letters for su is a very short epistolary piece, a fan-fiction letter-writing game inspired by the Ace Attorney franchise. Missing your lover Susato, who moved to England some time ago, you write her a letter depicting your longing for her, hoping for a reply. The piece lets you choose a few options when writing the letter, even rewriting it, and when sealing it (whether you personalise it).
It’s very cute and charming, and seeing your feelings erased for tamer words is somewhat heartbreaking. I also liked being able to kiss the envelope
One True Love is a short fairy-tale Twine game, where you have just one little task to complete the story: after defeating your evil stepmother and rescuing the land, it is time for you to break the curse of your one true love. Turned into a frog, you will need to find the correct amphibian and kiss it before it’s too late !
The prose is pretty humorous, overall, poking fun at those fairly-tale tropes (the curses and the trials and such). This was a fun short time, trying to go through all the different options, kissing all the different frogs. There are, I think, 3 endings to find: kissing the right frog, kissing the wrong frog, and giving up because who’s got time for that! But, be warned: the correct frog is never the same…
Because this was also a SeedComp! entry, and I’m putting off reviewing them until the competition is over (to be fair).
So here’s a mini one that will tell you nothing about it. The longer version is queued on the IFDB, and will be released after the voting period of the SeddComp! ends.
Forward is a personal piece made in Twine about life. I liked it.
The Spin-Off is a short visual novel about six friends partying in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, looking for a game to play to pass the time. Thing is: all of them have some sort of history or tension with each other. So what better way to break the ice (or confess your feelings) than playing some sort of Spin-the-bottle with Inprov…
This game is also some sort of a prequel of You’re Next a slasher/horror adventure, which it references at the start as a creepypasta story (and also at the end). This seem to have influenced the aesthetic of the VN, with the darker colour palette, the funky not-very-straight typing font, and the obvious horror trope setting. Still, this is not a gloomy and scary story, but more of a comical one, with everything you’d expect from a party with close friends: drinks, awkward conversations about who still has crushes on whom, and weird games where the goal is to kiss everyone in the room!
It was fun… and I did manage to kiss everyone first
If I wasn’t a chicken, I’d play the main game to see what happens next…
(which was also submitted to the Queer Vamp Jam, and was the author’s first attempt with Twine (and maybe IF?))
[ MAKE ME. ] is a short Twine demo about a supernatural present where vampires walk among us (-ish, most of the world doesn’t know), looking at how you managed to get embroiled in this situation. Are you a vampire yourself? Or a vampire hunter? or simply just a human? How did you get to learn about their existence? And where will you go from there?
The demo… doesn’t really answer any of those. As of now, you have some sort of an introduction to how you get acquainted with the night-walkers (mainly by chance) a year prior to the current story, and a small glimpse of what your present is like as a vampire/hunter/pleb. Though notes throughout the game does promise a future update where everything is explained. I liked that as a hunter you have a cabinet full of vampire-deterrent items that you can just pick up, including rice?
From what there is, the writing wants to be playful and light-hearted, even in between mentions of corpses or deaths. If further updates follow this trend, I think we’d see more of an absurd supernatural story and your run-of-the-mill horror vampire tale. I’m intrigued to see where this could go…
Before ending this thread, final mention for Bordellos & Basilisks by Amabet Kinksey, which is an adult physical interactive multiplayer game, which is supposed to include LARPing in the gameplay.
And also Teatime with a Vampire, by me (obviously). Because it’s neat, and also has a vampire, and some smooches (if you manage to get to the end…). But it’s also a bit weird…
~
So… the Smooch Jam!
An eclectic bunch of games, going from very dark and depressing to super light-hearted and sweet (not really an in-between). Some had obvious smooches, some required work to be put into it, some focused on relationships with others and themselves. Truly the anti-thesis and sister of the Anti-Romance Jam.
It was neat to see so many different interpretation of the theme !
