Inspired by this sentiment from Drew, which I also share, I’m creating this thread as a general place for Ectocomp game discussion! If you want to talk about any of the games but don’t want to make your own review thread, or want to respond to someone’s review in a more general, discussion-oriented space, here you go! I liked the casual conversations that the game-specific threads encouraged during this past IFComp, so this is meant to be the same kind of thing, just all in one place (for now at, least).
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Thanks for doing this! I’ve been swamped with my own stuff, but I am finally making room for more Ectocomp. I’ll do my best to turn up with some thoughts tomorrow.
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So how is everyone doing with actually playing all the games? I finished almost all of the English-language Petite Mort games, started on Grand Guignol, then got bogged down in Last-Minute Magic once I realised how extensively I was going to need to take notes …
(I haven’t played Visit Skuga Lake; for those who have, maybe some of the amulet and eyestone properties are already familiar? Though I still can’t imagine getting anywhere without a written list of trinket locations - only found about a third of them so far.)
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I’m definitely very behind on playing games. Might end up not playing all of them, but I think it’s okay. My attention span is nonexistent.
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I’ve played all the English games but one! I spent a good two days of my IF-gaming time on LMM alone; I also haven’t played VSL, and spent a while being rather lost/overwhelmed in LMM, but once it all clicked I had a lot of fun. Taking notes and mapping were essential.
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I’ve been moving pretty slowly. I’m confident that I’ll get through the lpm games, and will get to play some gg works besides. I’m going to slow down on my Inform 7 stuff so that I can focus on this a bit.
(the educational jam, though)
The ones I’ve enjoyed most have led me to think about what horror can say about difference, or loneliness. That’s definitely not a new idea I’m having there! Haven’t decided what gg games to play yet.
I am not as interested in puzzle stuff as I used to be, but I will play Familiar Problems because Draconis likes the Enchanter games as much as i do.
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I was planning to try to run the table, then a lot of really bad stuff happened in my life all at once, and now I haven’t quite been able to muster the energy to play much of anything. But I do definitely want to try The Column and Last Minute Magic at least, and maybe more if reviews especially stand out to me!
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I haven’t responded to everyone’s reviews of “you promise” (and now I’m anxious about responding to only some and not others, so I’m going to do a catchall here and probs a postmortem…) but I really appreciate the thoughts. I am gonna try to play other games, at least more of the petite mort ones.
I also want to play some spanish games. I was told that the author of Helikoj worked on it over the course of 20 years and I want to make sure that effort is given its due.
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I haven’t responded to everyone’s reviews of “you promise” (and now I’m anxious about responding to only some and not others, so I’m going to do a catchall here and probs a postmortem…) but I really appreciate the thoughts.
I’m in exactly the same boat. Anyone who’s played and/or reviewed your life, and nothing else: thank you for playing, I’m reading all the lovely reviews and I value every one, and I promise I’ll explain later.
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Yeah, I haven’t been responding to reviews either, because most of the questions raised by reviewers have been things I’m planning to address in the postmortem anyway and because I don’t want to stifle discussion/interpretation/speculation by talking about what my intentions were (although in many ways they’re pretty obvious). I really do appreciate the reviews, though; they’ve been very thoughtful and insightful.
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I stopped replying in public review threads and I’m sending private messages with a thank you and some elaboration on things/questions that were posed in a review. I do it because if I answered everything publicly, there’d be no material left for the postmortem. Still, I’ll do it publicly here as well: to everyone who played …left hand…, thank you! To everyone who reviewed it, double thank you! To those who are yet to review it, thank you in advance!
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Well, 20 years of development is probably a bit much. Let’s just say that it’s been 20 years since I had the original idea and a year of actual development.
Thanks for playing it!
PS: I enjoyed “You promise” but I’m a bit too late on my comments, sorry.
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I’m with y’all—I haven’t been responding to reviews of The Column, but I have really enjoyed hearing people’s thoughts! I had no idea what to expect (actually, it was such a frenzied writing process two days before the deadline that I forgot people would even be playing it), but the feedback has been really helpful. I don’t think it warrants a whole postmortem, but I’ll answer some questions after the comp.
At this point I’ve played all the entries I’m going to be able to play, and wow, that was a whole lot of spooky goodness! I’m still thinking about some of the games weeks later. ECTOCOMP rules.
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I haven’t played it yet but I’ll try to write a review when I do!
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I have… five more LPM games that I’m planning to play! I’m just picking whatever’s in the top left, if anyone’s wondering about the order. The experience has been really enjoyable so far.
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I’ve mostly just been replying to reviews with a “hey, thanks!” and maybe a quip, because I’ve been bad about expressing how much I appreciate them in the past
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Remember that you don’t have to express anything at all! When I review games, it’s not because I want the author to respond to me, and I get how fraught responding can be. I don’t think anyone thinks, “That ungrateful Charm doesn’t even say thank you for a review!” Because everyone gets it.
Whoo, did your game punch me in the gut, though. It bears repeating. So effective.
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