Got one! Baltimore:24 by Howard Sherman is set in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.
This is duplicative, but I think a good one nonetheless – Spoon River Anthology is fictionalized but I think strongly set in non-Chicago Illinois.
Harmonia is another contributor to the Massachusetts glut, but similarly has a great sense of place (I’ve never been to Amherst, but it strongly conveys what I imagine Amherst is like, if that makes sense).
The Adventures of the President of the United States starts out in DC, though it doesn’t stay long.
My understanding is that even after you “move” you’ll have Boston-like locations keep showing up even if you’re supposed to be elsewhere. Most people probably wouldn’t notice though, so it’s mostly a fun Easter egg.
Choice of the Vampire has a lot of expansions set in different cities. One is in St Louis, MO.
That reminds me, Vampire the Masquerade: Night Road is set in Tucson, Arizona and the surrounding area. I don’t see that one listed yet.
The task in Rainbows and Dance Parties! by Carolyn VanEseltine is to visit all US states and non-state territories and spread the news about the federal legalization of homosexual marriage. At the end you don’t visit all states / territories as news spreads on its own from states / territories you already visited.
Not to be a bother, but could we get the original list updated? It’s getting pretty hard to keep track.
Good point. I should make a google doc out of it so everyone can update it. (note I was also worried about continually bumping this topic with edits. A doc would take care of this. I think it would be fun, too, in the time between submissions closing and IFComp actually starting.)
It would be great if you could use the IFWiki page at Games by American State - IFWiki rather than a Google document. The wiki has been underused over the years and this would be a nice way to encourage its use
If you do this, you could also edit the original post to link to it.
By all means, use the wiki. I have an IFWiki account, but under no circumstances do I allow Google to set a cookie on a device of mine (yes, I’m really that curmudgeonly). That rules out Google Docs for me.
THERE’S NO IF SET PUREPLY IN NEW JERSEY??? As a New Jerseyian myself, I am offended. If I have to rectify this myself I will lol. Perhaps for Ectocomp, if my health and time permits it.
Yes, it’s really surprising. If you can’t make the IFComp deadline, drop back for Spring Thing. I think we’d be glad to have you.
Definitely–I’d love to redirect traffic this way! But on the other hand, it would be neat if this sort of informal project was able to cover 50 states on its own. Maybe it’s a vanity thing.
Of course there’s nothing stopping anybody from adding to both!
I’d add more to the wiki but it’s weird – I’d like to add what I know, but part of me still maybe feels like I’m not authority enough on things to add anything, or I worry what I add might be heavily skewed towards, well, my stuff, or the stuff of people I’ve worked with. I imagine it’s not the worst sort of self-promotion around but it still makes me feel a bit self-conscious.
Try ‘Greystone’ (Howard A Sherman), ‘Heroine’s Mantle’ (Andy Phillips) and ‘Save Princeton’ (Jacob Weinstein, Karine Schaefer) for starters.
Do it anyway! That’s one of the problems with wikis – people who could contribute wrongly not feeling expert (or impartial) enough
The “style guides” can be quite daunting, e.g. asking for things to be written like:
- The Adventures of Bobo the Monkey (Pat Handy; 2006; Z-code). Detroit Zoo.
We’re hoping to simplify this sort of thing over the weeks and months. In the meantime, you could just add the title of a game under the right heading, and wait for someone else to change how it’s written.
Edit: I didn’t mean “people who could contribute wrongly” but I’d rather laugh at my sentence than correct it
Still playing through a bunch of stuff, but only a few have ended up specifying a state. Lotta sci-fi and fantasy and stuff in unspecified locations or other worlds, wordplay games, stuff outside the U.S., and more than a few on the moon. I did find a Twine entry for Texas, though: Will Not Let Me Go, by Stephen Granade.
That would mean both the parser and choice-based games for Texas on this list are about dementia. Weird coincidence… or is something going on in Texas that’s making people lose their minds? (Okay, okay… I get that’s probably something I shouldn’t joke about…)
I was curious about the stats, and quick Googling shows Texas has a lower percentage-of-population than other states. Report: Texas has 3rd lowest 65-plus population has a graph of this. I thought Texas would have a higher percentage, like Florida, since they have similar climates. But then again, it just has a big population, period.
It’s set in Dystopian Cyberpunk Future Reno, which is almost as bad as Current Reno.
That’s a little unfair to Reno. Despite being born there I never really grew to love it, but it’s not, like, terrible - though I haven’t visited in, like, a long time so who knows what’s happened to it since.
I’m reminded of the poem “I remember, I remember” by Philip Larkin here: I Remember, I Remember by Philip Larkin
I’m currently playing some obscure games written with Adventure Master. One of the sample games is ‘Becca in Outlaw Cave’ by Jean Craighead George. This is set in Kentucky.