Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value by Damon L. Wakes
Damon L. Wakes is the go-to author for light-hearted RPG satire. I fondly recall Girth Loinhammer and the Quest for the Unsee Elixir, which was in part a send-up of cheating in game books; and I just reread some of the reviews of Quest for the Sword of Justice, which is close to Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value in spirit. They’re both made in RPG Maker. They’re both called ‘Quest’. They’re both committed to making fun of RPG tropes. That said, Damon’s latest is quite a bit better than its 2020 forebear.
One big difference is that play is a lot smoother: you’re not going to fool around not knowing what to do on your quest for the teacup. There’s even some great convenience features like perfectly placed autosave moments. But the main thing is that Teacup does more than make fun of other games: it manages to make almost every exchange funny in itself. I laughed out loud often enough that the children looked up from playing Minecraft to ask me what I was doing, and that’s saying something.
He is right, of course! But I say: fingers crossed, and let’s hope that Damon keeps giving us one such game every IFComp.