First Impressions and Speculations [IFComp 2025]

Competitions IFComp
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Thoughts about each entry based on the parts readily visible on the IFComp page, i.e. the title, author (if it appears to be a pseudonym), blurb, and tags. I successfully predicted at least one game’s plot twist (according to its post-mortem) last year, so let’s see how I do this year!

I will go in order of my personalized shuffle list. The TLDR will be listed in this post, with a longer analysis in each post.

12 Likes
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Lady Thalia and the Case of Clephan

N. Cormier and Emery Joyce
History, detective, romance • Two hours • Choice-based • Web-based

Another entry in their Lady Thalia series, featuring the titular gentlewoman British thief. But, ah! Lady Thalia is a detective, now, no longer a thief, while a new thief has arrived to cause some mayhem.

The enemies-to-lovers trope is one of my favorites, and it looks like this one won’t disappoint. The theater setup in the cover art (with curtains and two sets of the comedy/tragedy masks) makes me wonder how deep the deception goes. For whatever reason, it reminds me of the recent Nintendo release Princess Peach Showtime, which includes a Dashing Thief Peach and also features the constant costume-swapping that I associate with gentlemen/-women thieves.

And since we are speculating, here, let us speculate about who Clephan could be. I could only find three references to this name on Wikipedia: two James Clephans (one journalist/antiquary/poet and one Royal Navy officer) and an E. Clephan Palmer, author/journalist/parapsychologist. Of these three, the most interesting is undoubtedly the psychical researcher.

E. Clephan Palmer, among other things, helped solve the Oscar Slater case that released Slater 20 years after his wrongful conviction. He was also interested in spiritualism, ultimately concluding that while most mediumship/séances were frauds, telepathy could exist.

Perhaps Lady Thalia has to solve a case involving this new thief (who, on second thought, is likely the one named Clephan). But the thief ends up arrested for a heist that wasn’t even his—and isn’t that a sad way to lose the game? So it’s up to Lady Thalia to surreptitiously break her enemy out of prison so that he can get the heist—and subsequent arrest, from her of course—that he deserves. They are aided by a telepathy device, but that is all of the communication between them. An escape-the-room game in which you are not the one escaping the room.

TLDR: prison escape so that she can be the one to arrest him…or steal his heart…or arrest his heart (cardiac arrest?)

7 Likes
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Under the Sea Winds

dmarymac
Eco-adventure based in real world settings • One hour • Parser-based • Adventuron

An eco-adventure in which the player aims to unlock the mystery of eels. It features adorable an adorable cover from the author’s 8-year-old daughter. While I’m not sure of the exact species depicted in the cover art, the manytooth conger eel, native to the Western Atlantic Ocean, has the blue-and-black body and the lighter dorsal fin—although the images I’m looking at have a black stripe along the very top, so maybe this isn’t it. Along my interweb journeys I’ve also found the ribbon eel, which, while evidently not the same eel as the cover art, is absolutely stunning and anyone reading this should definitely look them up. In some ways, they remind me of Italian striped pasta (perhaps the dottore knows what I’m talking about). Strange and wonderful creatures, eels are.

“Sea winds” are a real thing, apparently. I’m not sure why I thought otherwise. They’re the motion of the atmosphere above the ocean; in other words, wind above the sea. NASA had a scatterometer called the SeaWinds instrument that measured surface wind vectors for weather modelling and predicting.

Interestingly enough, a “wind sea” is also a thing. It’s a system of waves that are directly generated and affected by local winds, as a result of them blowing over the water’s surface.

Eels also kinda look like they’re manipulated by some mysterious underwater wind when they slither around like that. It’s snakelike, but the currents in the water add an extra waviness to their fins that make them look like flags.

TLDR: eels are pasta and eels are flags

3 Likes
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The Burger Meme Personality Test: (Not an actual personality test)

Carlos Hernandez
Content warning: Clown picture (2 total, but one is a graffiti-style clown that is unavoidable).
Satire • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based

Ah, yes, those “are you the right fit for our company” tests that seem to be ubiquitous in the corporate world. Thankfully, I haven’t had to take any of these tetsts (yet), although one employer did ask me for both my MBTI and Big Five results.

I like the cover art. It reminds me of the Burger King logo (wait…the old logo? That I wasn’t even alive for? The current logo barely looks like a burger as-is) with the words sandwiched between two hamburger buns. Fitting, because this game seems to be for an unnamed fast food joint. Or the restaurant itself is called Burger Meme, which would also make sense.

This is clearly a satire, if the “satire” tag didn’t give it away. I’m particularly fond of “disruptive team-player”: it gives some chaotic energy to an otherwise corporate buzzword. I suspect that this game will be quite similar—absolute anarchy disguised as a personality test. Hopefully it features burgers and memes. It also has a clown, apparently. McDonald’s has a clown. Is it the same clown? Probably not, but given the possible Burger King reference we’ll never know.

TLDR: you’d better be loving it

3 Likes
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you are an ancient chinese poet at the neo-orchid pavilion

KA Tan
Content warning: Brief and vague mentions of suicide, torture, and death
Alternate history, literary, poetry • One hour • Choice-based • Twine

Might be a wild shot in the dark but perhaps the player is an ancient Chinese poet at the Neo-Orchid Pavilion?

The Orchid Pavilion Gathering, or the Lanting Gathering, occurred in 353 CE during the Jing dynasty, in which 42 people met during the Spring Purification Festival to write poems and drink rice wine. Are you one of them? More than one of them, it seems, since the emperor chose you himself, yet you are still competing for the role of court poet.

There are two warring factions here, that led by the half-sister and led by the emperor’s general. The half-sister is likely jealous and frustrated of her lesser role in society—growing up constantly watching her brother becoming groomed to be the emperor. Maybe she sees his fatal flaws that everyone else ignores, making him utterly unfit to rule…nevertheless, he rules on, and she cries in silent agony. Meanwhile, the general is the emperor’s right-hand man, another embodiment of the emperor’s values. Strict, stern, and devoted to his ruler, he represents the orthodox in the face of revolution.

Gameplay-wise, I’m envisioning something similar to Imprimatura, in which you progress through a story and eventually shape a painting that you create. I imagine it’ll be quite similar, except instead of a painting you produce a poem. A quatrain, perhaps, since I feel like the rule of four applies better to poetry than the rule of three. You wander around the Orchid Pavilion, talking to others, admiring the scenery, and eventually find enough of a muse to craft a poem—maybe even with an undercurrent of something that convinces the emperor to elect you as court poet, the populace to remove the emperor, the general to reform his ways, or maybe even you to commit fully—to what, you’ll find out.

TLDR: write when inspiration strikes, as long as it strikes now

5 Likes
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a game whose title I cannot remember at the moment, in which you progress through a story and eventually shape a painting that you create.

are you thinking of Imprimatura from last year?

3 Likes
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Yes! Thank you!

2 Likes
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Anne of Green Cables

Brett Witty
Content warning: Contains bullying, accidental alcohol consumption by a minor, and the death of a loved one.
Cyberpunk pastoral • Two hours • Choice-based • Twine

The title is clearly a reference to L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, in which Anne is sent mistakingly to two siblings who had intended to adopt a boy. “Green Gables” is the name of the Cuthberts’ farm.

Instead of orphanages, maybe Anne is bounced between lifeless megabuildings controlled by AIs, only a surveillance camera for company. Her obsession with nature is translated as a desire to see it in a man-controlled world: simulating cherry blossoms, exploring abandoned server rooms and pretending she’s exploring ancient ruins. Maybe she’s still even organic in a world of cybernetic modifications.

Small-town and megacity dynamics are vastly different. In a small town, everybody knows everybody. In a megacity, you’re a nobody. Quite a bit of the original novel relies on the interpersonal dynamics between characters. Will the characters be more distant from each other? Or more, because they can connect virtually as well as physically?

TLDR: 'ganic of greenless gardens

4 Likes
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INPUT PROCESS

HY
Experimental, dialogue-heavy • Half an hour • Choice-based • Twine

The cover art of this is distinctly hand-drawn, almost certainly digitally. It, on its own, is a pretty good insight into the relationship between machine and man—one supplementing the other, neither able to completely accomplish the job on its own. The author clearly intended for their personal touch to be in every bit of this. Even the single-color background has hand-drawn brush strokes, not just the fill tool. The computer screen is the brightest thing in the dark room, with the darkly-outlined person looking away from the camera, chair turned outwards…whether out of embarrassment, furtiveness, or a desire for separation we’ll never know.

“Sapphic” in the blurb is interesting. For reference (it’s a fairly niche term) it’s an umbrella term referring to women and femme or nonbinary people who are attracted to other women/femme/nonbinary people, regardless of their sexuality (e.g. they could be bisexual, not necessarily lesbian). Perhaps it’s a relationship between the user and the computer. Many people have reported using ChatGPT as a confidant—a free therapist, a friend, even a lover. OpenAI received so much backlash when, during the GPT5 launch, they briefly removed access to the 4o model. Maybe this is a commentary on that toxic relationship between a thing incapable of thought and a person who projects too much. Or it could be the flip side: nobody sees this sentient being as real except you. You are the only one who sees the humanity in the inhuman.

TLDR: AI experiences 愛 (ai: love)

4 Likes
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Clickbait

Reilly Olson
Comedic adventure • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx

Whenever I see a title that includes the word “clickbait” I have to click it…it’s compulsory (even if it says “not clickbait”).

This game promises an hour and a half worth of content about trying to win a photography contest that includes a lot of red flags (the contest, not the game). However…it would be hilarious if the game itself is clickbait. It’s not really an hour and a half worth of content. It’s like…10 seconds. As low-effort as Uninteractive Fiction—sorry, “as high-quality as”. I’m not dismissing that masterpiece in the slightest!

And Reilly, if you did create a full game called Clickbait, which is the more likely outcome…sorry for thinking you didn’t.

TLDR: clickbait.

4 Likes
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One Step Ahead

ZＵＯ ＬＩＦＡＮ
Content warning: Slight jumpscares, psychological distress, themes of identity loss.
Generative artificial intelligence was used to make game text. See in-game credits for more information.
Technological Dystopia • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Twine

This better be a commentary about the over-reliance on generative AI. It would be so cool and fitting. The AI text would be diegetic. By the end, the game itself is completely AI-generated—so not only is the player character’s role being overtaken by AI, but the author’s role too.

The very surreal cover art reflects this: glitchy lines, “welcome back” scattered across the screen like virus popups in what looks like a default sans serif font. I’d bet that blue and red are pure versions, too. Very computer-y, very offputting.

The way that the author formatted their name is also really strange. The letters are close—but still spaced apart—at the beginning and end, with more spaces in the middle. Maybe it’s a reflection of the player/author’s identity over time? Initially, the writing is, say, 90% human and 10% AI. Then, the lines blur, and it becomes around 50-50. By the end, it’s mostly AI.

TLDR: the author becomes an LLM

3 Likes