Unexpected Coincidences of IFComp 2026

We know we’re going to find them – we do every year!

I’ve already started to see a few. Which ones have you found?

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Both Bob the Barbarian and Galilee Bones and the Juggernaut of Jordan feature scenes in the desert and large gemstones.

EDIT: Also, both feature a puzzle in which the PC must get a key object past a sentinel by letting it out of inventory to be recovered later.

EDIT 2: And come to think of it, both feature a puzzle involving torches.

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In both Ḫattušumna Laḫḫa and Tableaux Vivants you can treat a dog with affection, and both have titles in non-English languages.

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Both Galilee Bones and the Juggernaut of Jordan and Live and Get Pie have very quick possible endings where you jump out of a plane, then land and get shot by the bad guys

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Only looking superficially at the titles:

The Two Seasons and A Triangle for Two both associate the number two with, well, something not associated with two. (Four seasons, three vertices of a triangle.)

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There appear to be a lot of dead bodies in this year’s games. Forensic Necromancy, Galilee Bones and the Juggernaut of Jordan, Ḫattušumna Laḫḫa, Ryan Veeder’s Agatha Christie’s the Murder on the Orient Express, and Ultraviolent Unicorn Deathmatch of Destiny 4 all feature at least one.

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So does Necromanceers!

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From what I’ve played so far, Live and Get Pie and Gambler’s Quest both involve going into a bakery… maybe there will be others to add to this?

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I feel as though I should mention that every single character in Unicorn Deathmatch starts off alive and will remain that way unless the player does something inadvisable.

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A large section of Ḫattušumna Laḫḫa takes place in a Hittite bakery!

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I haven’t played this one yet but are you saying it’s actually possible to do advisable things in it? :wink:

(ETA: If not, perhaps Live and Get Pie and Unicorn Deathmatch are both games where it is not actually possible to do advisable things…)

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If I can be allowed a joke at my own expense, IF Derby features a game called “A Weeaboo in Old Japan” and Shadow and Ink is set in 1920s Japan and is written by at least one… well… :grin:

(I won’t speak for @aidandoyle !)

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I’ve started playing Unicorn Deathmatch. It is more of a workplace puzzler than the title would suggest. The Unicorn is a likable PC, but becomes sort of a bull in a china shop if you aren’t careful.

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Okay, here’s one… Galilee Bones and the Juggernaut of Jordan and Forensic Necromancy: A Murder in Nineveh both involve (story and puzzle spoilers!) using a psychoactive substance to travel (sort of) back in time for the purposes of solving archeology-related puzzles in the ancient Middle East. Both also require you to move back and forth between past and present, with mechanics that involve finding the same objects or locations across time. And both stories have pivotal moments of interacting with human bones. How’s that for specific? :joy:

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Really though, whom amongst us has not… :thinking:

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To be totally honest, I’ve been surveilling Daniel for a year now, stealing all his best ideas.

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Well, that one just got bumped up to the top of my to-play list!

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When I put this off from Parsercomp to IFComp, I didn’t expect to get scooped!

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You could make an argument that Ḫattušumna Laḫḫa does most of this, too: the UI conceit implies that you are simultaneously an ancient Middle Eastern / Anatolian hero writing their puzzle adventures on tablets and a modern scholar reading about the (still extant) tablets in a monograph.

The psychoactive substances are, presumably, whatever Daniel, Tim, and I had to take for “enter a game you have to play entirely in the Hittite language into IFComp, it’ll be fun!” to make sense.

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You can pet (but not pick up) a cat in both Tableaux Vivants and Bob the Barbarian.

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