The quest to make a new top 10 favorite games list

Playing IF Reviews and Essays
21

Three more games on the replay list. All of them are heavily weighted towards one facet of IF while intentionally minimizing others.

My Pseudo-Dementia Exhibition , Naomi Norbez (call me Bez, he/they)
In my mind, Norbez is one of the top experts at Interactive Non-fiction, with a long history of self-reflective essays, dating back at least to Queer in Public.

This game is an interactive personal museum with hand-drawn (or what looks like hand-drawn) maps and background music. Using normal twine choices on one side of the screen, you navigate to different exhibits with contain photos of Bez’s time in different mental institutions.

I was in contact with Bez during parts of these events, and so part it reflects my real life experiences. There’s a real compelling authenticity glancing into someone’s life.

Part of that is why I think I should take it out of this list-making proces. I don’t think someone’s life story should be reduced to a ranking or competition. It can be evaluated on its merits as a work of writing and interactivity, sure (and there it’s creative and full of strong feelings), but I don’t want to end up with the equivalent of ‘wow, this person’s personal trauma is my favorite!’. So maybe if I do a list of meaningful/“me-affecting” games I’d put this on there, but for the final stages here I’ll leave it out.

The Fire Tower , Jacqueline A. Lott
This was an early IF Art Show game. The concept of the IF art show was to have things like ‘landscapes’ and ‘portraits’ translated into interactive fiction. Galatea is the most notable IF Art Show game (a portrait) but I also remember one about a guitar.

This one is just a lowkey chill walk through the mountains. Replaying it, I had difficulty at first remembering why I liked it so much, as it had a lot of proper nouns and descriptions, with little interactivity.

Then I started poking around more. I was surprised at how well implemented ‘I’ was, down to the game letting me get trail mix out of my hip bag that I had just discovered but talking but how hard it was to get out while wearing it. Ambient events like a high sun or butterflies flying by added charm and variety. The game tracks where you’ve been and which direction you go on trails, and there’s a clear love for nature here. I didn’t experience this, but Club Floyd mentioned someone coming to find you if you’re late.

Overall very charming, a sweet, relaxing game. I have a bias in general towards more fantasy and scifi, so I may or may not include this one in the next reduction, but it’s a strong game.

ASCII and the Argonauts , J. Robinson Wheeler

This is the opposite of the earlier two. Highly fictional, almost no text. A Scott Adams-style game stripped to its essentials. No room descriptions at all, no conversation.

It’s fine to see an adventure so minimalized. It could be less; Aaron Reed’s game “> by @” has code that fits into an old-school tweet.

Despite its minimality, this game is hard. I did not have a full memory of it. I had to head to a walkthrough a couple of times. There’s a lot of neat parts (there were three puzzles/concerns I’d had for a while that were all resolved by one trick which I thought was really clever).

Very fun game, love its mechanics. I’ll be honest, though, I think I’m biased towards longer works since they can have so many elements to love. Probably won’t go through to next round.

4 Likes
22

Three more of the ‘uncertain’ list.

You Will Select a Decision, Brendan Patrick Hennessy
Replaying this, this is deeply funny. Everything is packed with humor and silly little changes at the last second to defy expectations.

The game consists of 2 CYOA stories (of the ‘turn to page 34’ style, but with hyperlinks). They’re written in a pseudo-Soviet style kind of dialogue. One of the stories is about a child lost in the woods, which is kind of represented as a traditional European story (with a candy witch in some branches). The other is about an American Cowboy, designed to simultaneously play up the american side but misinterpreted through the presumed Soviet viewpoint.

For example:

A cow farmer hat is good protection from the almighty sun goddess. You surround yourself with its shade and feel cooler in an instant. Find the provided character trait sheet at the inside back of this book and put a check mark inside the box marked “Low Temperature.”

Suddenly your expert cow eye (used to rapidly count cows for your cow farming duties, and to locate truant cows, and to locate danger from natural cow predatures aproaching,) spots some movement behind a rock formations. Did someone out there see the glint of your hat go up?

Replaying this, this is still just as funny as I remember, and I’m definitely glad I kept it up at such a high ranking on my list. But, it doesn’t have as much heart as some of the other games I really like. I mostly admire it academically. It’s fun to play still, though.

You are Standing at a Crossroads, Astrid Dalmady
This is a game that, if people were following along and critically analyzing my decisions, would be controversial. I only rated it 4 stars myself.

But it deeply appeals to me. I’ve mentioned before that this is the game that made me like Twine games. It is very simple; you are at a crossroads and must go in all 4 directions multiple times until you’re done.

I just like the ritualistic, rhythmic feel of it. It was actually better than I remembered when I played it, which is a good sign for a ‘favorite’ game. It might not make top 10 but definitely top 25. The feeling it gives, a kind of dread or unease that can easily be adapted to multiple situations, is nice and solid. That made me think that I hadn’t seen the author come up recently; I just looked her up and she’s a full time board game designer for Moose Toys, which seems like a great use of her talents.

The Warbler’s Nest, Jason McIntosh
This is a creepy medieval psychological horror/dread game where you find yourself carrying out a dreadful task. The truth of what you’re doing is slowly spooled out.

I remember being really creeped out by this when I first played it in 2015. I thought the writing and story were masterfully done. It made me admire the craft of Jason, who was the IFComp runner at the time and helped rebuild its popularity, integrated the burgeoning choice community and revamped the website.

The story and writing were as good as I remembered, and there were a few things I didn’t understand back then that I do now. Somehow, though, some of the game interactions were more frustrating this time. I thought I knew what I was doing, and set off on a goal, but it ended up being worse than if I had just given up early on. So I felt some frustration.

Overall, a fantastic game, but I just didn’t feel it for the final list.

I’m planning on replaying every game in my top 50 at some point, but I might not replay all of them before I narrow down my top 25. Once I have enough 'no’s from the top 50, the top 25 will be formed.

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23

I feel like this one isn’t as popular as it should be. It’s so funny and extremely well done, and apart from this list Hennessy seems to not get credit for that…

I used this game to get one of my friends into IF. A strange strating point for sure, lol.

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24

I was thinking about that a bit. One reason I was really excited to see Birdland entered in 2015 IFComp was that I had read all of BP Hennessy’s games before that and was so excited to see his ‘return’ (since he had published them all in 2013).

Birdland contains all of the absurd humor of You Will Select a Decision, combined with the offbeat humor of Bell Park, Youth Detective. The bird dreams really get that absurdness well, with the cowboy dream. And I think his later work continued to do a good job of marrying the absurd with the meaningful.

So I think the later games were higher quality. But! That doesn’t mean I don’t like You Will Select A Decision. It’s my favorite of his games (because in this thread ‘favorite’ == ‘quality’). But I think he just overshadowed himself.

Maybe we should nominate this game the next time there’s a ‘let’s play lots of games’ competition.

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25

I saved these two as the last ones and as being very strong in my mind.

Fair by Hanon Ondricek
I copied this game in Absence of Law, in the final presentation scene.

This is a busy, chaotic game. You’re a sci-fi author trying to sell books at a science fair while also judging booths. I ran out of time to see everything and missed some timed events in my first run, but in my second I speed-ran things.

It was partly inspired (according to the postmortem) by wanting to make a smooth game that everyone will see the end of and by commenting on the difficult process of judging things.

During the fair, there are 5 exhibits. You can talk to the people at them (sometimes more than one). At the end, you stand up and pick who’s in 5th, 4th, 3rd place, etc., and how much you smile or wave, and so on. Everyone reacts differently depending on whether they place first or not.

There’s definitely some depth and nuance here. There’s one brilliant girl who’s done an amazing project teaching a mouse spanish and english. You’d think she’d be devastated not to win, but she’s actually just happy to leave no matter what.

Another girl has a climate-change denial presentation funded by her father, a senator who bribes you with $10000 (if you unlock his cutscene). She herself is just fine with not winning.

There’s a boy who’s project was seeing what kind of physical torment hurts his brothers the most. His winning scene is actually really cute.

There’s a humble young lad who’s experiment is praying for plants to grow bigger, and showing which plants worked best.

There’s a cheerleader with an especially vapid project (seeing what scents make boys want to date her), but it turns out she just had to rush the project since her single mom has to work, and she’s actually the only one there that’s read your books and likes them.

There’s also some random NPC motion and a book selling minigame.

Overall I had a lot of fun here and there’s a lot of good to emulate. I’m on the border with this one, but at this heavy stage of competition, I think I might leave it behind. Very fun, great game. But at this point, they’re all great games. I’d say this is right at the cutoff though (higher than most the other removed games).

Map by Ade McTavish

I had to pull away and stop playing numerous times because this game was painful to me.

This game is hard to play. It took 2nd place in IFComp, but has had a lot of controversy over the years, with some very low ratings on IFDB (including 1 stars).

It doesn’t encourage you to play it or give you goals, really. There’s a big house that you walk around in, as a woman with depression whose marriage is on the rocks and whose children have abandoned you. Time passes, and some events happen, but your depression keeps you from doing too much.

The game has 8 days, and there’s little to do each day besides check for messages or wait for your husband to come home. Exploring the house on the first day gives big infodumps of memories.

Except the issue is that your house is growing. There are new rooms. Every day, new rooms. No one seems too worried about this.

Each room leads to a memory of the past, deeper and deeper and generally more and more painful. It’s really a lot like Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, a great opera I can recommend about his new wife opening the doors one at a time to add more light and reveal more cruelty until the final doors take a dark turn.

Every memory lets us decide to keep it as-is or change it. Changing it makes the house the next day reflect what happen. A rubber plant, symbolic of our choices, grows if we make chances, representing branching narratives.

The choices are positive at first but as we change more and more of the past we erase entire chunks and people out of our lives. Children disappear, divorce creeps in. You don’t have to make the right choices.

It was the small painful memories that were most painful to me; in fact, the dramatic ones near the end didn’t resonate. When I played this in 2015 I was generally hopeful in my marriage, but the game still touched me; I wonder if it made me feel good that other people had feelings like mine.

Now, 11 years later, divorced, it’s painful because many of the key moments happened to me. Miscarriage, jealousy, making decisions that looking back on you should never have made, etc.

There are a lot more endings than I had though, although I think they are in 2 main categories (making all changes vs anything else, or maybe making the last choice vs anything else). No complete transcript of this game is posted on IFDB, and no one has made a complete walkthrough.

Very touching game. Hard to play. Not ‘refreshing’, but I might keep it.

That’s the end of the ‘can’t remembers’. So now I can either trim down games I do remember till I get 25, or play through games to be sure. I’ll probably play through. I don’t know if maybe I should play some for sure favorites just so I have the contrast, or start with the ones I’m most hesitant on. I’ll figure something out!

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26

Oh, I definitely agree. It isn’t his best, but it’s still cool to see it in this list!

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27

I actually recently played this after re-reading a lot of stuff about old SA games. It is HARD! I think minimalism gives a sort of visage you can’t do much, but there’s actaully a lot of movement.

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28

I decided to start by going through some of the commercial games.

Open Sorcery is one game I haven’t played in over a decade. I remember seeing it positively, but there were several games on this list that just didn’t hold up over time.

Not this one! In fact, I enjoyed it a lot.

If you look back through this thread, some common threads are that I like detective/mystery games, multiple worlds, heartfelt scenes, bizarre/quirky humor, sci-fi, fantasy, ritualistic games, self-reflective etc.

This game is about a sentient firewall named BEL/s. You’re a combination of magic and C++.

Gameplay revolves around scanning each of four distinct locations to find magical-computerish threats. You can’t see them at first but must find them. To do so, you have to, from context clues, identify their ‘matter’ (fire, earth, dark, light, etc.) and their motive (love, order, chaos, etc.). This kind of quadratic clue matching is something I’ve done myself and have enjoyed other games that have done it (like erstwhile).

In doing this, you learn about being human/being alive. At night, you try to dream. During the day, you figure out why humans leak water from their eyes, or why a person in a retirement home looks lonely. You can help other programs gain sentience as well.

There is a rhythmic structure. A day occurs, you scan all 4 spots, one has a problem, you sleep, you dream, you repeat.

The ending is tense and dramatic. One of the best ways to instill emotion in a game or story is to establish what is ‘normal’ and then break that normality, and this game does that well.

There are some timed sections, but this can be changed in settings.

Visually the game looks great, using color highlighting and varied text position, as well as cool screen color changes in emergencies or when dreaming. One portion involving a camera is visually appealing as well.

There are multiple endings and a lot of different achievements to get. Overall playtime is a couple of hours.

I like a lot of the things here. I’ll definitely be keeping this in the top 25. I haven’t played the sequel, but I did play Murder in Fairyland which is part of it, and I remember that being really tricky. I do want to get it one day.

I’m glad it’s not just me, I got stuck several times!

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29

Tower Behind the Moon

This is probably the least popular of my favorite commercial games, but is by Kyle Marquis, who has some of the bestselling games.

This one places you as an archmage with incredible power ready to become a god, like a level 20 mage in DnD. You have a high-level warrior/paladin that works under you, an apprentice, a monster that you pieced together, an angel set to watch over or destroy you, and a bard who is just there (and gets away with everything).

Together, you plan your ascension while also dealing with conflict.

I like this game because you rarely get to play at this high end of the power scale. It also has 5 different ‘skins’ you can play through: diviner, summoner, necromancer, vitalist, and alchemist. I call them ‘skins’ because
a) you lock them in once at the beginning, and
b) they don’t change anything mechanically. I’ve done necromancer and I think summoner before. This time I was a diviner, but it didn’t give me any kind of advantages when it came to knowledge, it just changed my spells from ‘dark energy’ to ‘prophetic energy’ (which is still cool; thousands of words are spent just on the prophecy changes alone, so a lot of thought went into it.)

But, Choice of Magics lets your magic type actually affect the story, and, I have to admit, while I really enjoyed replaying and feel it deserves it’s top 50 spot, I thought about Night Road during it and thought, ‘Man, I can’t wait to play night road’. I think that alone knocks it out of the top 25.

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30

Choice of Magics

The day I played Tower Behind the moon, I had been writing a choicescript game all day, playing the Tower game, and also playing Hosted Games for my ongoing project of reviewing every Hosted game.

I thought of playing Choice of Magics next. “Won’t I be burnt out?” I thought. But then I realized it was a great test. One of my criteria is that a favorite game should be ‘refreshing’, so if it wasn’t relaxing, it wouldn’t be fun.

I played it, and it was great! I did peek at the code a bit.

This game is about a youth who finds tomes of magic buried underground after magic has been banned for millenia. The tone is definitely youthful and adventurous; I’d say it’s like YA, but YA can be kind of dark these days, so maybe like older YA like the Oz books. You can blast people into dust a lot, there is very infrequent strong profanity and some ‘cut to black’ intimate scenes, if you play that way.

The game is primarily fun for me because of its branching. Tower Behind the Moon just has its 5 branches of magic as ‘reskins’ of the same events. This game makes each branch of magic have unique uses throughout the game, unique drawbacks, and a unique final chapter:
-Negation: Destroys things. Leaves black clouds of destruction. Threatens to blow up the planet if overused.
-Glamor: Makes people love you. Makes your body rot. Will kill you, and all saints in the world use this magic.
-Automation: Robots, golems, airships, etc. Makes lightning storms. Threatens to flood the world.
-Vivomancy: The life magic (healing, plants, animals). Creations can go wild. Threatens to have the animals attack the world.
-Divination: Reveals information. Also leaks information about you. Can connect minds together.

I just love this branching style. And the game feels very responsive.

This isn’t completely beloved. It has two features that go against the grain: the first is that set of drawbacks. Your magic will destroy things. That’s a bummer. It goes against the power-fantasy phillosophy. My first playthrough I think I blew up the world.

Also, the game treats humor, empathy and optimism as magic. So if you play as a grumpy or unhappy character, you lose a lot of options (although, I just checked and that’s only for certain routes.) But in any case, this goes against a little bit CoG’s ‘any path at all is good’.

I do like the different endings. I’ve had the divination ending, the glamor ending, and in my recent playthrough, the automation ending. I’ve married the shapeshifter before. This time, with help from code peeking, I was dating the queen, but I forgot I was also dating the shapeshifter, and the two of them had dinner with me that was very awkward.

I’ll keep this in top 25.

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31

Sorcery 3

I had very fond recollections of this game.

Playing it, I was struck by the visual appeal. It’s an Inkle studios game based on an old gamebook that had gorgeous art which is now adapted into cool cutouts and 3d worlds. There are beacons you can shine on the map that change it from past to present, which adds a ‘2 words’ flavor which I always love. There are also a ton of spells you can cast.

Yet, while I really enjoyed replaying, I found myself kind of itching to be done at times. I ended the game with 4 of the 7 serpents dead (the goal of this game is to kill 7 serpents that are hidden in clever ways and each have a different secret technique to beat).

I wondered why I’d feel that way about it. But on reflection, I think it’s because there’s just so much wandering around doing nothing. Dead end locations, backtracking, waiting for an event to trigger (like getting the water serpent to appear).

This extends gameplay time (like the sailing mechanic in Sunless Sea) but makes the game a little more dull, whereas most of the other games on my list are constantly interesting in a story way (and I guess that’s one reason I prefer 90’s and 2000’s+ style text adventures over 80s; many of the 80s ones couldn’t fit a lot of story in, so either used implied storytelling to great effect or omitted it for simple puzzle games in diverse settings, using the setting as a stand-in for story).

So, good game, still fun, on the lower end of the ones I’ve replayed so far despite its many appealing features. Would be really good if you wanted to kill some time.

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32

Heart of the House

This was the one Choicescript game I was most interested in replaying as I wasn’t sure what my reaction would be. I’d say that it holds up very well.

The writing is by far the strongest reason for my liking it, with the mechanics being good enough to not disrupt enjoyment while not being outstanding in and of themselves.

This is a gothic horror with leanings towards weird/cosmic horror at times. You are a spiritual investigator whose uncle has gone missing at a manor. You arrive to investigate and find an interesting lord/lady (depending on your choice) in charge of the manor with an ethereal, bizarre woman who seems to know too much, an elderly man with incredible strength, and a very confused servant who forgets things a lot and is non-binary.

The house is frightening and weird, and this gives a lot of opportunities for mind games, perspective shifts, and lore reveals.

Overall, very solid story. In tone it reminds me a bit of Eidolon, which I once put as the 11th game to my top 10, and which I wonder if I should have included in at least my top 100. In any case, this game is on the fence for me, and I definitely won’t put it in the top 10 simply because it is strongest in one area of the quality category (story), and there are games that are satisfying in more.

But! I can definitely recommend it.

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33

SLAMMED!

Fantastic game. One of the oldest Choicescript games, much shorter than most on my list, there was no way I could remember if it was as good as I thought or if it was just misinformed nostalgia.

It’s a wrestling game where you work your way up from the little leagues to a big match, and you choose to do kayfabe or real stuff, etc. There is a lot of fake drama mixed in with real drama. You can tell the person who made this really loves wrestling and knows a ton about it. There are references to Japanese and mexican wrestling, backroom details, a fake NWO-type group, etc.

I remember it having a really great ending. This time I had a different ending and it was still really great.

This game is a masterclass of two things: big plot twists, and having extremely meaningful and difficult choices.

It does both of these things by building up plotlines to make you act a certain way and then pulling the rug. Often it does this by setting up two different compelling plotlines and putting them at odds against each other.

A shoo-in for the top 25.

Only a few more commercial games left; Hadean Lands, Creme de la Creme, Choice of Robots, Ballyhoo and Night Road. I’ll probably hit the CS games first and then hit up the other two. I’ll admit, I’m pretty sure Ballyhoo will be out the door at this stage, but I remember something about it really resonating with me.

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34

Creme de la Creme

This game was one I was deeply impressed by when I first played it. At the time, it wasn’t 100% what I was interested in (I’m more into genre fiction than slice of life), but I was amazed at the responsiveness, branching, clearly distinct characters, and clubs.

You play as a senior at a finishing school for the wealthy, asked by your parents to repair their good name and to marry someone rich. The school teaches things like sports, etiquette, and courting. There are some major plot twists along the way.

The variety of clubs, while not perhaps the biggest thing people usually talk about with the game, impresses me the most. When I first played, I romanced Delacroix, a witchy student (who, judging from steam achievements, is actually the least popular romance! that’s rough), and their club is a kind of occult thing which gives the game a hint of a gothic flavor. I remember romancing Auguste in the past (the headmistress’s child at another school); this time I became a prefect and married Hartmann, the uptight overachiever. My club was the prefects. There’s also a ‘destroy everything’ club, a sports team, and an academic study group.

The game is fun. And it is a game; I restarted several chapters trying to get things right, because it branches so much and there are so many options that sometimes got into situations I didn’t want. I appreciated the numerous saves.

Despite all this, I can’t say I’ll put it in my top 25. I had a lot of fun, but I have the same feeling I do with games like Savoir-Faire or 80 Days where I deeply admire them but almost view them academically, like an unusual chemical solvent or an important fossil, something to analyze and dissect and learn from more than to relish in. So I would absolutely put it in a ‘50 best games’ list and think it deserves its XYZZY win, but it doesn’t personally resonate with me on a deep level. I think it’s because none of the character points of view felt like ones I could own. I guess I like playing characters that are a little broken inside, like Slammed! with the JJ relationship. There was nothing that could have been added or polished to creme de la creme to make it more of a favorite of mine; at this level of the list-making process, it goes beyond talent and polish and more to personal tastes.

It was, however, fun to play; I was playing this alongside a very, very long Hosted Game that was getting pretty tedious and switching to Creme de la Creme was a delight.

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Choice of Robots

One thing I wondered many times while making this thread is, 'Will I play this game and find out that it’s not as good as I remembered?"

For Choice of Robots, I guess the answer is yes. I still really enjoyed it, but I enjoyed most of the other Choicescript games on the list more.

When I was younger, I absolute loved the Phantom of the Opera recording we had of, I think, the original London cast. I always wondered what was missing, since we only had the big songs and I felt like all of the cut dialogue and narration would explain a lot of the plotholes or missing story. When the movie came out, my sisters and I loved it and they re-enacted the whole thing for home videos. But I wasn’t convinced it was really the original vision of the musical since it changed a bunch of things.

Finally, a few years ago, I found a full recording of the musical on stage. I was so stoked!

And I watched it, and…there was nothing extra. All of the plot was what I had heard as a kid. There was nothing to fill in those gaps in memory.

I had that same experience here. My memory was:

“You’re in a lab making a robot, choosing its features. Your boss comes and can overhear you talking. You have to deal with us government wanting you to go to war. You can work for your friend Josh. A war can happen. You can choose to make medical robots, or conquer Alaska, or make a companion robot. You can make a pickle lightbulb.”

And I replayed it, and that’s pretty much it, a string of interesting scenarios without a lot of connective tissue. It’s less of a plot arc and more of an anthology of related short stories, like an Asimov book.

I still think it’s really fun and enjoy the stat increase announcements and the many small touches, and if I played it for the first time again I think I’d enjoy it a lot, but I’ve been replaying all my very favorite Choice of Games games and I just don’t think it’s gonna make it. Heart of the House and Slammed have such stronger narratives, and Creme de la Creme and Choice of Magics outmatch it in responsiveness and interactivity. Choice of Magics in particular just feels like a straight upgrade for me.

It is interesting playing the game now that AI is so common. The game posits artificial intelligence running on local electricity and on smartphones instead of giant remote data centers. It gets training remarkably right in some ways. In the game, I obviously support the robots and encourage their experiences. In real life, AI doesn’t really have ‘experiences’; instead of being designed with long-term experience and learning, they’re more like mimics, alien creatures designed to look and appear human and repeat human phrases with no deep understanding.

That doesn’t affect my gameplay enjoyment, but it was fun to think about.

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To be fair, the data center phase may well be temporary (which the data center people are presumably aware of, hence the urgency of building them now before the demand dries up).

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That makes a lot of sense.

I was chewing in my mind some of the differences between most sci fi depictions of robots/ai and current LLMs, and I think one of the biggest things is that most of those depict localized individual AIs that all run independently, while LLMs are all hiveminds (except for people who run local models). I wonder if that’s one reason robots in films are more celebrated than LLMs in real life; the most popular robots like Data and R2-D2 have storylines about growth and independence. My biggest cultural touchpoint for hive-mind AI is the Borg. So from a cultural aesthetic approach, that might explain some differences.

(I know you could say, ‘the difference between sci fi and real life is that AI isn’t really thinking/doesn’t have a soul’, but it most of that kind of media the same thing is also true, that the AI isn’t actually thinking and doesn’t have a soul or real consciousness, but somehow persists in existing anyway. You could say ‘AI is taking jobs’ but ‘a mob of humans attacks robots for taking jobs’ is basically the most common sci fi robot trope, including in Choice of Robots. So the large resource uses and the nature of individuality are the biggest differences I see between fiction and fact. But I might change my mind as I learn more).

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38

Night Road

This is the first of my current top 10 I’ve replayed. I kind of wanted to save them for last but I also worried that if I did, recency bias would make me pick them again.

In any case, this was great. Early on, I saw some stronger profanity, and thought, “I dunno, I kicked off a bunch of others for this, I’m not sure it’s worth it.” But there wasn’t that much, and as it went on I was really engrossed in the game.

(for those who haven’t played, you’re a vampire courier for an animal-themed hot vampire prince named Lettow in Tucson arizona and you run dangerous drops and pickups for him. Simultaneously, your techno-geek vampire situationship guy Julian is trying to take over the world and asks for your help. There’s also a goth pawn shop owner woman and a lot of others. You pick different missions, level up, then get more missions (which come in 2 sets of three).

It really nails the TTRPG aspect much better than the other VtM Choicescript games I’ve played (except for the Book of Hungry Names by same author). You basically get short rests/long rests and training periods. There are lots of medium challenges but you end up growing very powerful over the course of the campaign. There are still threats, though; I ended up with 5 hunger while fighting against a really old vampire in the desert and I was stressed out the whole time, desperately waiting to get back home.

I swear I had a bug or two this time (someone wrote me a check for $2000 but I only had like $1800 when I went to the bank; but there are upkeep costs so maybe that’s what that was).

I bought the DLC this time too, the bigger one. Really enjoyed playing as Hecata with Oblivion and using my shadow all the time. I also tried out Blood Sorcery too; I was skeptical at first but ended up enjoying the ‘flavor’. The extra mission was fun, too.

Anyway, it really nails that game feeling. I felt like I had a lot of freedom. Many options had like 10 choices. I full specced into physical skills this time and it really bit me in the butt (I could’nt romance a beautiful woman in a lab) but it was fantastic for things like driving and combat. Every playthrough I’ve had has had that tradeoff, plus being able to use magic in return for hunger points gives even more flexibility.

The story is great too. The finale is always a little less memorable to me then the rest (though it does have an emotional conclusion to the Princes storyline). But I always vividly recall the secret research lab and the wild experiments there, the biodome and its mini-murder mystery, the giant elder in the desert, and the Lampago affair.

The setting and tone are also powerful. There’s just such a big sense of decay. Vampires don’t have death to fear, but these vampires live as everything familiar and normal to them is stripped away one at a time by the effects of their own hubris. An eternal torment of being on the run and always thinking you’re close to power but never achieving it. Great themes. The setting in SW usa is great at night since those endless deserts are really freaky, so the parts where someone’s behind you on the freeway and you’re all alone and you don’t know if they’re following you or not really resonates.

Characters are solid. I would have liked maybe some gender-flip options; a woman Prince would have been cool. But what we have is characterized well with complex motivations.

There are parts that are somewhat irritating. Like many, I’d like to be able to tell off Sim from the beginning. But it makes sense that we are tied together due to our past actions.

Overall, I see this staying the top 10, but we shall see. Last up is Creatures Such as We, another top 10 but from an earlier time.

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Creatures Such as We

I’m really torn on this one.

This is currently 7th on my top 10 list.

The idea is that it’s a very stats-light game. There’s not even a stats screen; I wonder if they had to custom code-it to make it not appear.

Pretty much all that’s tracked is which of the romanceable characters you spend more time with.

You’re on the moon in the future, and you are a tour guide. You play games a lot. There’s on game you like called Creatures Such as We that has zombies and ghosts in it. The ending of the game kind of sucks; it’s a downer ending.

Your next wave of tourists turns out to be the devs of the game! The artist, writer, tech lead, etc. all come to the moon and spend time with you.

Whichever one you decide to spend time with, you get some philosophical conversation. There are some tricks to cut down on coding; some conversations are the exact same for every RO. Sometimes there are groups of 2 or 3 that you talk with as well.

The game doesn’t shy away from acknowledging such limitations. One big point in-game is that you and others complain about the game the company made. Limited gender and romance choices, for instance (I was deeply amused to see a negative Steam review that blasted the game for forcing you to choose whether you like men or women; it was part of the game within the game and was meant to show how limited the game is). Another example is that replaying the game-in-the-game in different ways doesn’t change the ending.

The first time I played, in September 2015 (just 4 months after I started reviewing and before my first IFComp), I was stunned by the game. Choice-based games that were popular on IFDB at that time were essentially just Porpentine, early BP Hennessy, My Father’s Long Long Legs, and Horse Master. Lots of guts, gore, crystals, mixed with Brendan’s humor. So Creatures Such as We stood out as very different, with its ROs and philosophical nature and lack of deaths.

It doesn’t completely hold up, 11 years later. I noticed a lot of little typos and grammatical errors. There was inconsistency in choices being in quotations or not. I got mad at one philosophical argument and talked myself out of it. I replayed it 3 times in a row.

It has a feature in the fake-game where you can make any ending you want using generative processes (essentialy AI endings). There’s a feature in the real game where you can change the game to have whatever ending you want (both of these are commentaries on whether art is in the viewer or the artist and the role of interpretation, which are major themes in the game). Another reviewer on Steam said they didn’t like the happy ending because it didn’t seem realistic; I really hope these reviewers are just pretending to not understand what’s going on.

Anyway, my feelings for it aren’t the same but it still makes me think a lot and I have good memories of it (similar to the radiohead albums I listened to for 2 years straight after my divorce, like I brought up on discord recently. They felt like an emotional catharsis and listening now later I enjoy it but don’t get hooked).

I don’t think this’ll end up in my top 10 any more. Not that I have a better philosophical game to replace it with. Map is more up my alley now with its sad divorce representation rather than Creatures Such as We which appealed to me as a young father trying to find validation and happiness through games since my career was failing. I think also I’ve spent a lot more time considering the fundamental questions in the game than I had back then, so instead of being introduced to something new and wondrous it felt like something familiar and satisfying.

I might still include this high up, I think I just need time to marinate on it. The writing is good. It’s easy to play, fun to think about. Just don’t know.

Interestingly, I was trying to see when I started putting it on my favorites list, and it was right away, so I’m not sure how many times I’ve revisited this game in the last 11 years. I’m sure I must have replayed it at least once.

Here are my old top games lists (I found one from 2016 on IFarchive and one from the very very early days in 2015 when I had only reviewed 203 games).

2016 Favorite games list

I had a ‘favorite games’ list before, then I deleted it because I thought it wasn’t helpful and because it changed a lot.

But I though it could be useful for people to see what kind of games I like the most when they’re trying to figure out why I rated something higher or lower than expected. I made this list by going through my 5 star games, and picking the half of those I liked best, then doing that again and again until I got down to this list. This is a completely subjective list.

Add a comment

1. Curses!
by Graham Nelson
(1993)
Average member rating: (91 ratings)

MathBrush says:

This is the game that defines interactive fiction for me. I never get tired of it. I love the quotes, the atmosphere, the pacing. It was one of the first games I played.

In a sense, it defined interactive fiction for many other people, too, because all inform games are based on its ‘shell’, so to speak; all of the standard Inform responses come from this game.

2. Anchorhead
by Michael Gentry
(1998)
Average member rating: (258 ratings)

MathBrush says:

This is another game I played early on, and I loved it then. When I came back to interactive fiction 5 years later, it was because I played this game on parchment and was captivated all over again.

3. Endless, Nameless
by Adam Cadre
(2012)
Average member rating: (31 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A long game with two worlds. I enjoyed the ‘meta’ aspect of this game, and its commentary on interactive fiction in general. Both parts of the game are well done, and the ending sequence is exciting.

4. Theatre, by Brendon Wyber (1995)
Average member rating: (62 ratings)
MathBrush says:

I just could not stop playing this game, set in an abandoned theatre. Very well done and polished, although the ending is a bit rushed. I loved the diary notes and the large amount of ‘real life story’ in the menus.

5. Hana Feels
by Gavin Inglis
(2015)
Average member rating: (31 ratings)

MathBrush says:

This game was sponsored by the government. It’s about cutting/self-harm, and it was just really well done. Nice graphics.

6. Hunter, in Darkness, by Andrew Plotkin (1999)
Average member rating: (99 ratings)
MathBrush says:

This game is very atmospheric and well-paced. A dark cave, an intense atmosphere. It’s hard to do a ‘thriller’ in IF, but this does it.

7. my father’s long, long legs
by michael lutz
(2013)
Average member rating: (61 ratings)

MathBrush says:

I’m a fan of creepypasta, and this is top-notch creepypasta. Very effective use of color, typography, and special effects.

8. Adventure
by William Crowther and Donald Woods
(1976)
Average member rating: (70 ratings)

MathBrush says:

I played this game years after I started interactive fiction, and it was much better than I expected. It’s not a game to rush through; it was designed to occupy your attention for a long time. I knew the solution to a lot of puzzles from references in other IF games. I wrote a big list of all the room, what they connected to, and what was in them. The end game was very creative. I played the inform version and cheated by putting everything in the birdcage.

9. Babel
by Ian Finley
(1997)
Average member rating: (113 ratings)

MathBrush says:

Flashbacks, amnesia done right. Waking up on a cold metal floor in a hospital gown with no idea where you are.

10. Worlds Apart
by Suzanne Britton
(1999)
Average member rating: (68 ratings)

MathBrush says:

This is basically an Anne McAffrey novel with interactivity, and I love Anne McAffrey. Huge but not difficult game; using hints doesn’t ruin it because the puzzles aren’t the point. Real world, many dream worlds, nice three act structure.

11. To Hell in a Hamper
by J. J. Guest
(2003)
Average member rating: (73 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A shortish, funny funny game. You’re in a balloon headed to a volcano, and you have a hoarder friend who won’t throw stuff away.

12. Spellbreaker
by Dave Lebling
(1985)
Average member rating: (38 ratings)

MathBrush says:

Infocom’s biggest game and the finale of the excellent Zork sextet. Brilliant puzzles and setting.

13. Creatures Such As We
by Lynnea Glasser
(2014)
Average member rating: (50 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A choice script game set on the moon, about loneliness and escapism.

14. Losing Your Grip
by Stephen Granade
(1998)
Average member rating: (17 ratings)

MathBrush says:

This game has some of the most enduring imagery of any game I’ve played, from the very first scene to the last.

15. Ballyhoo
by Jeff O’Neill
(1985)
Average member rating: (29 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A mystery set in a dark and sad circus. All the characters are complex and interesting, and your character’s development is handled well.

16. One Eye Open
by Caelyn Sandel (as Colin Sandel) and Carolyn VanEseltine
(2010)
Average member rating: (32 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A very gory and bloody game, but not voyeuristic; like a text version of walking dead mixed with creepypasta.

17. Fate
by Victor Gijsbers
(2007)
Average member rating: (37 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A dark game about making choices to try and save your child. Meant to be replayed many times.

18. Cape
by Bruno Dias
(2015)
Average member rating: (26 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A raconteur/undum game where you are a gritty superhero against your will.

19. Eurydice
by Anonymous
(2012)
Average member rating: (29 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A haunting and poetic journey to the underlife. Short game.

20. Hadean Lands
by Andrew Plotkin
(2014)
Average member rating: (26 ratings)

MathBrush says:

One of the best puzzle games of all time. Alchemy and science fiction, tons of great organizing commands, and creative writing and storytelling.

21. Sorcery! 3, by Steve Jackson and inkle (2015)
Average member rating: (3 ratings)
MathBrush says:

I am a DnD nut. This game and its predecessors feel just like playing DnD with a one on one with a good dungeon master.

22. Fingertips: Leave Me Alone, by Kevin Jackson-Mead (2012)
Average member rating: (8 ratings)
MathBrush says:

A one-move game about getting away.

23. Open Sorcery
by Abigail Corfman
(2016)
Average member rating: (16 ratings)

MathBrush says:

You are an elemental spirit of fire that is also a firewall, protecting a magical-computer network.

24. Plundered Hearts
by Amy Briggs
(1987)
Average member rating: (46 ratings)

MathBrush says:

Perhaps infocoms best story and best pacing. A romance novel with a pirate setting.

2015 favorites list

Add a comment

1. Curses!
by Graham Nelson
(1993)
Average member rating: (81 ratings)

MathBrush says:

This is one of the very first games I played back in 2010. It sucked me in, and I couldn’t believe how large it was and how rich the world was. I have played it through at least 4 times since then. I always need a walkthrough, but this game defined the genre for me.

2. Spellbreaker
by Dave Lebling
(1985)
Average member rating: (34 ratings)

MathBrush says:

I only recently played this Inform game on the iPad, but I can’t get it out of my mind. I’ve told my son the plotline, and he thinks it’s one of the best stories ever. So complicated and rich, this was one of the inspirations for Curses!, and honestly this game may be even better. I love the final cubes, and the opening. Incredible game.

3. Adventure
by William Crowther and Donald Woods
(1976)
Average member rating: (63 ratings)

MathBrush says:

The 350 pt. edition is my favorite. This is the original game that inspired the genre, and to me, it has lost none of its appeal. What a fun game to play; to me, much of its charm comes from its real-life inspiration mixed with magic. I loved the volcano room, and figuring out what’s going on with the shadowy figure. I played this one after Zork, and somehow I liked it better.

4. Anchorhead
by Michael Gentry
(1998)
Average member rating: (233 ratings)

MathBrush says:

It is almost cliche to like Anchorhead, but I can’t help it. Another game that I got started on early, I have played it 3 or more times. Remembering how fun this was is what brought me back to IF. A lovecraftian horror story in New England.

5. Theatre, by Brendon Wyber (1995)
Average member rating: (57 ratings)
MathBrush says:

I couldn’t stop playing this game. For two or three days, I just kept thinking about it and wanted to keep playing. It was rough about the edges, but the journal pages and the fun puzzles kept me really absorbed. Very memorable.

6. To Hell in a Hamper
by J. J. Guest
(2003)
Average member rating: (69 ratings)

MathBrush says:

I could’t stop laughing as I played this game. Converted me to TADS games. Just thinking about it now gets me chuckling. Hot air balloon over a volcano.

7. Worlds Apart
by Suzanne Britton
(1999)
Average member rating: (61 ratings)

MathBrush says:

I’m a big sci-fi novel and TV fan. This game is one of the best science fiction stories out there, and is huge, about the size of an Anne McCaffrey book. So engrossing…

8. Babel
by Ian Finley
(1997)
Average member rating: (103 ratings)

MathBrush says:

The opening is now cliche, but the original does it the best (although it probably ripped something else off, but hey, that’s how writing works). You wake up on the floor in a freezing underground lab wearing a hospital gown with no memories of who you are or how you got there. Even my family who doesn’t play IF thought this was intriguing.

9. Creatures Such As We
by Lynnea Glasser
(2014)
Average member rating: (30 ratings)

MathBrush says:

A recent game, and a choice game. I think great IF is produced all of the time, and that choice games can be great. This game is proof of both. It suckerpunched me; I get really into games, and think about their endings, and have worked as a professional game maker, and the discussions about art, meaning, the creator and the viewer were done so well, as well as sympathizing with being wrapped up in a great game. I used to watch dozens of operas, and this reminded me of Capriccio by Strauss, one of the last great composers of Opera’s golden years. That opera discussed the relative virtue of the lyrics and the music, and the meaning of art as well. This game is better than that opera; please play it!

10. Endless, Nameless
by Adam Cadre
(2012)
Average member rating: (23 ratings)

MathBrush says:

I love games with multiple viewpoints. The meta-discussion of gamers always gets me, too, just like Glasser’s game. This game will also always remain in my memory for one of the easter eggs at the end.

11. Eidolon, by A.D. Jansen (2014)
Average member rating: (15 ratings)
MathBrush says:

Honourable mention: Eidolon has incredible imagery for me. I played through it three times, late, over three nights, because I kept losing the game partway through due to lack of a save feature. The throne room and what all goes on in it painted such a vivid picture in my mind. I don’t know if others will have the same experience, but everything gelled for me at once to rock my world.

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That was my experience as well. I love the game, but I found the finale a bit of a letdown compared to all the missions before it.

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