the rot that starts in the grain and eventually consumes the entire kingdom. By the end, it is the (to the King) nameless and faceless hordes of peasants who have the agency to develop a new religion worshipping the rot, and ultimately, to leave the kingdom. This narrative is built entirely on this relationship between the power of the king and the powerlessness of the player.
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As a player I feel like my inclination is to search for the choices that will make for the best outcomes, but the game essentially seems to be saying, no good could come of this form of authority: despite the aeons of perfection leading up to it, the rot is an inevitable consequence of the king’s unchecked and arbitrary authority. I liked that even choices that sounded potentially good were revealed to be bad. For instance, when faced with the army, I thought doing nothing would be the most harmless option, but the result was them standing out in the heat motionless all day and suffering as a result. No choice made under this system of governance could be ethical, and the narrative somewhat playfully skewers the reader/player for having any attachment to the belief that it might work out.
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Where this text landed for me the most was in the dark humor that it provides. Depending on how far you lean in to roleplaying as a completely delusional despot, you can make truly surreal and out-of-touch choices that would be horrible if they actually happened, but are grimly funny within the refuge offered by fiction. Like sure, why not let a diseased dog take over a title of nobility for a few days while the nation-state crumbles? I enjoyed when the narrator showed this prickly sense of voice, it made the text feel vibrant.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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Because this game is so short, and the branches don’t branch that much, the semi-frequent typos were a bit distracting. I tend not to comment on typos too much since it’s not really a very interesting thing to talk about, but because this piece is so focused and (at least relative to the hours-long behemoths that are also in this competition) small in scope, I think another clean-up editing pass would benefit it significantly. I guess this is the thread you come to for incredible bespoke writing advice like “do more editing.”
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As I said further above, I connected the most with the dark humor of the piece. By contrast, I dissociated from the text when the moon-lady showed up, and the more dream-like sequences. I very much felt like, the text is perhaps a bit too transparently Doing Symbolism now, and for some reason, probably owing to the mood I was in at the time I read it, I felt emotionally removed, rather than involved, with what was happening. This is also around the point in the text where the illusion of choice has fully dissipated, and you are just clicking through to accept the fate the piece has for the king.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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Here was a good example of using the power of choice to make a point. Because of the interactivity of the piece, the natural feeling to start off reading/playing is to think your choices matter. And at some point, perhaps as early as the harvest, or as late as the very end, as a player you are invited to come to terms with the fact that your choices do not matter despite the power that the in-universe character wields. It’s just another case study of how the interactive aspect of a piece can be wielded creatively by the author to serve a particular narrative experience.
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I noticed a great example of an interactivity setup vs. punchline. Earlier on, you can listen to up to three advisors on the grain situation, clicking each one and getting told a snippet of information. You then deliberate, and make a choice. Later on, when the situation is more desperate, you are presented with a long list of choices. I confidently clicked on one expecting the same process of deliberation: that I would see a description of what that option entailed, perused at my leisure, and then make an informed decision. But the punchline: clicking any of those words doesn’t matter and advances you to the next screen. The narrative taught me that a long list of options worked a certain way, and then surprised me by “changing the rules” in a way that illustrated how the crisis had intensified. Perhaps this setup/punchline of taught interactivity could be applied to all sorts of IF writing/narrative situations!
Quote:
- “Parts of it flake off onto your fingers, leaving behind a sticky residue. Very bold of the earth, to excrete this stuff, and in Xanadu, no less.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- At the point that the famine is finally reaching the palace, you have the option to try and feed as many hungry people as you can, or “Hold a feast, in commiseration of their suffering.” Up until this point, I had been trying to make good choices (or at least, to pick the choices that seemed the least bad). But this was so darkly humorous that I decided, you know what, eff this, let’s finish this shit out “Masque of the Red Death” style.
7 Likes
39 | YOU CAN’T SAVE HER
39 | YOU CAN’T SAVE HER
by: Sarah Mak
Progress:
- I completed this game in about 16 minutes (I guess the estimated play time doesn’t account for spending 2 minutes searching for headphones . But definitely take the game up on the headphone recommendation!)
Things I Appreciated:
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I was really struck by how well balanced this game is in providing information about the world to the reader/player. There are just enough worldbuilding details to give an impression of a rich and unique setting without hindering the pace of the narrative at all. The narrative trusts me to paint a mental image of scenes in this impressionistic way that fills in the gaps.
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I’m very glad that I took the game’s recommendation to wear headphones and listen to the soundtrack by Falling Islands while reading it. (I usually listen to self-selected music while playing these games, so it was great to have that experience intentionally curated for me.) It’s a short narrative, but a lot of attention is paid toward making those few minutes spent playing a rich and memorable experience. The narrative really races by in a blaze of sound and color. (Shout out as well to Aisha for the gorgeous cover art!)
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I really appreciated the duality theming of the game (with the blue and pink link colors to establish point of view), and the idea that people can respond so differently to “heretical” knowledge. Because you start in the blue perspective, you might naturally assume that blue is the one who “can’t save” pink, but with the first switch in perspective, you learn that the reverse is perhaps even more true. These two characters, despite all their shared experiences, have fundamentally diverged, and the narrative conclusion doesn’t force a reconciliation and instead lets them part ways. I thought there was a lot of depth to this relationship considering the duration of the game.
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Since, as discussed in the first post of the thread, I have little experience with interactive fiction, I do not have any experience with the work of Porpentine, who this game is extensively referencing. However, based on this game, it definitely makes me interested in learning more about their work on my own time away from these IF Comp responses. I appreciated having an opportunity to taste the vibe of a well-crafted work here and have it lead me to other work that I would probably also enjoy.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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I picked dark mode from the menu, but a significant percentage of the game (the flashbacks) were displayed in light mode anyway. It seems like perhaps the flashbacks could have been formatted in an alternate-style dark mode rather than just overriding the player’s choice? I went through again just now to test light mode and was surprised to learn that the flashbacks in that section use an alt-light-mode with a kind of off-white parchment-colored background, so it seems reasonable enough to me to expect a dark-mode style for the flashbacks.
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It took me a while to understand how some of the click links worked. For instance, very early on, I arrived at a page with links for “Shoot her” or “1 second.” I didn’t want to shoot anyone at this point, so I clicked the “1 second” link first, which… resulted in me trying to shoot her.
. I hadn’t realized that the “Shoot her” was a cycling link because there was nothing visually differentiating it from the other type of link. It wasn’t until this happened twice in a row I realized how the choice mechanics were working. Had this been a longer narrative, this would have not been that much of an issue since it would just be part of the game training me how to play it, essentially. But with something this fast-paced and concise, I think it is extra important to intuitively signal to the player how the gameplay mechanic works. To the game’s credit, I found all the other interactive links intuitive and frictionless, so it really just was a matter of this particular situation early on.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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The power of saying less, for pacing. This game goes by in a fast-paced rush of color, sound, and narrative, without distractions. And the interactive elements are (except in the one instance detailed above) intuitive and frictionless. This is a great example of well-tuned short-form narrative. I was invested in the character dynamics and world despite the sparseness of detail because of how fluid and immersive the reading experience was.
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I really enjoyed the narrative technique of exploring the same scene from another character’s perspective. Weirdly, this was something I was already thinking about for an IF project I am considering writing, so what great timing to have an example of it here. The risk of this type of narrative device is if the other perspective is too redundant—that is, it can be tedious to re-read the thing that already happened if there isn’t a compelling reason for the new point of view to be presented. But it works great here, with the game mechanics changed slightly and the fun realization that you are playing “against yourself” from earlier. This was an exciting moment and made me more engaged with the text, compared with examples I’ve seen in media where this technique didn’t work for me (the season 2 premiere of tv show The Good Place, “Everything is Great!” comes to mind, where each perspective shift adds new information, but not enough new information to warrant being shown certain scenes 3-4 times.)
Quote:
- “You wonder if the gates and golems are meant to keep heretics out, or keep the worshippers in.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- When the perspective switches and you use pink’s visions to outsmart the player’s choices from like 2-3 minutes ago. Such an exciting moment!
5 Likes
40 | EIKAS
40 | EIKAS
by: Lauren O’Donoghue
Progress:
- I was able to fully complete this game (including four character side quests) in about 1h55m, just making it in under the 2-hour time limit.
Things I Appreciated:
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This is a very wholesome and well polished game. It’s not wholly devoid of conflict or stakes, but the game goes out of its way in almost every respect to have an optimistic worldview and to think about ethical community engagement. It’s kind of poignant, too. As someone who loves to cook for friends and family members but rarely has the opportunity to do so, there’s something melancholy about the fact that a community structured like this feels so escapist rather than “normal.”
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The game is very responsive: at each community meal concluding a round of gameplay, the narration reflects the major and minor characters you interacted with. For instance, in one round, I had helped teach someone how to make falafel, and at the next dinner, there was a segment where they came to talk with me again about it. Similarly, the advancement you make in side quests with Antonia, Llew, and Orlando is reflected in the canteen environment.
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I really could not say enough about how well-designed the recipe selection process is. In a game where you could make dozens of different recipes, the game narrows the scope slightly so you are focused on just procuring the ingredients rather than making things overly laborious. And the game rewards strategic shopping—paying attention to when recipes that use the same ingredients so you know to acquire two of that ingredient. The way the recipe screen stars the ones you can actually do is super helpful. And when finally making the meal, the screen narrows to show only the dishes that you are capable of making, to avoid wasting player time looking at recipes that would be impossible with the current ingredients. The core mechanics of this game are designed with obvious care—I could make a similar comment about the market system where the links to items you can’t afford disappear, to avoid the embarrassment/clunkiness of clicking on them and being told that you can’t afford it. For such a long game, involving so many overlapping systems, the fact that the gameplay is as seamless and engaging as it is reflects an aspirational level of attention to player experiences.
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Something I really dislike in games is the feeling of being overwhelmed with game mechanics at the start. There are many games that I love, that I had to restart playing multiple times because the discomfort of learning the game systems was intimidating enough to stop me from playing. I had a fear of this at the beginning of this game, too. You have a lot of different concepts told to you at once. But because the game is forgiving, welcoming, and wants you to succeed, I felt like it eased me in well without feeling like I was having a tutorial dictating at me (which can also be an alienating experience). This game threaded that learning curve really well.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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A minor UI element that bothered me many times through the playthrough is the button labeled “toggle the UI bar.” Because this button has a left-facing arrow, it intuitively feels like it should be a back button, but it’s not—instead it disruptively removes the sidebar until you click it again to restore it. Even after understanding what that button did, I would still sometimes instinctively click on it. It wasn’t until the final third or so that I had developed a mastery of the game’s navigation to the point where I would no longer foolishly click on this. My recommendation would be to either remove this button (as pressing on it actively messes up the screen since the sidebar is essential for navigation) or change the symbol to something that does not resemble a back button.
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I think this game is one round too long (that is, I think it should last 25 in-game days instead of 30 in-game days). I was being very active and strategic with the turn economy for the first four rounds, and as a result, by the time day 21 rolled around, there wasn’t enough for me to do anymore. I could quickly get things set up for the meal and since I had also advanced the side quests so much by this point, I felt like I was just kind of aimlessly wandering to use up turns. I don’t assume this experience is universal, of course. I think having one round worth where you feel a true mastery of the game is just right. And in most aspects, I appreciate that the game has such a forgiving mechanics that I feel like it would be hard to naturally have a bad experience with it unless you were actively playing in bad faith to choose the occasional ruder dialogue options, and go to sleep instead of using your turns to do anything.
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One of my most engaging moments in the game involved the turn economy. I realized that I was one expensive ingredient short of making a recipe that I wanted for that meal, and it came down to whether or not the snack randomization gave me a value of 19 or higher. I ended up getting an unusually low roll here of I think 16 or 17, meaning that I couldn’t afford the ingredient and had to make a different dish and adjust my meal plan. This was a super engaging experience to face a small amount of adversity in-game. And very realistic, to have to think on my feet to adjust the meal plan last minute! Ultimately, the game is forgiving and flexible enough that making one alternate dish is not enough to make or break your performance overall, but it was an actively exciting gameplay moment. So this is why I wish there had been a bit more time or turn pressure: not because I actively want stressful experiences, but because I noticed that my most memorable moment while playing was when the time/turn pressure actually impeded my plans, but the game had still given me the tools to pivot my strategy to recover. I’m not sure what my recommendation is here because I don’t know enough about how to balance a game to know what adjustment would be better. And again, my experience is my own and not universal, so just because I personally thought the turn economy by the end was too generous, and there were too many gameplay rounds resulting in a lack of stakes for the final stretch, doesn’t mean that the game should necessarily be tuned to my exact gameplay style.
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I thought that the side quests for Antonia, Llew, and Orlando were too structurally similar. While I liked all these characters, by the time I was wrapping up the last of Antonia’s side quest content I felt like I was noticing the mechanical aspect of how the side quests are structured a little too much. I think some slight mechanical adjustments to even just one of these side quests will help keep the illusion alive instead of leaving the player thinking about it in terms of a pre-set sequence of steps that echoes the other character quests.
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There are a few moments in the game that hint at more sinister or spooky elements. For instance, one can see a creepy abandoned mine as part of the valley landscape. When I saw that, it made me curious to learn more about the spirits/entities in the area and I hoped to encounter something that seemed creepy or scary but, when treated empathetically, turned out to be harmless or well-meaning. Those elements of the game piqued my curiosity, and while the game has a rich and well-developed world, I found myself (especially in the last two rounds) hoping to stumble upon something like that and ultimately didn’t. It’s entirely possible that encounters like that are in the game and I just didn’t find them; I don’t think I ever figured out what the extra sounds in the canteen were (unless it’s just the cat?)
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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In a way, I didn’t learn much at all, because the gameplay flows so well it was hard for me to actively notice how and why it was working so well. Pretty much any of the interactive features could be examined to learn something from. I’ll just pick one: the way that the turn economy was communicated to the player. It uses a system of diamonds that fill in on the side-panel, clearly showing how many actions are remaining. Similarly, when exploring the areas, choices that will require an action are marked with that same diamond. As a game design choice, the predictability and smoothness of this turn economy lends itself to strategic thinking because you are never surprised by something costing an action that you don’t expect. You can be surprised by an action “not working” (for instance, when trying to get a spell ingredient, one of my attempts failed, which was an interesting moment). This is a game that trusts that giving players accurate information about what the cost of an action is will be more rewarding in the long run than trying to have gotcha moments that are more likely to discourage exploration and risk-taking.
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I liked the way that the game didn’t penalize curiosity. For instance, if you want to learn more about the spirits in the game, there is a book that you can buy for 10 coins. In-game, there are certainly moments where you really need those 10 coins to buy something, so it’s not a completely negligible amount of money. But, the economy is structured such that sating one’s curiosity by buying this book will not likely cause you to regret “wasting" your money. I think attaching a small cost to optional items like this more rewarding than the alternative of getting it for free (in which case, as a player I value it less since it wasn’t that meaningful of a choice to look at it) or paying a lot for it (where I might be annoyed that it hindered my ability to cook the meal I wanted just to get some lore). I think designing a game with this mindset—to not penalize curiosity—was a good fit for this game, and I imagine, many games.
Quote:
- “The ingredients are simple, but the way they come together is almost alchemical in its brilliance; soft rice and nutty lentils, the warmth of cumin and those sweet, chewy onions.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- As mentioned above, when I had bad RNG for the snack randomization causing a chain reaction where I had to scrap a dish and plan a new approach to that dinner on the fly. This was the moment in the game that I felt most challenged to play flexibly and as a result, I found it immersive.
9 Likes
This is actually part of the standard Sugarcube UI, so the author is not responsible for it! You’re likely to see it crop up in other Twine games, if you haven’t already (though not all games have particularly useful sidebars, so it can be easy to ignore in some cases).
Very interesting to have the perspective of someone who’s new to this specific UI! 
I had my own moment of Sugarcube naïveté last year...
The first time I played a Sugarcube game was during IFComp 2023, and I think I dedicated a whole point in my review to talking about how impressed I was that the author put together this cool collapsible sidebar with dedicated Save/Restart buttons!
8 Likes
Thank you so much for the review!
3 Likes
Thanks for the info! I do think I’ve seen this before (The Den comes to mind, though I don’t recall it creating the same interface issue).
I don’t have any knowledge of what it means to work in “Sugarcube” since the only format I’ve actively worked with is Harlowe in Twine so far, but if it is possible for the author to change the presence or presentation of that button, I would still recommend that based on my experience with it.
That said, glancing at other reviews, it doesn’t appear that this was an issue for anyone else, so I doubt it’s anything worth fussing over too much!
3 Likes
41 | WINTER-OVER
41 | WINTER-OVER
by: Emery Joyce
co-written by: N. Cormier
Progress:
- I completed the game in around 1h03m. So just about spot on with the estimated gameplay time.
Things I Appreciated:
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I absolutely love the setting and atmosphere. I find Antarctica fascinating, along with the sort of accidental social experiment of people living together in the pressure cooker of isolation for that amount of time, so the mood of the game was right up my alley. I found the setting details very believable, as well as the kinds of people one might plausibly find there.
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I really enjoyed the notes system. While I did take my own notes as well, I really appreciated clicking back to that screen for a reminder of information that might help me decide who to talk to next. It was especially helpful to keep track of the character relationships with each other—who was having issues with whom, and why. In a mystery game with a lot of suspects, the suspects can just kind of become interchangeable names on the page, so having it tracked for me helped mitigate that.
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I thought the writing was polished and I appreciate the moments where the killer strikes back to disrupt your investigation. It makes the paranoia of the game more palpable and there were moments where I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend time alone in a room to ask some of the characters questions later in the game in case they turned on me.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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[Massive spoilers, do not click this before playing the game! It’s a mystery game!] During my playthrough, I hyper-fixated on Jack as a suspect from my first conversation with Christian (where Christian suggests a data replication issue) and I wrote in my notes, “I’M ONTO JACK’S DATA FAKING ASS. HE IS OVER.” Combined with the fact that he was the hardest character to reach (I only ever found him in the astronomy lab in the afternoon) and his answers were the most useless, it only made me more sure that he did it. After talking to other people, I was able to rule out every other suspect for plausible reasons (handedness, height, opportunity to be at the scene of the murder, and so forth) so my confirmation bias only got worse.
. So I had a strange experience of this game where I felt like I was pointed at Jack so early that I was wondering why it was taking me so long to get to the accusation phase. It seemed like the game would give a new major event after unlocking a certain number of dialogue clues/questions, so I ended up spending a lot of the last few days wandering around the station checking to see if any new dialogue had opened up, compared to earlier in the game where I was more logically following up on leads. -
There was a moment I found a bit frustrating. This was when the protagonist is outside reading a note and has to come up with a creative way to retrieve the key without getting frostbitten. My mixed feelings on this are: this was a really cool way of integrating the frigid setting with an interesting solution, but also, I felt like it was really unsatisfying to watch the narrator auto-solve a puzzle while I was powerless to do anything. I’m not sure how you’d realistically be able to implement it as a puzzle given that this isn’t a parser game, but I felt a bit let down that something really interesting happened that I was sidelined for, especially because it’s such a tense moment in the narrative where the threat is getting more intense.
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I found the stress mechanic interesting, but it became unthreatening a bit too quickly. The stress mechanic feels important in-universe to make it more plausible that the protagonist is struggling to cope with the death of their brother in this extreme isolation, and to pit the stress mechanic against the ticking clock where you aren’t sure whether or not to use up a turn de-stressing that could be used to talk to someone to get a clue. In practice, though, I felt like there were turns where no one I wanted to talk to was awake/around, and also, you are (as far as I can tell) required to de-stress with Amanda to advance the ability to unlock the phone, so I never felt like I was under enough pressure when making choices. It was also slightly immersion-breaking in during the ending attack when it still said “Stress Level: Manageable” at the top of the screen while my character is fighting for their life. So overall: an intriguing mechanic, but it didn’t feel as consequential as I hoped.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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Later in the game, I noticed that the room descriptions had shifted to show the protagonist’s mood. Most memorably, this terse observation: “The atrium is empty. You feel exposed.” Because so much time is spent wandering around the same rooms over and over, changing the text that you’ve become so used to becomes a nasty surprise—it’s an escalation of the tension. So I’d note that as a good writing technique here: with repeated room descriptions that the player eventually starts skimming over and feeling comfortable with, changing them unexpectedly can destabilize the reader and underscore the heightened stakes.
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Another game mechanic I want to highlight is the fixed schedules. No NPC is perfectly available—there will always be gaps in when you can talk to them, and where. I like how this was tracked in the notes, showing only places/times where you’ve confirmed you can find someone. It made me a bit paranoid that I might run into someone at the “wrong” time and place and cause an event to unfold, because I don’t know for sure what they’re doing during the gaps in the schedule. Additionally, it caused me to think more strategically about when to sleep or de-stress, lining those actions up with times where the person I wanted to talk to next wouldn’t have been available anyway. So I liked the gamification of character schedules that aren’t too challenging to figure out, but also aren’t given out for free either. It’s immersive to feel like the other characters are living their lives and not bending to exactly what is convenient for the player.
Quote:
- “You stop by the shop to grab a crowbar.” (!!!)
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- The first incident where your keycard gets stolen! That’s when the game is like, alright, you’ve had enough time to get comfortable with the mechanics, it’s time to turn up the pressure. From then on, you can’t help but get paranoid about how this is going to escalate. And it does continue to escalate.
13 Likes
Thanks so much for your review!
5 Likes
Thanks for the review!
Oops, that one’s a bug—the header should go away at that point, but the stress level part is in a different “container” from the rest of it and must have gotten left out.
7 Likes
42 | SIDEKICK
42 | SIDEKICK
by: Charles Moore
Progress:
- After 1hr34m of gameplay, with a current score of 5 out of 17, I received the vague and ominous message, “Suddenly, you have an uneasy feeling that you may have done something a while back to make the game unwinnable.” After typing “help,” the game informed me that this meant that (on standard mode, the default game mode) an action that I took an unknown/random number of turns ago caused me to now be drawing dead in this playthrough. My recommendation to others who haven’t played yet would be, if you think you are at a similar skill level as me (namely: a low skill level) for this type of game, to enable “easy” mode which I definitely should have done. This put me in a unique position so far in my responses. Normally, I play through as much as I can for the full two hours. Here, I technically have 26 minutes left on the clock to continue playing, but I don’t feel motivated to continue an indeterminably bricked playthrough, and I also don’t have enough time to restart the game entirely to try and get back to this point and figure out what went wrong. So, I decided to stop.
Things I Appreciated:
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What stands out the most about this game is its absurd humor. There are some very strange game mechanics and plot events, and this is well indicated by the front matter. I found myself dreading (affectionately) what asinine thing BS would do next, considering how actively unhelpful he is. The game is also extremely cavalier about human life, meaning you will just straight up kill your aggressors in absurd ways, which has the interesting effect of training you to behave antisocially in-universe for the sake of acquiring objects in case not having them will softlock you later. For example, at my worst, I was convinced that I needed to take Daisy’s collar and bell to do something, but I wasn’t able to directly remove them, so I tried to put a carrot on the nearby stump to see if I could get the swarm of ants to eat her and leave behind the collar for me to pick up.
. The game’s mix of dark and absurd moments made that seem like a plausible solution. In your desperation to survive this game, combined with its absurd tone, you are pushed toward creative ways of using the objects in the game together regardless of the ethical considerations of doing so. -
I really liked the implementation of the menu/clickable items and locations. It felt like a good compromise, giving parser-like gameplay without the possibility of entering unintelligible commands. Considering that there are times in the game where the number of turns is time-critical, I like how this design choice facilitates directing the player’s attention on what is actually possible rather than asking them to guess what verbs could be used with which objects.
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The “wacky western” setting and atmosphere was consistent and well developed. The town features exactly what you’d expect, and this is often played for laughs.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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In the first post of this thread, I discussed my experience with past IF text adventure games. This game felt very structurally similar to a game like Unnkulia, where you can unknowingly doom a playthrough based on timed events, or using up objects at the wrong time that are unrecoverable. In this playthrough, I found myself repeatedly in unwinnable situations where I had to undo a lot of turns to find a game state that I could continue from. I found the disjuncture between the tone of the game (silly/slapstick and mostly lighthearted) and the gameplay itself (brutally difficult and unwinnable if you don’t do exactly the required steps in every situation) odd. For instance, the first bad spot I stuck myself in was in the pantry with Bart. The game has Bart comically waste turns warming up to kill you, which gives the impression that you have plenty of time to figure out what to do. However, it turned out that it was impossible for me to do anything because I didn’t have the cheese or the clothespin. The game was giving me the message “this is a comedic forgiving game that gives you time to do stuff even when it’s unrealistic” with Bart’s behavior, and also giving the conflicting message “you are doomed because of the choice you made to explore this part of the map before picking up all the required objects from unrelated areas”. I had to retrain my perspective on gameplay to account for that, at which point, I was able to have more fun and solve some of the puzzles without the walkthrough, which felt more rewarding because of the game’s unforgiving structure. I guess to wrap up this comment, I’m not inherently against this level of difficulty, but I did find it more jarring in the face of the game design philosophy of most of the other games I’ve played for IF Comp 2024 where it seemed like there was an intent to minimize softlocks. This game feels like an old-school text adventure, with all the benefits and pitfalls that entails.
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Overall I thought the game mechanics were pretty clean, but there were a few situations where I encountered strange messages, so I thought I’d include those here. The first was when I was trying to tie Daisy to the sawmill wheel to see if I could get her to turn it. I tried a few different commands, one of which resulted in the bizarre message “Did you want to tie the length of rope to the sawmill or the sawmill?” The other time, also related to Daisy, was “With a ‘clang’ of her bell, Daisy enters from the down, her eyes on the large carrot.” I thought this was funny, but weird, that she “entered from the down” and I guess climbed the tree after me? Another issue I encountered is the disappearing toque. If you fail to examine Bart before killing him, the toque is not an interactable object on his body, which will softlock the game, as there is a required object hidden in it. In universe, though, there is no reason for the toque to have vanished as a result of his death. Thankfully, I saw the note about the toque in the hint guide so I was able to undo turns and redo that scene to get around that.
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I was puzzled by the implementation of an inventory carrying limit. I suspect there must be some later puzzles with heavy objects (my game ended with a cannonball as one of the items nearby) that make use of this inventory limit in some way. But the reason I found this strange was, you can hold an unrealistic amount of items in your hands, but not an infinite amount of items. If I can already be holding all that stuff, but not one additional item, that feels much less natural than either of the alternatives (a hand wave explanation for the infinite inventory, or a realistically-sized inventory that encourages more thoughtful selection of what to take where).
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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The main thing I learned is how different a game that can softlock feels from a game that doesn’t softlock. Ultimately, because of the “undo” button, the softlock isn’t truly a “lock,” but it feels much more demoralizing to play a game where you have to constantly undo actions, than to play a game where you try a bunch of useless incorrect actions without such a steep penalty. This game actively reshaped my player behavior. In other games, I had learned to be more selective about picking up only items that I thought were reasonably useful or had applications I was seeking out. This game forces the opposite behavior of taking any object that the game will allow you to take, no matter how irrelevant it appears in the moment. It really goes to show how deeply a design philosophy like “the player is allowed to fail to the spectacular extent that they might have to undo many turns” frames the play experience.
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The comedy of repetition. One of the funniest moments in the game (at the point that I got to) was when, after watching Buck get kidnapped from the saloon and rescuing him, he returns to the saloon and gets kidnapped in the exact same way for a second time. I laughed. Are you effing serious, Buck?! I feel like the comedy of the game is built on moments like this where the player’s familiarity with the characters/setting built over the course of playtime allows jokes like this to land.
Quote:
- “Well, Mr. Mayor, I eat danger for breakfast and evil for brunch. And that’s a kind of breakfast.” (Legendary himbo dialogue.)
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- When it turned out I wasn’t able to ride the black horse because it was designated for main characters only. Thankfully I undid the turns where I fed the carrot to that horse trying to tame it, otherwise I would’ve had even more problems later. I never should have tried trading up from you, Molasses!
DemonApologist_Sidekick.txt (193.3 KB)
6 Likes
(Re Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe):
Well, now I have laughed at it, and felt – well, not bad about laughing, exactly, more the pained recognition that as a parser author, I’ve let comparable absurdities and worse slide in my own games 
I did want to respond to one other thing you mentioned, though, since I think it’s actually an example of the game doing some elegant design work:
The toper had actually shown up at the bar after a previous event (I think once you explore the lighthouse) – and the game quickly establishes that he knows a lot of literary gossip, so I think there’s a strong in-character reason for Theophilus to want to visit him after he gets the clue from the magazine in the hotel, at which point you see that the voting crowds have died down and you can make progress on the next set of puzzles (of course, this means the issue is actually “why would you go back to the bar after going to the lighthouse”, and I don’t think I saw a good lead prompting that )
5 Likes
All very fair. I resent the randomizer for assigning me this game 2nd out of 67, because 40+ games later, I feel like I would’ve been so much better at playing Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe and gotten to see much more of the game in 2 hours. It remains one of my favorite stories of the games that I’ve played (and with the devil theming very relevant to my interests) so I feel a bit cheated out of the opportunity to approach it as a more experienced player.
I guess this is ultimately my own fault for choosing to follow the randomization order
4 Likes
Well, the randomizer giveth and the randomizer taketh away, I suppose. The good news is that you’re making great progress through the games so can go back and finish it soon, and the better news is that Jim Nelson’s game from two years ago, According to Cain, is in a broadly similar vein and just as good if not better, so you can come to that one with your hard-won parser game skills post-Comp!
5 Likes
43 | A FEW HOURS LATER IN THE DAY OF THE EGOCENTRIC
43 | A FEW HOURS LATER IN THE DAY OF THE EGOCENTRIC
by: Ola Hansson
Progress:
- After restarting a few times to learn key information and experiment with timing, I was able to reach the end of this game in around 13 minutes.
Things I Appreciated:
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The most ingenious thing about this game is its presentation as an interactive comic strip. This is such a cool idea on its face, and it’s an interesting perspective to be able to slide between the different panels and affect what is happening in the comic. It feels like a lot could be done with this type of intuitive interface.
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The puzzles were very intuitive and straightforward. Even though I ran out of turns and had to restart multiple times, the stakes of doing so are low as it doesn’t set you back that much, and the information that you’ve gained stays with you. The stylish comic art by Daniel Ahlgren does a good job cuing you with clues of what to do, so I feel like it’s hard to be stuck for long if you are attentive to what you are being shown.
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I enjoyed reading the egocentric’s quippy dialogue and thoughts, and how you have to work around his behavior to get anything done. Part of the joy of the randomized game order is unexpected connections—I played two games in a row (Sidekick and this one) where you play as a “secondary” character having to manage a more oafish main character, and I found the coincidence of this charming.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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The main issue I have with this game is the lack of context. Based on the information in the game, it appears that this is a sequel to a previous game in the same format. I’m not sure if the story stands up on its own, because while I am able to get a sense of Mikael’s character and what the general plot is, playing this game out of context makes it hard to feel a strong sense of purpose while playing. I’d imagine that, if played in a sequence with the other comic-games starting from the beginning, I would’ve been a lot more invested in the stakes of what was happening. But I am being asked to consider this as a standalone game/narrative, and as a standalone I’m not sure if I got much beyond a character sketch of Mikael.
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The game left me curious about the in-universe mechanics of the detective-observer. In order to complete the game, unless you read the walkthrough (which the in-universe character wouldn’t have access to), the detective can only proceed properly with knowledge that they have yet to gain from a failed attempt. The cop also has access to Mikael’s inner thought bubbles, which crosses narrative boundaries to supernaturally provide that information to the in-universe character. Ultimately I am not overly worried about the time loop mechanics given the tone and scope of the game, but I thought it was worth making a note of.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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This game is an invitation to think creatively about the medium. A comic strip as an interactive puzzle game is a unique idea, and it also implies a narrow scope (assuming a four-panel strip) which is a great frame for short-form work like this. It raises exciting possibilities for what else could be made interactive. For instance: one could have a 2-3 minute audio clip that plays on a loop, and enter commands that affect that content of the loop and change what is being heard, and you have to listen to find the right time to do something. I don’t think I would personally make that game, but I respect the idea of testing the boundaries of what can be made into interactive fiction.
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I liked the simple elegance of the phone number mechanic. You expect it to be used to call numbers, so your attention as a player is directed to looking for the codes. But the second time has a twist—it’s less important for you to learn the number, and more important instead for you to realize that you need to call from a different phone. I liked this inversion, of (1) starting with the right phone but no number, and ending with (2) the right number but the wrong phone. It just goes to show that you can apply some depth/texture to a game mechanic even in a very short game like this one.
Quote:
- “Why call me when I am NOT available to take the call?” (So true! )
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- My favorite part of the puzzle is deciding which turn to steal the phone. The first time I waited too long, but the second time I was more careful and paid closer attention to what was happening on the panels to time it just right. It was satisfying to read the cues and let the game organically direct me to the correct action.
6 Likes
44 | AN ACCOUNT OF YOUR VISIT TO THE ENCHANTED HOUSE & WHAT YOU FOUND THERE
44 | AN ACCOUNT OF YOUR VISIT TO THE ENCHANTED HOUSE & WHAT YOU FOUND THERE
by: Mandy Benanav
Progress:
- I reached the end of this narrative/game in about 52 minutes.
Things I Appreciated:
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The descriptions and writing style are quirky and inviting. This is an undeniably cozy game, where nothing really threatens you, especially if you behave empathetically toward it. It feels like a very wholesome experience to play this game, despite (or, more likely, because of) the weird stuff in it. It’s quite charming.
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Many of the game’s puzzles are social in nature. This game successfully fosters an illusion of a living, dynamic environment because of this aspect. It’s not just a matter of finding a random key somewhere to put in a random door elsewhere. You need to learn who has the key, and by getting to know them, understand what their needs are such that they’d be willing to give it to you. Many of the puzzles are like this, where figuring out what to talk to someone about, or how to approach an entity, will allow you to develop a rapport with them. It fosters a player that is caring, but not naïve. Kindness alone is not going to get a cat to part with a dead mouse, after all.
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The rooms dynamically shift based on what you’ve searched and who you’ve talked to, and since there aren’t a huge number of rooms, if you’re stuck, a quick circuit of the house is usually enough to un-stick yourself. While I’ll discuss a limitation of this approach later, on the whole, the fact that the game de-clutters the description of stuff that you’ve already searched reduces effort wasted, which seems appropriate for the overall atmosphere/vibe of the game.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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This game isn’t meant to be too difficult. Thematically, in-universe, the “puzzles” are more about building a social rapport with the residents of the house to test whether you are a reasonable person to entrust their care to. So I don’t mind that the puzzles were not that intensive. Even so, I felt like puzzles sometimes auto-solved before I had a chance to contemplate where I’d look next. The rooms have an anti-frustration feature where if you’ve searched different areas, you will not be able to search them again if there’s nothing there. As a result, though, I found that because I would search everything I could the first time I entered a room, when I would get a new puzzle/fetch prompt, I would be immediately told where it was (the room description would say something to the effect of, “you remember seeing something like that in the [x location],” and that would be the only searchable location). I would almost prefer, I think, to be tested on my absorption of the descriptions I had been reading, and to be allowed to re-check them. Perhaps it still would not be that satisfying to just re-click every location, but I think it would’ve been nice to have been given the opportunity to recall where to look for something, as opposed to having it be preemptively solved.
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While I thought the visual presentation of the library bookshelf was creative, I found it tedious to click on the random-looking symbols trying to make sense of what it was. I found this particular interface cumbersome. It’s not necessary for the player to click on each and every possible book, as the books that you might need can be deduced from interactions with the characters, but it’s hard to resist the temptation to click on everything out of fear that any random book could have critical information for a puzzle. At one point when I was sort of stuck, I started to worry that I was missing a book to click on and went back to click them again—this turned out not to be necessary, but I didn’t know that at the time. Perhaps this is another example where a challenging interface like this is meant to function as a clue to the player to go do something else. But even knowing this, the library still felt like it might hold solutions for my problems!
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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I really enjoyed the implementation of the dialogue and social puzzles. My favorite overall puzzle in the game involved acting as a diplomat, talking to Basil and the Furniture about each other in order to reach an accord between them. Because there are many possible subjects you could talk to each character about, it’s unlikely that you would accidentally solve a social puzzle like this—rather, you’d recognize the need to repeat the same actions until resolution by listening to what they were telling you. So I think this is a good example of delivering a puzzle through dynamic dialogue where the game “remembers” who you’ve talked with about what subjects.
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This was a great example of puzzles that are weird enough to be interesting, but not so weird that the solutions are unintuitive nonsense. For instance, feeding a living, chittering snarl of neckties (I think that’s what it was? Sorry about my memory, it’s late and it’s hard to re-check the text in a Twine game like this without fully replaying it) to a bird is objectively weird, but when you see it in game, you know exactly what it’s for because the game has primed you for this “weird” solution seamlessly.
Quote:
- “Lucifer and all his hosts with their hot pokers could not oblige me to speak to those cretins, so you’ll jolly well have to do it for me!” (The “cretins” in question? An aggrieved collection of talking furniture…)
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- Probably the funniest moment of the game is realizing that The Joy of Cooking will almost certainly contain the recipe for the ghoulish “mouse mousse” that you are looking for. It’s an amusing joke for anyone familiar with that cookbook, which has some truly cursed recipes. Seared into my memory is a section of the real Joy of Cooking that describes how best to take care of sea turtles or snapping turtles to prepare them to be made into soup. I felt like this joke was in here just for me to recall that childhood memory of finding that recipe in the cookbook. (Reading these responses is quite the minefield. Who knows what the hell kind of weird thing is going to be lurking in my ramblings? Sorry that, for you, in this moment, it was about the Joy of Cooking sea turtle soup. In my defense, I didn’t know I’d be talking about this today, either. )
7 Likes