Reviews by MathBrush

This is a long Twine game about a family of 19 that visits a theme park that (to me) seems clearly Disney-influenced (due to things like a water-based ride that takes a picture of 8 people at a time for a souvenir, or a hall of american history).

The overall structure of this game reminds me of nothing more than the Wikipedia summary of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which has been voted the best movie of all time. I haven't seen it, but it's described as a very long, slow movie about a single mother who has a dull daily routine (including daily prostitution). Her day is shown in slow stillness over and over for hours, but then flaws enter her routine, and in the end she becomes violent and breaks out.

This game is similar. The beginning part emphasizes the chaotic and frustrating nature of a Disney (or Universal Studios) trip with 19 people. There are constant little arguments and clamoring from children and adults wanting to take a break and get a drink or food, etc. Like Jeanne Dielman, this story is (intentionally) paced painfully slowly, with large pages filled with large paragraphs of very similar, repetitive material. To me, this seems intentional, so that when the strange flaws begin to creep in (which I first noticed in a scene involving a mole), it becomes more shocking and strange.

There are two main protagonists I saw more than any other, Lou and a name you chose yourself (I chose Evelyn from Incredibles 2). I had great trouble distinguishing between the two at first, as speakers and act-ors change frequently in the middle of paragraphs, and spoken text is often written without italics or quotations. Here is an early sample:

The combination of smells only intensifies inside the park. Added to it now is the smell of melting rubber-shoe-soles, engine exhaust, caramel, horse manure, artificial vanilla. grandma is dying for a cup of coffee, does anyone else want anything? Three hands go up, two adults and one child. The two adults want coffee also, the child wants an ice cream cone. This earns a rebuke from her father. Ice cream! It’s eight in the morning! But grandma is quick, this is vacation! Let’s have ice cream!

While the protagonist whose name we choose is interesting and has some experiences meeting up with other local college students, I followed Lou more. Lou is older, a gay woman in her 30s, and not out to her homophobic family. As she ventures through the park and navigates interactions with her family, she also encounters a mysterious voice on a walkie-talkie channel, as well as an attractive bartender. The ending of her story was long, complex and unexpected.

I think the overall concept of this game is well-thought out, and it's clear the author has great skill at writing. In this case, they obtained the effect they desired, but I found it dense and not fully enjoyable. The suffocating feel of the large paragraphs, the confusion of switching perspectives and speech, it effectively simulated the 'big stressful vacation', but one maxim I've had over the years is "a perfect simulation of a boring or annoying situation is boring or annoying". However, I'm torn, because this same frustration in the early sections is needed for the setup for the big changes in the end. So I don't have any advice for this author, other than to give my own personal subjective experience.

Playing the game did make me reminisce a lot. For the last five years or so, me and my son have been part of a big family vacation to the mountains in Utah, where we wander around as a group of 17. Many parts of this game felt familiar, like navigating different political climates (some of my family are ardent Trump supporters, while others are lifelong Democrats) and the chaos of big groups and tracking down missing kids. Others were less familiar; we don't drink or have blow-out arguments, and we pick completely chill vacations without structure where we mostly swim. We do have closeted gay family, but the 'support' side is large and there is no open hate. None of this affects the verisimilitude of the game, and is likely not relevant to the author or other readers, but it's interesting to see how other people perceive the same life events as us. I have also, conversely been on non-family trips that had this exact suffocating feeling, desire to flee from everything, and buying a flight early. So a lot of this story rang true to me.

Another factor tied in to the whole 'frustrating setup, satisfying payoff' is that there isn't much freedom early on, and we only get freedom in choice as the protagonists themselves do. I was particularly frustrated early on where I had the choice to expose a family member's cruelty or not. I chose not to, but the game said something like, 'Yeah right! No, you do the other choice.'. Similarly, at the very end, for Lou's path, I had to choose between two major options. I chose the more cowardly option, and the game ended very abruptly, leaving me wondering if this was a 'fake' or 'bad' option and that I'd need to replay to see the other.

I commend the author's intense efforts and strong writing skill. For me, I felt a strong dislike for the world in the first half, but that was a reflection of the author's ability, and not the lack thereof.

This is a genre of story I like: in a postapocalyptic world caused by unexplainable events that warp the very definition of life, an explorer is determined to discover the truth behind this new world.

While the game seems to be highly replayable (you can pick a wide variety of teammates and each day gives you different options), I only played to one ending, where I can become renowned as the discoverer of the truth.

The writing is descriptive, focused on the salt-covered world you live in and the strange creatures you begin to find in the wastes as you journey towards the center. Conversations with teammates reveal more about the worldbuilding and society in particular.

The atmosphere was moody, it felt scientific enough to provoke curiosity, and enjoyed my time with the game. I didn't feel compelled to try again, as I felt I had experienced a full story.

This was a fun game. You play as a rock on a wilderness path. You are a talking rock.

At first, all you can do is have random encounters with people, at least one of whom definitely does not like talking rocks. Eventually, you learn more about the people and their inter-connectedness, and you gain the ability to call them to make them come.

The game has 20 endings, and you can accept any of them. There is an 'ultimate' ending you unlock by getting the others and a 'true' ending that happens if you've played long enough.

I played twice, because I ran out of time in the first one and accepted an ending. The second time, I skipped a few things, and I think that made it impossible to collect all endings, because several endings seem to only be offered once (specifically one of the florist's endings).

I also had big trouble finding out what the Freak's need was and how to solve it. I ended up looking into the code to figure it out, where I also read the final ending.

Any ending is fine. If someone plays this and finds five or more endings, as well as an ending that reveals more about your nature, that's the bulk of the game and you could probably comfortably stop there.

The writing is whimsical and goofy. There is a lot of absurdism, but the setting is consistent enough to make the absurd parts stick out and be funny instead of being a jumbled mish-mash.

It didn't stir my soul or change my life, but I was entertained while playing and enjoyed looking for endings.

This game really spoke to me. It reminded me quite a bit of the last year of my marriage in an introspective, helpful way (outside of the creating an AI to help me work through things).

Like the blurb says, this game was written "On the making of your very own artificial general intelligence, and how to live — or not live — with it."

It is in three acts. The first has a portion mimicking a command-line interface and an AI that you are training. The second and third branch out into a more natural-looking interface as your program develops.

There are a lot of fancy styling techniques going on, from hover-over hints, slow typed-out text, the aforementioned interfaces, blacked out text that you have to hover over, images with different expressions.

The whole game (outside a bit of memories and intro) is a conversation between you and the AI you created as both of you try to figure out your place in the world. It is a romance, or, more accurately, the topics of conversation are about relationships.

I noticed that this is one of the last games to be reviewed. I think two possible reasons might be that the game mentions AI, perhaps giving the impression that generative AI was used (it might have been, but I don't think so; this is just a story about a fictional AI), and the game uses slow-typed text.

I usually hate slow-typed text and have gone on rants about it before, but I didn't mind it quite as much here, especially since I could often get the next line started before the first had finished typing, and I could read them in parallel, which was kind of fun. Also the small scope and lush nature of the game made it feel reasonable and even enjoyable.

Overall, I thought this was well done, and it resonated with me personally more than most games in the comp so far (which is completely subjective, and may not be everyone's experience).

Penthesilea

This is a short twine story about a near-future authoritarian regime where you are wife to one of the highest officials in the nation. And you are a perfectly obedient wife, your husband telling you what to say, what to eat, what to do.

But something's wrong in this strange world, and you find yourself with the capability to resist.

The setting is reminiscent of 1984 (it feels to me like an older time's vision of a dystopian future) and the setup of the regime vs the rebels reminded me of Hunger Games in the way the rich are portrayed. There are some references to Greek mythology for the names, but I didn't see a clear connection between the Greek figure and this game's story, so I think it's just for flavor.

There is interesting interaction in the game, enough that I played twice (once obedient, once rebellious) and there is some non-linearity in the scenes. I found the quality of the writing and the plot structure to be enjoyable, and so I look forward to the other two games by this author. There is some strong profanity.

This is one of several games entered into this competition translated from other languages, in this case Spanish, although I didn't see it entered in any Spanish competitions in the past year, so it is fresh to me.

This game consists of three vignettes set in Israel, America, and Palestine.

Before going into deeper spoilers, I'll mention the general idea of each section. In the first, you wake up in Tel Aviv where darkness has completely covered the sky. You can investigate by walking through different neighborhoods of Tel Aviv and hope to discover the truth.

In the second, you are Donald Trump, waking up in Mar-a-Lago after a night of excess.

In the third, you are a father in Gaza, and it is your daughter's birthday.

The game is explicitly political with some clear messages but parts are open to interpretation.

With more spoiler detail:

I received less than half of the possible points in the game, which are given for exploration, so I likely missed out on some interesting chunks.

One notable line that stood out to me:

While parts of it are clear wish fulfillment (literally) with fantasies shared by millions, the other parts are sad reflections of war. (Spoiler - click to show)The daughter, living in a world of starvation and death, caused by her enemies, now sees her enemies as inhuman and deserving of torture and death, perpetuating the endless cycle of hatred. It's a sad commentary.

I was surprised this one wasn't reviewed on the spreadsheet yet. Jacic has a history of doing small, well-polished creepy stories, so I was looking forward to playing this one, and I think it worked out well.

This story combines three effective horror tropes: a 'deal with the devil' (although who the deal is with here is up to interpretation), carnivorous plants, and a lottery/voting system in a small town for deciding which citizen to kill.

You play as a citizen in a small desert town that depends on its sustenance for red, bloody fruit. Unfortunately, the red, bloody fruit, gifted to the town by a stranger years ago, can only grow if fed upon the blood of the guilty. Thus it falls upon your community to determine the guilty among yourselves each year and to feed them to the tree.

The problem is that your wife was taken last year, and you and your son are among the top nominees this time. You have to navigate your way through these tumultuous times and find a way to save yourself and the remnants of your family.

I liked the creepy styling on this and though the writing was appropriately dread-filled. I had some real agency, as I took the option at the end to revisit the game from its most important decision points. Both endings were slightly 'off' for me in length; I feel like it could have done with either less denouement and just having an abrupt or implied ending or a longer denouement with more emphasis on the character, but that's just nitpicking since I didn't find any real flaws to talk about. Jacic produces consistently good work and I look forward to more games from this author.

This is the second Lamp Post Projects game that I've played this IFComp. Like the earlier one (The Secrets of Sylvan Gardens), it takes place in a fantasy world with orcs, half-orcs, humans, elves, half-elves, and others, and with scientists like botanists and astronomers.

In this game, a solar eclipse is scheduled to happen soon, and the path of totality will go over a set of standing stones that are holy to an ancient God. Anyone who is there when the eclipse happens will be granted a wish. You can play as a true believer, an adventurer, or an astronomer, with different bonuses and endgames. I played as a true believer.

Along your pilgrimage, you have the opportunity to meet with two sets of two other pilgrims, for a total of four. The first pair are sibling half-orcs, while the second are a halfling man and (eventually) an elf woman.

You can choose to go with the group or not. I ignored the half-orcs at first because I wasn't as interested in them, but I joined up with them later once I saw the halfling.

This is a 'cozy' setting, a particular type I've seen a few times where there's not very high stakes, everyone is nice to each other (introducing with pronouns, asking consent before personal questions), there is no threat of death or severe injury. Just five chill people headed to the stones and some magical creatures out for mischief.

Most of the game is conversation, and most conversation is having a few topics you can explore in any order, and within topics being able to react to NPC questions by generally being kind, neutral, or mean. There are also puzzle segments in the game (some very easy, others more tricky). You can romance any of the four NPCs, although it can feel very fast paced due to the time constraints of the game (true love in two weeks, for instance).

It was a pleasant story, I felt I had agency (I skipped several conversations that didn't seem as interesting and focused more on a couple key characters) and it has replay value.

Retrograding

This is a downloadable visual novel written in Unity. It has an early branch point that essentially gives you two different games. I picked the second dossier, and got the second path.

This is a visually lush VN, with dozens of image credits listed at the end. Most (maybe all?) are realistic, with underground caves, steel factories, etc.

Grasping everything that was going on was a little tricky. I had the feeling that I had been invited to a long-running TTRPG session with a stellar DM and a close-knit group of friends, but without any explanation of what had gone on before or how we got here. So I'll say what I think is going on, which might be wrong (I'll put the opening without spoilers and the rest in spoilers):

We are a member of an intergalactic corporation/military organization/group that deals with trash on planets either by burning them up or by taking things off of them. I suspect it might be a very inefficient process, as we just take a single object every time, and I'm not sure how we choose where to land. We have a commanding officer type person (who was fun to interact with) and there is a digital friend/symbiote of ours that can talk to us, but whom no one else hears.

We aren't super high up in the system but we're working on it. We're given the option of working with two different people: a reckless racer with a death wish and a former top star at the company who's been rebellious and is being reeducated (I think).

I chose the latter.

[spoiler]We went on several missions together, where she talked about how she was special and hoped I was too. This might be referring to the AI that's with me, who seems to be both a god and a former person who was converted into digital matter. I picked material that was religious or ancient, and at the end the person I was with said she loved me and that she was kind of obsessed with me and we kissed.[/spoiler]

While I didn't always know what is going on, the vibes were immaculate, in the sense that the game felt polished, scenes had tension, characters were interesting, etc. I didn't feel compelled to try the other path, but would be interested in hearing from others who did.

Edit: As a side note, when screens are black you have to hit enter again, so keep an eye out for that!

There's a tradition in IF running through Anna Anthropy and Porpentine and carried on by others of writing body horror symbolic of the trans experience. This game is firmly and intentionally in that vein; the author explicitly says:

"Like many transgender artists, I tend to gravitate towards body horror as a reflection of my trans lived experience. For transgender players, I suspect the allegories present in PURE may resonate with personal experience."

In this parser story, you are accompanied by an heir (whom I saw as representative of wealth and power and possible romance) and two guards (who were often cruel or rough and who could represent society, police, the implied threat of violence) into a underground area of unspoken significance. You are filled with dread.

And well you should be. Like the progression of disturbing and dramatic rooms in the opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, each room you go through presents you with some horror or dread, as well as symbolism. You perform symbolic acts like matching statues or solving riddles using items while simultaneously dealing with horrific bodily injuries to both you and those around you. Wording is intense and strong, but the text treats the violence in almost a holy light; this is not violence for violence's sake, but violence as a means of communicating the strength of someone's feeling.

Or, I could just be making it all up.

The game ends at a dramatic point, setting us up for part 1. It works as a standalone, though; if the author had written a few paragraphs of ending text, I would have seen this as a complete work.

There are some bugs and typos in the work, and I would definitely raise my rating if they were fixed. The errors I saw were things like default text printed after custom text (a common thing in Inform 7 when doing a 'before' rule but not putting 'instead' at the end of the last line) and typos like 'scone' for 'sconce'. There are some programming things the game does very well, like colored text, so I know the author must be good at coding.

This is a good work, and it's exactly the kind of thing that I think makes IFComp worth playing: personal, raw work that the author cares about and which tries to communicate something.