Arclight_Dynamo's IFComp 2016 Reviews

Hello! I’m Arclight_Dynamo. I’m not well-known in these parts (or known at all, really). This is literally my second post ever on the forum. But it’s my intention to play and review every game entered into the IFComp this year… we’ll see how that goes. I’ll be posting my reviews in this thread.

So what kind of reviewer am I?

Well, I’m not an old hand at IF. I only started playing these things about nine years ago, and not as often or as deeply as some. Though, I have been an IFComp judge for all of those years, just a silent one – so I’ve been around the block a bit.

I’m not a huge fan of puzzle-fests, traditional dungeon-crawls, or other overly-gamey IF. I’m much more into experiential, literary, and gameplay-light (or gameplay-free) works. When I play non-IF games, I tend towards narrative-heavy games and walking sims with messages or things to say. Those preferences are going to colour how I view works of IF, and they’re going to make it into my reviews.

I’m not a fan of puzzles at all, really. I’m in this for the stories and the experiences, not figuring stuff out. A super-clever puzzle, a real innovation, is going to be lost on me. It’s not what I focus on. And I’m no fan of being stuck on a puzzle. I’m perfectly happy to reach for the walkthrough to get past what is, for me, the boring bits, and get on with the interesting story.

I’m also generally not one to dig down into a work, playing it over and over, to find all the different possibilities or endings, or anything like that; I’m looking for a satisfactory narrative experience, and that generally means I run through the work once. That’s not a hard-and-fast rule, obviously, but if I get to the end of a work and it tells me I’m missing 300 points and this was the “bad ending,” that can be a turn-off.

My philosophy on judging and reviewing these works is the same as my philosophy on looking at art hanging in a gallery: I’m going to talk about what a work makes me feel and makes me think. I’m going to talk about what I like and what I don’t. Maybe I miss what the author intended, maybe my take is entirely different from your own. But art is meant to be experienced by everyone, all reactions to a work are valid, and it does no good to be intimidated away from stating your piece.

I should mention right now that these reviews will include spoilers. If you want to play a work unspoiled, don’t read my review of that work until after you’ve played it. I’ll make sure, though, that each review is hidden behind one of those collapsible spoiler-box things so that you can scroll down and find the review you want without being spoiled on other games.

I’m also going to mention that I’m making use of the IFComp website’s “Personal Shuffle” feature, so these reviews are going to appear in random order.

Finally, the format for these reviews is as follows:

Blurb – Yep, I’m going to review the blurbs! These will be written before I fire up the game.
General Impressions – My overall impression of the work, right after I’ve played it.
The Good – What I liked.
The Bad – What I didn’t.
Concluding Thoughts – If anything else needs saying, it goes here.

Do note what’s absent: a numerical score. Obviously I’ll be rating the works on the IFComp website. But I’m not going to include them in my reviews. I find what a review says is much more interesting than what number it boils down to, so I’m going to stick to that.

Anyway, here’s to a fun comp!

Color the Truth by mathbrush

[spoiler]Blurb:

Ooh, solid hook – murder is always captivating, and the conflict (you’re going to find the killer) is right up front. Characters are introduced, as is the fact that we’re in for a Rashomon-like adventure. Very nice. And the direct explanation of how the game plays and who it’s for is also appreciated. I know pretty much what I’m in for, and I’m interested to get going.

General Impressions:

I very much enjoyed this game. As I mentioned, I’m more interested in an experience or narrative than a puzzle. Luckily, the puzzles here are all conversational and deductive, and are integrated in such a way that they progress the narrative. Nothing felt shoe-horned in, and I never felt that I was being blocked from a juicy bit of story by an annoying wall of puzzle.

The map is also small and logical – which fits perfectly with a conversation-based cozy murder investigation. I’m not a huge fan of sprawling maps full of items and elaborate puzzles, anyway.

The Good:

  • The conversational system. I’ve seen conversation handled a number of ways, to greater or lesser degrees of success, and I think this falls into the “greater” category. It was intuitive, there was no guess-the-verb/topic frustration, and it didn’t feel stilted. It’s important that this was done well, since the core of the game is conversation. Well done, there.
  • The “link” verb. It’s a very nice way of handling the deductive elements of a murder investigation in a conversation-based game.
  • A small thing, but an important one: the different ways that the rooms are described by different characters is great. It not only gives you a better understanding of the building, it gives you insight into the characters. What do they notice? What is important to them? How do they think?
  • The story. Sometimes simpler is better. Nothing about saving the world or anything like that… just a simple murder, and intertwined relationships. It all hung together – the motivation for the murder, the fraud plot, the way that the characters interacted. Even why they lied. It felt right.
  • The blurb says that the game is friendly to newbies, and it really is. Solutions to the puzzles are well-indicated, you can call the chief for a bit of advice, and there’s a hint system. I even got a pop-up message saying “Hey, you look like you’re trying all the conversational options on all the characters. Remember, this game is winnable only by linking topics!” I didn’t need it (I just wanted to see what everyone would say to each topic), but I can see how it would be helpful.
  • Character responses were, to a certain extent, reactive. If you had told them about something in the past, they’d remember it and bring it up when you told them something related. “But you told me they were seeing each other, remember?” for example.

The Bad:

  • I ran into a couple typos (Chukck when talking to Danny) and guess-the-verb problems (you can’t “throw out popcorn” but you can “put popcorn in trash”), but nothing serious or numerous. Certainly nothing that colours (ha!) my view of the game. I’m pretty forgiving about these things – so long as they don’t impede my progress and aren’t riddling the game, they don’t bug me at all. Still, worth mentioning.
  • There was a bit of over-description in the writing. Stacks of adjectives and the like. Not bad by any means, and certainly not distracting, but it stuck out.
  • The game might be a bit too friendly to newbies. There were a few times when the next course of action was hinted at a bit too strongly for my taste. If I’m playing a detective, and I’m supposed to deduce things, I’d rather not have a character say “Oh! You should totally ask Chuck about that!” Though… well. I’m not a newbie, so this isn’t much of a criticism. The game is meant to be friendly, after all.
  • The puzzles were a bit too simple and sparse. I know, I know! I said I don’t like puzzles. But I really liked these ones. As I mentioned, they didn’t frustrate or get in the way. They made sense in context and were, I suppose, the actual content of the story. In a murder investigation, the deductions (or “links”) you make are the story. I’d have hoped for a few more linkages to make, and ones that were a little harder to make. But I suspect this was limited by the two-hour play time. I clocked in at around 1 ½ hours, and I can easily see someone taking longer. Especially in a game meant to be newbie-friendly. More and deeper puzzles would have added to playtime.

Concluding Thoughts:

I’m always happy to see a conversational game, and always happy to see a small, deep game rather than a huge, shallow one. I’m also a sucker for games that deal with human relationships, like this one did. A good start to the comp for me, I think.

Oh, one last note – do make sure to read the “About” section. It explains how the conversational system works, which is absolutely essential to playing the game.[/spoiler]

Ash by Lee Grey

[spoiler]Blurb:

Not much there, but what is there packs a punch. A serious topic, and one that strikes close to home for me. I don’t know what to expect beyond knowing I should be ready for something heavy and sad. No real indication of how the game itself will play, though the fact that it’s a web entry does suggest at that.

General Impressions:

Wow. This is obviously a very personal work, and a very powerful one. Anyone who’s lost a parent, or who has lost anyone to illness, is going to be able to relate. The sorrow, the fear, the frustration. It honestly had me misting up a few times, remembering my own losses. I found the twenty minutes I spent with it to be cathartic.

The Good:

  • The writing is wonderful. It’s by turns beautiful, raw, and blunt. Genuine, I think I would say.
  • Kudos for taking on such a heady, personal topic. It can’t have been easy, but a glimpse into a person’s life like this is a hell of a thing, and the death of a parent is something definitely worthy of exploration and serious thought.
  • There’s a content warning up front. Not terribly important as part of the game per se, but I’m a strong proponent of content/trigger warnings for potentially upsetting works, and I wanted to single it out as something I appreciated.

The Bad:

  • This one’s difficult, given how obviously personal and serious the topic is, but I think I need to say it: for a work of interactive fiction, there isn’t much interactivity. I was left wanting on that front. I was more than once left with the impression that I was just clicking “Forward” to see the next bit of text. Wonderfully-written as it is, this could have worked as a short story rather than a work of IF. And I do feel bad for saying this, since I understand why it was written this way. As an autobiographical work, the narrative needs to stick to a certain path. Moreover, I have no idea how more interactivity could have been added to this without somehow disrespecting the seriousness of the material. So, I get it. But, as an entry in an IF competition, well… this has to be a mark against it.

Concluding Thoughts:

I really did enjoy playing this. Well, “enjoy” probably isn’t the right word. “Appreciate” is better. I certainly do feel privileged to be let into the author’s life in such a personal and vulnerable time. I know from experience that it takes a lot of guts to open up about something like this. I hope that the author found writing this at least as cathartic as I found playing it.

I’d certainly recommend others play this, especially people who haven’t experienced a loss like this, if only as a way to understand what it’s like. It all rang so true.[/spoiler]

Cinnamon Tea by Daffs O’Dill

[spoiler]Blurb:

Enigmatic. Not much to go on, really. Obviously some type of fantasy, or at least a story that deals with magic. No indication of what the game actually entails or how it plays. While I can get behind a vague blurb if it hooks me, this one just… doesn’t, really. It could be anything.

Thumbs up for the content warning.

General Impressions:

I’m afraid I was underwhelmed. I hesitate to call this a work of IF at all. The only interactivity was right at the beginning, when you choose how your tea tastes. After that, you’re essentially just reading one of three short stories. The majority of what you’re doing is clicking the only prompt provided to you in order to advance the text. When you reach the end of one of the stories, all you can do is restart and choose a different reaction to the tea, in order to read a different short story. Honestly, I think the author would have been better served writing three non-interactive texts than putting them together as a Twine work.

As to the three stories themselves, they’re fine. Nothing astonishing (I didn’t have much emotional reaction to them – probably I just didn’t have enough time to get to know and care about the characters, and the Carmine/Ivory vignette didn’t have enough grounding for me to get a good handle on what was going on), but fine.

The Good:

  • There are clearly strong LGBTQ themes in this work. I’m very much pleased that the author decided to grapple with these. I’m always happy to see queer viewpoints and representation in art.
  • The concept of the tea and dreams is itself an interesting one; I’d like to see it explored more deeply. There’s a lot of possibility there. Perhaps the author will revisit it at some point.

The Bad:

  • A minor thing, but I’ll mention it: there are a number of typos throughout.
  • The utter dearth of interactivity, aside from the one choice you make, is the big show-stopper for me.
  • Given that the game has only one choice, and walks you through three pre-set stories, I’d have preferred if the structure were a little different. As it stands, when you get to the end of one of the stories, that’s it. The game ends. No further prompts, but also no indication that the game is over other than the lack of those prompts. Simply adding a screen that says “You have reached the end of your journey. Try again?” or looping back to the beginning in a more in-story way (maybe you try the tea again the next night, or something) would have been better than forcing me to click “restart.” Either option would have kept me more in the headspace of the game rather than breaking me out of it, and the in-story option would have added to at least the illusion of greater interactivity.

Concluding Thoughts:

My overwhelming impression is one of disappointment. There’s much good going on here – the overall magical conceit, the themes explored – but the execution fell short for me, especially in the context of a work of IF rather than of static fiction.[/spoiler]

The Game of Worlds TOURNAMENT! by Ade

[spoiler]Blurb:

…I have no idea what any of this means. There are too many made up nouns. I’m completely unmoored, and have no idea what this game is about. Honestly, what comes to mind is reading the back of a fantasy novel that has too many apostrophes in its title. From the final line of the blurb, and from the game’s subtitle, I guess I’m playing a card game? Or maybe I’m playing a game that has a card tournament as its setting? Couldn’t begin to guess why, though.

The author is clearly going for some kind of effect with this – probably a sense of grandeur or import, maybe humorous irony – but, boy, is it lost on me.

General Impressions:

This was different, though I enjoyed it. It really isn’t a traditional work of IF so much as it’s an implementation of a card game in text, wrapped in a thin IF coating. Unfortunately, I’m not sure text is the best medium for that. A graphical interface would have helped the game immeasurably. That said, since this is a text game, I found myself wanting the IF candy-coating to be a bit thicker. Tell me why I’m at this tournament. Let me do things and interact with people outside of just playing the game. Ever read Ian M. Banks’ The Player of Games? Something like that.

The Good:

  • The card game itself was very compelling. I was skeptical going into the game that I’d enjoy it, since it’s not my usual fare, but it hooked me. After I finished the game (I lost my final match-up), I immediately wanted to try again. If I didn’t have other games to play for the comp, I would have, too.
  • I played the online version, as the author recommends. I’m glad I did; the hypertext scattered throughout the descriptions was helpful. Again, I was skeptical at first that I’d use them, but by the end I found them quite handy as ways to examine the various cards. In fact, I found myself wishing that there were hypertext links that would allow me to play the cards, too.

The Bad:

  • Once more, I wanted a little bit more framing story, a little bit more IF, to surround the card game, here.
  • I ran into a couple of bugs. Nothing game-breaking, but worth mentioning:
  • In the opening descriptions of each card game, as soon as you sit down at the table, your opponent is described as looking at their cards… before the cards are dealt.
  • When trying to play the card “Rope, Flame and Feathers,” by typing “play rope, flame and feathers,” I would receive the following message: “You can’t talk to the llech ronw.” And the card would not be played. If, however, I typed “play rope,” the card would be played normally. This is the only card I had a problem with.

Concluding Thoughts:

Overall, I really liked it. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t hold any love for games like MTG. I liked it enough that I’ll be coming back to it after the comp is over. Thumbs up.[/spoiler]

Zigamus: Zombies at Vigamus by Marco Vallarino

[spoiler]Blurb:

Ah. Ready Player One with zombies, in Rome. Got it.

General Impressions:

Oh dear. I can’t say I enjoyed this one very much. “Zombies appear! Kill them!” isn’t overly compelling. Neither is the “find item” and “use X on Y” gameplay. And because the game is essentially a chain of “kill a zombie” puzzles, the story boils down to “There’s a zombie! You killed it! There’s a zombie! You killed it! There’s a zombie! You killed it! You win!” Which… well. Not quite the deep narrative with interesting themes I’m looking for.

The Good:

  • I assume that the layout here is of the actual Vigamus museum in Rome. The characters may even be based on real people. That’s neat!
  • The concept of items from games being used in the real world to solve problems is a fun one. There’s potential there, though I would have liked an explanation for why these items existed in the real world.
  • I liked the use of Xyzzy as an actual puzzle element rather than as an Easter-egg. It made sense in context, and was a very nice reference.

The Bad:

  • The story. It’s pretty much absent aside from a pile of zombie corpses.
  • The gameplay. It’s a series of “use X on Y” puzzles. Pretty much just unlocking funny-looking doors with funny-looking keys.
  • The only items of interest are, for the most part, clearly set apart from the room descriptions. Just sitting there, conspicuously waiting to be picked up. This contributes to the sense that you’re just picking up and using keys.
  • The “use key on lock” gameplay is very strict and linear. The E.T. cartridge works on one zombie, but not another. It’s not the most logical, either - you give it to him, then he commits suicide? Okay…
  • Sometimes things in descriptions, when examined, are met with “You can’t see any such thing,” despite the fact that I’ve been told they’re right there. The computers in the editorial office, for example.
  • I had some guess-the-verb troubles. For example, “Hit zombie with tomahawk” doesn’t work, but “Hit zombie” does. And I wanted to play with the keypad lock (I suspected that the code might be “1337”). There didn’t seem to be any way to interact with it, though… but there was also no clear indication that I was unable to interact with it. I got a few “There are better things to do” messages, but also a bunch of unrecognized verb messages. I just abandoned the attempt.
  • Speaking of that keypad lock, I generally don’t like it when the game insults the player: “The door to the Director’s office is protected by a keypad lock. I don’t think a loser like you will open it by chance.” Not great.
  • Still on the topic of the keypad, I kind of found the sexual humour in the actual code (“6969”) to be a bit puerile.
  • Finally, and probably unfairly since the author seems to be a native Italian-speaker, the writing was a bit off. It doesn’t flow like English prose ought to, terms which are probably correct in Italian are used rather than the English terms (“Troyan horse” rather than “Trojan horse”), and there’s the occasional typo (“You are now in the big all which hosts…”). I do feel a bit like a heel pointing this out (I mean, I can’t write Italian at all, so who am I to point fingers?), but since this is a text-based medium, prose matters.

Concluding Thoughts:

I just didn’t like it, I’m afraid. Not one I’d recommend.[/spoiler]

Thaxted Havershill And the Golden Wombat by Andrew Brown

[spoiler]Blurb:

No! Don’t do that! Don’t undercut your own writing! Sure, there’s not much to go on in this blurb, but it does give me some sense of what’s going to be going on. It’s perfectly fine. No need to tell me you’re not pleased with it.

General Impressions:

I can’t say I enjoyed this game, or found much to it. Frankly it was a game of “almosts” for me – almost interesting, almost funny, almost enjoyable. The core concepts are strong enough to base a satisfying work on, but there’s just not enough meat on the bones. What is there isn’t polished enough. And I believe the author tells us why this is the case:

“Poor choice there…I know it was all a bit random but, the writer realised that he had less that [sic] a day to get the entry to the IF Comp finished so, bless him, he tried this… I don’t know if I would have done it this way myself but…”

Quite.

The Good:

  • The game promised some sort of Indiana Jones-esque romp. I’m all for that! A fun concept which, unfortunately, almost went somewhere.
  • The game is also a piss-take of the British colonial “explorer” (right down to the name “Thaxted” – brilliant, that). I was hoping it might go on to explore actual issues of colonialism and imperialism. This is a game about an Englishman (I assume) going to a foreign country to bring home a cultural artifact. That’s ripe for exploration and satire! But it doesn’t get there. Another “almost.”
  • The humour itself had promise. Thaxted’s poshness is a lark – “Buggering hell, chap! Time for a right good thrashing!” (I paraphrase) – but, again, it only almost works. It’s surface-level, I’m afraid.
  • The 4th wall break was almost fun… but it had me expecting the entire thing to spiral off into a wonderful surreality. But it never quite makes it there. Almost, almost.

The Bad:

  • The game fridges Thaxted’s sister. I find that to be objectionable.
  • As with the blurb (and as with the quotation in the “General Impressions” section of this review), the author makes obvious that he’s seriously uncertain about the quality of the game:

“Well, there’s a good chance they’ve stopped reading this by now but just in case they haven’t…”

“Please pick carefully… And please be forgiving of the writer who thought this would be amusing enough to entertain you…”

Aside from anything else, that lack of confidence hurts the game. If the author doesn’t think it’s worth playing, why should I? And what does it say about the author’s impression of the player if he presented a work he doesn’t think is worth playing to them?

  • The second of those quotations lampshades another issue with the game: the choices provided really aren’t choices. The player is presented with a number of equally-plausible actions that they may take. Choosing correctly advances the story; choosing incorrectly kills the character and requires the player to start over. It’s a random choice of either success or death. There’s one linear story path, and a bunch of dead ends. This is true even of the final “battle” with the Baron. Choose correctly from a number of equally-plausible options (or, rather, equally-implausible ones) or die. And this is the case even when the “randomness” is disabled – as far as I can tell, the only effect of having randomness enabled is the fight with Zoltan, which amounts to rolling dice.

(Edited to add: After having read some other reviews, it seems as if there is a certain amount of branching in the mid-game that I just missed. I suspect that by the time I reached the branching point, having died and restarted a number of times due to random chance, I had already made the assumption that the rest of the game would continue this way. I’m happy to find that I was apparently wrong.)

Concluding Thoughts:

The author clearly doesn’t think very highly of his own game. Which is a shame. He makes repeated apologies for it in the work itself, and admits to having thrown it together at the last minute. If he genuinely felt that the game wasn’t quite there, I do wonder why he didn’t hold off submitting and keep working on it, maybe submitting next year. There are so many “almosts” that I think it’s a damned shame he didn’t keep hacking away at it. With more time to develop and polish, he could have produced something quite interesting.

As it is, though, I can’t recommend this one.[/spoiler]

Take by Amelia Pinnolla

[spoiler]Blurb:

Fantasy. Fighting. Probably I’m a warrior. Clear enough, but not really my cup of tea. The writing is clever enough that I’m hoping things may be subverted enough to catch my attention. (I’m also really hoping that “fameball” isn’t a typo.)

Good job also on including a content warning.

General Impressions:

Okay, that was very clever. I definitely got the subversion I was looking for, and it wasn’t fantasy in the sense I was groaning about in any case. The conceit is, of course, wonderful. We have an entire game based on a pun, here, which I think is magnificent. Gameplay-wise, limiting the player to observing and writing “takes” about what is observed, while the “action” goes on around them in a linear fashion is interesting. It’s kind of the text equivalent of a walking simulator, which I’m very much all about. I could just sit back and take in the world the game is set in, trying to figure out who I am and what makes this universe tick. And the switcheroo at the end, allowing me to “win” was even cleverer. The “use” verb, eh? Cheeky.

The Good:

  • The star is the conceit, obviously. It’s hilarious. But, more than that, it’s a joke with legs. It’s not gratuitous; the “take” verb reveals more about the world and the characters. It’s genius.
  • The world itself is interesting. I’m also a fan of how you see what’s going on, and have to infer the greater picture. It’s never all laid out for you. It makes it immersive, and it makes you want to learn more.

The Bad:

  • Some sentences were cut off halfway through.
  • In the “use” portion at the end, when you try to “use” something you can’t, the failure text still refers to the “take” verb.

Concluding Thoughts:

I know a game is good when it makes me overthink things. Was writing “takes” as the only means to survive in an abusive system that the player character cannot escape a satirical look at modern freelance writing? Was the fact that the only way to “win” is to “use” another person a commentary on the society depicted in the game, and thus our own? Like I said, I’m probably overthinking… but the fact that the game provides enough material for that sort of over-thought means that there’s something substantial there. It speaks well of it.[/spoiler]

Stuff and Nonsense by Felicity Banks

[spoiler]Blurb:

Steampunk, okay. Not something I really care for, but I’m up for it. Nice summary of what’s going on, too. Succinct, clear, even a little interesting. Good, good.

General Impressions:

More interesting than I had feared; steampunk is very much not my thing, but this held my interest. The magic/skills system, and the way it interacted with your choices was a nice mechanic, and a good way to flesh out the choices the player is given. The story itself is, well, a little barebones, but it suffices.

The Good:

  • I liked the depth and diversity of the characters that you can choose to play. Their different specializations also allow for a number of different play styles. I like to charm whenever I can, and the game allows for that.

The Bad:

  • I’d have appreciated a little more explanation as to why I’m expected to want independence. I mean, I’m well aware of the awful things the real-world Victorian British did, but the world of the game is pointedly not the real world. We have an alternate Victorian era where indigenous Australians (I’m not aware of the correct Australian terminology here – I’m using the current correct Canadian terminology. Apologies if this is incorrect, and I’d be happy to be corrected) and other non-Europeans don’t seem to be discriminated against, so the impression I got is that all social dynamics from the real world are potentially also juggled. I’d like to know why, in this fictional world, I’m fighting for independence. Are Australians being mistreated? Is it a class issue? Is there no effective local government? What injustices, specifically, am I trying to right?

Concluding Thoughts:

I suppose what I’m looking for in a steampunk work is social commentary. Tell me what injustices are being fought in the game, and why. And use that as a lens to examine real-world society. This game almost gets there, but it never feels like it hits the mark. It does have action and gee-whizz steampunk stuff, though. But that’s not entirely enough for me.[/spoiler]

Snake’s Game by Nahian Nasir

[spoiler]Blurb:

I have no idea what this means, but it’s intriguing. How exciting! I’m expecting weirdness and surreality.

Thumbs up for a content warning.

General Impressions:

It’s kind of odd, but I think there’s both not enough and too much to this game. See, the Vermin’s game is the most interesting part of the game for me. It’s a fascinating, nasty little thing and it lends itself to good gameplay/choices. That it is employed only in a number of story branches is a shame, since I feel it wasn’t sufficiently explored. I certainly wanted to play around with it more, and I expected it to be the central conceit of the game. Meanwhile, all the other stuff about The Dread, the vigilante, visiting hell… it felt to me that it didn’t really fit. If the story here is meant to be about the Vermin’s game, why have all this extraneous stuff? And if this other stuff is meant to be the focus, why focus so much on the Vermin’s game, and why not better explore and explain everything else? So, both too narrow (not enough of the Vermin’s game) and too broad (too much non-Vermin’s game stuff that isn’t sufficiently treated or integrated).

The Good:

  • The Vermin’s game is interesting, and it got even more interesting when it looped back on itself.

The Bad:

  • Some choices are things I shouldn’t make. Why should the character be able to choose what’s on the TV, or what the Vermin says?
  • Going back to play through every single branch of a game in order to get the full story isn’t something I care to do. It’s a turn-off for me. I much prefer having a satisfactory narrative experience in the form of a single playthrough. Having to exhaust all the different choices isn’t appealing.
  • As mentioned, the game is both too narrow and too broad. The wider story about The Dread and the vigilante is kind of… disjointed? It’s certainly not explored, or explained, deeply enough to be satisfying. At the same time, the Vermin’s game itself had more potential than was on display.

Concluding Thoughts:

I did enjoy the game, despite my problems with it. I certainly enjoyed the Vermin’s game, and wanted to see more focus on it. I had difficulty understanding the relevance of the broader universe, and difficulty bringing myself to care about it the same way that I cared about the Vermin’s game. I think the game could have been improved by either focusing solely on the Vermin’s game, or by more deeply explaining the wider universe it takes place in.[/spoiler]

Mirror and Queen by Chandler Groover

[spoiler]Blurb:

Another enigmatic one. Nice and short, though. Also, puzzleless? Oh, yes please.

General Impressions:

Oh, it’s Snow White! And I’m the Evil Queen! Of course. I should have realized from the title. Silly of me.

Anyway, this is an interesting little thing. It’s entirely deterministic – and intentionally so – in that you can’t actually change the outcome of the story. No matter what, the queen is going to decide to kill the princess; that’s what the mirror is going to counsel her to do. But that’s not the point. The point is the conversation that the queen has with the mirror in the interim. And that’s quite interesting. By providing different topics to the mirror, you learn snippets about the story (the death of the king and all that came after) as well as the characters. The gameplay, such as it is, exists entirely inside the player’s skull; it’s about what the player can uncover, and how they react to what they find.

I did wonder a bit just how much freedom the game gives you. Obviously there have to be limits to what the thing can coherently respond to. I thought it handled the problem fairly well. If you feed it something it can’t parse, it will tell you that your thoughts are scattered and you need to get back to what’s really on your mind, in enigmatic and circuitous prose. I quite liked that; it reminded me of the I Ching in that what it tells you is, basically, prettied-up nonsense, but if you think about it in relation to the prompt you gave it, it creates new associations in your mind and allows you to find meaning where there is none. It’s a good way to fake the parser understanding.

On the other hand, I did find that the verisimilitude broke down a bit as the game went on. At a certain point, it began to seem as if, no matter what I said, the mirror was going to feed me something that would push the story along. Understandable, I suppose, especially since there’s a turn limit on the game, but it did break the illusion that the mirror was in conversation with me. It had me wondering just how much the parser understood, and how much was just illusion.

The Good:

  • A puzzleless, gameplay-free game entirely about discovering the different facets of a complex situation and of a nasty, well-realized character that I inhabit? Yes. That is exactly my thing.
  • When the illusion of understanding works, it really works.

The Bad:

  • On the other hand, when the illusion of understanding doesn’t work, it really doesn’t.
  • I felt a bit railroaded by the end. Yes, I was always going to end up at a certain place, but it felt like the responses I was getting began to become decoupled from the prompts I was giving.

Concluding Thoughts:

I definitely think this is worth playing. It won’t hold you for long, but it’s fun to play with. Though, despite the fact that I’m very much into a “walking sim” approach to IF where you uncover a story indirectly, I found this was a bit too vague and abstract. If things were slightly less enigmatic and slightly clearer, I would have enjoyed it much more.[/spoiler]

Well… crud. I seem to have spectacularly failed to review all the games. Real life kind of threw a curve ball at me. Next year, I guess… dang it.

You could keep posting reviews post comp, isn’t it?

Reviews post-comp are still appreciated!

Seconded. Wait, thirded.

Hm… yep. Might just do that, then. :slight_smile: