EJ's Ectocomp 2025 reviews

Competitions
,
1

I’m going to try doing some Ectocomp reviews this year! We will see how many I get through—it’s a lot of games even if many of them are short! Based on my IFComp track record, I don’t expect to be a completionist about this.

I’m probably going to hold off on Petite Mort reviews until the last week of the comp so that it feels less like I’m trying to influence opinions on my competitors, but I am playing a mix of LPM and LGG games and writing the reviews as I go, so that might end up meaning I go a while between LGG reviews and then dump a lot of LPM reviews all at once at the end.

7 Likes
2

Dad’s Shiva

Dad’s Shiva is a choice-based game about visiting your sister during the official mourning period for your father, though you didn’t have a good relationship with either of them. The family’s past is a thorny mess of hurt and secrets and resentment (mind the content warnings if you’re sensitive to stories about child abuse), and while poking around your sister’s apartment you can ferret some things out, but you can’t really fix anything.

The writing is simple and effective, and I liked the specificity of the New York Jewish community that it’s set in, reflected in the details of the setting and the distinctive Yiddish-inflected syntax of some of the dialogue. The PC is a little bit of an enigma outside of their[1] trauma; the true character centerpiece is not the PC nor even the titular father, but the PC’s sister, Miranda, who is complicated and unpleasant but not one-dimensionally hateable.

The endings deny any real closure or catharsis; I wouldn’t say they come unexpectedly, but there’s an uneasy sense of non-resolution, a lack of some significant final action to take. Which is perfectly appropriate to the subject matter; really, anything else might have felt too pat.

  1. The blurb uses he/him for the PC, but the game itself offers a choice to describe the PC as an uncle, an aunt, or neither. ↩︎

8 Likes
3

Is it odd that seeing this title among the reviews in baezil’s review thread lead me to a rather different conclusion about the presumed nature (and religious elements) of the game that this review just corrected? :')

3 Likes
4

Haha, I don’t think so—good old apostrophe-s is ambiguous that way. (Much to the joy of people who write clues for cryptic crosswords.)

4 Likes
5

Okay, slight change of plans: as I haven’t been getting to the Grand Guignol games in a very timely fashion and because I’d love to bring some attention to Petite Mort games I’ve enjoyed, I will post my Petite Mort reviews as I finish them as long as they’re positive. So, with that said…

Go-Strange-Ghost Range

Go-Strange-Ghost Range is one of Andrew Schultz’s oronym games in the vein of Why Pout and Us Too. If you’ve played those games, you likely know whether you’ll enjoy this one; if not, this might be a good way to see how you get on with this particular form of wordplay-based gameplay, since it’s a short and straightforward experience. There is a particular order puzzles need to be solved in, but you’re not keeping track of a complex interlocking set of dependencies like in the longer games. A set of progressive hints is available for each room, I believe, although I only needed to turn to them once. The whole thing is remarkably smooth for speed IF, and in general I found it a delightful little morsel.

Especially impressive is that this (and its two companion games) was created in Adventuron, so none of the code from the previous oronym games was used. As an added bonus, this has allowed the addition of pixel graphics, which are an endearing supplement to the game’s whimsy.

7 Likes
6

Detective en habitación cerrada

Detective en habitación cerrada es un juego de Inform alucinante protagonizado por un detective que sólo puede investigarse a sí mismo. Sin embargo, necesita un delito que investigar, un cliente y un culpable; descubrir cómo conseguirlos es el objetivo del juego.

El tono de la narración es sarcástico, y la premisa se utiliza para satirizar el individualismo y la privatización, deleitándose con un juego de palabras sobre los distintos significados de “privado”. La prosa es uno de los puntos fuertes del juego (aunque la perspectiva cambia de segunda a primera persona a veces; no se si era intencional).

Una vez que entendí la mecánica básica, pude avanzar bien un rato, pero hacia el final empecé a tener problemas con entender la lógica, y todavía no entiendo por qué solo se puede obtener un final intentando implicar al otro yo3 y no al otro yo bis. La respuesta que obtuve al intentar arrestar al otro yo bis me hizo pensar que debía llamar la atención del otro yo original sobre el casquillo, pero nada de lo que hice con el casquillo pareció funcionar, y no sé qué indicaba que debía implicar a otra persona (o otra versión de la misma persona, más precisamente).

Al final logré resolver el caso; el resultado no fue precisamente un final feliz, pero en este juego me sorprendería si algo así fuera posible. En general disfruté de la experiencia.

Detective en habitación cerrada is a mind-bending Inform game featuring a detective who can only investigate himself. Nevertheless, he needs a crime to investigate, a client, and a culprit; figuring out how to produce these things is the goal of the game.

The tone of the narration is sarcastic, and the premise is used to satirize individualism and privatization, playing on different meanings of “private”. The writing is generally a strong point of the game (though the point of view slips from second person to first person at times; I wasn’t sure if that was intentional).

Once I figured out the basic mechanics, I was able to make good progress for a while, but towards the end I started to struggle with the logic, and I’m still not sure why you can only get an ending by trying to implicate otro yo3 and not otro yo bis. The response I got by trying to arrest otro yo bis suggested I needed to draw the original otro yo’s attention to the bullet casing, but nothing I did in that regard seemed to work, and I don’t know what was supposed to point me to implicating someone else instead (or rather a different version of the same person).

In the end I did manage to solve the case; the result was not exactly a happy ending, but in this game I would be surprised if such a thing were possible. Overall I enjoyed the experience.

8 Likes
7

I wish I knew enough Spanish to appreciate this game! A private investigator who’s so private that he can only investigate himself sounds like a hilarious premise.

8 Likes
8

It’s very entertaining and definitely gets a lot of mileage out of the premise!

Playing it I also kept thinking “man, I wish I could share this with the English-speaking side of the forums” and entertained a brief fantasy of asking the author if I could translate it, but I am, as is so frequently the case, both busy and sick, so I shouldn’t just now, at least.

6 Likes
9

Wow… I did not expected two English reviews of my game. I am very grateful you made the effort to play through such a convoluted story. Even some Spaniards are struggling to get through some parts of the game, so let me congratulate you for having being able to get one of the endings. (There are two “good” endings and a lot of bad ones, but your guess was right, in this game there are no happy endings, though you are rewarded with the more elaborated, even if it does not pay ^^)

Spoilers

I suspect your struggle was my fault because it seems to me you have found some bug or error. I will have to check this after the Jam. Supposedly, there are two main branches. In one of them you hire “otro yo” and you can blame “otro yo bis”. In the other branch you can theoretically blame both “otro yo bis” and “otro yo3” if you didn´t waste your power before. But arresting someone else other than yourself only ends with you dead. There is a way of solving the case and surviving, even if it isn´t a happy ending. If the game behaves differently that must be a problem with my Gruyère coding. Also, you are right I should include more messages for the “casquillo” part because it is confusing.

If someday in the future you have the stamina and you think you can enjoy the work, it would be an honor to have such a gifted writer as a translator for my game. Maybe we can add something new to the story. I have some ideas I had to left aside.

Some trivia and spoilers

Some trivia and spoilers again

This is one of the things I enjoyed most while I was writing the game. In one of the endings a voice (the parser voice) tells you the room wasn´t closed from starters so the case cannot be credited as a locked room mystery. If you restart the game and try to close the door it says it is wasn´t closed properly, but after some turns there is some noise “ÑIC” that indicates the door opens by itself again. And it happens again and again.

3 Likes
10

Yes, it seems like I ended up in some kind of odd space between the two main branches. I should really start keeping transcripts…

Thank you! I would be delighted to work with you, I just have to wait until I have free time and good health at the same time. I’ll get in touch when that happens!

2 Likes
11

I will have to check that. I had good testers, but the code was too complicated for two weeks and a half, at least for my level of competence.

And about the possible translation, no pressure at all. Go ahead only if there is a chance and you think you can enjoy it. I hope you get better, that is the important thing.

2 Likes
12

I Got You

Sometimes the mechanisms we develop to protect ourselves or make ourselves feel better outlive their usefulness and become actually detrimental. (Sometimes, also, they weren’t that healthy to start with.) They can spin out of control and start running your life while you feel helpless to break free of them and do the things you actually want to do.

Also, some types of internalized bigotry can create a kind of double-think, especially for a well-meaning person who wants to extend some understanding to others. Here’s why it’s okay for other people to be like this, but not for me. It’s perfectly valid and I wouldn’t judge people for it, it’s just that I don’t have it bad enough to really count. Of course, despite one’s best intentions, this often ends up manifesting in ways that do hurt others, especially if they remind you of yourself.

To elucidate how I Got You explores these themes would be to spoil several of the turns its narrative takes over its relatively short play time, and I do think it’s better to go into it with minimal knowledge about where it’s going, but I will say I found it effective and relatable.

The game’s approach to interactivity reminded me of Chinese Family Dinner Moment by the same author (despite this being an Ink game rather than Inform): there are actions you can take, or try to take, or think about taking, and none of it really changes the outcome, but the effect of holding out the tantalizing promise of control and then snatching it away from you is different from the effect of just not giving a choice in the first place.

9 Likes
13

Beneath the Weeping Willow

I don’t know if this game is named after the similarly titled folk song; it’s got nothing thematically to do with the game, but every time I see the title I get earwormed, and I’m not sure how well-known the song is so I have to do what I can to make sure I’m not the only person who starts humming to themself upon seeing the title.

Anyway, Beneath the Weeping Willow is an Ink game where you play as a ghost. A couple of vacationers have rented out your old house on AirB&B on Halloween night, the only night you can interact with the living, so this is your one shot to try to get them to solve the mystery of your death and lay you to rest properly. Despite the ghost situation, the spookiness factor is low, and the general atmosphere is one of autumnal coziness tempered by slight melancholy.

You can’t interact with your guests directly, so it’s a matter of figuring out what you can interact with, what effect it will have, and how the guests move around the house at various points in the evening. Restarting at least once may be necessary, as the whole thing is on a tight timer. The apparent complexity of it really impressed me given the four-hour limit on a Petite Mort game. In general, I found it surprisingly polished and rewarding to play, and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a satisfying bite-sized puzzle game of moderate difficulty.

10 Likes
14

Thank you so much for this review! The title isn’t an intentional reference to the song, however I was aware of the song and the association is a welcome one :smiling_face:

2 Likes
15

Thanks, I put a big emphasis on hopefully simple fun this year. Nice reviews like this are great motivation to help me put features that made it into only one entry due to time constraints, into all 3.

I’d really like this, based on the reviews so far! But I know it would be nontrivial effort. One I can’t help with, as my language in high school was French. But interactions like this definitely push me to try the non-English entries.

4 Likes
16

Oh, thank you! If you or someone else want to give it a try I will be happy to help!