JJMcC's SpringThing24 A-S-2-T

Competitions Spring Thing
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42

Studio by Charm Cochran
Played: 4/10/24
Playtime: 1.5hr, 4 endings of at least 5

I really like what this entry is doing, and I’m trying to figure out if the frictions I felt ended up being completely necessary and justified.

The piece opens on an adult woman adjusting to her first night in a new apartment. At one point I cynically wrote down “Moving In Simulator” in my notes. I stand by the accuracy, if not dickish tone, of that note. For the first forty minutes I explored a small studio-ish apartment of fairly deep implementation, doing some last few chores before going to bed. In the course of that, I learned some background about my situation - it was not a desired relocation - and most especially the geography and layout of the place. It took me forty minutes to get to the title screen! I’d be lying if I said I was enraptured by the proceedings to that point.

Turns out I needed that intro, as I was awakened by a potential intruder and… from there it was off to the races where that intro knowledge was CRUCIAL. The work also shifted at that point to future conditional tense (WHAT???) and mental gears clashed for a moment but I quickly adjusted. Now we’re playing cat and mouse with a hostile intruder in a small, dark apartment, in an awkward syntax. This section of the game is just as deeply implemented as the first half, with many different possibilities and outcomes in this tight feint and counter-feint. The genius thing is, by using future conditional tense, after one finish (which you are allowed to accept or reject), the whole thing is recast and revealed to be a lightning fast mental excercise by the protagonist, deciding how to react by playing things out in her mind! What an elegant, satisfying and unique replay/‘RESTART’ conceit! The final words of the game on finding an acceptable run (which you, not the game, gets to decide on) are just PERFECT.

The other thing gameplay did quite well is align player and protagonist. We’ve only had a single evenings’ introduction to the surroundings, but SO HAS SHE. Any fumbling we do with the environment is very much in-game and resonates with her perfectly. Couple that with its reasonably deep implementation and it has a lot going for it.

I don’t even think I want to talk about ‘flaws,’ maybe ‘compromises?’ For one, as a percentage of time, fully half my playtime was spent on setup. On reflection, I concluded this was appropriate, but in the moment it was not compelling. I also found the intruder to be less terrifying than the game wanted me to think. I am not sure whether it was the language, the discernible pattern of movements, the restart conceit, or the sometimes unfairness of his actions (I would have expected more reprieve from a locked bathroom door) that put me into ‘game’ mode rather than ‘hunted’ mode. Again, I think it might have been NECESSARY to do that, so the game didn’t become a long fight against a randomizer, but it did undermine the tension a bit. In one notable case, I could not bend the parser to my will trying to push the chair to wedge the front door to buy some time. Ok, that last I won’t forgive, but the rest ultimately is necessary to let those final words ring so nicely.

So yeah, in game I had reservations and frictions, but it all felt completely and satisfyingly justified by the ending. I especially liked the 4 different endings I found - all very varied but earned dramatic closures to the scenario, deeply respecting but also not coddling player choice. Yr in a tough spot, girl, you make the call on what success looks like! I will take a moment-by-moment confounding work that sticks the landing this well over an absorbing work that fumbles on the goal line 7 out of 10 times. Y’know, in my Gymnastic Football metaphor.

Mystery, Inc: Daphne
Vibe: The Strangers
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : Ok, it’s not my project and good thing. I’d be afraid anything I did to try and ‘fix’ it would disturb the ending and I can’t justify that.

Next up: Back Garden

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Hey, thanks for the review!

I’m glad the ending(s) really worked for you—that’s one of the parts of the game I’m proudest of.

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Woah! Thank you for the lovely review JJ :green_heart:
I’m so glad you liked the game!!

Yup, there are two of them that you always get, and two that are hidden because of your choices.
I wonder which one you missed :thinking:

Technically, you could “reload” that letter before you “close” it to make that choice disappear and pick the other option :wink:

ah dang… I guess the unicode for that one broke :confused:

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Nonverbal Communication by Allyson Gray
Played: 4/13/24
Playtime: 40min, 4 plays, 3/3 endings

There is something inspirational about the human mind when it commits to the bit beyond all reason, FOR no reason. The bigger the bit, the bigger the charge. That commitment itself becomes a thing of beauty, the more dear for its rarity. There’s a reason Andy Kaufmann and Sasha Baron Cohen are such towering comedic figures. Also divisive for sure, but towering. In fairness, those figures commit to something so socially transgressive that the parallels are not quite aligned with NC, which is a much sweeter, more amiable commitment. Still plenty bonkers though.

The setup is a bit tortured. You get to a place where VERBS don’t exist, so yeah, you ‘got some ‘splainin’ ta do Lucy.’ This is not a problem, by the way, the tortured setup is very much part of the gag. It can also be read as a sly elbow to the ribs of the IF player - what are parser fans if not WORD WIZARDS??? As a word wizard, you have fortunately created a series of objects that auto-activate when you noun. But they ALL activate, and in a specific order. Use them to save yourself from a DRAGON, because, why not?

Since I’ve already unfairly compared this work to two towering figures in comedy, let me compound it by invoking an analogous figure in IF. This piece could be easily imagined in the ouvre of Andrew Shultz - a small, playful wordplay puzzle of specific and twisted setup. At this point I kind of want to take it all back, because these endless comparisons imply it only lives in the shadow of others, and NC very much does not. It is its own weird, wonderful thing that exists independent of those worthies.

It takes a while to get on its vibe, and that disconnect may be the best part of the game - figuring out the new syntax rules to this world and bending them to your will. But ‘best’ is not the same as ‘only fun.’ The puzzles themselves have nuance in world rules that need managing. Between the arcane and restrictive-but-arbitrary rules (again, not a complaint. How arbitrary are the rules to Sudoku? Chess? And NC is so much more entertaining than both of them!) it is a fully engaging puzzle.

It also has the insight to know EXACTLY what size to be. Its short length and tight geography are textboook “not a jot bigger than needed” and drive home its virtues with a hammer. I should also mention that the prose style through all of this is bubbly and light, and every bit a partner in the success of the piece. In particular, when you destroy nouns you catch a fleeting glimpse of verbs, whose descriptions just made my heart happy.

If it has a fault, it’s that the piece does not heal ideological fractures in America. Are you kidding me? It also can’t make the perfect souffle’ WHY WOULD YOU ASK IT TO?? It is a lovely, well-written, hilarious yet-tightly-tuned bonkers experiment, perfectly sized to deliver its punch. Those other things can wait.

(Hey real talk: why Back Garden this thing? Seemed pretty complete to me!)

Mystery, Inc: Fred
Vibe: Experimental
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : There are two state-glitches I noticed, I’d fix those if it were my project.

That's it really (mild spoilers).

After sending the Ambler into the bedroom, it was still described as on me. After destroying the dresser, Gazing made no note of rubble.

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Thank you so much for your very kind, funny and eloquent review!
You describe ideas that I really hoped I would be able to convey and emotions I hoped the player would feel – knowing that these elements hit the mark for you fills me with joy!!
I think you’re exactly the kind of Word Wizard that I wished Nonverbal Communication would reach when I wrote it.

I was pretty anxious about how this weird game would be received, and I didn’t want to compete with other authors for prizes or Best In Show anyway, so the Back Garden seemed like a good fit for a more laid-back experience. But I’m honoured that you felt NC could have had a place in the main festival!

I’m really sorry about the state-glitch you encountered and greatly appreciate you pointing it out!
The Workshop ended up being the most complicated room to implement by far because of all the possible combinations. This is in great part why I decided to have it collapse after the player leaves, as I wasn’t prepared to handle the insanity that would occur if we could bring 5 more objects in!
My husband diligently tested the game and we fixed several of these kinds of issues pre-launch, but somehow we completely missed that most important one. D’oh!

I’ll work on fixing that and sending the new version in ASAP; it should be updated in the next few days if all goes well.

I believe the other event you bring up was not a glitch: once an object is destroyed, it loses its noun, so it cannot be acted upon by any verb at all including LOOK.
As for why there isn’t a “rubble” noun… uh… excuse me while I torture this setup a little more!
But seriously, it’s very helpful to know that this came across as a glitch! Maybe I can make things more clear in a future release.

P.S.: I sincerely apologize for my failure to heal ideological fractures in America… violence isn’t the answer to this one, but when all you have is a Basher Automaton, every problem just looks like a nail!

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Ink and Intrigue by Leia Talon
Played: 4/15/24
Playtime: 1.75hrs, current ending

‘Product Misuse’ is a squirrelly legal tactic, used to limit financial liability when injuries result from products being used in ways not intended or sanctioned by manufacturers. It is squirrelly because the law specifically allows for liability when products are used in ways ‘foreseeable to the manufacturer’ even if unintended. You see the problem. What is a reasonable test for ‘foreseeable’? It is further complicated by a patchwork of US state laws, some of which put the burden on the manufacturer to show it is not foreseeable, while others put the burden on the plaintiff to prove it was not misuse!

Ink and Intrigue is a 3-chapter preview of a longer work (ooh! smashcut from seemingly disconnected review intro… that could be… FORESHADOWING!) , a medieval fantasy work set in a world of magic and man-mythical creature bonding and horny young(?) adults. It’s Dragonriders of Porn! If you think I went way out of my way to unfairly make that crack, which is almost certainly NOT the first time it’s ever been coined, you are a longtime reader that has a firm grasp on the cut of my jib. It is ChoiceScript, and adheres to the idiosyncrasies of that platform, not the least of which is a tiresome eye color/hair color/gender detail selection sequence. Notwithstanding that ChoiceScript fealty, I found the work itself to be both well and inadequately written.

I found the broad strokes world building pretty competent and engaging. The socio-political conflicts were vibrant and interesting. The details of magic, multi-versal worlds, and mythical creatures were familiar with enough unique spin to engage. Certainly, I felt invested in the proceedings, and ate up each new piece of the background in my quest to understand more. It was most accomplished, I thought, when describing physical environs, showing a nice eye for composition and detail and providing some really fantastical settings including alien worlds, natural wonders, and magic-informed architectures. The overall sense of place and setting was really top notch. Kudos for that! It was so well done, it formed a perfect background for… ah, not yet, I’ll get to it.

I did not resonate with the characters that inhabited this world so well. The NPCs were certainly pleasant enough: some roguish, some noble, some tortured and mysterious, none of them super vivid or escaping their archetype but yeah, certainly pleasant. The protagonist though is where the true break happened. Despite head feinting at player autonomy, the work had a very specific idea about the protagonists’ arc. It provided choices that let you steer, but the surrounding text attributed thoughts, emotions and subsequent actions that really only made sense if you were on one path: breaking with your past and getting on board with your new warrior-mage life.

So here’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The setup is, you are an accomplished spy, in service of your king, on a very specific diplomatic mission. “Got it!” sez I, “I’m Fantasy James Bond.” Or in my case, JACE Bond, and yes, name chosen deliberately. Once that thought flashed in my head, it struck me as such a powerful premise I could not let go of it. No matter how hard the narrative pushed me to do so. (I also named my raptor-pet Claudia Schiffer. If I had fully baked my approach just a few screens sooner it would have been Moneypenny.)

Every subsequent action I took was me fighting the work to implement that compelling vision. Cartoonish (figuratively) cat-petting villain? Check! Love interests? More like (super explicit) Fantasy Bond Girls! Injustices around me? Excellent levers to pull against the villainous mastermind in service of my mission! A helpful familiar? More like a combination Q-gadget and Mish Moneypenny! Choice of wardrobe and drinks? Fantasy Tuxedos and Fantasy Martinis! Leave my employer for a new life of magic and wonder? More like deep undercover for His Majesty’s Secret Service! Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I commit to the bit HARD.

I commit to it so hard, I had to start ignoring text, particularly the text that tried to dictate my thoughts and reactions, and instead created my own. I only reluctantly accepted a magical animal bond, my first thought being “Why can’t I just bond with Claudia Schiffer?” (Which, not the first time in my life I’ve had that thought, amirite former adolescent cis boys??) I mentally translated “I would like a relationship with X” to “I seduce X for information or advantage.” I rejected any text that tried to pretend this new life held any attraction for me. Here’s the weird thing - THE WORK CONTINUED TO LET ME DO THIS! Time after time, choice after choice, I thought “surely my road runs out here…” No! Right up to the end, actions remained available that lent themselves to a Bond Movie re-interpretation, and all it required was liberally ignoring and rewriting some mental descriptions which the work had no right to in the first place!

Members of the jury, If I was “misusing” the work, WHY DID IT CONTINUE TO CONSISTENTLY FEED ME OPENINGS??? This leaves me in a weird place, review wise. Hands down, I had the most fun with this entry over anything in the Thing so far this year. I took PAGES of notes, several times more than any other work. I have written more about this work than any other (if this review looks long to you, know that I have re-edited myself multiple times trying to get this just right, leaving many moments of pure joy on the cutting room floor). I ACTIVELY CONSIDERED CREATING THREADS OF ALTERNATE CHOICE TEXT TO SUBMIT TO THE AUTHOR IN SERVICE OF THIS CONCEIT, LIKE SOME FPS FAN MOD/SKIN.

But. I cannot deny that the headiest joy came from my subversive reinterpretation, and the dizzying realization that the author’s choice architecture improbably continued to let me play. It seems obvious that I was not actually embracing the author’s full vision here. So we are back to ‘foreseeable use.’ And is it on me to prove I was not misusing the work, or on the author to prove this was not foreseeable when it played along SO, SO WELL? You gave me the interactivity, don’t be mad that I used it! This could take years of litigating JJMcC V INK AND INTRIGUE to decide. Thank you Judge, members of the jury, this concludes my opening statement.

Mystery, Inc: Animal Best Friends? Shaggy.
Vibe: under pending litigation
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : So if it were MY work, I would excise all text that attributed or editorialized the protagonist’s thoughts, feelings and desires. Instead, I would render their choices as ACTIONS TAKEN, with event consequences, but leave the motivations and other soft stuff in the player’s head. This is really, really hard to do, but I’d do it by crumb. Having said that, the author is under no obligation to tell any story other than the one they want to, including a definitive protagonists’ arc. I’m just saying what I would do. If the author chooses not to, I call dibs on the Fantasy James Bond conceit.

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Great review!

“Mish Moneypenny” started me laughing, and I didn’t stop chuckling all the way through. While I enjoyed the worldbuilding and lore in Ink and Intrigue, I kinda bounced off the interpersonal relations and the heavy attribution of thoughts and emotions to my character. I’m gonna have to restart and play as Rovar Bond now.

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Luna Gardens by Brushtin
Played: 4/15/24
Playtime: 1hr, 5 symbols found, 0 divinations

Back garden is for incomplete, experimental, early looks at games in progress. I get that. With the ones I’ve played so far, I’ve at least felt - ‘ok, I see where this is headed, what is being presented here. I see why the author thought I could be included at this point.’ This one confounded me. It is set up as a college student trying to uncover their father’s secrets at some sort of magic university. According to the HELP text, via some symbol divination, presumably. You spawn in the University’s garden and start searching for symbols.

It is hard to pinpoint what you are fighting more: the navigation system, the area descriptions, the custom commands or the prose itself. The Nav system is an opaque combination of traditional cardinal directions and a new >EXPLORE command that jumps you to items of interest. Except not all of them. In fact, very few of them. Cardinal directions are meanwhile obscured by not being referenced in location description text - you need to spam all 8 in every location to establish the area connections. No, that’s not quite right. Sometimes interesting items ARE referenced in descriptive text with cardinal directions, but navigation tells you you cannot go that way and EXPLORE tells you you see no such thing, despite it being described clearly in the preceding description! If there is a point to this obfuscation, it is as lost as any clear sense of direction. An all-too-typical example:

Shifting Path - East
The stones of the Shifting Path run alongside another path of
running water that flows down towards a sparkling fountain to
the east.
 
Afar you spot a ring of stone benches and a red pavilion.
 
>e
You can't go that way.

>x fountain
You can't see any such thing.
 
>explore fountain
That noun did not make sense in this context.

The above example also gives a flavor of shallow area descriptions, with inadequate noun implementations. The game expects you to do deep searches of locations, and even items inside locations. However, it ALSO routinely fails to implement many, many nouns in the description. The implementation horizon is so uneven, any sense of location mimesys is shattered and it becomes a ‘spam all nouns until one gives you a response’ exercise. It is literally breaking down language to near meaningless letter sequences, where symbolic power of words is washed away by endless “You see no…” even though it was JUST referred to. It’s not a rock that holds the symbol. It’s an r-o-c-k.

The custom commands are similarly confounding. When you do successful root out some symbols >FIND gives you their meaning. According to HELP you should be able to combine them into interesting >DIVINE phrases. Despite finding 5 different symbols I was unable to get >DIVINE to work in any combination of definitional phrases or symbol names. The provided example SEEMS clear enough, but also seems to rely on extended sentences subject to any amount of construction uncertainty. Lack of Hints or even a walk through first combo left me high and dry, to this moment unsure why it didn’t work.

And then there is the prose. It falls on the wrong side of the poetic verse line for me - striving for a pseudo-literate tone that ends up totally obscuring both its intent and any actionable command line interactions. I captured examples, but it feels unkind to riff on them when ultimately, the point is ‘deeply not my taste.’

To keep this from being unremittingly negative, let me say I did think the flashback architecture was pretty good. The backstory of the Father’s central mystery was dripped out as asides when interesting objects or symbols were interacted with. Those had the benefit of some clarity, that built on each other in a reasonably coherent and interesting way. For me, those were the best part of the experience.

Beyond those bits and prose style aside, significant gameplay work is still ahead on this one before its story can fully flower. I blundered around for an hour, never escaping the garden, never able to exercise its central gameplay conceit, and frustrated by lack of discernible path forward. I think for a work this raw, a walkthrough should be considered mandatory.

Mystery, Inc: Scrappy
Vibe: Pre-First Draft
Polish: Distressed
Gimme the Wheel! : Were it mine, I would establish a baseline navigation paradigm and rigorously stitch it into the map. Where do I use cardinal directions? What is the function of EXPLORE and how do I convey to the player the differences between that, navigation, and/or EXAMINE? Then, I’d roll up my sleeves and get to work on those nouns…

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Hi JJ, thank you for your feedback! I’m sorry you had a frustrating experience with my game, I’ve received similar sentiments so you’re not alone. I have some questions which would help me a lot in improving the game if you can answer them:

  • Would it help to be more explicit about what objects one can EXPLORE? I put all the distant landmarks in a separate paragraph at the bottom of each room description and made sure to indicate through the HINT text that EXPLORE’s meant to be used with a (DISTANT LANDMARK).
  • I noticed that unimplemented nouns was mentioned a few times in your review. Is it the lack of descriptions for all nouns mentioned in the text that you’re criticizing, or the system giving you conflicting feedback (ex: Seeing “That noun did not make sense in this context.” when you try to EXPLORE FOUNTAIN)?
  • When you said “any sense of location mimesys is shattered and it becomes a ‘spam all nouns until one gives you a response’ exercise”, is this an issue that would still be present even if I had implemented all the nouns?
  • Were there any specific aspects of the DIVINE verb that gave you trouble? For example, was it an issue with figuring out how to enter the input into the parser? Did you have a hard time figuring out the correct sentence structure? etc.
  • Could you give an example of the text that gave you a “pseudo-literate tone” to you? I’m unsure of what this entails and would like to keep it in mind while I work on the game.

Thanks for playing!

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huh, right now I’m contemplating for the first time if a terrestrial octopus can jump :thinking:

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Lol, yeah, in that case it was more >FLOP

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The Portrait by dott. Piergiorgio
Played: 4/16/24
Playtime: 1hr, 60/80 pts, art lover

Man, I can get some serious tunnel vision. Determined as I was to finish the Main Festival before engaging the Back Garden, I didn’t even notice we had a TADS entry! Do you know what this means?? As a hardcore Tads-stan I could have been looking forward to this for WEEKS!! Maybe better that I didn’t know - would be unfair to every other platform and entry if all I could think about was this.

The work opens on a seemingly male protagonist finding himself in an unfamiliar female body, in an unfamiliar home. His only clue to his situation is to explore a large painting that brings memory fragments back to him. And, uh, maybe also explore his new body. Just a bit. Y’know, because of the novelty of it. For science.

This is a teaser for an upcoming work, set in a fantasy world. Unsurprisingly, it shares a lot of its vibe with the author’s previous release, which I understand shares the setting. As a teaser, areas of the house are blocked off with “Under Construction” disclaimers and force field barriers, confining the interaction of this piece to mainly picking apart the titular triple portrait with your eyes, and consuming the attendant memories.

I found it to be a deep implementation, but a bit uneven? There are three main figures in the portrait (lets call them Sabrina, Kelly and Jill), one of which seems to be the new you! It is a situation where MOST any noun you see can bear further scrutiny. I noted some frequent gaps to this in the transcript. The fact that one of the figures needs disambiguation with you also makes for occasionally clunky object resolutions. One strange artifact of this was that if you examined, say, Sabrina with an obvious adjective, you got a full list of her possible sub-focii as a disambiguation prompt. I actually kinda liked this, as it gave a soft framework for exploration. I was a bit crestfallen that Kelly and Jill, despite also having obvious adjectives, provided no such framework - it was much more a ‘page through the window buffer for nouns’ kind of exercise.

You are told there are 80 points worth of details to find, but a cheeky author-standin-Imp gives you permission to quit early, when you are ready. I kinda liked that touch, as it really drove home the ‘not a game, just a space to play in’ of the thing. I happily hung around until it got to be more work hunting nouns than new revelations, then cut and ran.

Like the previous effort, the star here is the intriguing background. Unlike the previous effort this seems to be a small piece of the final product? I am officially intrigued and looking forward to it in, according to the author, two short years! (I get it. TADS takes time, ya’ll.)

I would be remiss in a way that would have you challenging my review credentials if I did not observe two notable things about the work. 1) It reads like a translation with many typos, misspellings and awkward grammatical constructs. Those latter are kind of endearing, honestly, as they give the piece a very specific flavor. But they can be distracting too. 2) This piece really likes bosoms, you’re going to get a good bit of them. Not pornographically, but… notably. Ok, I’m on thin ice here, because I can hear your judgement through the internet. “Reviewer, it’s an interactive work. It’s only going to come up if YOU BRING IT UP. So exactly how often did you >X BOSOMS, Reviewer, HOW OFTEN???” I hear you, and ok maybe, but this is a work that GIVES YOU POINTS FOR DOING SO. It’s not me perving! It’s the cold hand of economic incentives I tell you! Ok, you’ve backed me in a corner, I should probably quit while I’m behind, but you’ll see what I mean.

Mystery, Inc: Searching for clues? Velma
Vibe: Detail Obsession
Polish: Textured
Gimme the Wheel! : If this were my project, I would seek out a willing volunteer to help polish the translation a bit, ideally in a way that files off the distracting burrs but keeps the charming rhythm in tact. The volunteer for this thankless duty should be someone of great physical attractiveness, towering intellect, and unhealthy love for TADS. Name should probably start with a J. (TADS board inside joke! We ALL* start with J!)

*rounding off

pt_jjmcc.txt (78.9 KB)

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Ha ha! This is the first time I’ve seen this acknowledged…

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Huge agreement here. Actually, to make a fine point of it (assuming @Piergiorgio_d_errico is okay with me mentioning this), I was asked on a few occasions to make the text seem more like something a native English speaker would write, and I declined because:

  1. I actually really like his writing style as-is, and I felt like something would be taken away.
  2. I tend to write in a style similar to a corporate document, so my attempts at editing this work would drain all the poetry away.

See, when I was testing the non-demo version of this, I just… didn’t think to examine that? The points system draws a lot of focus on certain things, and firmly guides player actions, so I see what you mean here, lol.

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Ahem… Is that what the hip kids are calling those nowadays?

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Ah, a new response from @rovarsson, let me just take a deep draught of my beverage and read …

Spit Laugh GIF - Spit Laugh Funny - Discover & Share GIFs

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Deep Dark Wood by Senica Thing
Played: 4/16/24
Playtime: 25min, lots of exploring the endings

I was introduced (as was, I believe, the world) to this amazing corner of IF during last year’s Thing. An Anthology of micro games, built around a common theme as an academic challenge, authored by young first-timers. The fact that this continues to exist in Year of Our Lord 2024 gives me hope for the future. My love for this effort has only deepened over time, and going forward its absence would cast a shadow over this Back Garden. Conversely, should we meet again next year, I fear I may have to ask it to marry me. My wife will be, understandably, nonplussed.

As last year, I will highlight for each entry a marketing blurb for the work, what was great about it, what could be learned from it, and what was notable about it, creatively.

Back to The City by David and his Mom
Blurb “How can you party when Horse needs your help?”
Great I loved the branching exploration possibilities, and the options to sort through each one.
Learning The power of creating and rewarding player choices
Notable A nice instance of multiple solutions to a problem!

Dark Dream by the Baily’s Sisters
Blurb “You were warned against late night snacks…”
Great A hilarious branching story of wildly unexpected consequences.
Learning The less sense something makes, often the funnier it is.
Notable No more coffee for me.

Halloween by Hailey and Milka
Blurb “Anything can happen on Halloween”
Great Range of good-to-bad endings was cool
Learning Collectible endings a great way to keep folks playing
Notable Liked the post-ending sting

IXI in the Forest by Leontine
Blurb “Some animals are not your friend”
Great Very different paths, and choices for IXI’s friend
Learning Does are meaner than you think
Notable Lack of kindness has consequences

Little Frogie by Natalie
Blurb “Dinner Plans Matter, Little Frog!”
Great Really liked the “A(n) X Moment” sting on the endings
Learning Longer paths are rewarding, but short paths can be really funny
Notable Rich choice space!

Survive or Die by Unicorn Sisters
Blurb “‘The Power of Friendship’ is more than a saying…”
Great Loved that the best ending was still unnerving
Learning Don’t split up. Ever.
Notable Loved the long arc of survival, lots of tension! (and deaths)

The Dark One by Mushroom
Blurb “Do you know the difference between good and bad advice?”
Great Very fun third-wall breaking between game and player
Learning There is power to short paragraphs
Notable Laughed out loud at (you got killed by a serious level of distrust in combination with boredom).

Mystery, Inc: The Whole Gang!
Vibe: Raw Creativity
Polish: Textured
Gimme the Wheel! : I am on record as wishing for a wraparound game with Crypt-Keeper like host to these affairs, and refuse to give up on that dream. Maybe next year.

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Bydlo; or the Ox-Cart by P.B. Parjeter
Played: 4/16/24
Playtime: 15min

A second ST24 Bitly entry! I’ve only recently encountered my first! Another Atari-block-graphics throwback game, this one with effectively no text at all. You navigate your farmer-icon through a series of mazes of inventive icons (I particularly liked the orchestra at the end), pleasant colors and background music.

BUT! While the mazes start trivial, they grow increasingly complicated, increasingly crowded with both more product of your labors and more detritus and remains of previous farm work. It requires more and more effort just to reach the same point. All the while, the Ox-cart of your lifespan slowly advances. Cycle after cycle it crawls forward, as burden slowly overruns your farm. The cart of your life eventually breaks free just before all that detritus becomes too dense to escape. Then, finally untethered, the tracks of your life are transformed to musical bars which you navigate. Only this time instead of a tortured climb to the top of the screen, you are almost floating horizontally through them, until they populate with musical notes. Have you, after a lifetime of toil been freed by art? Or has your lifetime itself been the art all along?

Y’know, typical maze stuff.

Mystery, Inc: Fred
Vibe: Mazy
Polish: Gleaming
Gimme the Wheel! : No notes. Mission accomplished.

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Escape From the Tomb of the Celestial Knights by Megona
Played: 4/16/24
Playtime: 30min

A small first time limited parser effort, on a web platform that was new to me. So new, I can’t really say where gameplay glitches were platform- or author- driven. You wake up in a coffin and need to escape an underground tomb. As one does.

The geography is reasonably well communicated, aided by restricting itself to 4 instead of 8 cardinal directions. In addition to constraining its directional space, it also limits itself to a handful of verbs. I think this is a dynamite choice for first-time authors, but definitely challenges players accustomed to a fuller parser implementation. Its noun space is uneven, with many instances of ‘location contains an X’ ‘>X X’ ‘You see no X.’ Often, manipulating objects directly is rebuffed, and instead you must ‘>USE OTHER OBJECT’ to accomplish your task. It is possible to acclimatize to these implementations choices over time.

The puzzles themselves are reasonably straightforward with good textual cluing, including a maze section that I found to be far less than the usual annoying for these things. My playthrough was much more fighting the parser than the game’s architecture. So maybe platform based? For sure a platform problem was that it crashed midgame, and I had to wait fifteen minutes for a server reset or something to replay. (Playtime above includes first run, but not wait).

There was some implementation confusion, beyond missing noun responses. In one area, its initial description inadequately describes the objects within and then omits some exits. Other rooms had no exits listed and required directional trial-and-error. In one spot it seems like a programming parameter (MEASUREMENT) is referenced, clouding the description. Nothing dire or fatal, just more work needed. There are also typos: ‘carves’ instead of ‘carved’; ‘they figures’ instead of ‘the figures’; I stopped grabbing them after the crash.

All in all, I found it a respectable maiden effort. There was little narrative other than ‘escape!’, which, sure! Learning a platform requires mechanical engagement, the art can come once mastered. Look forward to seeing where the author goes from here! Maybe a little less anticipation for another encounter with this platform.

Mystery, Inc: Velma
Vibe: Escape (Multi-)Room
Polish: Distressed
Gimme the Wheel! : I think the focus on mechanical implementation is exactly right for this work. If it were mine, I would flesh out the noun space, attack typos, and fix room descriptions. Wring all the polish you can from this first effort. Engage playtesters (unless this WAS that effort! Sneaky author), and internalize all their feedback. From my own first effort I can say learning how to drive that last 5% of implementation is just as vital to IF mastery as the syntax-based first 95%.

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61

Provisora Parko by Dawn Sueoka
Played: 4/16/24
Playtime: 15min

This work is the second Back Garden entry that would feel perfectly at home in the Main Festival. It is a fully realized work that really weaves a spell. A full-on Dada exercise, it leans into dream-logic more effectively than any work I can think of. To the extent there is a frame to this, the protagonist is wandering around some rundown tropical resort. Yeah, that’s it. Everywhere they (she? probably she.) goes, eerie stuff happens around her. Human sized cats. An extended airport luggage claim sequence, where luggage are bird masks. Sugar sculptures of off-putting folktales. Sassy teens. All of it taken in stride by the protagonist.

The text is magnetic. It conveys so much, so singularly, with economy and punch. Each encounter is starkly realized, yet has its own vibe. Most of us have a limited well of imagery to draw on. When composing absurd Dada, it can become all too easy for fascinations, phrasings or images to repeat or resonate with each other in a way that ultimately constrains the implementation. This author is wildly, perhaps distressingly, without bounds. I found the encounters to be singular and unique, and that breadth of vision coupled with the protagonist’s even responses set the tone of the piece more than any other thing. I cannot laud the vision and articulation highly enough.

I particularly like the head fake of the luggage claim sequence. Pretending to ‘wake up’ only to discover no, still immersed in weird. The most effective use of interactivity for me, were the links that replaced text on the page. The linked text was tightly integrated into the page layout in a smart way that ALSO reinforced the weirdness of the links. Even the navigation links, while not providing much influence over things (you are always going to click all the links), nevertheless provided a sense of exploration.

If I have a quibble with this piece, it is ‘What is the point of it?’ There are four endings that only kind of resonate with the one choice you get to determine it. And only kind of resonate with the antecedents to that choice. Very much of a piece with the vibe of the thing, and very much aligned with the mission statement of Dada. So I guess my problem is with Dadaism? Except, there is a robust credits sequence that suggests there might be something decodable in the symbolism of the piece. Yeah, given the idiosyncrasies of my life journey, I’ve got no hope of decoding any of that.

Ultimately, it is a tight mood piece of fascinating breadth and weirdness and I sure appreciate it on that level. To the extent there are more layers I can’t find, my loss I guess? In my favorite words of the piece:

maybe I'm the bird and she's the asshole

Wait. No. The other way around.

Mystery, Inc: I dunno, Scooby I guess? Maybe this is how he dreams? Weird dog.
Vibe: Deep dream
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : No thank you. This work is deeply dependent on authorial voice, and no one else should, ah, aloha with it.

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