Games with Similar Premises in Comp 2011

[Healy]

Does anyone else think that this year’s Comp has a lot more games that have similar premises than usual? Usually the Comp gets at least a couple (I hear zombies were popular last year), but this year they practically come in pairs.

Here’s the connections I thought of:
It and Six: Both games about hide-and-seek variants
Binary and Hours: Both about time travellers
Cana According to Micah and The Tenth Plague: Both biblical games
(This next bit is a little spoiler-y)

Last Day of Summer and Cold Iron: Both deal with a story telling reverend in some way. This is actually the weirdest one, I think, because it’s so random. Is there some kind of historical character these two are based on that I don’t know about?

Huh. Now that I’ve written this out, I realize that there weren’t that many similar premises after all. Still kind of wigged out about that last one though. And if nothing else, looking for similarities can be a fun little game. So what similarities between games have you guys found?

[Robert_Rothman]

There’s at least one more with a sort of religious theme to it:

Beet the Devil

Robert Rothman

[emshort]

Something like this pretty much always happens. One year multiple games prominently featured squid. It’s a slightly less calculable variation on the birthday problem.

[Robert_Rothman]

One year multiple games prominently featured squid.

Why do so many IF Comp games
Feature themes that are almost the same?
It seems rather odd
That a cephalopod
Gets its own fifteen minutes of fame

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist)

Robert Rothman

[rockersuke]

Curiously enough, my soon to reach beta-testing phase Haunted House game is not an IF-Comp game, but just like Anssi Raisanen’s Ted Paladin And The Case Of The Abandoned House is just about hanging around a… well, abandoned house! And they both start in a location called “Outside of the house” and the first thing to do is finding a way in!

I’ve just started to play with it, so I could find some more coincidences along the way! [emote]:D[/emote]

–

[rockersuke]

@rockersuke

I’ve just started to play with it, so I could find some more coincidences along the way! [emote]:D[/emote]

Indeed!

-You reach upstairs using an old ladder which collapses at the last second
-Rooms are named after colors

And I think this is only the beginning! [emote]:lol:[/emote]

–

[AnssiR]

@rockersuke

@rockersuke

I’ve just started to play with it, so I could find some more coincidences along the way! [emote]:D[/emote]

Indeed!

-You reach upstairs using an old ladder which collapses at the last second
-Rooms are named after colors

And I think this is only the beginning! [emote]:lol:[/emote]

–

Heh, that’s spooky! But hey, your game sounds good [emote];)[/emote]
-Anssi

[Aquillion]

ParaNoir and Death of Schlig are both about slightly wonky hard-boiled detectives who have weird personal problems that give them an edge against the game’s puzzles.

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

Sentencing Mr Liddell and Awake the Mighty Dread both seem to be nightmarishly surreal games set mostly on trains.

[JTN]

@Aquillion

ParaNoir and Death of Schlig are both about slightly wonky hard-boiled detectives who have weird personal problems that give them an edge against the game’s puzzles.

We certainly had our share of detectives this year:

• PataNoir
• Death of Schlig
• The Myothian Falcon
• Return to Camelot
• Taco Fiction

Also, indescribable hats! Owned by mysterious characters! In four games!
(Playing Games, Cold Iron, Last Day of Summer, Doctor M)

[spoiler]Playing Games

The man is wearing a large cloak, which covers most of his features, giving you simply the impression of darkness. The only thing that stands out about the man is his hat, which is almost completely indescribable.

*** You sometimes dream of a hat, but you can never describe it upon waking ***

Cold Iron

A spry-looking man sits crosslegged on the forest floor. He wears a lazy grin, threadbare clothes, and an absurd sort of a hat.

Last Day of Summer

As you step back out into the building site, a man in a hat walks up and peers around you through the door into the chapel. “Oh, it looks like I’m too late,” he says, somberly.

X HAT
The hat is surprisingly… well, it’s just… surprising.

The Life (and Deaths) of Doctor M

In a place built upon the ruins of one place… someday to become the ruins of another place… a man in an oversized chair turns the final page of his book. He wears a hat considered hideous by some, but such trifles don’t matter to him. He likes the hat, and that’s what counts.

OK, that one isn’t actually indescribable. It doesn’t say why it’s hideous, though.

ANGEL, DESCRIBE HAT
You say, “DESCRIBE HAT.”

“I’m such a silly! I don’t think I can help with that,” says the angel, merrily.

[/spoiler]

[trojo]

Cold Iron and Beet the Devil have very similar premises in that…

In both games, the PC is a highly religious farmer-type with little to no schooling who lives in an unspecified period of distant history, and whose livelihood is suddenly disrupted by the supernatural one day. Yet, interestingly, neither game really plays their rustic protagonist for cheap laughs.