Ratings and Reviews by JJ McC

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

So, I spent a good amount of COVID’s duration, like many of us, spinning in my own brain, grasping at any lifeline I could think of. One of my outlets was to create and share cocktails weekly, with fancy names like ‘Science Schmience,’ ‘A-B-CDC-Ya,’ and eventually, ‘Orange Slapdown.’ As the weeks dragged on, the obvious complementary flavors (and what was available readily in stores!) grew rarer, so I periodically tried combining things I loved individually to see if they played together. So very, very often they did not. Usually, it was obvious going in that they would not, but hey, science right? With enough time and energy, like a one-man infinite monkey with infinite cocktail shakers, I eventually tumbled onto a sublime discovery: the ‘Internal Sunshine of the Stable Genius Mind’ (and its candy-ass partner, the 'Internal Bleach of the Stable Genius Mind) – ISOSGM/IBOSGM for short. This improbable combination of citrus-forward gin, eldeflower liquer, kumquat simple syrup and egg combined to become so much more than the sum of its conflictory parts. (‘Bleach’ omits the egg in deference to my wife’s extreme physiological objections.)

The Bat performs similar alchemy in a less alcoholic medium. Take parts I love in isolation: servant-soire’-farce, superhero spoof, limited vocabulary parser, and light parlor mystery and you have the makings of a muddled mess. Or, in this case, something that improbably combines these elements into something greater even than their very pleasing individual parts.

Initially, I found the light vocabulary to be chafing - using the catch-all manipulation verb ‘attend to’ is intuitive when interacting with high society guests, but less so when fumbling with objects. It is in fact the only manipulation verb in the game, so eventually the shorthand ‘>a [object]’ alchemically becomes ‘whatever I currently want to do with [object]’ in my brainpan. Occasionally there are glitches where it is unclear which object should be attended to when you require two to interact, but again the brain quickly pastes ‘well, try the other one’ over the gap.

The early game is a pretty great ramp from acclimating the player to the syntax of the game and the geography of the mansion, then slowly but inexorably building guest on calamity on random events until the poor butler protagonist is flailing around the mansion like an electrified butterfly. Things are always just outside manageable and that masterful balance is where the humor continually keeps frustration at bay. There is a player score of sorts, charitable donations guests are willing to make based on how well they are attended to, and the ups and downs of this provide a very amusing tension to the proceedings.

As soon as that gameplay becomes familiar, the game shifts gears to a light parlor mystery whose culprit is not really in doubt, but the mechanics of catching them are interwoven into business and romantic trysts that test the protagonist’s inflappable discretion in various, hilarious ways. It also introduces some next level puzzling that is as funny as it is fun to play with, that ALSO builds on player knowledge in a very satisfying way.

Ultimately, the game crests to foreground the light superhero spoof it has been nodding at the entire game, a thoroughly ANTI grim’n’gritty take on a Dark Knight that could really stand to lighten up a bit. The final battle puzzle is a little clumsier than the leadup ones, but it does leverage the best mechanic in the game, so even flailing a bit is not unpleasant. Then, the FINAL employment of that mechanism turns into a double entendre’ so crisply tying the whole thing together that all is forgiven.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the role the writing has in tying the whole thing together. The protagonist’s dry, beleaguered but indefatigable voice, committed to his role despite all its indignities, is the perfect counterpoint to the chaos around him. The narration is similarly matter-of-fact and minimal, letting the chaos speak for itself, and admirably gesturing at interesting details without clouding the vibe. This is a case study in ‘less is more,’ both for humor, and parser cluing.

It is clear I hope that I was thoroughly Engaged with this work. Like others of its scope, the 2hr timer provided an additional charge of tension at the end, as I had no intention of leaving the game unfinished. It was tight, but yay me. The limited vocabulary implementation ended up being a true strength, limiting opportunity for gaps while settling into a gameplay paradigm that was intuitive and transparent. I didn’t make an ISOSGM to celebrate its accomplishments as my kumquats* are not in season, but next time I enjoy one I will retroactively toast this game’s success.

*There is a whole different story around my wondrous discovery, so late in life, of the majesty of the humble kumquat. I will save that for a more appropriate time.

Played: 10/3/24
Playtime: 2hr, finished $100,000,000 in donation
Artistic/Technical ratings: Engaging/Seamless
Would Play Again?: No, experience feels complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

Military works can be quite divisive. Historically, media has lionized our fighting forces, not without some valid kernel of a reason. As a volunteer force, people making the choice to serve something larger than themselves, at potentially great personal physical risk, is a laudable choice. In an imperfect world, when outside forces have few qualms about inflicting death and destruction, a response in kind is a basic need of a nation. (Just ask Ukraine.) Where we get into trouble is that ‘volunteer’ is a loaded term when economic opportunity is not truly equal, and when the choice to employ force is, by design, outside the volunteers’ hands. You might as easily be asked to liberate people from death camps, as slaughter civilians in the name of lower gas prices. It is fair to say only one of those things is an appealing cause to volunteer for. It is rendered even more complex with the stunning lethality of modern weapons, and only half-assed attempts to increase precision through the fog of war. Even the most noble of causes can be tainted if retaliation is indiscriminate.

It is against this very fraught backdrop that Deserter introduces us to a future mech-based war, and a soldier bent on quitting the fight. It is a choice-select work, and the player is given no options to stay and fight. I mean, fair enough, the title kind of unambiguously points that way. But it does so with NO table setting, no background in the conflict. Early on, it is not clear whether this is a noble or craven act. The work clearly WANTS us to perceive it as the former, but absent context it is far too charged and unclear to be a given, and that doubt drives a wedge between player and protagonist.

In particular, the work seems to have only an action-movie understanding of soldier dynamics. One of the oldest tools militaries use to secure loyalty is religious fervor. The SECOND oldest (probably, I didn’t do the math) is to ensure every soldier’s highest allegiance is to his fellow soldiers. You are not fighting for God here. You are not fighting for political leaders. You may be fighting for ideals, though that pull is uncertain if those ideals are removed from your own turf. No, you are fighting for the soldier next to you on either side, so you all come home together. This coopting of humanity's social impulses is a fundamental aspect of human warfare and is the strongest counterweight against desertion. It is also completely missing in this work. It is not that it HAS to be present here, but its absence certainly should be addressed. It is precisely this lack of dynamic that raises the spectre of cravenness in the protagonist.

But desert he does! As the escape progresses, we are treated to a not-great use of interactivity: choices to make with nothing to analyze to inform the choice. Go left or right? Only the vaguest of context. In heat of battle, this is not a bad design in and of itself. The fact that the work later makes those choices irrelevant begs the question, why bother creating an unfair choice the player will angst over? Other interactive opportunities run afoul of the scenario itself. Because the protagonist’s motives are so cloudy, subsequent available choices: to explore a cave rather than continue an escape make little story sense, but turn out to be the only way to get character context! Too, events seem overly contrived - despite being minutes from an active war zone, the protagonist not only can (Spoiler - click to show)run across refugees, those refugees can include (Spoiler - click to show)HIS OWN FAMILY. For a topic as loaded as modern warfare, combatant culpability, and the price paid by non-combatants, I found the work too shallow for its setting. It relied on motivations without justifying them, and contrived unconvincing events to drive its message home. The unconvincing nature of its plotting and interactivity actually undermine what it is driving at by putting the player in a skeptical frame of mind.

Its heart is in the right place, I’ll give the work that. This prevents this from being truly Bouncy, but its shaky narrative did not engage me. The gyrations needed to uncover its deepest context were both unrealistic and convoluted so it wasn’t even until third playthrough that the protagonist’s motivations approached clarity. At that point, the charge of discovery was so well and truly muted that it was too little, too late.

Played: 10/3/24
Playtime: 25m, three endings: (Spoiler - click to show)escape, save boy, escape with stuffed bear
Artistic/Technical ratings: Mechanical/Notable text artifacts
Would Play Again?: No, experience feels complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

Sometimes I like to do things to mix up the formula. Some wildly misfiring neurons during happy hour made me think, “Hey, what if I tried to review one of these after too much liquid refreshment?? I mean, I love Drunk History and My Drunk Kitchen, how hard could THAT be? Besides, it’s not problematic if you are drinking for ART!!!”

A lot of my worst ideas happen at the end of happy hour. To be fair, I had no way of knowing Big Fish was lying in wait at the top of my queue. So I topped up my glass and jumped in, giggling madly at my own subversive antics. Here’s the thing. Clouding your mind in a crowded film set, with cameras rolling, then gabbling on about historical facts or trying to work cookware is energizing. The entertainer is performing and must be the motive force. Watching someone struggle against their own decreasing capabilities in real time is kind of hilarious. Sitting in a comfortable chair, sun long set, house quiet as the other residents slumber… me swimming along in a pleasant mental blur… this is not as hilarious as one might think. The struggle was as much with the Sandman as the work. (It for SURE is not conducive to then writing about it! Maybe I should have tried dictation??) This would have been a challenge for any work.

For THIS work, though, this somewhat slapdash mystery chock full of alligator cults, wild religious motivations, typos and misspellings, I was asea. I think I played it like three times that night, never fully able to get my head around what was going on. Thank goodness it was a short work, and replaying next day was an option. Dear readers, even stone cold sober, in the harsh light of day, the experience was more same than different.

This presents as an ‘investigate to clear your uncle’s name’ work, but everything about it is just a little feverish. The protag periodically drops bon mots like having ‘despicable thoughts’ about the victim’s bed. Chapter breaks intrude randomly into the narrative - you are told chapter 2 ended without even knowing chapters were a thing. Then after Chapter 3, the divisions kind of disappear? The Uncle’s name flickers between Fleur and Fuller without explanation, lending the impression the narrative just FORGOT. A key opens multiple safes in different houses. Epilogues suggest one character only recently met and released from an asylum MOVING IN WITH THE PROTAG. She clearly had not seen him brush his teeth. As much as I was struggling to keep my hands around the work, SO WAS THE WORK ITSELF.

None of the characters, neither the protagonist, sheriff, various interviewees behave as actual humans. Characters you only meet in background reading don’t behave as actual humans either. And the crocodile-based lore, hoo boy. There is a world where all these disparate parts build weird on weird on weird into a dream-logic phantasm of mesmeric power. You would think inebriation would facilitate that transformation. The fact that it did NOT suggests the effect was not as deliberate, certainly not as controlled, as I would hope. I like bonkers things. This was just too disorganized to gel even around the nebulous logic of its own crazy. We’re talking about a work with CROCODILE JESUS just not closing the deal - to a drunk guy! The bar could not be lower!

The work had plenty of sparks of WTF? for sure, but that, sadly, is not my metric. Despite a pretty clear, well-worn path between WTF? and Joy, this work did not navigate that for me. Drunk or sober there was not enough charge to get beyond Mechanical.

Played: 10/2/24
Playtime: 30-45m inebriated, 30m sober next day, solved, normal end
Artistic/Technical ratings: Mechanical/Intrusively nonsensical
Would Play Again?: No, experience feels complete. Will not play with Drunk Reviewer again, either.

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

Another in a great line of wordplay larks from ANDREW that I might both love AND RUE. Will I prove a BEARD OWNING wizened sage, or a BEER DOWNING rummy of regret? Shall my intellect soar with eagles among their ACORN AERIE, or will these puzzles give me A COR’NARY? Oh, I could go on, don’t dare me.

Another really fun outing in a series that is a beacon of comfort in the IFCOMP landscape (not unlike DiBianca’s ouvre’, at least prior to my epic fail this year). Comfort food kind of feels like a back handed compliment, doesn’t it? “I love it because it is so FAMILIAR…” These may not be the words an artist wants to hear, but y’know what? I love meatloaf, and will eat it wherever and whenever it is on offer. Same for peach cobbler. Their flavors are consistently rewarding, and each encounter adds to the warm encounters before it, transforming it to a memory-infused repast of happy. Sure, your molecular cooking experiments may dazzle in novelty but they simply cannot carry the emotional resonances that enrich say Christmas breakfast casserole. Thanks for trying, vapor steak, but no.

It takes a moment to adjust to this particular brand of wordplay, but as usual once up to speed the giddy head scratching begins! The intro text marks this as ‘less difficult’ than others in the series and that is probably so, just on the nature of the wordplay involved. I needed the walkthrough far less here, actually mostly when specific locations or directions were required, not so much for the wordplay itself. There were some unfinished aspects to it. I believe I got a message saying ‘put better details here’ or somesuch, and toughest, the penultimate location had no direction pointers to the final location, it was not clear I was not in a dead end! Only the walkthrough told me a direction to try. While notable, and perhaps defeating without hint or walkthrough, presence of hints allowed me to route around blockage to fully appreciate the work on hand. Take heed other works!

I must say, I particularly enjoyed the profanity optional room. I found those puzzles so obvious as to really question my standing in polite society, but also kind of charming in how awkward they seemed against this author’s much squeakier writing persona. Andrew may be a seasoned sailor on the swearing seas, but his writing does not give that impression. It was kind of endearing, honestly. Usually, I top these joints out at Sparks, but in deference to the power of comfort food am upgrading it this year to Engaging, with Notable unfinished artifacts.

In the end, despite warnings they might IMPART ACHE, I proclaimed, “I’M PARTAKE!” I followed the FANCIFUL CRUMBS, arming myself with logical FANCY FULCRUMS against these puzzles. I avoided mental FUNKY STROKES and had a solid session of
_ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I told you not to test me. I have no shame.

Played: 10/2/24
Playtime: 1.75hr, 54/54
Artistic/Technical ratings: Engaging/Notable missing navigation cues!
Would Play Again?: No, experience feels complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

Man, is hyperspace a great metaphor for my experience with this game, especially THIS game’s version of hyperspace. Isolated enclosure murder mysteries are well suited to a sci-fi implementation - what could be more forbidding, more confining than the depths of space? Add a super well-conceived vision of hyperspace as a psychologically corrosive OTHER space just adds fuel to an already glowing fire as it were, and gives the game a ticking clock to solve against: stay too long and the humans might go insane!

Not only is this really cool conceit very effectively established, I cannot describe the charge I got seeing that it was an ACTUAL REALTIME TIMER! Holy crap, I better start clicking! Good thing I am an AI computer that thinks in nanotime! In the moment, I didn’t even have cause to question, “Wait, WHY is that timer so definitive? Surely sci-fi forensics would solve things, once we land?” If nothing else, as the ship’s AI, I wanted to solve it, not leave it to some meatbag with a tricorder.

From there, gameplay segues into a series of suspect interviews, where, as these things often do, it seems EVERYONE has a reason to kill the victim! (Why are we ALWAYS traveling on (Spoiler - click to show)the Orient Express in these things??? Can’t we just once take the 7:21 train up three stops?) The mystery solving gameplay is kind of an underutilized one, at least as far as my mystery IF experience goes. You are looking to match stories to physical evidence to buttress or refute testimony, and thereby establish who might be lying. Between the ever ticking clock and the breadth of suspects there is a LOT to do, and the speed with which it gets done is equal parts frenetic and deliberate. I was constantly metering my impulse to speed up, to ensure I didn’t miss relevant details. I was fighting the mentally clouding effects of the timer as things speeded on, just like the hyperspace effects on my meaty passengers! That was pretty cool. The notebook portion of the game was just about perfect - summarizing interviews and evidence, and allowing me, robot detective, to decide whether this made them more or less likely to be the criminal.

Eventually, I had secured enough interviews and evidence to make an accusation, and I was right! Hooray computer detective, we did it! This was the point where the game dropped out of hyperspace. Now with clearer eyes, I noticed the game professed 11 endings. 11 endings, surely that doesn’t mean…?

So I played a second time. This time, notwithstanding the timer’s relentless ticking, I was no longer under the spell. I could skim dialogue I had seen before, was much more efficient at physical evidence gathering, and quickly had my post-hyperspace suspicions verified. I also had deliberately turned my suspicions a different direction. SERIOUS spoilers from here. Turns out, (Spoiler - click to show)this is kind of mystery where no matter WHO you accuse, you are right. I just don’t know about that. It is kind of a betrayal, no? What seemed a tense web of testimony and evidence didn’t really need untangling, EVERY thread was (Spoiler - click to show)the ‘right’ one. Even exculpatory evidence could be spun to damning with seemingly no drag on the proceedings. This wholly transformed the experience from a kind of clever mystery-solving jam to a facts-don’t-matter, (Spoiler - click to show)collect-all-the-endings jam. Not only is that NOT what I look for in mysteries, it runs counter to all the frisson that first runthrough had and kind of undermines the glow of that run! For me anyway, collect-the-endings is inadequate compensation for that loss. On one level, I get it. Mysteries always have the ‘problem’ of post-solution replay value. Removing the tension of ‘will I solve it in time?’ is a pretty big impact on the gameplay experience though. For me, too big to justify.

As a rating, where does this leave me? My first playthrough was a white knuckle run of pure, uncut Enagement, there is no denying that. Subsequent playthroughs exposed the illusion in a way that retroactively diminished even the first run. It dropped me out of the hallucinogenic bottle of hyperspace to the cold, clarity of real space. That difference feels like a penalty point.

Played: 10/1/24
Playtime: 1hr, two endings
Artistic/Technical ratings: Engaging/Mostly Seamless, penalty point for heel turn replay mechanism
Would Play Again?: No, experience seems complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

In the past, erotic games have left me cold. I had concluded that one element of this was the broad nature of human sexuality, whose specifics are famously personal across a spectrum that runs from ‘Oh God, safewordSafewordSAFEWORD’ to ‘I’ll be in my bunk.’ I had speculated that these variations were SO broad, an author had no hope of appealing to an audience pool they knew nothing about, and was forever going to self-select an audience of like-minded preoccupations. Where games succeeded, according to my prior analysis, is when they tied into more universal elements like humor, and captured the playfulness of healthy sexuality. That was a more all-encompassing hook to hang a work on.

Here’s something I didn’t get until this work. The OTHER common thread one might tug is the ramp from arousal to joyous sexual delight. Regardless the combination of equipment and partners that gets you there, that FEELING is near universal. At least for those to whom it is an option at all.

If you had told me a work that leaned on sexual identity and fetishes that held no sway over me would so resoundingly accomplish its erotic intent, I would not have believed you. The keys, as they so often are, are specificity and DYNAMITE writing, augmented here by limited but effective use of interactivity. I was tempted to rank these aspects in order of contribution to the success of the work, but quickly realized all three are necessary to the work’s impact, so we’ll tackle them in an arbitrary order.

Specificity: the protagonist’s character is deeply conflicted about their identity and sexuality. The details here are astoundingly fine grained, and expressed so openly that not only are the facts of them relatable, the protagonist’s mindset is transmitted clearly every step of the way. The protagonist’s journey is not my journey, but the details are so bright and clear their journey is an open book to me and I can crisply translate my personal experiences to theirs. Not just the facts of their sexual makeup: their insecurities, troubled friendships, deep loneliness… all these are similarly painted with sharply defined anecdotes and events, and an internal monologue that rings true. I should emphasize that. The graphically cued internal monologue is used sparingly enough, but when it shows up it perfectly conveys the protagonist’s entire psyche in the moment. It is never a great thing to attribute auto-biography to an author you know nothing about, but I mean it as a compliment when I say the external and internal details are almost too REAL to be fiction.

Interactivity: this is not a deeply interactive work, far more F than I. Where it is used, it is used precisely and effectively to align the player/reader with the protagonist. You are given just enough control over responses to fine tune protagonist reactions in a way that cements whatever empathy gaps specificity could not close. The two in combination, specificity and interactivity, conspire most successfully to bridge any gap in experience or psyche to firmly bond the player. It is admirable and kind of wondrous how powerfully this is accomplished, seemingly without effort and with such infrequent use. It is so powerfully realized that even when the protagonist is making choices that are dangerous and rash, I was never at sea over ‘why, protag, why why?’ I UNDERSTOOD and was along for the ride, however ill-conceived.

Writing: while I have divorced this as somehow a third facet, it is certainly true that both the specificity and interactivity rest on a bedrock of confident, clear, impactful writing. It is simultaneously uniquely voiced, compellingly phrased, and deeply insightful. I captured SO many snippets, it was a minor crisis to decide which ones to showcase. Here is where I landed at publication time:

“not woman enough to be an object, not man enough to be a threat”
“you walked into a lamppost and apologized to it”
“if I were to rip out my spine and use it against my own eyeballs”

Concise, evocative, conveying so much more than their raw wordcount might suggest. This work’s prose stands among the most effective I’ve experienced in ALL mediums, not just IF. I have been characterizing it as erotica because 1) it is prominent among its early preoccupations and 2) it amazed me with its accomplishments in that arena. But this is not a purely titillating work, it is a character study where sexuality is a primary concern, including in ways that are troubling, inconvenient and tragic. The titillation is only one part of it. That the writing can so easily accomplish eroticism AND personal drama is downright glorious.

If it’s not clear, the writing alone presented a Transcendent experience for the first hour and a half. It’s almost unfair that the graphical presentation is ALSO so accomplished. Fuzzy background images whose focus sharpens or flares with color that reinforce the protagonist’s mindset every step of the way… I could write an entire review just highlighting how tremendously engineered this was. The graphical flourishes demarking various online forums - simultaneously mood setting and deeply concrete and recognizable. I am tempted to claim, as I sometimes do, that the graphic work was a full partner. Here, graphical work that could be the most notable achievement in another work is still, appropriately, subordinate to the prose and story being told. The entire package is an empathy machine that achieves what I had considered impossible in erotica, but ALSO telling a deeply affecting personal story.

Ok, you see what I did there. I dropped that ‘hour and a half’ on you almost by the way, in the full knowledge that you would identify it as the Chekov’s Caveat it is. The narrative makes a choice at the hour and a half mark. Until that time, there had been a low key (and very affecting!) narrative thread of the limits of online support systems, where personal preoccupations can reinforce themselves until they curdle into self-righteous toxicity and undermine whatever safeness the space tried to establish. In the first hour and a half, this had been sprinkled in like seasoning, highlighting the protagonist’s alienation. Narratively, at the hour and a half mark, the protagonist enters a deeply affecting medical crisis (at least in part brought on by tragic sexual frenzy). While they wait for maddeningly delayed succor, they peruse social media, and the toxicity of the forums jumps to the fore.

To the fore of the narrative. Looming between reader and work like a clumsy behemoth at the opera. Eclipsing the protagonist we had so deliberately and masterfully been aligned to who was HAVING A MEDICAL CRISIS. Instead we spend page after page after page of escalating toxicity whose escalation was well established, uninteresting and tiresome. Thematically it was of course underlining the idea that these forums’ ability to provide safe space was always at the mercy of its most troubled members, and that even real crises are insufficient to derail that. More, that insular echo chambers of parasocial connection are ultimately INCAPABLE of being relied on when truly needed. Thing is, that theme was ALREADY clear, and here it just goes on and on and on, building in heat but paradoxically lessening in dramatic impact. It is a baffling choice to me. I NEEDED to be with the protagonist here, yet I was reading and reading and reading self-righteous navel-gazers whose lack of empathy was blindingly clear. Then, reading it some more. And more. Until my timer ran out.

What do I do with that, work?? Part of me assumes there was a point to all that that would become clear… eventually. Certainly the narrative was self-assured enough prior to that. But not just the fact of the online discourse, the sheer LENGTH of what the work asked me to consume, WHILE THE PROTAGONIST I WAS INVESTED IN SUFFERED, was… repellant. It pushed me back from the work that had so effectively conquered emotional, sexual, and psychic gaps. It made me angry at it for being SO GOOD then deliberately slapping my face. If that was in fact the point of the sequence, let me just say I GOT IT. The sledgehammer was not required. I will generously say the last half hour was mechanical. There is a case to be made for Bouncy, though that assessment might be my own spitefulness at the sense of betrayal.

The author has subsequently clarified that the point of the piece was less full on narrative and more commiseration for an apparently and sadly common enough experience. Fair enough. Speaking as one to whom it was NOT commiserative, I wish the work had not been SO effective as a narrative, letting me infer promises that were never actually there. Notwithstanding its immersively inclusive prose, I was never actually invited to this party. Imagine my embarrassment! (To be fair though, you enter it in IFCOMP, you're going to get party crashers.)

It leaves me in a weird place, review wise. Prior to that social media hell, the work was full on Transcendent. MAYBE that narrative choice will later be somehow redeemed to those outside its circle. I am at a loss to see how, but prior to this work I was at a loss to see how I could respond to erotica so far removed from my own proclivities. The work has earned some cred here. But when the timer expires and its subtle, nuanced flavors are so completely overrun by a baffling, stinging one-note bitterness… how do I not report that experience?

Played: 10/1/24
Playtime: 2hr, act iii Lipstick, in social media hell
Artistic/Technical ratings: Transcendent ->Mechanical/Mostly Seamless
Would Play Again?: I kind of have to, to see if that choice redeems itself, but I am suddenly full of dread that it might not

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

What do we make of a well-researched take
of an assault wrought most heinously?
With great resolve, I endeavor to solve
a misdeed pregnant with history.
Bursting and Fausting with rivalrous history.
– some dark poem guy

I feel like I have foregrounded my TADS partisanship enough at this point to totally undermine the reader’s confidence in my impartiality. As much as I’ve belabored the point, prior to this game, I feel like my scoring record stands pretty ok - maybe not statistically level with my overall scoring curve, but plausibly so given the small numbers problem with TADS works (and in tacit recognition of the cast of ROCK STARS that still work in that language). I’m afraid UCEAP will bust my curve on this.

I played this in QTads, which is my recommendation. QTads is the interpreter that supports the entire breadth of TADS, particularly its HTML/graphic capabilities (which are admittedly behind state-of-the-art). Regardless, QTads gives the player the full author-intended experience, which is a treat here.

The narrative is a multiple-time-frame one, simultaneously solving the mystery of the titular literary titan’s assault while providing intriguing historical precedents that figure into the proceedings in satisfying ways. It is all done so confidently. By all, I mean ALL. The parser gameplay is as smooth and refined as I’ve seen. Judicious yet nearly invisible use of cluing text ensures the path forward is never in doubt, even as the particulars might be unclear. It perfectly straddles the line of ‘evocative text’ and ‘unadorned descriptions with followup items implicitly highlighted.’ Even its ‘don’t waste your time here’ text is both clear in intent, and of a piece with its gaslight world. The puzzles are as well integrated into the story as I can recall. There is no wild-when-you-think-about-it ‘add grain to balance to trigger floor mechanism’ type stuff going on. It is all searching for organically integrated clues, navigating gaslight Baltimore, and talking with NPCs.

And oh, those NPCs. The game adopts the ‘suggested topics’ paradigm to help navigate the space and soft focus the player on progress. But NPCs do not stop there. They are as deeply implemented as I’ve seen with incredibly robust vocabularies, opinions and takes. I have yet to hit a “surely you should know about THAT” moment, which I often, often do. Their voices and characters are similarly distinct, both in their service to the plot, and their individual viewpoints and voices. They are also all convincingly rendered of their time, which is no mean feat, given the deep cuts in history we are playing with here.

There is so much going on here that is terrific. I am loathe to try to pick a ‘favorite’ aspect of this work, but boy is the plot in the running. It complicates the seemingly straight forward detective thread with background on the protagonist sleuth that, turns out, is SUPER relevant to the crime. The pacing of these revelations, through intercut flashbacks, is top tier - perfectly navigating that precarious ridgeline of ‘intriguingly engaging’ between the twin precipii (precipii? precipii.) of ‘raw infodump’ and ‘opaquely offputting.’ The chain of clues is well constructed, both in their revelations and in the subtle deductive connections they foster. It delivers a vibe of the best well-researched period detective stories and weird supernatural, resonating satisfyingly to the works of the story’s motivating victim. Talk about aiming high, and hitting the mark!

Have I left any facet untouched? Story - top tier weird historic detective fiction; NPCs - masterful implementation; puzzles - organic, satisfying and well clued; gameplay (as captured in progress journal) - crisp and immersive; presentation - use of limited HTMLTADS maximized. Where does that leave me? I mean, Engaged for sure. But just engaged?

In choosing my top tier adjective as ‘Transcendent’ I kind of put myself in a box. ‘Transcendent’ implies some sort of emotional or intellectual revelation, a dividing line in my soul’s journey between ‘before’ and ‘after’ I have played the work. That is a pretty high implied bar! But it doesn’t have to be that. It could be a more prosaic (but no less accomplished!) transcendence of the work beyond the expectations and limitations of the medium. It could simply be a description of a marriage of story, presentation, characters, gameplay and interactivity so smooth, so entrancing, that I’m not the one transcending by consuming it, it is the work itself rising to take its place among the best of its class.

That’s what this is.

Quoth the reviewer, “Immersion evermore.”
– same dark poem guy

Played: 10/1/24
Playtime: 2hrs, not finished, 12/18 clues
Artistic/Technical ratings: Transcendent/Mostly Seamless
Would Play After Comp?: Seriously? You don’t already know the answer to that question? Did you READ the review??

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

Earlier this COMP I bemoaned, multiple times, the lack of a convincing Twinesformer link-select/parser hybrid paradigm that didn’t make drudgery of its UI. Let me destroy suspense by saying Miss Gosling might have solved the case! Between the game’s use of inline directional and object links, and a sly ‘contextual command box’ which both segregates from the transcript proper, AND tries to anticipate player moves enough to provide a hopefully-relevant subset of command space, things felt smoother here than any alternative I can think of. Crucially, the command box responds to player input, not game state, which is a very subtle, but essential design choice. It would be too easy to fall into a game state trap that inadvertently spoiled or hinted solution space just by virtue of options presented. I found this UI gratifyingly neutral and responsive.

Other design choices were equally powerful. It includes both an in-game map and progressive hint file. I love map inclusion whenever the protagonist is in a familiar setting, bypassing the narratively unrewarding ‘exploration of notionally known environs’ portion of the program. The hint system was also precisely engineered. Progressive invisiclues are the perfect paradigm for an intellectually limited player like me. When I needed to consult them, they provided just the right level of imprecise goosing to get me going again.

More on the graphic design: from the font/graphic layout, to the use of colors to sidebar gameplay outside the story (like score, task list, etc) - keeping those things graphically distinct isolated them from the narrative, mostly, to let the story play unhindered. The score/progress bar was both understated, but prominent enough to instill confidence in the player experience. There were some mild intrusions, I felt, when the game judged I was spinning too long and threw in not-so-subtle hints pointing me to the path. I like the impulse of that idea, helping players get their footing, but found the implementation erred on the intrusive side. Even a menu choice to call it up, or tune the internal counters might have eased that a bit. Or just leave it to invisiclues.

Really though, that very tepid criticism is the only reservation I have with this work. The central conceit - an Agatha Christie-esque detective ghost solving her own murder with the help of a dog who is the only being that can still see her - just awesome, no notes. The puzzle design is flat out fantastic - it explicitly plumbs the capabilities and limitations of a canine protagonist (guided by human ghost) in strikingly varied ways. If you carry some pop culture knowledge of dog trivia, rest assured the game has a puzzle that maps to it. A very satisfying, very clever implementation of it. It really is the centerpiece of the work, foregrounding canine capabilites in every puzzle. The protagonist and all the NPCs, y’know, the HUMANS in the work, draw on detective fiction tropes in a pleasant, if not revolutionary way. I wouldn’t say any of them are all-timers, but they are all very functional in their service of the plot, and at least gifted with personality shorthand that makes them more than scenery. The ghosty protagonist is further delightfully of-her-time, with turn of the century cultural and technical observations that build a seamless environment to dog around in. Even the background/lore dump artifacts were rendered with flair and amusing protagonist commentary.

[Admire the restraint I have so far employed, not once turning this review into a dog v cat thing. That was the previous draft.]

Yeah, this was an engaging romp with really excellent and thoughtful gameplay. I was outright angry that I couldn’t finish it by judging time. Sometimes, in games with hints and walkthroughs, I will make the call at the 1:45 mark to just run the walkthrough to end, in interests of giving a thorough assessment to the game. Here, I did not even consider it. The story was laid out well enough, the puzzles designed strongly enough, the UI engineered precise enough, I felt like not ONLY did I have the measure of the game, I WANTED to see it through, COMP judging be damned! Well done game, you have turned me on my COMP bosses!

Played: 10/1/24
Playtime: 2hr, score 13/18, unfinished
Artistic/Technical ratings: Engaging/Seamless
Would Play Again?: Yeah, gonna finish

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

This is a quasi-Fairy Tale-esque story about rediscovering the protagonist’s identity, helpfully identified as ‘You.’ It starts with a sharp edged encroaching alternate reality erasing YOUr identity, but quickly settles into a peppier, almost welcoming tale of talking animals, fanciful mushroom-based transformations and… not sure what else.

Let’s start with the graphic design of the thing. I am always pumped when authors leverage even simple color/font/graphic tricks in service of their narrative. Here it was mostly successful, though some font/background choices clashed in a way that made it hard to read. I didn’t mind that SO much, as it certainly conveyed a sense of protagonist being at odds with the environment, which was very much my player experience as well. It ALSO consistently and intriguingly foregrounded the changing nature of YOU. It was a nice, subtle way of keeping the central mystery and tension in play. On nearly every screen, some graphic trick was reminding you of the core challenge of the piece - resolving the mystery of yourself. Ok, the more I think about it, the more it is clearly NOT subtle, it is brightly spot-lit on every page. This need not be a criticism.

Elsewhere I have observed that two common puzzle-based choice-select stumbles are devolving into obvious success paths or obtuse lawn mowering. This may be the first time I experienced both in a single work. An early puzzle is to secure four items for a whimsical in-matrimony-res couple. Follows a pretty clearly signposted/almost railroaded series of mushroom-object juggling. The first three fell without much problem, or, frankly, challenge. The work was super clear on what needed to happen to advance.

Then the fourth item stopped me in my tracks. There was definitely a remaining mushroom area that felt necessary to advance, but there was no clue how. FTR, I speak of the ‘something new’ item. The world was tight enough, and objects sparse enough, that I devolved to lawn mowering every combination I could think of. Twice. And was foiled at every turn. Clearly, I was missing something, as it is inconceivable that a bug this prominent would make release. Just in case I fell into a weird unwinnable state bug though, I restarted and tried to vary my formula. I ended up in the same “I feel like I have tried everything, yet am stuck back in a loop” state.

Do I put this on the game? I honestly don’t know. It FEELS like, as seems so often true, it is my problem as a player overloooking the obvious. Given the obviousness of the previous puzzles, it feels particularly damning of my intellect. The one charge I COULD level at the game is that this puzzle’s cluing paradigm shifted quite dramatically relative its predecessors. If I’m not just a dummy of epic proportions. For sure it was a breaking point for me. Prior to this state, I enjoyed the graphic flourishes, but the story felt too thin (it was probably just starting!) and puzzle play too mechanical to compensate. Hitting a roadblock at this early state, with no guiding hints available, guaranteed this would be the only impression I could develop.

Had I progressed deeper before this point, the work might have accumulated enough good will to jockey up higher in my mindshare. Certainly the portent attached to YOU felt like it would build to some payoff. But to hit this so early - twice in just over half an hour – left me in the unenviable position of halting my play with tons of clock left. And simply not being motivated enough to break my review-bubble to search out unblocking solutions.

Yeah, I’m not really satisfied with this either.

Played: 9/29/24
Playtime: 35m, 2 loops, seemingly stuck both times on ‘something new’
Artistic/Technical ratings: Mechanical/intrusive puzzle design? or player shortcomings?
Would Play Again?: No, experience seems complete

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

This author has a strong brand, in my all of 3 years’ experience. Super zippy one-character input parsers that are very much on the puzzle/game side of the spectrum (over, say, narrative). Lots of clever lateral thinking bits. Here, you are an abductee going through a simple IQ test (which teaches you the dialect of this parser), then pressed into service to assist your abductors as mechanical misfortunes escalate.

The deductive problems are set against a backdrop of alien touch-based controls and only kind-of clear communication. For a good while, it was just about perfect. The alienness of your surroundings require trial and error to deduce what each new room or control is on about, then MORE to figure out how to leverage them to incrementally engage your hosts and deal with the ship problems. It is a super addictive mix of experimentation, deduction, then logical leaps. The zippy interface is the key here. Experimentation is so zippy, and feedback so concise and clear, you are constantly making progress in one way or another. At least to a point.

One room, one cluster of weird controls after another, just trying things gives reams of feedback to spin off of. The puzzles to solve are varied and interesting. Until… they stop being so. At about the one hour twenty minute mark, my mental machine stopped humming. I had seemingly (only seemingly. Clearly I was missing something) exhausted the controls - the cues clearly telling me manipulation was fruitless or outright removing obsolete controls. Certainly, the game was aggressive about depicting things that don’t feel controlly as controls, so I can’t rule out missing things, though exhaustive trial and error revealed nothing.

This is the point where I rued the absence of a hint system. Yes, the author generously offered to answer email hint requests - a model that unfortunately is not very helpful against my COMP navigation mode. For the first hour-twenty I was running on nitrous - my objective clear, the controls aligned against me opaque, but with enough handholds for me to grapple effectively. Then, when I discovered the the (Spoiler - click to show)cryo pods, suddenly my roadmap vanished. There are a few unused controls in the mix, one control that helpfully lists all the things that still need fixing, but given the work is all-in on its alienness (and given the wacky solutions to previous problems!) it is far from clear what road to even try.

At the one hour twenty mark, my experience unceremoniously shifted from one of two-fisted science to one of abject flailing. For forty minutes I zipped around touching/examining/aura-ing everything I could. And getting NO actionable feedback. It felt, suddenly, like a completely different game. Again, I fully acknowledge this is my problem. It was just weird to me, to be SO engaged and effective for so long, to encounter a puzzle that just… hid in the sand? No ideas, no clues I could discern, no signposts I could decode, nothing. It ended up being the parser equivalent of lawn mowering trying to exhaustively touch and observe the vast permutation of everything listed. And coming up empty.

This then, is the value of a robust hint system. A simple nudge in the right direction might be enough to have turned this brick wall into a small speedbump, and restored that fun, zippy experience that launched the game. Short that, I watched an engaging time devolve into angry frustration, then the most painful of IFCOMP gaming experiences: resigned running out of the clock. I cannot deny the sparks of that first hour, but as these things go, the last forty minutes dominate my memory of gameplay. This is a game that requires either: 1) you are smarter than me (a low bar to be sure); 2) a leisurely play model that allows for author engagement; or 3) a robust hint system. I can’t do anything about 1. 3 would have readily closed the deal for me. I don’t know that 2 will happen outside COMP judging.

Played: 9/28/24
Playtime: 2hr, “The spacesquare is currently sick. One door is wrong. The finder is lost. The propeller is dead. The changing room has a problem. The feeder is dormant.”
Artistic/Technical ratings: Sparks of Joy/Seamless
Would Play Again?: With an added robust hint system? who am I kidding, probably

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless