Really excited for this! I’ve got a really busy few weeks ahead but hoping to play at least a few of the games on the list.
6 Likes
Heaven Alive by G.C. “Grim” Baccaris
I’ve played quite a few Neo-Twiny Jam games recently (they’re great to show students) and I’m always really impressed by the richness of story that authors can build into such a limited word count. This is a really fantastic example of that. The relationship between the warlord and the vizier is richly drawn through the dialogue (which feels authentic and not overly explanatory), and the music emphasises the atmosphere of dread and unease. It effectively builds a lot of tension in just a couple of minutes. The styling is just gorgeous, too. I played a few times to try and see all the different endings, and I appreciated that the variations between outcomes felt meaningful. I actually didn’t notice the approval counter in the top corner until a few playthroughs in (this is on me for being unobservant); I’m not sure if the numerical representation of the relationship added much to the narrative for me, but that might just be personal preference. A really well-made short game!
5 Likes
A House of Endless Windows by SkyShard
First off, I want to say that I think the quality of the prose here is really excellent. It’s precise and clear and restrained in a way that says a lot about Pierce’s character and creates some really subtle pathos. The choice of music is wonderful and one track in particular really got me in the heart (I wish the track info was listed in ‘About’ so I could go and download it somewhere!)
However - I know that everyone here probably has a personal definition of what interactive fiction is, but I have to say that this didn’t really meet mine. In this game you click to advance text, without options to interact with the world or narrative in different ways, and I found that quite disappointing. I would have loved to have been able to try out different conversational responses, or visit different rooms in the house, or something else that made me feel like I had a bit more agency in traversing the story. Also, as a lot of the chunks of text are single lines, in dialogue heavy scenes there is a lot of clicking - which took a bit of the enjoyment out of it for me, which is a shame, because the dialogue was largely great.
I found the narrative quietly moving and well structured, and while the ending didn’t quite land for me (I tend to prefer ambiguity over clear-cut explanations), I do think it’s a strong piece overall.
7 Likes
Lewd Mod: Noir by HHRichards
I actually pulled ‘Office Temptation’ as my next randomly generated game, but I have to be honest - I could not bring myself to create a Newgrounds account in the year 2025. LM:N is by the same author and the demo is available on itch, so I decided to give this one a go instead.
The genre is listed on IFBD as ‘Pornographic’, which it kind of is, but the NSFW images are all stylised graphics so, even when explicit, they’re not wildly porn-y (in my opinion, others may disagree). This was to the game’s benefit, I think. The visuals in general are great - I’ve just noticed this was made in Twine, which is kind of wild to me, and I’m keen to take a look at the back end (not a double entendre, I promise).
So, the premise of a game; you are a data analyst hired (randomly, seemingly via WhatsApp) to flag images on behalf of a shadowy security agency. This minigame is very simple; you click any images containing red hats. Some of these images are saucy. In between these tasks you have text conversations with two agents, taciturn Scarlett and flirty Cyanne. So far, so contrived, but this is an erotica game. I don’t think anyone is expecting Proust. The setup gets you into the world and introduces you to the dynamics between the PC and the agents quickly, and in that sense it’s effective.
The conversations with the agents were really good, I thought. Each of them has a very distinct cadence and messaging style which was consistent throughout. The PC’s response options are a bit one-note in comparison. During the course of these conversations, a conflict between the agents emerges in which you have to take a side.
Here is where the game did something I thought was interesting. I initially thought that the point of the minigame was ‘mechanism by which to see naughty illustrations’. And it is that. But it’s also the mechanism by which you take sides in the conflict. The context for this and the way that it functions is again, a little contrived, but I was pleased to see the game’s primary mechanic being used for a narrative, as well as titillating, purpose.
I’ll be honest, I did not anticipate that my longest review of the 'thon so far would be for a porn game. But this is outside my wheelhouse, and I was interested to see how a game like this works in practice. I feel like I have to confess to a bias here; I sort of assumed that the writing in a game like this would be bad, as it would naturally come second to the erotic elements. Why would I think that? I’ve got a short story coming out in an erotica collection soon - I don’t think fiction is automatically of lower quality because it’s about sex. So, why apply this logic to games? Maybe it’s the kind of thumbnails I see a lot for NSFW games on itch, which can tend towards content that feels a little exploitative to me. Maybe it’s a latent prejudice against games as ‘lesser culture’ in general, which is something that I’ve still probably internalised a bit despite my love of them (I work in literature academia, and the field as a whole is only recently coming round to games as a legitimate mode of writing). It feels like a me problem, is what I’m trying to say. This isn’t to say that I consider LM:N as a shining example of high-quality erotic fiction; it’s functional, rather than elevated, but it does the job it sets out to do and does it pretty well.
There is, I have to acknowledge, some stuff in there that made me a little uncomfortable - there were some PC conversation options that felt jarring (a bit aggressive, or pushy), and there is some iffy consent stuff around alcohol in one section - and these moments spoiled the experience for me in places. I don’t think I’m really the target audience. But generally, if this is the kind of game you’re into, I think you’ll probably enjoy it.
7 Likes
I mean, his prose is both purple and turgid!
Sorry, I’ll see myself out.
5 Likes
Thousand Lives by Wojtek Borowicz
I was interested in this game from the moment I saw it on the list - the email form really intrigued me, as did the setting/time period. Historical fiction is my research area and I’m always excited to see IF authors making work within that field.
I came totally full circle on the email format over the course of the week. When the first one arrived, I have to confess I was a little disappointed - I’d assumed that the email format would be narratively important (perhaps an epistolary form, like letters), and at first I couldn’t understand why the author had chosen to create a simple branching narrative in this way, rather than using a more immediate format like Ink or Twine. Wouldn’t the reader be liable to forget details between emails? How did the form benefit the story?
On about day three, it clicked. Thousand Lives spans a period covering almost an entire lifetime, and years (if not decades) pass between ‘instalments’. If this piece had been made in Twine, that lifetime would have been compressed into well under half an hour, which I think would have made it far less impactful. The staggered emails are a great bit of memetic representation, and the result was that I genuinely felt as though time was passing in a significant way.
While there are only two choices per episode, they are big choices, and I can see how each pathway through the game would feel totally unique. You can’t replay choices or restart because, as the website says, ‘just like in life, you have to deal with the consequences of your choices’. I feel like some players would not enjoy this approach. I loved it. The stakes for each decision felt so high, and I found myself taking more time over them than I ordinarily would in a choice-based game. There’s a weight to the narrative that’s truly impressive for its relatively short length.
The writing is really strong throughout - there’s enough historical detail that I feel like I’m learning something, but it isn’t didactic or heavy-handed with exposition, and the plot is always grounded in the PC’s life and character. Despite the emails not being that long, I was really invested in this woman and her family. I don’t know if this is unique to one of the branches I chose, but there’s a lot of content in here about labour organising that I absolutely loved (I love activism in fiction, I love activism in games, this really was up my tree)
By the end of the week I was genuinely excited whenever a new email landed in my inbox, and felt kind of bereft when it was over. This is a really intelligent, moving piece of work, and if anyone has any recommendations for similar games I’d love to play more like it.
8 Likes