What truly is a REALLY BAD IF game? 25% of games didn't make the cut!

Playing IF Reviews and Essays
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Ok so I only had time to play one entry today, tomorrow should be easier. So here is:

bump, by Tabitha

bump is a micro bitsy where you are a little spider in a room(?) full of buttons (?) you can press(?). Some are animated, some do not move. Some will show a message when you “press” them, other won’t. Only one seems “right” for what is worth, though none really do anything. You can’t escape.

Noteworthy: it has a banger 8-bit tune (that apparently wasn’t done on purpose?).

Why it is not a REALLY BAD IF game?
~ the music is banger.
~ (more for me:) the colour scheme is cute!

Why it should be considered REALLY BAD IF?
~ no story/setting, nothing is really happening
~ meaningless inconsequential actions

Final decision: Making me question what is IF my sanity

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I did purposely pick colors I found pleasing haha—I should have used ugly ones instead!! And yes, the music was just whatever music bitsy automatically includes. :laughing: Which I didn’t notice because I tend to have my sound off lol. Accidental non-badness!

Bad IF mission accomplished :grin:

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Which one’s the half disqualification?

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New day, new month even! More games to play!
(I need to finish this so I can play even more games :joy: )

Next up,

Keep Queuing, by Kastel

Keep Queuing is a mind-numbing yet philosophical Twine game about queuing. At the mall, your sister, currently in queue to get the latest phone, asks for a big favour: for you to take her place so she can go to the bathroom. Since you are the best sibling in the world, you agree (not like you have a choice) and start to queue.

… and queue…

… and queue…

… and don’t stop queuing until you reach the door, and get your sister’s phone, and that’s when the game ends. Because, yes, you are a great sibling, you don’t leave the queue, even if you wish it to.

While you wait for the line to move, different prompts appear on the screen, showing the passing of time. You look at things around you or stare at your phone, ponder on the meaning of time and queuing or simply blank, etc… There are about 100 prompts you can “collect” while waiting, all of them appearing randomly (sometimes you get the same one in one playthrough).

The number of prompts you see is also random. I’ve waited 18 and 61 minutes for the most extremes. And knowing there are 100 prompts to find, many of them are hilarious (to me), you are incentivised in going back into the queue and trying to wait even longer!

The funniest bit about the game, however, comes with the ending screen. It might be the most unexpected ending screen I’ve seen: an afterword and pitch all into one. It discuss how the game was created and its future, in hopes someone would want to throw in a few bux and fund the sequel (seemingly slightly poking fun at those unserious Kickstarter campaigns). It really gave me a good laugh (the III MMO roguelike queue, genius)

A really great queuing simulator!

Why it is not a REALLY BAD IF game?
~ it was funny, really funny. the absurdity of the commonness of the situation flipping to the afterword was just… chef kiss
~ it was really well-rounded and designed. Did what I expected and gave me enough variation that I was entertained for multiple queues!

Why it should be considered REALLY BAD IF?
~ no choice? but then again, kinetic entries are cool, and we made a whole jam about this (SingleChoice, would have made for a great example), and really fit with the conundrum of trying to be a good sibling and losing your sanity over an insane queue.
~ I guess having to move my mouse around to click… but then again I did TAB+ENTER soo…

Final decision: That’s going to be a disqualification for me, boss…

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Next up!

T-Shirt Aisle, by Tom Dunn

T-Shirt Aisle is the location in which you are standing in this small Twine game, in front of a wall of very soft and enticing t-shirts (as in, you want to shove your face into the fabric and stay there forever), and well… maybe have some weird surreal slightly existential experience? Oh, and there’s a long thought process about Keanu Reeves.

The blurb indicates there are many endings to the game (I think I found 3, the source files indicates about a dozen?), some of them being harder to reach than others. Essentially, you’d need to do some loop-ty-loop around the different passages to see those choices listed. Some of them are pretty creepy.

Truly an experience. Would shove my face in soft t-shirts again.

Why it is not a REALLY BAD IF game?
~ some funny moments
~ a pretty good amount of agency, slightly puzzle if you’re going for the 100% ending collection.

Why it should be considered REALLY BAD IF?
~ At least one option is not coded well (code shows up).

Final decision: I’m going to need external opinions for that one.

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NEXT!

Floaters, by Maliface

(of the neat SugarCube custom macro!)

Floaters is a kinetic poetic entry about little floaters, small little bubbles of code, colliding always and forever, because the code behind commands it. The short and minimalist writing ponders over the existence of these little bubbles, from their creation to their destruction and everything in between.

Behind the text, little white floaters collide (as the entry is shaped around a collision script) before a dark navy blue background, like little stars moving through the cosmos, pulling and pushing, colliding, embracing and running away, appearing and disappearing. It is mesmerising.

The prose is honestly delightful to boot. Mixing coding formatting for states or actions throughout the text, to remind us that whatever we may feel about them, whatever the text tell us to feel about them, the floaters are nothing but code, doing what the code tells them to do, incessantly, forevermore.

I teared up on the last screen.

Why it is not a REALLY BAD IF game?
~ ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! WHAT ISN’T GOOD HERE?!?!
~ The interface is so clean.
~ The prose is poetic as heck.
~ Have I mentioned I cried already? A few more passages and my heart would have given out.

Why it should be considered REALLY BAD IF?
~ See the list above, play the game. If you don’t cry, you don’t have a heart.

Final decision: Do I really need to spell it out here? (disqualified, obviously)

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Here are some points on the “why it’s bad” side haha:

  • When you click “turn around and see who’s tapping”, the game makes you put your head in the shirts instead
  • And when you click “decide to acknowledge your partner”, you once again just put your head in the shirts :joy:
  • The Keanu Reeves digression is sooooo random and has nothing to do with the rest of the game lol
  • The endings are totally random and absurd
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COD Version 2: The Terribly Faulty Extended Game: the game that changed the world (but extended!!), by Max Fog

COD V2 is a port and updated version of Cloak of Darkness, where the world is expanded and more objects/scenery has been added. The goal seems to be the same: go to the bar area and read the message. However, there are a few more obstacles, like the bar door being locked! And you also start inside. There seems to be at least one losing state.

I liked the new addition, with potential extra puzzles, but like the title suggests, the game is still faulty. Some commands work but don’t give out answers, objects are described but can’t be interacted (or you are told that they can be, just that you actually can’t). I think I was on the right track to solve it, but nothing was really working, so I gave up…
Also, weird typos.

Max went a step even further and obliterated my eyes with the game page. Absolutely awful. Deserves extra points for that.

Why it is not a REALLY BAD IF game?
~ Because it does try? or it’s honest about what it’s about?

Why it should be considered REALLY BAD IF?
~ it doesn’t seem winnable
~ under implemented
~ broken commands and typos
~ terrible game page. Like I know it’s not part of the game, but DANG

Final decision: It was already bad as soon as I opened the page.

Transcript: COD-V2.txt (12.6 KB)

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COLOSSAL CURSEHEAD by prevtenet

COLOSSAL CURSEHEAD is a linear parser where you don’t even need a command to play. Just press enter and enjoy(?) the story unfold before your eyes… until the window closes by itself for some reason.

The text shown on the page, however, is completely nonsensical, taken from transcripts of games, such as Colossal Caves, Curses, and Anchorhead. There may seems to have some sort of sense from one sentence to the next, but there truly isn’t much you will be able to piece out from the prompt. If you’re luck, you may even get in the middle of the playthrough, mentions of the game’s version and program and what not. Sometimes, even commands.

Also, it seems like all of it is randomly picked, even from the start.

Why it is not a REALLY BAD IF game?
~ :woman_shrugging: I guess the source code is interesting?

Why it should be considered REALLY BAD IF?
~ it’s all a bunch of nonsense. Sans queue ni tête…
~ there is nothing to do (really no commands will actually give any proper output)

Final decision: Taking randomisation to the extreme, more for worse than for better.

That’s it for me for today.

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Yay! That game is probably the worst of my three. And yes, there is a way on from there - EXAMINE THE SIGN in the hallway, and then try using the cloak with it (in a way I will not tell you because it ruins it).

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I am playing Terrence right now, and …

This is crazy.

“It just seems wrong to tell a 14-year old boy that ponies don’t exist.”

This is an awesome, crazy, cursed game. I’m wowed, scared and confused all at the same time.

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Timed-text-based Terrence to come…eventually (if I get around to it this summer) (and learn Twine).

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I thought “how bad it could be”

but damn max :smiley_cat:

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It truly is awful, isn’t it? :joy:

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heh, yeah. strangely, I love it

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I’ve gotten 120 minutes during one beta-testing session, which made me uninterested in adding more dialog and copypasting every twine box except the clear screen a hundred times (I originally wanted players to clear the game with a 1/1000th rate).

But I wrote the afterword as you mentioned and figured it’s better to let people see it than have a select few experience it.

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Wait you actually have multiple passages? You could have had an array of all the sentences, and randomly choose one with every passage :joy:
That’s dedication, damn!

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Kinda. I didn’t want to put everything into an array, so I just used headers, footers, and passage tags in order to optimize because arrays weren’t enough. I could have made passages go back and forth with the same array, but I don’t like long and unsightly arrays.

This is what I wrote elsewhere:

for KQ, i knew from Their Time in This World that i can use headers and footers to make coding and text appear in every node. so my header is:

(set: $location to (a:)) (set: $location to (altered: via its name,...(passages: where its tags contains "burger")))

$location is a variable and i’m turning it into an array. the next line is a bit weird because of how harlowe language works. essentially, i’m asking $location to

1: look at the nodes’ tags that say “burger”. in twine, you can colorcode the nodes/passages and call them burger
2: find out what the name of the node is
3: switch the location to the name of the node

for the footer:

(unless: (passage:)'s tags contains "neutral")[ (link:"Keep queuing.")[(set: $minutes to it + 1)(go-to: (shuffled:...$location)'s 1st)]]

if the nodes don’t have the tag neutral, keep adding the line “keep queuing” at the end of each sentence and then teleport the player to the first location in the randomized array

The code might be useful for future projects, so it was worth doing this silly thing.

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How did you resist the :pray: emoji? I’ve been completely convinced to release the source code for my entry because of it!

Or have I just ousted myself as a big softy? :rofl:

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New day new round of bad games!

Wedding Party, by stiggzz22

Wedding Party is a parser-like game where you are currently attending, as the title suggests, a wedding party. During the main event, you are presented with multiple possible actions, from leaving the wedding to very strange behaviours (like squeaking?! it’s also a counter?). You also able to move around, seeing other spots at the wedding and interacting with NPCs. If there is an ending to it, I didn’t find it.

Oh, and there’s a bit red button that you can press! Which of course I did.

I’m not sure what the whole point was, though your available actions nudges you to essentially disrupt the wedding (making people very confused at best, disgusted probably). You can run away loudly for some reason, and can’t really get back to the party after that (the movements buttons don’t really work). You can interact with things, though there doesn’t seem to be much effect to it.

Shame the red button doesn’t really end the whole game right away.

Why it is not a REALLY BAD IF game?
~ the absurdity was pretty funny (of course the button would set it all on fire)

Why it should be considered REALLY BAD IF?
~ the interface stings a bit
~ not all actions were working or the responses didn’t always stay on the page long enough to be read
~ I still don’t know what was the point of it :joy:
~ you can’t pet the dog. That’s evil.

Final decision: Let it burn

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