The game made me smile.
Obviously not one of the masterpieces of the genre, but I’ve seen worse. Much worse.
I think having an unwinnable joke game among the entries is a respectable old IFComp tradition by now.
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“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”
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There is an english game witch consists in YOU CAN’T REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE PLAYING becouse then you lose. This game seremos to be some kind of memorial.
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Damnit, you properly got me. Well done. 
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Nah, for all the hate Stiffy Makane gets, it also has attracted decades of parodies, spin-offs, and commentary. Its influence on interactive fiction far exceeds the average ifcomp entry.
The worst of the troll submissions are those that are completely unmemorable—dregs like Comp00ter Game or, unfortunately, Uninteractive Fiction.
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In my sadly long-passed days as an aspiring poet, I had a theory that a successful poem had to win a battle against entropy. Poems had to–rather impossibly–make from thin air the energies that sustained them. Was this a metaphor for the reader’s interest? That would make sense, but I had something more magically elusive in mind. If I were to press this airiness into a literal shape, I might say that the shorter something is, the less that there is to forgive.
I spent more time staring absently into space today than I did playing Uninteractive Fiction. That might sound like some sort of overcooked putdown, but I don’t mean it that way. While I could resent that time as wasted, the reality is that it afforded an occasion to log on and type this: a welcome break from a recently out-of-control project and an existential teeth-on-metal feeling that sometimes comes suddenly.
It is too slight to bear the weight of any grudge I might carry, but I have fortunately escaped the experience without one.
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My thoughts exactly.
I neither enjoyed nor disliked it. It didn’t waste my time because hardly any time was taken. It’s novel in how little impact is felt. It hardly feels like it exists after I close the browser, but my browsing history confirms I have viewed it.
It’s the IF incarnation of a brief shrug.
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This post is a poem in its own right–lovely to read, with excellent use of metaphor and lyricism!
Even if the game itself seems simple, the fact that it generates this kind of discussion suggests to me that it could have an impact that far outstrips its simplicity. At least, for a little while.
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