Regarding Inform 7 and speed IF:
You might say: “Well, now, Drew, that’s all well and good, but you are an Inform 7 author! What of the Inform games?” It’s true, I write Inform games and write about writing them. I write about historically significant parser games, too. Do I have any general thoughts regarding Inform 7 as a speed IF tool?
Last year, I tried–and failed–to make a La Petite Mort game for Ectocomp. Many things got in the way, but chief among them was my own perfectionism. If you’ve struggled with perfectionism, you know I’m not saying that I have high standards for myself. I’m saying that I have a crushing and paralyzing inability to be satisfied with my own work. I need four hours just to proofread something (that I’ve already proofread)! My posts often have typos. If you’ve wondered why, it’s because, if I were to double-check them, I’d never click “reply!” My attempt at a four hour speed-IF work was harrowing and disappointing, and I’m not sure I’ll try again.
But even if I were someone else, if I were somehow different, there would be difficulties. Inform 7 games do and say so much out of the box–this is usually a strength–how can its default responses rest comfortably within an idiosyncratic narrative?
This isn’t so hard to answer. My favorite band of the 90s is Guided by Voices, a so-called “low-fi” band that emphasized songwriting and immediacy over production values. The best parser IF made under time constraints embodies the low-fi aesthetic that I love so much. The main narrative thread takes precedence, and that which cannot support it falls away. Default responses, which may indicate a lack of care in longer works, instead funnel the player toward a fateful conclusion.
Like my favorite poems, speed IF of the parser variety is needle-like in its narrowness.
Your Little Haunting
Christina Nordlander
spoilers
We have been walking a long time, and now it’s dark.
Night has fallen, black as a sheer gap above you, any lampposts far off on the highway.
“Black as a sheer gap above you” is surprising, poetic. There is no sense of who we are or where we are going.
->examine me
You are you.
It isn’t important, or else it is important that we are a non-entity. Who can say? There is little to do in the house, which has apparently been empty a long time. This is all to the good. We can do little more than harm ourselves, in fact, either by drinking contaminated water or, more dangerously, touching live electrical wires. The second action is what moves things forward, as we are joined by a mysterious entity.
->examine ghost
Transparent, its entire nervous system lit by fire. Its head is flung back, its hair streaming out. Its eyes are dark pits.
“Nervous system lit by fire” is another fine phrase. Who or what is this being? They do not respond to our attempts at communication. If we try to touch them, our hand goes through them. If we leave, they do not follow. However, we can enter a room that once was dark and retrieve a flashlight. Since we entered the house looking for light, perhaps our tale is finished. Or is it?
->w
The door creaks as you open it. You step out onto the wet-rotted porch.You don’t have the flashlight. Your hand, and arm, and the rest of your body, is generating its own pale light.
Turning back to the hallway, you see the faces of your ghosts, bidding you to stay.
*** YOU WERE NEVER GOING TO LEAVE ***
The title is ironic, then, as we ourselves undertake a haunting of this house. This tale participates in the rich tradition of ghost stories in which the protagonist either is–or becomes–a ghost, and discovery of their ghost-ness arrives as a sharp knife-twist.
There are tantalizations–a dark bedroom on the second floor, an oven–that are not yet implemented. I wonder if they will be added in a post-competition release? I would definitely revisit the game if so.