Obligatory IFComp post

[infryq]

IFComp 2013 is open! View the games here. Spoilers and reviews under the cut.


Worthwhile games in boldface.

• 9Lives: [parser] I had such high hopes for this one, since it was a class assignment and I figured the only reason it would have been submitted is if the instructor recommended they do so. Alas. It was so poorly tested I grew frustrated and quit after only a few turns. Objects mentioned in descriptions weren't implemented; verbs didn't use obvious defaults (> bail (the lifejacket)? really?); the story is supposed to be fast-paced and stressful but the implementation is so clunky it slows everything down. After reading another review I believe they would've had a lot more success implementing this as a twine game.
  
• Captain Verdeterre's Plunder: [parser] Adorable, short, straightforward, enjoyable. Probably has good replay value to optimize the plundertaking route.
  
• The House at the End of Rosewood Street: [parser] Makes you guess exit directions. What?
  
• Further: [parser] Short, clear, patient, delightful.
  
• Impostor Syndrome: [twine] Starts out feeling over-the-top, but once you've crawled enough of the story (are there other ways to play a twine game?) you internalize the monologues and they suddenly hit hard and horrible. There are at least two endings, both worth finding.
  
• WHO AMONG US: [twine] I guess? It starts well, mostly prose with player control over only the pacing, very few choice points, pleasantly done. Once the plot gets interesting, the choice points increase, and the implementation gets sloppy -- comments were left in, links were left labelled as IDs instead of in prose, some dead ends that look like they meant to be links but contained typos and misparsed. By the end I wasn't interested in what happened anymore.
  
• dad vs. unicorn: [twine] well-crafted! Short. and I agree with emshort, it's not fun but it's not meant to be.
  
• Blood on the Heath: [twine] Extensive, engaging, enjoyable. Mostly well-crafted (one dead end, unobtrusive typos), enough to stay out of the way of the story. Very character-driven, which I liked!
  
• Bell Park, Youth Detective: [twine] Delightful! Quirky; well-paced; irreverent and genre-referent without being obnoxious; turns upside-down at the end. I mean, after reading emshort's review, on second examination the premise is indeed disturbing, but the story isn't written to be self-aware enough to notice. Which is either shrugworthy or horrifying, depending on your viewpoint.
  
• Autumn's Daughter: [undum/vorple] Illuminating, but uneven. The story is set in rural Pakistan. I think it's really hard to give a person of privilege a real sense of what it's like, not only to be in that situation, but to have grown up in that culture. The consequences in the bad endings felt waaaay out of proportion to the character's actions. I reached the "best" ending by making the choices I would have made in her place, as a white privileged American with liberal parents, which honestly felt far more transgressive and inappropriate than the choices the character might actually have made. Maybe that's the point? That small acts of assertiveness are almost worse than doing nothing at all, and only tantrum/ragequitting-level responses will make any real difference?
  
• 100,000 years: [twine] Great mechanic; wish the author had done more with it. This one might actually have been awesome as a parser game, to allow more detail in setting & exposition.
  

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_tove/]

Last year's "this was a class project!" entry was pretty bad too. (Sort of charming, in its way, but not an enjoyable playing experience.)

I'm really looking forward to Captain Verdeterre's Plunder! Ryan Veeder is one of my favorite new-ish IF folks.

[chrisamaphone]

thanks for saying there were 2 endings to Imposter Syndrome - that was fun to find :)