There’s a great crop of games this week with a lot of variety.
For a Change
This was one of the first IF games I played and is a real change of pace from most IF. Like a milder version of The Gostak, this game is written with strange language which can make comprehending what’s going on a little tough. Unlike the Gostak, it’s not really necessary to figure out the language usage to progress.
Here’s an example of the text:
Under the High Wall (on the resting)
Sweetness fills the shade of the High Wall to your east. Under this sweetness lies a small expanse of fod. A mobile releases mildly to the west; far in that direction a tower proudly plants itself, while the ground rises more slowly to the south and relaxes to the north.Spread on the resting is a guidebook.
Sleep gradually departs from your eyes. A small stone has been insinuated into your hand.
>
The world here works on magical principles and is filled with bizarre changes in physics and biology. It’s not a very long parser game and the map is pretty small, and its fortunately pretty polished, so you can get through much of it without hints.
The Legend of Horse Girl
Bitter Karella is a longtime IF writer with a great talent for writing (he’s the author of Midnight Pals, a popular series of imagined conversations between horror writers). He’s made several IF games over the years with settings that are both funny and gritty, and Legend of Horse Girl is a particularly good one.
It’s a fun western adventure where you go up against a corrupt judge. The game is full of gags. I’ll quote from Mike Russo’s review:
My notes file is filled up with little copy-and-pasted bon mots, from the way you go up against twin baddies, Butch McCreedy and his sibling Femme McCreedy, to the snake-oil salesman’s patter noting that his product is sovereign against ills including “juggler’s despair”, to the just-slipped-in-there detail that the bartender is “a tall slender woman with hands like enormous spiders.”
The implementation is pretty solid but has some rough edges here and there; fortunately, David Welbourn has a walkthrough if you get stuck.
A Change in the Weather
In this game, you play as a young adult who wanders away from an event to explore nature. A rainstorm happens, and you have to navigate this treacherous environment to keep yourself safe as well as everything else around you.
This game is one of a few that solidified Andrew Plotkin’s early dominance in interactive fiction (he had already released System’s Twilight, a graphical puzzle game, in the previous year and the next year would see So Far released, the first XYZZY winner).
This game was the first winner of the (Inform 7 division of the) first IFComp, in 1995, and, in my opinion, helped solidify and popularize ‘story-first’ IF that only used puzzles when they helped the narrative. The puzzles here are very hard (it’s probably the hardest IFComp winner) but all are related to the story. It’s also very polished, but has tightly timed sequences at the end.
Yes, Another Game with a Dragon!
This 2000 game was a counter-culture reaction to the prevailing trend of favoring literary, serious games (like A Change in the Weather!) and moving away from Zorkian goofy fantasy games. It deliberately reaches into the past, with a dragon (of course), Zork-style combinations of science and magic, goofy references, and a kind of light male-gaze view of sexuality. It’s meant to resemble the games of a bygone era (i.e. the 80s).
This makes it one of those period pieces that’s now closer to thing its referencing, which makes me think of this XKCD article:
Gameplay consists of using different machines and objects, notably including four ‘essence spheres’ that you can throw at things to change them.
The game has been noted for its writing style. The intro includes this:
A few deep breaths later, your head clears enough to look up once more. Past the mound of your flabby middle you see a face - the toothless wizened face of Old Thom. He prods you with his stick. “Git up, ye great fut slug!” he crows, “Th’ King’s t’ make a programation.” He gives you a parting jab and hobbles off with the passing crowd as you struggle to your feet.
and Rovarsson noted this phrase:
“The oily swamp farts wetly.”
The game is polished and also has a really cool ASCII opening animation of a dragon (once you get past the prelude).
The Bible Retold: Following a Star
Religious games are a pretty small contingent of IF (excluding mythology, which is a pretty big contingent). They can include poorly made games catering to the faithful (like my Book of Mormon Adventures) or serious polished games that question the underpinnings of the faith (like According to Cain) or small, respectful and polished games like Cana According to Micah.
This game, one of three Bible Retold games, has been described as a ‘slapstick comedy’. You are one of the wise men, and your goal is to go visit the newly born Messiah. You have to do things like calculate with an astrolabe and get money from a market. There are a lot of sidequests as well.
Augmented Fourth
This is probably the best-regarded parser game I know of that gets no discussion. It’s in the top 20 Inform 6 games of all time, and in the top 30 of all games not entered into IFComp or Spring Thing.
It’s a very polished game with an absurdist fantasy kind of humor. You’re an awful trumpet player who gets thrown into a literal Orchestra Pit that takes you several minutes to hit the bottom of. From there, you explore a strange community where you can learn to do magic through the power of different songs.
Has a lot of different funny parts. Another game from the 2000s, and similar in some ways to Yes, Another Game with a Dragon!
Eidolon
This game was in my top 10 of all time for a while, and I still consider it my 11th. Although now it’s been so long since I played that I’ve forgotten much of it!
I’ll write what I remember, then look up the rest. I remember it being a moody nighttime game where a young girl ends up transported to a realm of shadows and you have to explore. It’s also fairly long for a Twine game without any chapter or similar divisions.
Now, I’ll look it up. (I immediately note that I gave it only 4 stars and wrote a review before finishing, which is annoying to present-time me). Upon replaying the opening, I’m struck by how fun the writing is. I like the line:
In the mirror there’s an apparition that moves whenever you move—but it couldn’t possibly be you. You are solid: You have skin and bones and there is blood rushing in your veins. The thing in the mirror is barely there, a loose bundle of shadow stitched ineptly with spider silk. You don’t like looking at it, or it looking at you with its nothings for eyes
The game uses a world model effectively, having different locations to explore and things to mess around with. It could use a save feature (so make sure you have some time set apart to play).
This is one I’ll definitely replay when it comes up in the bracket, and write a new review for.
CC’s Road to Stardom
This game is one of the newest in the whole playoffs, from 2022. It also has some of the best graphics:
It’s a cute Adventuron game that is kid-friendly. You’re basically a cute animal and you wander around a ship, hanging out with your other cute animal friends, and solving logic and language type puzzles in your quest to became a social media star. Probably one of the most ‘feel-good’ games in the playoffs.