Oh, that sounds fun! Looks like there’s going to be a fair number of nautical games this Comp, and I am here for it.
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It may be nautical, but it also may be more than that… 
it has a lot of twists and turns, and the blurb reveals as little as possible for the story. But I’m a sucker for nautical stuff too, can’t wait for the comp to kick off!
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Hi everyone! My name is Natasha Ramoutar (you can call me Tash though!) and I’m a first-timer here for IFComp. I’m a writer with a background mostly in fiction and poetry, although I’ve written on one other game called TYTYTY that was made in GB Studio.
I also made a nautical game for the competition - it’s so fascinating to see that there’s lots of others working on that theme and I’m excited to play them! My horror-mystery IF piece is called “All Hands” (entry ID: 2866). It’s an atmospheric little piece about exploring a strange ship that has docked at port in a world where the sea is exceptionally dangerous due to fantastical beasts. It’s a choice-based game and I made it in Texture Writer as part of Work With Indies’ writing circle led by Frankie Kavakich. The gameplay is buttons you can drag to different sections on the page in the style of an old point and click mystery game. I’ve tagged the game as 1 hour, but that’s really if you do absolutely every possible route and exhaust every option and puzzle!
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That sounds cool! Welcome!
I remember seeing some Texture games last year from a group of people. I think some of them went to NYU? Some of them were pretty fun. Was that part of the same group?
I look forward to your game!
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Fun - I love the emerging nautical theme. My piece, The Whale’s Keeper, starts off with the main character inside of a whale… so, I guess, also nautical? -ish?
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This is sort of like in 2010 when there were zombie games of all kind and quality.
BTW, for those new, the clawfoot bathtub is a sort of inside joke about something that appears in several different entries. Each year seems to have one. That may be more specific than “nautical game” but it still might be fun to look out for.
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Hey everyone! I’m Anja and this is my first time joining IFComp! I’m a writer, editor, and indie game dev with a background in media production (primarily Film and TV). This entry would make my third time making an interactive fiction game!
Super excited and look forward to see everyone’s entries. I’m seeing a lot of people using Twine (one of my favorite tools to make interactive fiction) and I’m excited to see what people come up with using it. My entry is a slice-of-life, surreal-ish exploration of grief called “Lonehouse”. You play as a younger sister having to sort through the belongings of your estranged older sister and learning more about her life through these different objects. This is my first time using Texture Writer to create a game!
I think working on this entry has been the most liberating and motivating thing as a writer and dev. I have to thank the writing circle I’ve had the pleasure to be a part of! It was also the first time I’ve joined a writing-focused group. They’ve all been incredibly supportive and it boosted my motivation to do my best with my project. Very different from if I were to work on this alone!
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Place your bets now—which of these categories do you think will have the most games in it?
- Nautical mysteries
- Non-nautical mysteries
- Nautical non-mysteries
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voters
(Interpreting “non-nautical mysteries” very narrowly to keep it from being the obvious choice. Only whodunnits and the like go in that category.)
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I was just about to write something similar—the last few comps there’s been a thread that lists games with things in common, and it certainly seems like there’s a theme this time.
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I didn’t think of the girls in Leadlight as zombies myself (and persisted in saying so in the commentary track, later) but everyone else did. And player perception is the real reality.
So, if you enter what you think is a landbound adventure into this IFComp, and everyone says it’s actually a Nautical Non-Mystery, you should accept that you’ve made a Nautical Non-Mystery.
-Wade
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Another first-timer, here, with my entry, “Out of Scope.” It’s a political romance about two siblings whose establishment parents think have grown too close, and the effect that has on the family. I’m interested in which forms of love and violence our society condones, and which it condemns.
I’m a game developer with a lot of Unity experience, but my degrees are in creative writing. I wanted an opportunity to get back to that while using my more recent skillset. I daydream about novel storytelling methods, ways to address points of friction between players and authors, that kind of thing, so it was important to me to build the system for this, even though it put me into a position of having to do as much coding as writing, and to contend with the prospect of many more bugs, than an established tool would provide. I anticipate feeling some rue about that decision in the near future – ha.
The goal here was to implicitly build a sense of geography using text in 3D, and using spatial audio. A “single choice at a time” choice selection mechanism is my attempt to give the player agency over what a point of view character is thinking, but not necessarily their exact actions, in order to have more authorial control without undermining agency. I’m not sure whether it succeeded, and know for sure that there’s more I could with it, but it was fun to experiment, and it will be fun to collect feedback on these and other choices!
P.S. the flag in the title screen has an anchor on it, so count me in on the emerging theme.
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Dayum! I want your artist to do me.
Or is that only a teensy exaggeration of your physical form? In which case, are you single?
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“Bali B&B” is not nautical as such but the setting is beachside, which is surely close enough?
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I’m amused by the emerging nautical theme. By sheer coincidence my game has a naval captain in it. I’d hate to be disqualified because I put them in the air force.
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One for the ancients like myself. Hawkstone (entry ID: 2865)
This is my first entry. I tried to come up with a cross between familiar 70s-80s nostalgia and left field surprises. But I started from scratch building my own engine and it took precious time away from the content side of things. Hopefully it’s enough to entertain at least one person. Looking for any encouragement I can get.
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Hey! Does a spaceship captain count? (Or two, actually!)
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100%
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Spaceships are just dry submarines.
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Not knowing much about military command structures or anything, I feel like spaceships in fiction are usually closer to nautical ships than airplanes or such in that regard, since they go out on long-term missions with a large crew and limited contact with the outside world.
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Honestly spaceships being treated like nautical ships is one of my favorite sci-fi tropes (mini tropes?). Space military being referred to as a navy, referring to ships as boats and talking about them using she/her like ocean captains is just. Such a fun little way to add flavor and it gets me every time
Edit: and you’ve also got tales like treasure planet with literal space-faring sailboats. What’s not to love?
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