One Does Not Simply Fry (Stewart C Baker and James Beamon)
This is another game that knows exactly what it is, does that, and makes an expeditious exit. ‘What exactly it is’ is ‘A LOTR parody via baking shows’, so it’s not exactly shooting for the moon here, but it makes its jokes, replaces its characters with mostly-amusing parodies thereof, and doesn’t really overstay its welcome.
It recommends that you replay the game, which I did (twice–the first time I lost, the second time I won, and the third time I won with the newly-unlocked character). Unfortunately, for me the game lost some of the appeal it had beforehand because it over-emphasized how little you actually do in the game, vs. how much of the game is just ‘click to see the next joke’. This made it easier to replay, mind you, but it also spoiled the (mild) illusion that there was much to do in the game. This is often true of many games, but choice games are particularly susceptible to it, and this game in particular kind of emphasized it, to its own detriment (for me). I suppose this means overall that ‘not overstaying its welcome’ was true the first time through the game, but not the repeats, meaning that it would have been better served (I think) if it had some sort of ‘undo’ system that let you make different choices faster than having to replay the whole thing.
It also did the Choicescript thing of giving you different characters with different stats, which mostly meant slightly differently-skinned success or failure choices a couple of times. I think it’s hard in general to make stats pay off in IF, but this game in particular fell prey to the ‘I am playing character X with good stat Y, so I’ll choose the obviously-Y button’ problem, making things kind of mechanical as opposed to interesting.
But, you know, jokes! Fair enough.
Did the author have something to say? They had jokes to tell me.
Did I have something to do? Not much; mostly ‘pick the obvious choice’.