Viv Dunstan's IFComp 2025 musings

Competitions IFComp
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Just starting me a thread for my IFComp 2025 game reviews and musings. I’m not sure I will get through many this year. I’m currently very ill from my progressive neurological disease and asleep masses (13.5 hours already today, and up to 18 hours a day isn’t unusual!). But will see what I can do.

I’ve just in my newly awake time been drawing up my handwritten list of initial games of interest. 30 items on my list. I very much doubt I will get through that many! But fingers crossed. I’m excited by the range. I don’t intend to write thorough or detailed reviews, but more impressions. Will see what I can manage.

Very happy it’s IFComp season again. This is one of my highlights of the year, and has been since all the way back in 1995! Hoping to enter again as a competitor myself in 2026.

More soon hopefully.

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A murder of Crows by Design Youkai

Onto my first review in IFComp 2025. In this game I’m playing a crow! This reminds me of past games with bird protagonists, such as Harbinger in IFComp 2017, and Among the Seasons in Spring Thing 2019.

This game is a Twine piece, with the default basic layout and user interface. And relatively short passages with multiple choices to make throughout. There are looping structures in the narrative, and you will probably end up replaying sections. It does feel like there are a lot of nodes to explore.

In the game you play through a single day as a crow in a group (a “murder”!) with other crows, trying to figure out various mysteries that you encounter. There are lots of different routes through the story that you can take during the game, and it’s relatively fun to play through.

On the downside there are a lot of typos throughout. I also encountered a Twine coding error (for the author: see screenshot at end of this review in a cut section). And I was puzzled at some times by who or what I was encountering (I guess Penny is a human, and the “woofer” a dog?).

But it’s generally charming, a satisfying but short play through, and worth playing again several times to explore other options and lines of enquiry.

Proofreading would have helped remove typos, giving a much smoother playing experience. Getting someone else (or multiple someone elses!) to proofread and playtest a game is best. There are people who’d happily help playtest and proofread on this forum. Just a tip for next time.

But I enjoyed that. Thank you.

Screenshot of coding error

noodle1
noodle11150×364 55.1 KB

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The Little Four by Captain Arthur Hastings, O.B.E.

Onto my first parser game of IFComp 2025, and this is a story about detective Hercule Poirot, told by his long-time friend Captain Hastings.

I found the writing evocative, and the domestic setup charming with lots to explore. There are some particulary nice touches for a long-time reader or fan of Poirot, and the writing has a very nice feel.

On the downside the core mystery felt to me unsatisfying. Particularly what happens after a key clue is discovered until just before the ending. I wanted to explore more, to find more. But that wasn’t necessary. I ended up fighting with the parser to get it to let me interact with a key section of the game, when that was never going to work. If that section had been developed more fully I think it could have been a quite superb game.

So very promising, but I think it could have been much, much better. Also adding more interaction with the various NPCs would have helped too.

But again, as a fan of the Poirot stories, I found a lot to like. And it should work for newcomers to Poirot too.

Though parser players seeking lots of puzzles may be disappointed.

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Thank you very much for your kind words and sincere apologies for any frustration! I would love to message you in private for just a bit more information about what went wrong—only if it’s all right with you, of course.
In any case, I hope you have a lovely autumn with the rest of the IFComp games, and wish you the best possible health outcomes!

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Sure that would be fine. Send me a private message through the messaging facility here.

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That concept actually sounds great! (A murder of crows). I’ll have to put it on my reading list :slight_smile:

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Pharaohs’ Heir by smwhr

Onto this Ink choice piece where you’re a librarian exploring ancient Egyptian treasures and mysteries.

This game took me substantially longer to play through than the estimated half hour. And I ended up going to the walkthrough once the combinations of things to juggle mentally became too much for me! If I’d not taken that shortcut I could have been playing for even longer to conclusion. Definitely over an hour, more like 90 minutes.

It is a really clever game design, based around a number of set pieces, which you have to replay through, for good game design reasons.

It can mean that you have to get the right sequence of events to trigger the next stage. But the game is forgiving, and lets you replay as needed.

It is a hard puzzler though, a very traditional type of puzzle, or sequence of puzzles, but done in a creative way appropriate to the story.

I really liked it, and would certainly happily play more games in this world.

I did encounter one major bug on my first play through, where it seized up mid play and went back to the start of the web page and wouldn’t let me play further or interact with the web page. Apologies to the author: I can’t recall the exact event that triggered this. But I was happy to replay quickly from the start. And played to completion.

I also encountered a more minor coding error:

spoilers hidden

“Well, I hold the pshent which is now texteCouleur( color )! Should I put it in the urn?”

This happened whatever object I was trying to recolour.

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INPUT PROCESS by HY

I’m not remotely keen on the use of generative AI in IF, but this is not that, but rather a piece of creative written interactive fiction about creating an artificial personality in future, and exploring how the player converses with that through a choice interface with pre-written Twine links and text (i.e. not generated by AI).

On the downside there is timed text. Especially in the long second of three acts. Timed text worked better for me in the opening act, where you communicate with the AI via a quasi DOS like terminal, and the AI types its responses. But in the second act the text is just too slow throughout.

The story is also not as interactive for the player as I’d like. A lot of the playing experience is just clicking for the next section. Often even just clicking or pressing a key to even make a next link appear. But there are choices at a number of points, and they do feel significant.

But even with relatively little interaction I did feel engrossed in the scifi story, and as though I was actively participating in it. And it’s a thought-provoking piece, as you see an artificial intelligence that your character has created evolve, into something rather more disturbing.

It reminded me a lot of a 1993 episode of TV series The X-Files. “Ghost in the Machine”. Especially when the artificial intelligence in this game starts monitoring street cameras remotely. Really chilling!

The game makes good use of layout, including the DOS-like terminal, and a split screen view where you see the player character react visually alongside text interaction with the AI. And sometimes meta commentary.

The ultimate test for me of whether a piece of IF is a good experience or not is if it leaves me thinking about it and affected by it afterwards. And this certainly did that.

Recommended.

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Thank you very much for the review (and for making me finally create an account on here to reply)! I’m glad it managed to be a good experience despite the timed text, which I honestly struggled over whether or not to include. I’ll definitely take the speed into consideration for a post-comp release.

I also wanted to say, your review touched on an aspect of the game I’d kind of overlooked myself – I was certainly keeping a theme of ‘invasive AI surveillance that goes unnoticed’ in mind while writing it, but over time I started mostly thinking about it in terms of its romance / relationship elements (which is pretty ironic now I think about it). So it’s good to see that theme made it through to you.

Wishing you well, and a good rest of the IFComp season :-]

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Temptation in the Village by Anssi Räisänen

Onto this parser game version of a short story by Franz Kafka. A bizarre short story, that I was unfamiliar with, and you don’t need to know to play this short game version. I should probably also mention here that I’m pretty unfamiliar with Franz Kafka, so can’t assess how much this game version reflects his style of storytelling.

On the downside the game play is very on rails. You are constantly directed what to do next. Which is good for newer players. And it presumably follows the original story, giving a faithful adaptation. But it was also somewhat frustrating for me as a parser player, finding myself in an intriguing world, that I wanted to explore in other ways.

There are also repeated cases of fighting the parser (especially for me when trying to fit the cart wheel) and under implemented scenery (e.g. try examining the cushion on the chair). Although the ASK X ABOUT Y conversation mechanism worked nicely, though probably needed more clueing for players new to this form of parser command.

But there’s a charm to the game, and I enjoyed playing through. I just wish that I could have explored the world a bit more, even if I understand that the game was aiming to replicate the original written story and its sequence of events.

For the author here are some of the commands I tried to fix the wheel. Ended up going to the walkthrough to get the exact wording.

Spoilers for later in the game 
> examine wheel
It is a big wheel belonging to a milk cart.

> fit wheel
I don’t know the word ‘fit’.

> put wheel on cart
It’s not possible to put anything there.

> attach wheel
That was not understood.

> fit wheel to cart
I don’t know the word ‘fit’.

> attach wheel to cart
You try to attach the loose wheel to the cart, but due to it being very rusty, you fail.

>
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Fired by Olaf Nowacki

This is a short parser game, where you’re a disgruntled employee, who’s been fired, and have issues outstanding with your boss.

There’s no walkthrough provided, but there are in game hints. The hardest part I found was early on when I lost an object, and needed to get it back. Trying to find the parser command that would do that successfully was challenging, and the in game hints were no help re this, but I stuck at it.

After that early hurdle it was a lot of fun to play through. Very imaginative descriptions of the things you encounter, and lots of pop culture references which caused laugh out loud moments frequently.

It’s extremely comedic and tongue in cheek. And I very much enjoyed playing it.

I would have liked at the end to see an option to see a list of what all the points were scored for. I finished the game with 19/20 points, and wonder what I missed out on!

But a lot of fun. Well done.

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Not so Happy Easter 2025 by Petr Kain

Onto my third parser game of tonight! And this one is a retro Spectrum game, that you need to run in an old emulator. I used Fuse on my Mac, which is free to download for lots of systems, and works well.

The game is a rather wacky tale taking you around a spooky set of locations, on the hunt of missing kids. With a hefty amount of retro.

In terms of the parser it’s reduced old-style. Often where you might now use another verb you need to type USE X or USE X ON Y to get the result that you want. And there was definitely fighting the parser for me.

However the game is fun to play through, with clever use of objects, puzzles and locations, and a plot that generally moves on well. Sometimes you do need to nudge the game more, e.g. trying the same thing more than once. That can feel a bit awkward, even if you’ve turned to the walkthrough. But generally the game is responsive, and works well. There are also moments of tension.

I had a really unfortunate moment near the end of my first play, when I managed to press a key combination that rebooted the emulated Spectrum. Just as I was near the end of the game … And hadn’t saved recently … I went back to near the start, and replayed at speed through the walkthrough to catch up. But even that was fun to revisit the puzzles and locations and NPCs again, and play through the story.

There’s a final big puzzle (the password) that threw me. I had to go to the walkthrough, and even then reread it several times before I went “Aha!”. But it’s a justified puzzle, and does feel true to the time and style of game.

I have to reduce my final score slightly because of the fight the parser and game prodding elements needed at times. But it was a fun game to play through. And well worth firing up a Spectrum emulator for.

That estimated playtime is miles off though. Nowhere is it a half hour game. Just look at the number of commands in the walkthrough! As someone playing largely without the walkthrough but turning to it at times it was more like a 90 minutes game for me. But a good 90 minutes. Note that wasn’t me emulating at original Spectrum CPU speed, but sped up at my emulator’s default 400%. It would probably have taken me way longer at original speed. But then I might not have had the patience for it :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I also played at exactly that speed! Must have been the perfect choice. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Lots of thanks for the kind review! I’m glad you enjoyed it! :blush:

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A Smörgåsbord of Pain by FLACRabbit

Onto the latest adventure for Anastasia the Power Pony. I really enjoyed the previous game in this series, so was very happy to play this sequel.

Though the start was a bit unexpected:

Yes it did - nearly 10 seconds after I pressed a key! Why? I pressed the space key repeatedly, thinking it hadn’t registered the first time. Then it just scrolled me past masses of text when it did finally respond …

The game is episodic, and I found some bits more compelling than others. The opening sees you meet friends at a buffet. But here I often felt frustrated by the parser:

>ask edna about food
Try referring to a particular food.

 >ask sheila about buffet
(the buffet)
Try specifying one particular part of the buffet.

And also wondered at times how to move the plot on.

The game is partially set in a giant buffet of foods from around the world. And there’s a buffet map. But although there’s a copy of the map in game, to download the map separately with other feelies you need to copy and paste in a web link from the game listing in the competition. Why isn’t it just in the core download? Bundle the feelies plus walkthrough in a ZIP file with the gamefile. That would be more intuitive.

The fight sequences remain fun, and there are some neat puzzles involving timing. I also liked how the game lets you replay scenes if you get a bad outcome. And I liked the mystery plot. And laughed often.

But I was playing fight the parser later (referring to llamas individually, during the big food fight), and also fight the geography, struggling to visualise where various characters were, and which I could attack.

I got a “You have won” ending, but it was only partially successful. But I was happy.

But more smoothing of things would have helped a lot. And definitely more playtesting of some of the later areas in particular.

I didn’t experience the music in the game because I was playing in my preferred Lectrote which doesn’t support it. But I was happy with that.

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Dead Sea by Binggang Zhuo

This is a fantasy Twine piece, in a mysterious world, where you explore strange locations, using what you find to uncover an intriguing plot.

I liked a lot about it, although I did have a slight tendency of possibly getting the game into an unwinnable state at times by inadvertently using some built in reset features, which are very reminiscent of Souls-like video games.

I didn’t get to the very end though. And would have liked the walkthrough to be clearer re the final stages, so I could find out what I missed.

But a light fantasy puzzler, with atmospheric writing. Rather sparse writing, yes, but nevertheless effective.

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A Visit to the Human Resources Administration by Jesse

Onto this short Twine piece, where you play an alien, applying for benefits in New York City, hoping to better understand human society.

The story itself has long chunks of text and little in the way of real choice. However it’s a thought-provoking piece about society, and provision for those most in need. And I found it really compelling.

The writing is also very effective, with for example things like

You think about all this and your minds race with anticipation.

to capture your alienness, albeit currently cloaked in human form.

I also appreciated the author’s note at the end about the background to this piece, and their personal connection with it. Which resonated well.

So yup, not very interactive really, but I felt immersed, things went in unexpected directions, and best of all it got me thinking.

It is very short. Took me about 8 minutes of play time. But good stuff.

For the author I did spot one typo:

spoiler text

“Occasionally an abbrasive and static voice says two numbers …” - should be “abrasive”

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A winter morning on the beach by E. Cuchel

This is a very short game, where you’re taking a calming walk by the seaside. But I’m afraid the experience was anything but calm for me. So many things I wanted to try it woudn’t allow. And then I would repeatedly hit an end game stage. Very much not lowering my blood pressure.

I’m all for a relaxing low-stakes walking game. I’m all for just exploring a place by sense. And I live by the seaside, so this is all very familiar. But so many things I wanted to do the game wouldn’t support. And then I’d get pooped on by a seagull again. Which to be fair is fairly authentic!

I think there’s a really nice core idea here, but wish the author had opened things up more for the player. It could be really good. But at the moment I’m just finding it frustrating. And very not calming. Sorry!

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T'è fnì ad fè al patachedi?
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You Cannot Speak by Ted Tarnovski

This is an Ink choice piece of scifi, but just the prologue to a planned larger story. The competition listing gives an estimated play time of half an hour, but I was just playing for 5 minutes. It’s very short.

There aren’t too many choices, especially earlier on. But the pacing and choice of gaps is good at creating tension, and revealing the world where the player character is. I was happier when more choices appeared.

I would certainly like to read more of the story. But as it is very short, really too much so, and ends abruptly. Just as I’m getting more intrigued!

I noticed a few typos. Here’s info on them for the author:

typos info

Upon closer inspection, the donut appears inedxible.

  • should be “inedible”

A security officer with the nametag “Kent” jogs up the hall to delicately apprehend Mr. Wilhelm. He softly, but firmly places his hands on Mr. Wilhelms shoulders and leans into his face to ensure he is understood.

  • should be “Wilhelm’s”
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Just Two Wishes by Kozelek

This is a parser piece, heavily inspired by current political events. Note I’m veering into spoiler territory just by discussing some of the settings here. If in doubt please scroll away very quickly.

First I’d like to thank the author for the in-game content warning at the very start, with clear instructions to the player to step away now if any of a number of key issues will be triggering for them. There’s pushback still from some IF authors about content warnings, but I really appreciated this author’s approach. Which doesn’t spoil the narrative experience of the game, but means people playing it are not going to recoil in shock. Well there will be shock, but not because “I don’t want to play this stuff!”

Then there’s a poem, in Spanish, which isn’t translated into English. The game was originally entered in a Spanish IF Comp. I can’t read Spanish I’m afraid. I wanted to know what the poem says. Fortunately Google Translate came to my rescue. It is a powerful opening set of words.

The game is in three short episodic parts. The opening is in Tel Aviv, Israel, and sets the scene. Also reveals something strange going on.

This is followed by a sequence at Mar-a-Lago, which continues the strangeness, and brings in more well-known characters. There are few locations, but it’s well written.

Finally the third section is in Rafah, Gaza. And this is the shortest.

Points are scored mainly by discovering things in the game, so it’s well worth exploring. This isn’t a game about problem solving, but more about discovery, and understanding, and emotional empathy.

On the downside the game is somewhat under implemented, and a little bit fight the parser. More playtesting would have helped. For example:

> look
Boudoir
This is one of the small rooms your wife uses when she wants to be alone, away from you and the servants. 
To the west is the door through which you entered. Covering one side of the room is a dressing table with a large mirror. The only other furnishings are two Louis XV-style chairs.
> examine table
You can't see any such thing.
> examine dressing table
Sorry, I don't understand what "dressing" means.
>

I also wish that more additional verbs had been implemented. I especially wanted this one:

> cry
That is not a verb I recognize.

The game also does some very nice things with metaphors, that I won’t spoil here. Don’t expect a purely literal approach to this story.

So yes, needed a bit of polishing in places, but a powerful and compelling story, that was moving and thought-provoking.

Well done to the author.

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