Ratings and Reviews by Christina Nordlander

(Disclosure: I participated in EctoComp 2016.)

The following is not Andrew Schultz's fault, but when I saw the title, I got a strong mental impression of a shaded, elegiac ghost story. What it is is a decidedly non-complex "visit all the rooms without retracing your steps" puzzle, with some plot justifications involving ghosts and the afterlife. No descriptions, no NPCs, essentially nothing to interact with (though the last part is justified, given that you're non-corporeal). Still, once I started I found it a fun, semi-mindless way to spend an afternoon. An ASCII auto-map is included, and the game is just the right length not to feel too light, nor to outstay its welcome.

(Spoiler - click to show)Then, you have to guess a verb in order to win the game. While I found that part difficult, I wouldn't call it illogical. It also stands out as a puzzle that wouldn't work in any medium other than IF, and draws attention to the PC's powerless nature as a ghost in a way that is somewhat darker than anything we have been led to expect.

Technically, it's good: I appreciated the map, and there is even a system where progressively more blatant hints appear if you get stuck. (Also, as Easter eggs, try going UP or DOWN.) The only place where I felt the constraints of the three-hour time limit was in the writing, which felt a bit unpolished, even to the point of being difficult to understand. In places, this may even have affected my ability to solve the final puzzle. That is the only major fault I could find, though.

There is a bit of a story, even a pretty good one, but it's almost exclusively doled out in the intro and ending text.

Not horror in any sense of the word, and barely counts as the F in IF, but a fun diversion if you're in a puzzly mood, and technically robust for a speed-IF.

(Disclosure: I participated in EctoComp 2016.)

First of all, let it be said that I agree 100% with the concept behind this game. The idea of a horror parody of a disliked troll game is funny, and anyone who can make toilets scary is a friend of mine.

Unfortunately, this game feels like a troll itself. It's not egregiously bad; there's just barely anything there. The writing is... okay. It's a bit overblown in a way I assume is intentionally parodic, but again, it's hard to tell.

I don't want to knock it too hard: there's some sophisticated coding, and the actual horror content manages to be disorienting and startling. It just didn't make an impact on me at all, for better or for worse.

(Note: I didn't get the Lousy Last Point. Perhaps if I had, my feelings about the game would change.)

My interest for Save the World in 7 Moves was piqued after I read Sobol's review, which described it as a Rematch-style replay puzzle that manages to fit a vast amount of puzzle-solving into the Twine format. That is indeed true. The puzzles are the high point of the game: some challenging, some not particularly logical (as befits the surrealism of the plot), but I stuck it out and felt that the game rewarded my persistence. I'm particularly impressed with (Spoiler - click to show)the Emporium puzzle. I'd quite like to know the code that went into that.

Everything else? The plot is minimal and not very original. The solution to the problem is, again, not massively original, but at least it contains one or two twists rather than being a straightforward journey from point A to point B. The writing, while not bad, is somewhat ungrammatical: I can't tell whether the author is going for a Porpentine-style expressionism or simply isn't a native English-speaker, but that in itself is a bit damning. That said, some descriptions are atmospheric, and even the clunky grammar becomes background noise due to the many replays you're going to go through. There is plenty of satire of office life: it's amusing enough (stick it out through the meeting-room presentation at least once), but this is extremely well-trodden ground in IF, and this game doesn't add anything much.

While the puzzles are the high point of the game, towards the end I found myself lawn-mowering through the locations trying to find something I hadn't tried, and it ended up feeling like busy-work. Also, quite a chunk of the game is spent on a red herring (though it does point you in the direction of the correct solution).

EDIT: Removed a complaint that turned out to be due to my own misreading.

I hesitated whether to give this a 3 or a 4. Picture 3.5 stars if you will. The plot, writing and setting are nothing particularly memorable, but the puzzles really are good enough to make up for it. Play it for the puzzles. I'm glad I did.

PS. Was that a Stanley Parable reference?

(Disclosure: I participated in EctoComp 2016.)

The premise is original, and the writing is pretty good. I came into it expecting something rather light-hearted and silly, but the various PCs' backstories turn out to have a bit more darkness to them: a nice mixture of black comedy and inhumanity. Those backstories are probably my favourite part of the story: they're well-written and get the right amount of detail without dragging on.

Then you get to the bulk of the story, and... it's a boredom simulator. You have to click through a few repetitive tasks until enough years have passed for you to reach the planet of your destination, (Spoiler - click to show)upon which the storyline ends. There exists a game called Journey to Alpha Centauri: In Real Time, based on a joke in Terry Pratchett's novel Only You Can Save Mankind, where the joke is that it takes 3,000 years to complete; this is like the coffee-break version. Of course, the point is that the journey is immensely boring for the PC; the problem is that intentional boredom is still boredom.

(Spoiler - click to show)I played through all the characters, in case there were some sort of reward for completing all the storylines, but it turns out there isn't.

I found most of the PCs interesting in one way or another. I particularly enjoyed the vampire's backstory, and the lich has an interesting personality (and also the most varied content during the actual journey). Implementation-wise, the game is competent: nothing groundbreaking, but a good use of expanding text and randomised elements. On the downside, there are a few typoes, but not enough to reduce my enjoyment.

Not particularly scary.

To sum up: a fun idea, decently written, but still a boredom simulator.

(Disclosure: I participated in EctoComp 2016.)

This one grabbed me from the start: the set-up, with the PC in a car trying to escape from an unknown horror, is sufficiently rare in IF to be memorable, and creates a nice claustrophobic sense of horror. The writing is largely very good, despite one or two slightly cliché moments. Once I found out what the threat was, my interest flagged a little, but that's because I'm not a fan of (Spoiler - click to show)werewolves, not because of any fault in the game.

If I had to describe this game in one word, it would be "polished". Processes that could easily have become a case of guess-the-verb, such as driving a car or buying something, have been nearly perfectly streamlined. The game does a very good job of seeming sprawling and open, creating the illusion of a vast world despite the short time-frame of creation. Finally, the ending is powerful and appropriate to the set-up.

The only real problem I had is that you can lock yourself out of the winning ending (Spoiler - click to show)literally, by not taking the hamburger before you get locked out of the car. This was particularly annoying to me as I figured out the winning move, only to realise that I'd left behind the item I needed. Now, you may say that this is an IF game, you should pick up everything that isn't nailed down. The thing is, if I have something in my car, I think of it as being in my possession. "You need to pick it up" doesn't register with me.

EDIT: The author has informed me that it is still possible to get a winning ending if this happens, so I stand corrected.

There are a couple of other minor annoyances: figuring out how to enter (Spoiler - click to show)the gas station is unintuitive (you have to use IN; ENTER or compass directions won't work); some stock commands are unimplemented (for example, OPEN DOOR while struggling to get back into your car will give you "You can't see any such thing"). Of course, such issues are the expected casualties of a speed-IF, and apart from these few technical problems, I really have no complaints about this game. Play it if you want a tense, unnerving horror game with a sense of a large world and a strong ending.

Well worthy of its high score in the competition.

A short piece of dynamic fiction about trying some ecological fresh-from-the-comb honey for the first time. There is a little bit of interactivity, but the main draw is in the perfectly gauged prose (I was particularly impressed by the author's way of describing flavours, something I always find difficult to put into words), and the glimpses of the PC's surroundings and backstory.

The hyperlinked words often have little connection with what comes next. Moving to a new page shows the previous paragraphs with the new paragraph added: not my favourite format, but that is a taste thing, and it prevents you from losing track of the narrative. While I'm on the subject of technical details, the use of yellow text for some words is a bit of a pain, since it's almost necessary to highlight it. However, it's rare enough not to be a big issue.

Fine slice of life with an elegiac edge. Read if you want to savour some exact prose, or enjoy honey.

(Disclaimer: I participated in EctoComp 2016.)

Going Home is a very sparse zombie horror story in Twine. The PC is attacked by zombies and turned into one of them in the opening scene. This scene, and the PC's ensuing disoriented attempt to go home, are written in a semi-comical fashion, with plentiful use of growls and zombie noises. While there is horror here, it is not really emphasised.

This is followed by (Spoiler - click to show)a rather restrained and tragic scene of the PC attacking and eating their little daughter.

The Petite Mort class of EctoComp is of course under extreme time pressure, and taking the limitations into account, this isn't a bad story, but neither does it rise to any great heights. The succinctness undermines the horror, and of course, reactions to the horror and emotive content are going to vary from person to person. There is a game-like maze element (in the "going home" segment, all your choices are represented by guttural noises). It's not long enough to get frustrating, and it's a cool idea in theory, but in practice there does not seem to be any way to solve it other than by trial and error.

To sum up: there are some good points, such as some black comedy and a fairly powerful ending, but by and large I found it unmemorable. Still, it's short enough that it's worth a try.

Here is the plot of Zero Sum Game: you are an adventurer who needs to go back and undo the puzzles you've solved, decreasing your score as you do so.

This is still an unusual conceit, and even more so in 1997. However, the puzzles are fairly traditional, without particularly relying on the "undo your actions" idea: finding keys to locked doors, killing or placating enemies who block your path.

Some reviewers have criticised the game for being violent. In my opinion, this is a bit exaggerated: it's hardly the IF equivalent of American Psycho, more like a fairly gory episode of Family Guy. That said, there is indeed (non-graphic) violence against innocents on the part of the PC and others, and some (non-graphic, comedic) sexual content. What I came away with was a sense of shallowness and slapstick. I found most of the major characters funny enough, but extremely one-note. The most developed one is probably your non-speaking animal companion, which might be significant. There is a type of fantasy parody story where everyone is stupid, sociopathic and horny, and Zero Sum Game fits into that bracket.

Most of the puzzles are logical and decently clued, and some are very clever. (I particularly enjoyed how you (Spoiler - click to show)resurrect the dragon.) However, some are unintuitive. Most blatantly, at one point you need to hide in one area when an NPC comes in and drops an item: miss it and you lose the item and your chance to complete the game. There is no massively compelling reason that the player should decide to hide in this place and rifle through the NPCs belongings, and I didn't figure it out without a walkthrough.

There is some world-building, but in general, the game's world is extremely thin, throwing together a number of settings (an orphanage, a troll bridge, a castle) because they fit with the puzzles. The writing is uneven. Most of the time it feels bland, but there are also passages of slightly overwrought beauty (such as the description of the oak in the glade), and some of the jokes are very good.

A funny parody adventure for an evening or two, if you're not bothered by violent characters and immature humour, but don't expect to still be thinking about it for weeks afterwards. A game that uses the same conceit, but with (in my opinion) better writing and more inventive puzzles, is Janitor.