I was readying a glib reply along these lines:
when I realized the real answer is not immediately obvious to me. My mental gears are clashing and grinding on this now, imma need some time to sort this out. Gimme two weeks? 
2 Likes
My Brother: The Parasite by qrowscant
Summitting Everest, as a concept, has had a weird journey during my lifetime. It used to be shorthand for âThe pinnacle of human achievement, technically doable but laughably out of reach for all but a handful of the best of us.â Now it is, âYet another achievement, available to the sufficiently privileged at unjustifiable and ignored social and ecological cost.â It is a flaw of us, as a species, that it still captures our imagination and cannot completely shake that first symbology. Honestly though, isnât Everest itself at least partially to blame? Câmon, tallest mountain in the world (yeah, lets not get into technical height minutia, this is a rhetorical device)⌠Tallest Mountain in the world? It was always going to be more symbol than place. You brought this on yourself, Everest.
So Everest as an achievement. The first phase is getting to base camp, which is a nontrivial physical challenge of its own. Climbers, at least responsible ones, often turn back once hitting it. If there werenât this haunting peak looming behind it, it could conceivably be a celebrated physical challenge of its own. Except, of course, no one would bother EXCEPT for the peak behind it.
MBTP accomplished the enviable feat of getting me to base camp, but could not get me to the summit behind it. It is an interactive novel, decidedly not a game. The entire purpose of the interactivity is to pace the text for dramatic effect. This is a full on legit use of interactivity, and it often works here. I think I have more patience for timed text than most and by and large its employment here was ok, though there were infrequent moments of âIâm waiting, storyâŚâ The presentation is very attractive - blurry graphical backgrounds suggesting the protagonistâs lack of engagement with her surroundings were a really nice touch. The portrait art was very appropriate for the story, grounding its specifics around the characters in an unsettling style. The graphically interesting background that set up the post-death conceit nicely conveyed its âsidebarâ deployment.
The text presentation was good, adding and replacing text to nice dramatic effect with one exception that really undid a lot of its good work. Sometimes the protagonistâs thoughts or observations were rendered in a dark grey against a black background that was ALMOST impossible to detect, and definitely impossible to read. The only way to consume it was to highlight the text with a cursor, which on my browser meant a color palette deeply at war with the words and mood it was trying to build. If I squint I can see why this artistic choice was made, to force the reader to probe a bit deeper to get into the protagâs head. But between the clumsy mechanics and mood-disrupting colors it was so not worth it. Maybe a cleaner way to get this effect would be a less fussy mouseover that the author could better control color choice?
I would say the presentation was an overall positive, but deeply undermined by the dark font choice that made it rougher than it should have been.
The narrative is about a sister, conversing with her abusive brother who through interestingly enough reasons has about a week of post-death pseudo-consciousness. The protagonist relives her childhood trauma, inflicted by the brother. The early stages of this story really worked for me. Her deeply conflicted feelings, estrangement, guilt, yearning and poisoning relationship with her mother. It pretty sure-handedly got me to base camp, despite the presentation challenges. In particular the protagâs assertions of love felt deliciously like trying to convince herself of something expected but not felt. Base Camp achieved!
There is a summit to this work, and here I think I got lost on the way. My narrative guide suddenly started leaping ahead miles at a time, like some Kryptonian mountain goat, leaps I couldnât follow and could barely track with my eyes. Iâll focus on two, and they are super spoilery. After the careful step-by-step buildup we are delivered to a wonderfully conflicted emotional place. Looming large over it all was the question of the mother. How did she let it get to this place? What is HER culpability? This was kind of ignored by the text, and in fact seemingly exonerated her without examination. How do I make that jump Supergoat? You have to show me that!
The climax of the piece has a different problem. While I can conceivably head cannon the protagonistâs mental state from base camp to summit, so many precise steps are needed to get me there and none of them were documented. âHere we are at base camp, let me tie my shoe, where did you go Supergoat?, holy crap how did you get THERE?â It doesnât help, I think, that the central mechanism of the post-death conversation is a pretty shaky construct. If it is a hand-waive, thatâs kind of ok when itâs just an excuse to enable the conversation. But when it suddenly needs to carry plot load it is way too fragile, evokes way too many mechanical questions it canât answer, and collapses under the stress. Thank goodness it was not a ladder bridge over a chasm that the guide marched me onto!
Ok I have officially tortured this metaphor into war crime territory. To sum: really capable emotional setup. Super effective graphical presentation, except disproportionately undermined by one sour choice. Took jumps to climax I couldnât follow. Sparks of Joy for sure, Notable graphic intrusion.
Played: 10/30/23
Playtime: 45min, finished
Score: 5 (Sparks of Joy, Notably hard to read)
Would Play After Comp?: No, experience seems complete
8 Likes
I suspect this was an unintentional side effect due to the colour settings or other characteristics of your device. For me, the grey text was not super easy to read, but definitely readable without highlighting.
3 Likes
Dysfluent by Allyson Gray
Hey, can you see me? Can you hear me? Thereâs this giant elephant just sitting here, happily trumpeting away. I wanna review a really interesting IFCOMP entry, can you hear me ok? This thing not in the way? It is? How about if I stand over her⌠no? Here? No. Maybe if I TALK LOUDER⌠Can we try to work around âTRRUUUUMMPETT.â
Ok fine. Letâs talk about the elephant first.
This work boldly engages one of IFâs most troubled conventions, the dreaded
Timed
âŚ
âŚ
TeâŚ
âŚ
âŚxt
I get why this is often problematic - it presumes to render a dramatic intonation and pacing that plays off an actorâs (or narratorâs) line delivery and stage business. The problem is SO MUCH of a performance goes into those things, and in text, the reader supplies most of it. The odds that a reader will have the EXACT same mental performance as the author is extremely small and requires a writing talent that few, so very, very few, are capable of generating, let alone sustaining. And when it misses, hoo boy, it can be borderline offensive in its abuse of the readerâs time.
This is a work about a day in the life of a person struggling with her stutter. It shows its cards almost immediately with a dream sequence featuring timed text. My heart sunk a little as I struggled with the wading-through-jello pacing only to be delighted when the dream was revealed! Yeah, that felt like a slomo struggling dream! Then to be deflated again when I realized, no, waking world behaved that way too⌠kind of.
It seems unlikely to me, here within my pre-review embargo bubble, that I will be first to the table with this insight. But it feels original to me, so here we go. When applied to the protagonist and their difficult attempts at communication I thought the delayed text worked like gangbusters, especially when infrequently paired with quavering font for extra spice. Just a super strong thematic use of the technology - I was right there with the protag, feeling their frustrated discomfort! Where the timed text did not work was when applied to anything outside the protagonist, ESPECIALLY NPC dialogue or actions. If I had one suggestion it would be this: trust the reader to block ânormalâ (boy do I regret that word) dialogue and events in their mind without the delay crutch. Including the protagâs mental process, there is no reason for that to be slow either. Eliminate all instances of timed text EXCEPT where reflecting the protagonistâs communication struggles. Not only is it perfect there, it would even further contrast her struggle with the world around her. And maybe keep it for that opening sequence too. Also the typing effect during flashbacks was pretty good. Really, just be more judicious and intentful about it.
There, have we dispensed with the elephant? Get outta here Jumbo. Wait, before it lumbers off I want to clarify, notwithstanding some NPC drag, on balance I found the delayed text upside far outweighed the downside. Clear? Ok, off you go big guy. No wait! I also want to say⌠no, now Iâm just trolling you. Silly elephant. Buh-bye.
So how about the rest of it? Low key excellent. Itâs the kind of work that doesnât trade in High Drama. It builds its drama through mundane tasks and activities, complicated by the protagâs stutter. Crucially, it is not an endless slog of failure and misery. It is a series of minor victories and defeats that just build into an affecting portrait of CONSTANT low burn struggle. The use of colored text to indicate options that were going to be more difficult was really powerful. As the day went on, I got a small charge of angst whenever red text showed up. The prose did that! The work smoothly and effectively laid the groundwork!
I also appreciated the use of text-entry boxes, which can be a point of friction for me. When asked to name the protag, which was before I really had the measure of the piece, I did my usual âroll fist on keyboardâ and delivered âMkhcgd.â Jeebus I really did her no favors there. Later I applied my new favorite expletive âHoobidyâ and documented my love of Pie and well known antipathy for Broccoli. Itâs not on the game that the protagonist is meant to struggle with the former, but sail through the latter⌠which is kind of hilariously counter-intuitive. None of these I considered game breaking, rather, the sad humor shone through maybe more clearly because of my inadvertently adversarial choices. And I got to be periodically delighted with outbursts of âHoobidyâ.
Sad Humor is really a great phrase for this piece. Gimme a sec to just pat my back. When ordering a cardgame gift, I cry-laughed at the title âTricky Troubling Trivia.â Noooo world, why you do that to us??
I didnât even realize how warmly this game had crept up on me, until I recognized the sheer dread this particular choice prompt evoked:
- (Focus on giving the best possible answer.)
- (Focus on being fluent.)
There was real white-knuckle tension during the job interview and I had somehow gone from âquietly critiquing the artistic choicesâ to âdeeply Engagedâ without even realizing it. The outcome was just crushingly perfect too. I canât get away from calling the timed text overapplied and Notable to gameplay, but despite that the writing, plotting, choice architecture and winning protagonist moxie got me Engaged without even realizing it. I considered replaying when done, but timed text is REALLY a barrier to that, and a quick peek at achievements suggested other variations wouldnât speak to me as strongly and directly as my first playthrough. So I left it lie.
Though reading that one achievement was titled âIâll have what sheâs havingâ was a hairâs breadth away from pulling me in anyway.
Feels like the elephant should make a final appearance to tie this review together, doesnât it? Jumbo? No? Man when he leaves the room, he LEAVES THE ROOM.
Played: 10/31/23
Playtime: 30min, finished
Score: 7 (Engaging, Notable intrusion)
Would Play After Comp?: No, I feel like the story I got was the most appealing to my sensibilities?
15 Likes
I like your take on the game! I arrived at the same conclusion about the timed text⌠thought it was great when it illustrated the stutter, and thought it could be better without when it was representing other people.
3 Likes
Into the Lionâs Mouth by Metalflower
âsigh Another standard-format Twine entry, front loaded with typos,â said I on firing it up. âI know where this is goingâŚâ
âNo. No you most certainly do NOT,â said the game, appropriately pointedly.
Ten minutes later, after exploring I think the entire breadth of it I just laughed and laughed at the unhinged stream-of-consciousness audacity of it. I kinda donât want to say anything about it. Experiencing it cold, LIKE REVENGE, is the best way to experience it. Whatever you think youâre prepared for here you are NOT. Itâs only ten minutes, go play it, then read the rest of this.
Right? Memes, Videos, ChatGPT screenshots, lightly researched historical context, JUMPING OUT OF THE GAME ENTIRELY TO A WEBSITE ON HOW TO RAISE A LION CUB. What is this, post- modern? Post-narrative? Post-stuffy old fuddy-duddiness? After a full month of exactingly crafted, tightly engineered stories, puzzles and jokes (Excluding Dick McB. Obviously.), what a delight this manic garbage pile was.
To do a deep explication, whithering analysis, or self-important metaphorical model all miss the point of its anarchic, throw it all out, âcanât be bothered to see if it sticks, got more throwing to doâ vibe. I do wonder, and by wondering kind of know the answer, whether it plays this successfully in isolation, or whether the CONTEXT of methodical IFCOMP play is crucial to its success. And how much the randomizer sequencing contributes. Not a lick on it at all, just wondering. Iâm going to stand on what Iâve said so far, and finish my review in kind:
Donald Crazy (click me)
Played: 10/31/23
Playtime: 12min, fully explored?
Score: 6 (Like a sparkler, once lit, constant Sparks of Joy. Seamless implementation of its shaggy UI and presentation.)
Would Play After Comp?: No, best appreciated for its singularity, in the moment.
10 Likes
Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game and for sharing your feedback. It gave me new perspectives towardsthe project. I appreciate you pointing out the errors, specifically the typos, missing the c in âresearchâ is way too common for me when typing on a tablet but I was sure there were no typos here, will have to use something like Libre-Docs instead of a text editor from now on.
The player characterâs enthusiasm is sort of my own observation where new students are more focussed on finishing their education to get a job, but those returning after a few years of work put more enthusiasm and effort in class with more focus on learning than on just passing the courses.
Iâll be sure to take your comments into consideration as I continue to work on other projects. Thanks again for playing, and I hope you have a great day!
3 Likes
Detective Osiris by Adam Burt
So many Antiquity Detectives this year! Well, more than the zero I had in my life to this point anyway. This is an Ink piece where you are Osiris solving the mystery of your mortal lifeâs murder.
Presentation-wise it is attractive - nicely curated palette, page layout, music and illustrations. Donât know if Ink lends itself to strong presentation, or it attracts authors with strong skills, but itâs getting a rep in my head.
There are a few glitches in gameplay, the most prominent being a bug where the question âWhy donât you watch mortals?â generates repetitive text that seems to infect the entire conversation. The previously seen text
"Kings are never short of enemies." Ra says. [...]
I ponder this, for a while, until Ra clears his throat to bring me back to attention.
"Who do you think would kill me?"
"Kings are never short of enemies." Ra says. [...]
repeats twice here, and ad hoc injects into a few other responses. I didnât see that artifact elsewhere, so presume it is a bug in that specific conversation?
The prose style is an often amusing mix of stilted old-timey and modern turns of phrase spice. It Sparks more than not, but does make for some probably unwanted artifacts like this:
I run my fingers down the pipe, to where the hot embers are, and let it burn my bandaged fingers. Just to see if it hurts. It does, but I seem to recover instantly, with no long term ill effects. Good to know that I can still feel something.
Without the mixed tone, this might not have come across as jarringly emo as it does. Later, a full on sex scene introduces yet another dissonant tone, however well written it was for these types of things. (I should highlight it is later narratively justified, though I sat with the awkwardness of it for a long time.)
There were a lot of Sparks of Joy in this, I particularly enjoyed the ability to pet Anubis, which I did at every opportunity. (This was privately hilarious to me, as thanks to my annual Halloween bad-horror movie binge, I had recently watched The Pyramid which features a decidedly⌠different⌠Anubis.)
This is a choice-select piece which I am coming to believe is the more challenging mystery-solving paradigm, for an author I mean. Part of the charge of mystery solving is filling in the vast space of possibility through a series of logical conclusions until you can derive the solution. By its nature, choice-select, just the mechanism of it, seems to do more of it than the player. If presented with an option âConfront X on their flimsy alibi,â if the player hasnât concluded that yet, the space is filling in, and mystery solving itself, without them. To me, this piece did not successfully navigate that challenge, though I do concede that presenting expended dialogue options as âAsk about X (Again)â is a nifty way to both red herring and clue an evolving understanding.
As I exhausted the clue space, I was presented with one option of suspect to accuse. It is possible, I suppose, that I blundered past other clues that might have opened more to me. I am at a loss to see what I left unclicked though. In any case, real or not, it FELT like the game was steering me to a specific accusation and absent other options I took it. (Interestingly, it gave me an âAre you sure?â question, which No, I was not! Felt like a frameup! Sadly that did not change anything.)
Sure enough, frameup. The real killer was dutifully revealed without any need for me the player to get involved. This really took the wind out of my sails. The entire game I was led to believe my efforts would solve the case, when in the end the game just did it all. Again, cannot rule out I played it badly and the game corrected me for it, though I might have hoped for a âNo keep looking.â rather than a âNo, this is the answer.â It overpoweringly felt like the game was always on rails, and I only had the ILLUSION of mystery solving. Since I WAS the protagonist, the Epilogue sting in particular fell really flat for me because of this.
Between the occasional awkward text moments and the bait and switch âYOU solve it! LOLNVM I got this.â it could not breach into Engaging. One Notable bug. Definite Sparks though. âWhoâs a good boy? Whoâs a good boy? aNUBis is⌠aNUBis is, yes he is!â
Played: 11/1/23
Playtime: 50min,finished
Score: 5 (Sparks, Notable bug and headfaked player agency)
Would Play After Comp?: No, mystery solved!
12 Likes
Thank you for taking the time to play and review Detective Osiris! I appreciate all feedback, and Iâm really sorry you encountered a conversational bug that impacted your enjoyment of the game. I havenât been able to recreate that issue yet, but I will investigate further.
Iâll refrain from most further comments until judging is complete, but I did want to take a moment to reassure you that you didnât play it âbadlyâ or wrong.
Thanks again for checking it out!
2 Likes
Xanthippeâs Last Night with Socrates by IF Authority, Dr. Victor Gijsbers*
Thereâs been a lot of text spilled over the weird nautical zeitgeist this year, and itâs definitely real. I think though that that has allowed some smaller interesting threads to fly below radar. Thereâs both an antiquity thread and a bawdy thread of works, and this piece ties those two into a knot! This is a character piece, speculating on a conjugal visit between Socrates and Xanthippe (his 2nd wife) the night before the infamous hemlock cocktail.
The player is given the goal âget your husband to have sex with you!â but that is kind of a wonderful trick. It ensures the player is aligned with the protagonist (clearly X is the protag. I hope we donât need to argue about that.) in creating an initial awkward, and kind of misguided, series of advances on a man with understandable distractions. That one little gamesmanship trick allows the author to execute sleight of hand, have Socratesâ response generate interpersonal drama, and at that point, we are fully at the pieceâs mercy.
It is first and foremost a character study collaboration between player and story. I am not sure how much branching is actually possible in the narrative, but that does not appear to be the goal of the piece anyway. In the forward the author lays his cards on the table - the piece is about giving X a more robust afterlife than history could be bothered with. We are clearly not building HER character, history has ensured that is not possible. But we are building a nuanced, vital character whose complexity represents and pays tribute to the real, complex, full woman she actually was.
It is kind of a touching and depressing observation - death takes the breadth of a person, and reduces it to the ever-dimming memories of others and if lucky, artifacts that live on. Or in Socratesâ case, completely superimposes a mythology instead. Flattering or unflattering, whatever remains cannot conjure or preserve the fullness of who we were. The thought of us becomes a distorted echo, maybe retaining a sliver of us, but maybe not. Maybe including things we never were. This work offers the kind of beautiful idea that if we canât remember the full complexity of a person, the least we can do is acknowledge that there WAS complexity. What a gift of empathy for someone history has ignored or abused.
What, am I getting too maudlin for you? Am I, you cold, unfeeling husk? YOUâRE the outlier here, not me and this wonderful work. Check your heart, you emotionally shut down robot. You probably wonât even kiss your dad, will you? Or do you prefer to call him âFatherâ? Fine, Iâll get back to your âgameâ âreview.â
The interactivity here is navigating a series of conversations exploring prickly personality conflicts, long-standing frictions and affections, shared emotion and history, sexual playfulness and tension, common intellectual passions and shared pet name in-jokes. In short, an amazing tour of a full, adult relationship that honors the specifics of historical Socrates as a jumping off point for emotional extrapolation. The interactivity comes from the player defining Xâs character (within an author-set series of ranges, obviously, it is choice select). Right out of the gate, is she the kind of woman who calls her husband âHoneyâ or âBig Manâ? Will she apologize, or double, triple, quadruple down? Is she demure or bawdy, or just a filthy, filthy animal? Is she sad, bemused or betrayed by infidelity? There are so many many options the author has offered through some setpiece conversations about mortality, Socratesâ choices, their relationships, making CAKES ⌠and you are collaborating to put a specific HER into all those conversations. The author has gone out of his way to make a breathtaking span of options available. How much affects narrative thread? Maybe none? Doesnât matter, it is the character building that matters here. The text is so very deft to not dishonor your choices that it feels natural and rewarding.
This game snuck up on me. I fell for the initial trick, got irritated S wouldnât play, then got mesmerized by the option to keep quadrupling down on the cow conversation way beyond Sâs patience⌠and before I knew it I was just Engaged. About halfway in, I realized the trick played on me, silently tipped my hat to the author, then X and I just dove back in. I really appreciated the cheekiness of inventing Platoâs famous Cave as a goofing conversation between the two, the implication being Plato totally stole that from Xanthippe later. Relax, Plato can take the driveby.
Stepping back, how impossible is what I just described? Collaborate with the player to create a fully three-dimensional person, through the medium of choice-select options during wide ranging conversations? Do you see how DIFFICULT that is? You have to create a conversation flow that spans light-hearted joking, deep drama, personal history, fear of death, horniness⌠and you have to create dialogue options at every step that give character building latitude but donât derail the narrative or later contradict itself? Not only did it hold together, it didnât even CRACK. Slow clap, author.
Ultimately, it ended the way it had to. But yeah, we totally banged him.
Played: 11/1/23
Playtime: 35min, finished. 35 min? Holy crap I spent twice that WRITING about it.
Score: 8 (Engaging, Seamless)
Would Play After Comp?: I donât know. Iâm always afraid experiences this sublime suffer on revisiting.
10 Likes
Wow, thank you for the lovely, thoughtful review!
1 Like
Artful Deceit by James OâReilly and Dian Mills OâReilly
This was a work I super strongly WANTED to like. The cover art just sang off a specific set of neurons, so perfect in its capture of getting a new game back in the day. Now I was never a Commodore guy, so it wasnât a specific yearning. That made it even MORE enticing I think, like inviting me into a subculture that shares a common language but with an evocative and appealing accent.
It kind of needed that charge, because there was prework: installing VICE on my Linux machine, figuring out how to work it!, a lengthy cycle of manual and feelies to consume all before starting. Despite chafing to GET STARTED, the material was attractively composed and fun to read.
The emulator experience was a quick shot of âcoool,â followed by a long, slow deflation of âoh no, its actually not that cool.â I suspect this was an artifact of maybe full hardware emulation? I actually kind of hope it was, because the alternative is that the emulator coders lovingly recreated THE INSANELY SLOW LAG of early computing platforms. This would be like lovingly crafting fully detailed restagings of childhood bullying episodes. That is totally NOT the nostalgia experience I ever want! Verisimilitude is a LIABILITY there. I would have thought my modern, high powered machine could have managed that better. Towards the end I started âone-one thousandâ counting lag between command and response. The record was 11 - 11 simulated seconds. Rarely was it less than 2. And the lag didnât limit itself to output - if I typed too fast, it would miss letters, requiring a backspace, then slower retry. WAS THAT WHAT IT WAS LIKE? Viva la progress!
Is it fair to penalize a work for its platform? No OTHER entry took me on this specific journey. Certainly, embracing this ancient platform is the most obvious thing about the work. I think yeah, it owns this.
The story itself is a murder mystery: fulfill the post-mortem contract of an art dealer convinced he would be killed, and yup! Spot on! The style of thing is very much of its time, and precisely so. A mappable location (or two), no nouns except those called out in contents lists, short descriptions, limited dialogue, often reused between characters. Rudimentary manipulation puzzles. The promise of the game was deduction, and the means/motive/opportunity tracking looked like an elegant way about this, a mechanic I was eager to engage. I willingly shrugged away modern expectations to embrace it as was. Over time I think my resolve wavered because only being able to ask characters about nouns I had physically touched, and often hearing word for word identical responses inevitably brought me back to âwell, thank goodness we fixed that at least!â There were quite a few implementation holes: I used a flashlight before I had one, yet things were still âtoo dark.â Buttons disappeared yet were still present when examined. The Gallery navigation was complicated by N connections in one direction, but W instead of south to return. I uncharitably started to think, âok, par for the course back then, but if youâre making me be super slow, couldnât we quietly clean these up?â
For all its supplemental material, and there was a lot and it was cool, it somehow STILL fell short. The manual notes that X should alias to EXAMINE but it does not, and the full word must be typed EVERY TIME. This is not even a modern innovation, yet somehow missed! The command card does not document PULL, begging the question what other verbs did I not know were available? (And if not exhaustive, what was its purpose anyway?) Conversely, ANALYZE - a custom capability of the game - is never mentioned EXCEPT on the card, and unclear what it meant. That is forgivable certainly, but given the deep instructions felt like an out of place omission. There are feelie items outside the Feelie package, intended to be read only when uncovered in gameplay. There is no mention of these anywhere, and only after a vexing search through the download hierarchy was it clear what to do.
As you can see, I was powering through! Maybe at a snailâs pace but doing it! Iâm the hero here! The one that really got me was a puzzle (maybe?) Knowing I needed to ] DRIVE TO GALLERY I could tell the ACT was possible from the command card, but nowhere else in gameplay or feelies could I detect any hint that this was not a one location game. Here I needed to add a specific noun and unlike ANALYZE, the game was no help cluing what that might be. Sure, given the background I could infer it existed, but I could infer a LOT of things existed that werenât implemented! I had been trained to only try nouns explicitly mentioned! Consulting the walkthrough provided the answer, and it was not a joyous moment of epiphany, it was an âoh câmon.â
I had like 15 minutes after that and thanks to the protracted command loop, my timer expired not close to finishing. I really WANTED to like this. I still really love that it exists, that so much effort was poured into this loving recreation. I hope it provides joy to those who remember their Commodore days fondly. For me, it was more a ârose-colored glasses offâ experience that made me grateful for modernity. I know. Thatâs not so fashionable these days.
Played: 11/1/23
Playtime: 2hrs, for maybe an hour of progress
Score: 3 (Mechanical, Intrusive emulation and gameplay)
Would Play After Comp?: No, Iâm expending my nostalgia on 80âs horror movies just now.
8 Likes
Honk! by Alex Harby
Thanks to the 2hr IFCOMP judging limit, there are a few behaviors I find myself repeating. For long games, it is not uncommon for me to be surprised by the timer expiration and just cold stop, a really frustrating experience for all. If I notice it ticking down, I may try to get to what I perceive to be a clean break spot, perhaps short of 2hrs. For shorter pieces I almost always replay a few times to get the breadth of a work, except for works that have been so frustratingly or perfectly rendered that a single playthrough feels like the right way to capture my experience. All these cases are typically orthogonal to hint/walkthrough consultation,which is instead driven by a frustration trigger.
Honk! is the first work where I felt the puzzles were great fun to play with on my own (I mean, it is in the title!), but I went to the hints anyway. I realized the final step of one puzzle wasnât going to let me finish by the time limit and had a mini puzzle of my own to solve: what is worse, losing a full solve opportunity, or not reviewing the full game? I made the right choice, I consulted the hint system and finished at 2hrs. That decisionâs difficulty feels like a compliment! [sidebar: strong hint system implementation!]
This is a save-the-circus piece. Clown protagonist must prevent the Phantom from sabotaging three acts and so preserve audience goodwill and stop the unfeeling hands of progress. It had a few things stacked against it from the start: #1, preserve noble, quaint entertainment against Cold Capitalism has kind of run its course with me? No thatâs wrong. Unnuanced âCold Capitalismâ I mean. I donât line up with Corporate interests, Iâm not a monster, but how many times can I be expected to engage this plot, basically the same way? #2, if youâre going to invoke as bland a villain as a Phantom at the circus, I can forgive not referencing Tobe Hooperâs Funhouse, but not referencing the seminal formative text Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park just feels intellectually dishonest. #3, YOU MADE ME BE A CLOWN, GAME. Why do those things even exist, let alone get turned loose on CHILDREN???
I am happy to report, the sweet humor and light tone of the piece almost instantly made me forget all of those objections. No, not true. Made me forget TWO of those, and periodically forget the third. The prose and jokes are not laugh out loud funny, but just universally winning in creating a jolly, bubbly mood. Yeah, itâs peopleâs livelihoodâs and the death of a quirky, dated institution, but it doesnât have to be DOUR, sez game. I agree! The tone of the piece is its primary strength and it is rock solid start to finish. I grabbed some fun lines as I played, but quickly realized in isolation they suffer a bit. Itâs really the riffing they do within the holistic mood of the piece that is so pleasant. So you just have to read them for yourselves! I will note that some puzzles actually trade on the mood of the piece in a natural and satisfying way, which is also fun. Though this line did seem unintentionally, humorously cruel:
Freda fills the poky camper like how custard fills a pie dish,
LOL, Is that what you meant to say game?
Implementation wise it was robust, with notable gaps. There are a LOT of things you might try that have funny âno, not thisâ responses, more than there needed to be which is always appreciated. That made the gaps maybe jar a little more? Gaps like stock text about wandering through a crowd appearing while you are on a roof. Balloons floating away while in a cage that explicitly noted the presence of a gridded top. Dialogue presuming things not yet revealed if you hadnât >X SPEAKER before hand. As robust as it was otherwise, I also spent a good amount of time trying to solve puzzles reasonable ways and getting rebuffed, and without the humor I might have expected. In particular, I would have hoped using the ladder for the rabbit, making noises with balloons and/or breathing helium, or trying to get helium balloons to lighten the Phantom would be some easily anticipated alternate solutions deserving of humorous rebuttal.
Those are all easily forgiven in the face of some left field puzzles with fun ârealâ solutions, fair play cluing, and terrific mood. It was the kind of a game where I was repeatedly rebuffed, had to take a break for unrelated reasons during which alternate possible solutions flowed like rivers. Some even ended up being right! Thatâs a special kind of Engaging for sure. The anxious race for the finish against my timer was also a thing I only experienced once before this COMP and speaks well of the piece.
Notwithstanding the shambling horror I was forced to inhabit for two solid hours, it was a fully Engaging work of fun puzzles and sweet humor. I particularly liked the completely subversive tweaking of the âwhat a surprising reveal about this prominent NPC!â unmasking trope. And a ROCK SOLID updog implementation. Enough glitches and unanticipated puzzle paths to make it Notable, but barely so. Totally justified itself against concern #1. There is no possible justification for #2 and #3.
Played: 11/3/23
Playtime: 2hrs, finished with one hint to make time
Score: 7 (Engaging, Notable gaps given robust overall implementation)
Would Play After Comp?: No, experience seems complete
14 Likes
Thanks for the lovely review of Honk! Noting your comments for post-comp work, especially the part about alternative solutions.
Heehee. Iâd honestly braced myself for a lot more of this kind of reaction than Iâve had so far.
4 Likes
The only explanation is that you have a LOT of community PTSD to answer for. 
Glad to help, updog!
4 Likes
Help! I Canât Find My Glasses by Lacey Green
With a title like that, and a first screen where your default name is VELMA⌠you have set some expectations let me tell you. You wake up in Literature Club sans glasses, talk to 3 suspects maybe romance, maybe fight, rinse and repeat to see all the permutations!
Collect-all-the-endings games are relatively new to me. I think I encountered my first last year. That said, in that short year Iâve seen a LOT of them. The ones that work for me are the ones that branch out into bonkers disconnected end states, that startle me with just how far they are willing to diverge. I think they kind of have to? Ok, thatâs ridiculous, I donât make the rules for these things. But if they DONâT they have to justify repetitive gameplay and diminishing returns on comedy text some OTHER way. Generally the shorter the return trip and the sooner the branches become available the better. The deeper the branch point and narrower the divergence, the less it feels justified without some other kind of spice.
I think I need more than what Help! is set up to provide. For one, despite the premise, the lack of clear vision is often DESCRIBED, but does not seem to affect gameplay in any interesting way. Why call me Velma if I canât grope blindly for a while!!! For another, aside from the choice of what your glasses look like, there is a LOT of linear clicking at the beginning before you get to divergent choice points. Certainly the consequences and plot turns those later choices produce have little connection to the paths you clicked making it essentially a âblind binary search simulator,â where your agency in determining path is effectively zero. This is not unheard of in this genre, but puts all the weight on the endstate. Until you get there, your eyes glaze a lot over repeated text screens. Iâm not sure how many loops I did⌠8? 10? The endstates I found were unique, but didnât stray far from each other in particulars or vibe. I found less than half the listed achievements, but I did eventually find my glasses (though achievements did not note this?). After the first pass the sly humor could not hold up, the endstate diversity did not dazzle, and it quickly became a purely Mechanical exercise.
Now that I think about it though, there is a kind of subversive read on this. My repetitive looping, then arbitrary clicking⌠confusing things all around me I can barely make out let alone navigate⌠that is kind of a META groping in the dark! Each loop, words flashing past as a barely acknowledged blur. Slapping my hand down with no idea what Iâm hitting, how it will play out, just hoping against hope I somehow come up with glasses this time? Maybe this was a better blind search simulator than I gave it credit for! Doesnât change my score, but I think this read on it is making me just a little happier. We good, Help!, we good.
Played: 11/2/23
Playtime: 30min, score 70/200, 4 achievements, found glasses, no achievement?
Score: 4 (Mechanical, Mostly Seamless)
Would Play After Comp?: No, got the gist.
EDIT: a mid-edit version got posted erroneously, my bad!
9 Likes
20 Exchange Place by Sol FC
So Ink is the platform that in my head has become synonymous with âAttractive, High quality presentation.â This piece initially leverages Inkâs graphical power, but doesnât fully capitalize. On the one hand, the font and color scheme are very appealing. On the other, they donât really reflect or resonate with the work on offer. This was the first time I felt the platformâs presentation strengths were not adequately utilized. There was also a notable typo density.
These were notable, but not fatal to the narrative. Much more fatal, to me, was the bizarre narrative/plot dissonance. The protagonist is introduced as an uber-competent officer, at least in their own mind. They are called on to resolve a bank/hostage situation. The protag has SUPER strong negative opinions about Wall Street, reporters and other cops, confidently expressed to create an air of cynical cool. However, the protagâs actions, as reflected in choices they might make, are laughably amateur hour. If they seize the microphone to dress down a Nosy Newsman, they are immediately reduced to a flustering mess and need rescued. Despite having the final say on tactical approaches, they can take choices that other police question, justifiably, as silly. Including an option to, per the text of the piece, âDie Hardâ it. Why are those options even available? In one egregious section, you cannot avoid making an OBVIOUSLY CATASTROPHIC comment to the kidnappers unless you tried to take a smoke break earlier? A smoke break minutes into a crisis situation??? Who is this clown?
Itâs not helped by narrative dissonances all around the character. An NPC is furious at him (though also a subordinate?) then friendly with only a single click between those mood swings. That same NPC is professionally composed in description and action, but then referred to as âtwitchy.â The street officers are referred to as Grays, when NYPD famously wear black uniforms. Early on, I was wondering if this was an Alternate, Fascist Timeline â˘, but no.
There are bugs: a choice to select a basement entry replays an upper floor exploration - up instead of down. A side entrance seems to hang the game completely. Since youâre looping replays anyway, not catastrophic but off for sure.
I played through 7 times, exploring the space. I killed 5 assault teams, victims of a supernaturally effective terrorist plot. I lost hostages to an obviously bad choice that should never have been on offer, and I knew it when I made it. I ârescuedâ the hostages, only to discover the robbers had just left under my nose. Running out of patience and things to explore I started to feel a turn in my head.
Maybe I wasnât meant to succeed? Maybe this game is a next level critique of Copaganda by offering that cops are actually self-important bumbling idiots in love with their own mythology? Whose fragile victim mindset curdles into adversarial relationship with those they serve? Whose belief of their own unassailable Rightness makes them a menace to themselves and society? I love that read! As soon as it occurred to me, I stopped playing because it would fall apart if I stumbled into a âwinningâ scenario.
I actually donât think this is the case. The disjoint narrative, typos and careless character and phrasing work donât suggest this kind of tight control. The face value game Bounced me hard - what it seemed to be trying pushed at my sensibilities, and the clumsy narrative undermined even that. But I kind of love how it played out for me, and the conclusions it let me draw. I think I have to rate the game on what it presents as, not what I made it. This is not easy though, because I SO love my read⌠no, stick to my guns.
Woof, unfortunate turn of phrase there.
Played: 11/4/23
Playtime: 45min,5 dead cop endings, 1 dead hostage ending, 1 getaway ending
Score: 2 (Bouncy, Intrusive bugs and language)
Would Play After Comp?: No, I so WANT it to be left here.
11 Likes
Escape Your Psychosis by Georg Buchrucker
Itâs not that CYOA and Twiney choice-select have ever been that far apart. The multi-pane user interface and coding hooks of the link paradigm certainly enable creative variations way beyond physical media which muddy the water a bit. But at its unadorned, most vanilla core, choice-select is CYOA with automated page turning. This PDF work really connects those dots explicitly, not the least of which with its bare âGo to page Xâ in-text links. Itâs an IF missing link - like if Lucy also had carpal tunnel and was found with her wrist-brace.
EYP is a work with super appealing, light, cartoony illustrations in service of very serious themes and situations. That contrast is tried and true (like in Maus!). It serves to smooth reader identification and provide some punch when suddenly confronted with protagonist strapped to a bed!. Some choices chosen are seductively amusing. Who WOULDNâT want to solve the âformula of the worldâ?? Other choices capture a broad array of defeating and empowering actions, running the gamut from âtry to stay with treatmentâ to ârun afoul of official interventionâ. The looping nature of the story is deliberate⌠no matter how hopeful or dire a cycle is, thereâs always more behind.
Between the wildly disparate places your choices can lead (not gonna lie the wanna make some money? path sent my heart into palpitations) and the wonderfully evocative illustrations, EYP had constant Sparks. There was one bug - the link on that âmake moneyâ path jumped directly to a treatment page leaving all kinds of horrid implications dancing in my head. In fact, what looks like the actual path is relievingly (almost deflatingly) less dire.
It is super short. Its message is clear through a few sadly amusing loops and then you are invited to end the game embracing the fact of the loop and mitigations. Made sense! Kind of. Because you get there after a âhave you cycled three times?â question, it seems to imply you will naturally get there after âsufficientâ spins. I think it would have worked better with an indeterminate âare you ready?â or âhad enough?â player initiative kind of question. For me anyway. Ok, letâs wrap up⌠wait, thereâs more?
One more to be precise, a second possible ending. If you go a certain path, you are invited to run away from everything. This ending confounded me a bit. How do I interpret this? A single ending I understand. Author has a tight narrative, player settle in to receive it. A branching narrative requires more work - all of its possible branches should be equally satisfying to a player that hunts them out. Equally true to the narrative. Because there are only two paths (discounting a literally endless loop which rings sadly kind of true, but is impractical for me to attempt.)⌠because of that this ending takes on a near equal footing as the first. But that canât be right can it? It seems to imply dropping out âsolvesâ the mental issues but missing family is the downside, and to get them back you need to re-engage your mental troubles. Iâm not a doctor, but that canât be right can it? Wouldnât you just have the same mental challenges in a new place, eventually? This time without your safety net? Iâm kind of unsure of myself here, because the author definitely seems to know what theyâre on about, but is that right? Canât be, can it? Iâd need a lot more convincing to believe that.
Its brevity is to its credit. It knows what it wants to say, says it and gets out. Sparks for sure, a great mix of sad, funny, and no-nonsense with endearing illustrations. Mostly seamless other than that one bug. Penalty point for 50% of the endings that did not land for me.
Played: 11/4/23
Playtime: 10min, both endings
Score: 5 (Sparks of Joy, Mostly Seamless, penalty point for seeming uncontrolled message)
Would Play After Comp?: No, Experience feels complete
10 Likes
Creative Cooking by dott. Piergiorgio
So many different formats this comp! This is an AGT/MagX implementation, which I am assured is a thing from the 90âs. Despite disclaimers, it played fine for me in Gargoyle. The setup is: you are an elf (right? Those guys againâŚ) whose goal is to prepare dinner for their friends. You need some missing ingredients, find 'em! âSave the worldâ is overrated as a plot motivation, no?
This is a translated work, and there are some glitches to be sure. I took it on myself to note them in my transcript, but started second guessing myself halfway through. Where is the line between ârobotic adherence to Funk and Wagnallsâ and âinteresting new language rhythmsâ? Iâm sure not the one to pinpoint that transition, but this work actively made me question it.
You know those guys that play doctors on TV, then proceed to give medical advice? My stolen authority is, Iâm married to an amateur baker and Iâm going to give a baking metaphor. One that will convince you âthis guy has no idea what baking even is. Maybe should be restrained from entering a kitchen.â
As a game it feels weirdly underBAKED (ah? ah? yah, I did that) with spots of âbaked to perfectionâ inside. Normal cakes bake and the outside firms up first, but you need a toothpick test to determine if the inside is done. Well, this is like a cake that somehow bakes itself inside out! The outside framework is still a bit gooey and loose, but inside there are pockets of firm, fluffy resolution. You wake up in a lab and explore your way through a pretty empty house until finding the kitchen⌠where the game begins. (In my case 40 MINUTES INTO GAMEPLAY.) So many unimplemented nouns and a slow build setting. The first object I could even examine closely was a toilet pot, and lemme tell you the mental dance my character did on approach was UN. SETTLING. It was a half hour before it was clear I was in a fantasy setting! (Longer before I realized I was an ELF ptoo, ptoo.) You can imagine when one of the first details was âI sometimes poop in my backyard,â how weird THAT came off! Honestly Iâm not sure it got any better once I was an elf.
Then, you eventually stumble into the library and a whole tapestry of setting and backstory unfolds before you, liberally peppered with âgonna throw fantasy words at you and youâre just gonna have to context your way through.â I actually really like that approach. In IF, without some careful mood setting, it always strikes me a bit off when the characters explain something they already know for the benefit of the player. Here it comes across as tantalizing world building we donât completely understand. This is how tantalizing works! If we understood it weâd have a different response: admiration or disappointment. It seems this background is part of a shared world the author intends to flesh out in subsequent works. The glimpses here make a convincing case to keep watching. The world building was the most firm part of this weird, inside-out cake Iâm describing, and where most of the text is devoted.
The gooey outside is the gameplay. I mentioned the unimplemented nouns, that is practically ubiquitous. Weirdly âUPâ is listed as an exit in every location, but the messaging says, âno, donât try that.â I can only assume there was a levitation mechanism at play early on that got cut? At least one outdoor location mentions a roof when it rejects you, but maybe the whole thing just should have been trimmed. The puzzles are pretty unchallenging âfind the stuff,â most of it laying around or minimal-step sub-questable. One item needs to be marinated in a pond, but the game rejects >PUT or >DROP and only accepts >THROW. As you go, you get occasional tantalizing backstory details - NPCs you donât really interact with but have rich things to say; descriptions of the town. Still some baked nuggets in the goo!
So far, flashes of engaging background in a pretty Mechanical experience, right? Well, I havenât yet mentioned my favorite touch in this game. The HELP system doubles as the authorâs DVD-like location-bound commentary track. I resisted initially because I didnât want spoilers. When it became clear I was walking through a minimally implemented set of rooms, I broke the seal. The authorâs voice here is frank and engaging and shot through with the uncertain grasping of a creator struggling with details in service of a goal. That was charming and irresistible, not least of which because it so precisely captured the creative tradeoff process with all its uncertainty, dread and regret. I mean, Iâve felt all of those things in projects of my own ALL THE TIME. In some ways the commentary was more compelling than the underlying game!
What do I do with this physically impossible cake? Between the commentary and the tantalizing background it generated Sparks. Yeah, when cakes are generating sparks I have lost all control over the metaphor. Intrusively under-implemented. Stealth launchpad for the game to follow!
Played: 11/4/23
Playtime: 1.25hr, finished
Score: 4 (Sparks of Joy, Intrusively unimplemented)
Would Play After Comp?: No, but I look forward to seeing the next game in this universe. Which maybe was the point of the thing?
8 Likes
In the Details by M.A. Shannon
The last entry in the review sub-series âPlaying with Matchesâ was almost a month ago. Shocking plot twist, itâs back for part 5! This is a Texture riff on the Robert Johnson/artist deal with devil mythology. It is aided by tremendous cover art, maybe my favorite of the COMP. The myth has staying power because of what it implies: that there is something so compelling about music (despite being an endeavor honestly tangential to our survival as a species) that even our immortal soul is a fair trade. Yes, all of Art is kind of included but really, MUSIC SPECIFICALLY has this primal pull that we are tempted to believe⌠maybe worth it? I mean we GET the tradeoff even if unwilling to make it ourselves.
Itâs been a while, let me recap Texture (again). Lots of possibilities in drag and drop UI, deep presentation challenges thanks to the chaos twins Font Dancing and Text Hunting, keep it on a super short leash. I am happy to report that the twins are all but neutered here, to the pieceâs credit. It exerts tight control on page size, both adroitly shifting to a new page before shrinking and providing limited space for new text to hide. This is far and away the Most Important thing to control in Texture, well done game. It is less successful leveraging the the drag and drop interface (with one exception) to do anything a Twiney choice-select couldnât accomplish.
The exception was a choice to tell the truth or lie. At first, I thought it was a bug that the game wouldnât accept one of the choices. It got a wry grin when I realized, no, the protag is INCAPABLE of telling the truth here. It was a nice use of interface to segue to a narrative escalation.
The text had a different problem which interestingly only manifested SOME times. Depending on the order of your command selection, sometimes the paragraphs jarred with bad transitions. But sometimes the paragraphs worked regardless of order! I love that! The fact that it EVER worked seems to suggest the author paid attention to this, but was unable to make it work every time. I really appreciated the effort. (I actually wonder if Texture makes this harder than it should be. Can an author not define new text ordering tightly? Must it be at the whims of the player only? That is a higher degree of difficulty!)
The opening quote felt right for the piece: âNo amount of talent trumps hard work.â I been telling my kids the same thing for years! From the jump, we are positioned to disdain the protag and his easy short cuts. Which honestly is no surprise, given the setup telegraphed in the title, art, blurb and protagâs whole attitude. Thatâs fine, it is clearly not intended to be a surprise. Unfortunately, given how much we see of the workâs cards, there isnât really ANY surprise in how it plays out. I got three endings which seemed to be the entire space. Died twice, had my talent repossessed and humiliated myself on stage once. None of those endings gave even the slightest tweak to what I expected when I first connected PLAY to STORY. Regardless of the workâs other merits, that made for a Mechanical exercise. Props for reigning in the Texture pitfalls, but more consistently managing dynamic text ordering, and more considered use of the drag and drop (and text bubbles!) would be needed to elevate this thing. Also, not leaning hard into the mythical MUSIC side of this felt like another missed opportunity. Here, the protag seemed more concerned with the trappings of success than making music. This might just as easily have been âtrade soul for good at chess.â Robert Johnsonâs myth is so compelling because of the MUSIC, not the Art of the Deal. (sorry)
Played: 11/5/23
Playtime: 20min, three endings - two deaths, one walk of shame
Score: 4 (Mechanical, Mostly Seamless)
Would Play After Comp?: No, Experience feels complete
5 Likes