Mathbrush's 2024 IFComp Review Thread

Competitions IFComp
41

Civil Service by Helen Liston

This is a short, atmospheric Twine game with two endings.

It’s hard to describe, so I’ll go with what my first impressions were, then what I built up afterwards.

It starts talking about returning to another choice, with three voices whispering to you. Having recently done some surface-level study of Hinduism, I wondered if it was related to the cycle of rebirth and the Trimurti, although I didn’t find much evidence of that later.

Then the game starts going through a week at an office one day at a time. No one really pays attention to you, and you mentally rate things from 1-3 stars when you see them (maybe you can do 4 or 5 if you wait long enough for timed text but I never saw a choice to pick those, only having one chosen for me). You have a crush on a guy you see outside the window whom you hope you can see, too.

Things change near the end; there’s an interlude on Wednesday night involving a trip (to Italy, I think?) where your persona seems to change, but it’s gone the next day.

After finishing the game and replaying, here’s what I think’s going on:

Summary

You are a spirit. No one can see you, except animals. The deaths of animals gives you more physical presence on a limited basis proportional to the complexity or size of the animal.

You are here because the three people in the office with you left a woman to die in a ravine after a team-building exercise. Your job as a ghost is to bring that fact to their attention.

The three at the beginning have given you similar tasks before, and ask you to do this one with positivity. Whether you are positive or not throughout the game leads to the two endings. I believe the 1-3 star ratings control that positivity.

I’m still not sure who the three are (Christian trinity? Greek fates?) or who you are (Jess’s spirit? an angel?) or what the Italian interlude is (is that you in a past life?).

Overall, the color and atmosphere were good. Timed text was used occasionally and was just infrequent enough not to be annoying. It felt like the plot was resolved, although I had trouble feeling out consistent themes or patterns in the different threads.

There were several minor typos, usually a letter or two wrong. If the author were to do a post-comp release, I’d suggest going to Twinery and using the Proof button in the Build tab to get a dump of all text in the game and to run it through a spellchecker; I’ve done that before because I’ve made numerous typos in my own games and books.

I liked this game, and would play more from this author.

10 Likes
42

Thank you so much for your excellent review of DWDSB. I’m really pleased you enjoyed it! I will say more after the comp, but my aim is for less challenging but entertaining pieces. Your term “light snack” is a perfect description (I wish I’d thought it). Just to clarify, I didn’t know there was an actual “Bex” named character (it was a coincidence). I like to give characters short names to save typing :slight_smile: Thanks again.

3 Likes
43

Have you tried searching the car in the same area where you first got the gun?

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44

I hadn’t, but I definitely will next time!

1 Like
45

Re: Verses

Thanks for sharing the meme, that is also exactly how I felt!

1 Like
46

The Saltcast Adventures by Beth Carpenter

This is a long, worldbuilding-heavy, sincere fantasy Twine game about a world where dark magical creatures are born from mirrors. You play as a tired mother who is desperate and starving, looking for some kind of money for your family. You descend into the monster’s caves to win wealth, learn about the monsters, or die.

The game is polished, and I didn’t find any bugs. There are occasional illustrations and it makes use of different background colors.

I thought it was well-written. The creation myths were some of my favorite parts, as was interacting with the gods. Overall, this seems like a setting that would do well in fantasy book.

I had ups and downs with the plot. Up until the end of Act II, I felt like there was a definite progression, and could feel the tension rising. I reach what felt like the apex of the plot, but then…there was Act III, which felt like it let the wind out of the sails. We get a new protagonist and repeat many of the same plot points. It’s interesting too because with Act I and Act II I thought, ‘This could be a great fantasy novel if it was expanded with more interactions with the characters, more door history, but the author probably didn’t have enough time’, and yet Act III itself is quite large. I would have preferred to have just Act I and Act II, fully fleshed out, and maybe Act III as a later sequel book.

But this is just quibbling and it’s not like I can dictate that kind of thing. I liked the overall story and thought it was well done, I’m just recording the thoughts that passed through my head.

The choices were both good and bad. A large chunk of them fell into two categories:

  1. Be nice vs Be mean
  2. Injure yourself to discover something vs Be safe and learn nothing

I found little motivation to be mean early on, so usually just stuck with being nice. Later on, I found that there was more subtlety to some of those choices, but it would have been nice to have more options that weren’t on the good/bad axis. The choices I liked most involved the gods, who had some great variety. The choices did provide the chance to feel like a hero, though, and were meaningful, often having significant-feeling effects. The game doesn’t seem to branch too much but it does adjust itself based on your actions.

It was a long game. I played over two different evenings, and it took up a couple hours in each.

Overall, I can recommend it to players in generally, but most heartily to avid fantasy fans.

7 Likes
47

The Shyler Project by Naomi Norbez (call me Bez, e/he)

This is a short, 3-part Twine game that is dialogue between someone seeking mental health aid and an AI bot designed to help with mental health. It is connected to Yancy at the End of the World, where Shyler (the AI bot) also exists. It is fully voice acted. In the three dialogues, the two characters seek to understand each other.

There are many ways to understand the content and intent of this game. I’ve interpreted it as a kind of wish fulfillment/proxy therapy session where the reader can mentally take on the roles of one or two of the people and feel happiness by imagining them carrying out these actions.

With that interpretation, I’d say the game is largely successful. I imagine you, the reader in the role of Jaiden, who seeks aid. This puts you in a fragile position where others could take advantage of you. But instead, we find Shyler, who not only understands us but is relatable, feeling similar to us. Not only that, we find that we are able to help Shyler ourselves, reversing our roles and showing that we’ve progressed far in our mental health journey.

So in a way it reminds me of the ‘mysteries’ of ancient religions where you’d act out the lives of the Gods in a ritual. By playing the game, we can achieve the (healthy) fantasies of being a good friend, understanding someone, and helping them. The game even goes as far as curing the bot’s mental illness entirely by rewiring it, which is a big power fantasy, the possibility of completely curing someone’s brain.

Some parts of the game are universal, like loneliness and friendship. Other are tailored to a unique experience. The protagonists seem like they feel liberated by strong profanity, which wasn’t something I related to. One also takes a kind of deconstructionist view of God of the type that I’ve seen be more popular among those who’ve left religions and are seeking their own meaning. As someone who adheres to an organized faith, I didn’t feel as empowered by these statements as I believe the protagonist was.

Overall, the voice acting added a lot of charm. It’s hard for me to focus on timed text and long voice acting wears on me, but this was a short game and the voice acting was charming (of course, I had to plan carefully when to listen to it due to it having frequent strong profanity and me not having headphones or a private space to listen).

Charming game, glad to play.

8 Likes
48

One also takes a kind of deconstructionist view of God of the type that I’ve seen be more popular among those who’ve left religions and are seeking their own meaning.

The section I think you’re talking about

“Making everything in the universe over the course of a week? Sounds like a manic episode to me. If you ask me, that 7th day of rest was when the mania sunk into depression”

puts it irreverently, but I don’t think it’s too far off from mainstream theology that tries to explain the concept of a personal God that feels things and regrets things despite being omniscient.

There are boilerplate explanations from atheist and religious apologists alike, of course, but there isn’t an answer that will satisfy everyone.

The game doesn’t really offer a solution to the problem. Instead, it kind of shifts tracks to the self-imposed burden of responsibility and/or guilt that mental health workers might suffer.

That part reminded me of the Martin Scorsese film Bringing Out the Dead, which deals with medics instead of mental health workers but wrestles with the same kind of burden with a religious approach (both at greater length and a ridiculous amount of religious imagery).

2 Likes
49

Return to Claymorgue’s Castle by Claudio Daffra

I had a bit of trouble getting this game to work at first. It’s a heavily modified Twine game that uses a kind of parser command format through selecting verbs and nouns via links.

I kept selecting a verb and an object, but nothing would happen. I eventually realized that you had to click the player, then the verb, then the object, then a yellow arrow that would then appear. Thus, most commands (outside of movement) take 4 clicks to execute, while some take 5 (those involving multiple objects).

You’re part of a team of four, including a historian, a techie, a tough guy, and you, who is (I think) a reporter. Each of you starts in a different location, but you can command others to move around or follow you. Each has skills only they can use.

Once I figured out commands, I had difficulty finding things to do. I tried ‘examining’ objects, but most said ‘No action available’ or something similar. Most of my actions were rebuffed, so I decided to follow the walkthrough exactly.

I found out that several of the ‘No action available’ objects were important, and, in fact, one had to be examined twice! And your teammatest have to be moved around a lot. I’m glad I had the walkthrough, as I would have been completely stymied without it.

The writing is interesting. It generally uses very complex English, with only occasional typos. Room descriptions were rich, but could become repetitive. In many rooms there are shadows that dance, spectral things you can see, and secrets waiting to be found.

One room has almost exactly the same description repeated twice. Perhaps there were two versions in the draft that the author couldn’t decide between, and both were accidentally left in? It’s this one:

The air is heavy with the spectral echoes of the past, whispering tales of medieval times. The castle, once a symbol of power and grandeur, now stands as a spectral monument, a haunting reminder of the impermanence of man’s creations.

This place, steeped in history and shrouded in mystery, is a silent witness to the passage of time, its spectral presence a haunting echo of a bygone era. It is a place where the past lingers on, its spectral whispers carried on the wind, a chilling reminder of the castle’s former glory and the transience of human endeavour.

While the large vocabulary and repeated words could be seen poetically, I found myself sometimes longing for shorter, more varied descriptions that gave more specific details about this setting or clues about its inhabitants.

The large number of details became frustrating when they included seemingly helpful things that are not implemented. I wonder why the author took the time to include so many details about the van, when none of them can be interacted with:

The van is painted in a vibrant color scheme: the bottom is bright blue, while the top is lime green. An orange horizontal stripe separates the two sections. On the side of the van, there is a large psychedelic logo that says “Fantasticmobile” in stylized and colored letters. It has a retro design, with a rounded shape and a large panoramic windshield.

Interior: The cockpit has two seats wrapped in a colorful striped fabric. The steering wheel and dashboard have a vintage design, with analog gauges and a large chrome steering wheel. Behind the cockpit, there is a large space that can be used to transport people or equipment. This space is often filled with everything the team might need to solve mysteries, including a map, a flashlight, a camera, and even some tools. The floor of the van is covered with a thick and comfortable carpet.

Features: The roof of the van is openable, creating an ideal observation point for scanning the surrounding landscape. The side of the van has a retractable panel that reveals a laboratory complete with tools and accessories for solving mysteries. The rear bumper of the van is equipped with a tow hitch, which can be used to tow a trailer with additional equipment.

Curiosities: The Fantasticmobile was designed and built by a member of the team, who is an expert in mechanics and engineering. The van is powered by a silent and high-efficiency electric motor, making it ideal for following suspects without being detected. The Fantasticmobile is a true symbol of the team, representing their spirit of adventure and their commitment to solving mysteries.

The author wrote this game in tribute to an early Scott Adams game, and wrote to Adams to get express permission for this game. The letter sent and the letter received can both be seen in the game, one in the intro and one in-game.

There is background pixel art which at times helped me understand the game world, taken from Wikipedia. Occasionally it obscured the text, but only in a few rooms.

Overall, I was impressed with the technical skill of the sugarcube programming; it must have been very difficult to implement this!

7 Likes
50

The Deserter by MemoryCanyon

I was quite surprised by the length of this game. I finished it in 15 minutes, but it’s labelled as over 2 hours. I suspect it’s due to replay; it would probably take longer to find all paths.

This is a game about a deserter from an army, but it’s in a world where soldiers pilot mechs. There’s some hints that the mechs are used in peace-time as well.

I made choices like choosing between fast and dangerous paths or long and safe ones, like investigating a cave, like whether to help strangers.

There were some minor typos, but asides from that the description is very physical, emphasizing terrain and rocks and soil and water, which gives the game some nice grounding. You can tell the main character cares a lot about his family.

Overall, an interesting setup and game. I’d play another game by this author.

5 Likes
51

The Triskelion Affair by Clyde Falsoon

This is a longish parser game set in a time with horses, wagons, and captains but not electricity. In it, you play as a soldier who is ordered on a special mission involving the Triskelion, a powerful weapon.

The game is divided into two parts. First, there is a long linear opening sequence which the author has designated as ‘training’, and that’s a good description, as it gets you used to basic verbs and actions. Then there is a longer exploration part in a graveyard.

The puzzles can be tricky at times but not too bad. I used the walkthrough a couple of times, but only one puzzle would, I think have been really hard without it (finding a certain key).

There are a lot of red herrings. I found numerous items that presaged more puzzles and adventures but which were ultimately useless. It did add to the worldbuilding, so that’s a tradeoff.

Some of those items could be implemented a bit more. I had this exchange in one late part of the game:

What do you do? x cannister
The green cannister is three feet tall, six inches in diameter, and made of heavy metal. On the side of the cannister is a red warning label. The cannister has a turn-valve on its top but the handle is missing. The valve cannot be opened without the handle.

What do you do? read label
That is not something to read. Try examining it instead.

What do you do? x it
A bright red square with a picture of a yellow flame on it. Beneath that is the wording “Hazard: Extremely Flammable”

What do you do? take it
That’s hardly portable.

Somethings can only be EXAMINEd while some can only be READ.

The ‘>’ prompt has been changed to ‘What do you do?’, presumably to help new players, and I thought that was neat. Many error responses have been changed, most of which I liked. The one I didn’t so much was the error for when you type something that’s not there; the game says things like Seriously?? and You must be joking! which is mildly funny the first time, but wears thin over time.

The game did a good job with pacing the puzzles, as I didn’t usually feel overwhelmed or not having anything to do. The exits bar at the top is key; many puzzles can be solved by exploring all exits.

I thought the ending was a little anticlimactic, but maybe there will be more Triskelion in the future; I’d like to see it.

Note for author: I found one testing thing still in the game: when you start combat, this prints:

Now strippable list in random order contains 22 entries:
amulet, left lieutenant bar, steel key, small Bible, gash, small wooden box, bear trap, strange-looking key, unknown pelt, one silver coin, stole, rosary beads, jaunty hat, candlestick, bell, crossbow, crumpled paper, single sheet of parchment, iron key, right lieutenant bar, little book, and blue candle

6 Likes
52

This was my first adventure as a child and I wanted to pay homage to it along with ‘The Hobbit.’ The interface is clunky and needs to be reworked. I’ll try to improve it in the future. Thank you for taking the time to review it. It took me about a year and a half to create, and I did some research online. There’s a Claymore Castle in Europe, but I’m not sure if it’s the same one. I’m grateful to my bilingual beta testers who helped me a lot with this project. For me, your review was already a victory. I’ve set ‘decline’ for receiving any awards, and any potential prize money will be reinvested into IFComp. Currently, I’m rewriting a compiler from scratch, and I might adapt it for a personal version of Twine, but it won’t be ready for a few years… Will you participate in the castle challenge? The impossible challenge that will start at the end of IFComp? And in the following years, if my calculations are correct … , there will be an event at the castle?

3 Likes
53

I am also a fan of the original Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle. Here is a walkthrough video I made a couple of years ago:

1 Like
54

I played it on Commodore 64 at the time and almost managed to finish it. Today I revisited all the locations and yes all the beauty of Scott’s work is still here!

2 Likes
55

Redjackets by Anna C. Webster

This is a twine game with three different paths about a group uniting to defeat a powerful vampire. You can play from three perspectives.

I can sum up my reaction to this game by saying I loved the story, liked the mechanics but found a lot of typos and bugs.

The story (from the point of view of a new vampire, which I chose first) is that you are recently-graduated art student whom a powerful vampire lord has turned into a fledgling vampire. You are captured by a human-vampire-cooperative group called the Redjackets, and together decide to take down your lord.

The game boasts three perspectives and allows a variety of both emotional/roleplaying choices together with choices that affect the overall story.

I liked the atmosphere and dialog of the game. There were numerous minor typos, though, and several passages with broken Twine code. The very first screen said ‘error’ on it (due to some code that checks your previous playthroughs); several times, the text was from the wrong perspective; the face of one of the characters got duplicated once, instead of showing two people; and the game said it would remember my choices when doing the next path but I saw my former character take all the choices that I didn’t take.

However, none of these bugs really prevent the playing of the game itself or the enjoyment of the story. So I still like the game overall, I just want to be complete in my review when describing it all.

I do want to call out the color scheme and UI as being especially nice-looking (for my tastes).

7 Likes
56

Traffic by D. S. Yu

Parser games let you type in whatever you want. They only respond to a small fragment of that. If I open a random parser game and say ‘I endeavor to hop on my right foot fifty-five times before squawking like a parrot’, then it won’t respond with meaningful feedback (I know AI can respond, but the chance of that response containing content intended by the author that directly pertains to my command is low).

This is one reason new parser players struggle; how do you know what to type?

Parser games traditionally solve this in two ways. The first is by the community adopting unspoken customs about what commands are important. By experience, players come to know that 'X ME, ‘INVENTORY’, ‘TAKE’, ‘DROP’, ‘PUSH’, ‘ENTER’, etc. are generally understood and work well.

The second is by giving the commands in-game, either explicitly (like limited parser games that list the required vocab) or implicitly (if the game says, ‘You feel a strong desire to yodel’, then you can reasonably expect to be able to yodel).

This game takes neither of those two paths. In it, you play through various related scenarios about a traffic jam in an intersection. Many, if not most, of these scenarios are solved by commands that are both unusual in parser games and which aren’t provided or mentioned in-game.

That makes this game pretty hard. Adding on to that, there are some default actions that don’t have responses, making it hard to know what to do.

The storyline is a fun concept, and I enjoyed the ending, but I ended up using the walkthrough for about 70% of the game. I won’t elaborate too much on the story as there are some early spoilers that give much of the flavor of the game, but suffice it to say that this is a puzzle about examining a system of interconnected events and trying to figure out how to adjust them in order to save yourself.

I think the game could benefit from responses to an ABOUT command to give expectations to the player. While I personally would have also liked more nudges in-game or a better idea of necessary commands, I realize that that may not match the author’s vision and that they may have directly desired for players to have to hunt and experiment for a while. If that’s the case, I think it’s fine to leave it as-is.

9 Likes
57

Eikas by Lauren O’Donoghue

Well, this was a pleasure. It’s rare (to me) to find a long, well-paced, polished Twine game with nice presentation, few bugs, good characters and a satisfying story arc. Usually games have both significant strengths and significant flaws, but I really didn’t find any major flaws in this game, which was very pleasant. (Of course this might just be to my tastes, of course; other people may have a different reaction)

You play as a chef who has been hired on to cook every 5 days at a community canteen in a magical village. There are several characters you can interact with, each of which is going through their own issues and having their own successes. Your goal is to be able to stay as a chef permanently, with side goals of improving relations with others.

The majority of the game is part of a 4-action daily cycle, where you can choose to cook things to sell at the market and then to buy things at the market (probably the most common option), interact with your friends, make special meals for the community, buy seeds and books (useful early on), go foraging (useful later on, etc.).

Every 5 days you make a special meal which gets judged. Despite my best efforts, my first meal got 1 star, so I worked hard to get better. I ended up getting exactly the amount of stars I needed to ‘stay’ (having only played once, I don’t know if it’s designed always to play out that way or if it was due to my eggs-and-cheese heavy strategies of making deluxe meals).

Overall, the tone is pleasant. There are some stresses, especially with friends, but the tone is one of peace and warmth. It’s not overly cloying to me, when it could easily have been so, and the game doesn’t force you into specific actions of reproach or forgiveness, instead allowing you to chart your own path.

Overall, a great game for someone looking to relax and cook.

8 Likes
58

Thank you for the lovely review!

1 Like
59

Why Pout? by Andrew Schultz

Andrew Schultz has a long history of making wordplay games which all follow the same general pattern (typing words based on an overarching wordplay theme using words that appear in the location) as well as a large repertoire of other games (like chess games and even a baseball game).

His longest running series, called ‘Prime Pro-Rhyme Row’, involves rhyming pairs of words. While fun, I had the feeling it was getting mined out.

This game takes on a fresh mechanic that still involves two-word pairs. Unlike the rhyming games, which could be slowly brute-forced by trying each letter of the alphabet and then adding multi-consonant starters, this puzzle type (which I won’t spoil just in case) can be solved through multiple means, including auditory and mechanical, but with much less possible lawnmowering.

That’s not to say it’s trivial. I did use hints a couple of times. It turned out one puzzle was there that I didn’t even realize was a puzzle that was gating all the others.

Anyway, the story here is mostly surreal, with a sequence of random, fantastical things that don’t exactly fit a coherent narrative, but the overarching plot is heartwarming and fun: you’re collecting friends. In different areas you find people that need help, and, in return, they help you solve more of your puzzles, and can give you pep talks as well.

This is a lot of fun. The pep talks can be nice, too. Some are more general and vague:

The ________ discusses ways to identify people or situations that justneed a bit of help, and how to do so without making them feel
hopeless or in need of help, or that they got themselves in this
position in the first place.

while others are more concrete:

You think up a ________ you mumble under your breath. The
merchant finds it a bit weird you like THAT as a way to keep positive.
It doesn’t seem like that sort of thing helps the economy. Their
cheeriness slips slightly, with impressively-balanced potshots at
people more and less successful than they are.

I prefer the more concrete ones, as they have a lot of character.

Overall, this was fun. Recommended for fans of wordplay parser games.

8 Likes
60

Hebe by Marina Diagourta

In this game, Kronos has imprisoned the Gods, and you must rescue them two by two.

This game acknowledges it was written with ChatGPT, so I won’t spend much time (if any) discussing that, as it seems the purpose was to make sure descriptions were descriptive, and they generally were. I knew that it would hallucinate, so I ignored most of what the text said except for objects that were easily interactable with (and a command INVESTIGATE let me know what those were, most of the time).

The map is several different cities, each of which can be moved between fairly easily. Sometimes the exits list were incorrect (like S vs SW) and one, the Necromanteion, isn’t listed (you have to ENTER when you’re north of the city that is near it).

Puzzles are generally complex code-type puzzles. I used decompiling to figure out rules for some of them. Players will need to know they can ROTATE something COUNTERCLOCKWISE or the game is impossible to beat. Player’s should a know that you might be able to put things on a statue’s head when you can’t put things on the statue itself or the shelf that is on the head. A certain YES/NO question glitches if you type YES, but you can just type YES then NO and it treats it like a YES.

The HELP command here is useful, because if players don’t know they can WAIT 11 HOURS, they might have to type Z dozens of times.

Overall, some of the puzzles were fun. I liked the one with flowers. What this game needs, in my opinion, is more careful puzzle testing and more bug-fixing in general. Having one dedicated gametester or several less dedicated testers who report bugs and an author who has time to fix those bugs could make this game a lot of fun. The puzzles are the main draw here, and the overall story idea, with everything else as set dressing, so I’d love to see them shine even more.

(I do have a better impression of this game because the author was open about using ChatGPT rather than hiding it. It is often clear that an author used ChatGPT, and if they do that and don’t disclose it, it gives me a much more negative view of the game).

7 Likes