Ratings and Reviews by JJ McC

Played: 7/13/24
Playtime: 2.5hr, stuck, unfinished

If ever I WANTED to like a game more, I can’t think of it just now. This is a 50s B-Movie Space Horror spoof, with strong Ed Wood Jr connections. Stop already, I think I’m getting the vapors! The game has an insanely good ambient music/soundtrack just perfect for its theme. Seriously, it is a perfect mood setter, don’t even TRY to play without it. The work is also funny, from an endless parade of funny tombstone epitaphs, to your pugnaciously willful partner, to the bonkers plot turns, to just outright winning prose. A fave: “everything carvable has been carven to within an inch of structural collapse” In my first half hour I was gleefully giggling, romping from one area to another, just having a grand time. Then it came time to start solving puzzles.

Man do I wish puzzle play synched with me like literally every other aspect of the work. There are a relatively spartan nine areas whose midgame puzzles just slammed things to a crashing halt. I consider myself reasonably experienced in these things, but after two hours of no progress whatsoever, the charms of the piece kind of washed away in torrents of frustration. Consulting the location-sensitive hints were only marginally helpful, sometimes offering opaque hints, sometimes reinforcing what I WANTED to do with no pointer HOW, and other times just plain missing. Lots of seemingly arbitrary deaths, funny the first few times, defeating after great stretches of no progress. In desperation, I consulted prior reviews that helpfully pointed out that (Spoiler - click to show)if you give your bag-of-instant-death to your partner and let him open it, it will no longer kill you when you do so. No story justification, mind, no text cluing that this might work, and once accomplished no text stating it in fact did. The helpful review characterized that move as a bug, but honestly, I’m not sure how ELSE it could be accomplished, and for sure it was needed to solve multiple puzzles! I blundered forward for a while after that, starting to make some progress, then again ran aground with no more internet help to guide me.

There are other, more traditional, buggy behaviors - text that addresses the partner before he arrives on scene; objects that should be consumed reappearing without comment - but these are exactly the kind of things that are easily forgiven in works that sing, and SO not the problem in works that make me struggle.

It doesn’t help that I tried SO SO MANY THINGS in the meantime that just didn’t work. Catching fireflies for light! Begging my partner to use his lighter! Wearing a helmet to avoid toxic fumes! Using objects as reach extenders! So many different gorilla entreaties! These are not spoilers, as none of them worked. It was the more frustrating because there was one puzzle I really liked, and tumbled into in what felt a ‘normal’ problem solving flow. I also seemed to be assembling some fun, intriguing pieces towards endgame, currently unemployed. I am forced to conclude that as on-my-vibe as this was in EVERY ASPECT BUT ONE, that one aspect we were just completely disconnected, this work and I.

It makes me unutterably sad that THIS game, of all games, rejected my puzzle-solving advances so resoundingly. A prohibitively opaque High Fantasy Cat People V Broccoli People RPG would not produce this level of regret in me. At this point, after slogging 2.5hrs in, it is pretty clear the relationship problem is not the game, it’s me. I’m in pain now, but with time I hope I can find it in me to become friends again.

Played: 7/11/24
Playtime: 15min

Let’s say I gave you infinite monkeys, y’know, as a birthday gift. Following year, I gave you infinite IF workstations. Never mind the HARROWING year you just suffered. In the even more bedeviling year that followed, let’s say those infinite IF monkeys submitted to infinite IF Jams and I reviewed every one of them. See, it’s not just you suffering!

So after those three years, math tells us YWAtaSW would be produced by that ill-considered simian gift army of mine. I call BS. There is no universe, irrational number based or not, where the conceit of this work is replicated, never mind its execution. Redo the math. If it tells you it could, the math is wrong. We made a fundamental error somewhere in history and are stranded down an untenable path, prisoners of our bad calculus. This explains quantum entanglement and energy teleportation too.

So yeah, YWAtaSW has a pretty singular premise - that you are playing a work of IF created by an entity you briefly swapped consciousness with, expressing their experience back to you. The identity of the swapper is not exactly a secret, but it is delightfully, bafflingly, bonkers as hell. I am torn between just outing the interloper’s identity and not. It is not a secret at all, but the implementation is so daffy I am reluctant to color it with any interpretation of my own.

If I had a wish, it would be that the work committed to its premise MORE. Most of it is a delightful ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ ‘fish out of water’ look at the prosaic corners of human life. The mundane object inventories are particularly welcome. Like each artifact, however trivial to us, is worthy of deep marvel. Its ruminations on green and grass made me snort aloud. It is so good natured and pie-eyed about it, it is overtly winning. I had a nagging feeling though that the specifics of your timeshare partner could be more foregrounded. When the specifics show up they are clever and winning, but as often it feels more generic? Like any arbitrary alien identity’s experience? I don’t want to be too down on this, it is super successful in the general, wanting more specifics is just me being greedy. I particularly liked the sexual politics guilelessly left behind for the protagonist to untangle. Hey if I didn’t know what sex was, I’d sure be curious too. Not that my curiosity is COMPLETELY sated by full knowledge.

A totally bananas conceit, in a very fun, very funny implementation. Not the work’s fault I am fascinated with gifted equine denture.

Also, a REAL friend would have included infinite bags of monkey chow that first birthday. That’s on me.

Played: 7/11/24
Playtime: 12min, 6 playthroughs

This is a work submitted for an internet fad Jam - the BEST kind of Jam. An internet fad where lore is manufactured from a typo, a misunderstood offhand comment, a picture out of context, then that lore TAKES OFF into life of its own, composed completely of the whimsy of those whom it erupted around. Somehow stronger and more vital than the gossamer-thin threads of its animus and powered by sheer LOLs. The Best kind of fad.

As I was not part of the genesis of this particular memetic construct, I’m not the one to explain it, I am just expressing my admiration for constructs of its ilk. Someone took this phenomenon and said, “Let’s Game Jam it!” Ah humanity, when I fear all is dark, you endlessly remind me how great we can be, when we’re not being shitty to each other.

So this is a gangster game, notionally related to a fake meme gangster movie. You are tasked to find out some information about the other gangster gang for your gangster gang, by sweet talking a femme fatale. In the lore of the meme, the fake movie in question would be from the 70s, but this feels more pre-New Hollywood 50s-60s. It is a portentous conversation, with subtexts of danger and disaster swirling around a pretense of flirtation. It FEELS black and white, mannered, and swelling with unspoken anxieties. And no doubt fabulous clothing. Through a conversation tree you are asked to get as much information as possible, though how you prioritize that over flirtation is completely up to you.

Then, as these things mandate, the conversation ends with increased tension and without resolution. And that’s it. It is a very capable representation of a memorable scene between powerhouse actresses at the height of their powers, the scene that film scholars would endlessly revisit before TCM showings. Completely devoid of the context of the rest of the movie. Honestly, choosing THIS way to honor its inspiration is kind of … inspired.

It was pretty fun, certainly a quick play, and gave an admirable range of dialogue choices that narrowed to a few outcomes, none of which felt unnatural or lesser. Like the meme itself, it leaves great swaths of subsequent possibilities in the mind of the player, pointed towards but whose inclarity is its virtue. It kind of honors both the form and function of its memetic inspiration that way. It’s not clear to me it achieves much outside the context of its inspiration, but as a Jam entry was never required to do so. Viva fits of whimsy!

Played: 7/11/24
Playtime: 30min, read time really

This is a linear work, its aims cleverly clued by its graphical layout which conclusively evokes pages in a book. Its interactivity is precisely that, turning pages at each one’s end. It is exactly as interactive as a short story. As a short story, its effectiveness is entirely in the hands of the author.

Which is a wild thing to say. At some level, all art, interactive or no, springs from an author’s vision and implementation skill. At least in the ways I am interested in talking about. INTERACTIVE art explicitly aims to include the consumer in the art, (for want of a better word) PASSIVE art does not. This is a two edged sword for the author. The promise of interactivity is a deeper engagement, a unique frisson that is the difference between participation and consumption. The peril of interactivity is that the author has no control over the player, and must somehow accommodate or steer the experience to still deliver their artistic statement against an unpredictable range of interactions.

Am I saying fiction is “easier” than IF? That would be a hell of a hubristic thing, wouldn’t it? Let’s dodge that with mealy mouthed “they both have challenges.” The unique challenge of fiction is to get reader buyin, then keep it. The setup, scenario, human behaviors and plot twists all need to be convincingly communicated and sustained. There is no implicit buyin by player typing along at keyboard. In both kinds of art, the prose itself is doing the lion’s share of this convincing.

My Girl worked for me as a short story for most of its breadth, thanks to its prose. It is somewhat dreamy, somewhat poetic, but always cold and unsentimental, befitting its scenario and characters. It compellingly tells the story of an unhappy marriage, a woman abandoned by her husband for long stretches at sea, then expected to service marital and emotional duties during infrequent returns as if these gaps were immaterial. The wife a player in her husband’s story, as almost a glorified extra. Unsurprisingly, she is increasing dissatisfied with that role. For great stretches, the language and turns of phrase terrifically convey the feeling. Some standouts: “ever bending the crooked language of his devotion like a bludgeon” “There is nothing within your dominion that your husband would not claim as his own, in deserved access” “the hymns you sing segment it small, dividing the hours as neatly as in your book”

It is a slow, sad dance of spiraling despair, very effectively and magnetically conveyed… for 80-85% of its length?

Just often enough, there are narrative twists or observations that do not evolve naturally, that jarringly intrude into the narrative flow without prior warning or support. An observation about “frivolity of men” breaks the personal scope of the narrative, suddenly speaking (in isolation) to a larger indictment than the text was previously concerned with. Contradictory descriptions: “sniffing out for traces of betrayal that you could swear are dribbling in red rivulets down the inside of your wrist as he speaks.” vs “He has no reason to not believe you would be truthful, that you would be true.”

And two major plot twists, one of which carried some setup portent only to be so shadowed as to muddy its impact. Then a final twist from nowhere, the more unsatisfying for its terse, disconnected resolution.

There is a school of thought that for short stories, the ending is whole measure of success. I don’t think it has to be true. Certainly I have found any number of longer format works who have bungled the ending BADLY (looking at you The Stand) that nevertheless are fondly remembered for the many, many things that worked like gangbusters before that. My Girl doesn’t beef anywhere near that bad, but leaves me with analogous feelings. Sure, there were glitches at the end, but for great swaths of its length, I was captivated.

Played: 7/11/24
Playtime: 15min, two playthroughs

Y’know how some games are emerald-cut jewels of insight into some aspect of creation? That touch on universal themes and leverage interactivity to deliver that insight to the player like a thunderbolt? That instantly spark a spiraling sea of contemplations, revelations and powerful proximity to Larger Truths? That compel reviewers to hammer out page after page of analysis and exploration, as much desperately trying to grapple with the feelings the work elicited as informing potential audiences?

Wouldn’t it be EXHAUSTING if every IF work was like that??? Like, just fatiguing beyond all measure.

KoB is, thankfully, not that. It is another one-conceit Jam that slyly slips in a second conceit on replay. It feels graphically a little hastier than some. Textually, a little deeper than others. It is a pre-date screening by a helpful roommate that tests the player’s empathy a bit (I’m gonna say up to the line, but not hitting ‘manipulatively so’), then delivers some quick horror. In a game this small, that feels spoilery, but the game’s own descriptions basically confirm this, so I’m good.

I’m a horror guy, so my bar was not very high for this thing. I liked it for what it was. I really liked that it bucked a strong feline subculture in IF to SHOWCASE A DOG (who’s a good girl??). I liked it better on replay, when going for a different ending which really drove home the horror. Hard to imagine you won’t like those things too.

Except for, well you know who you are. :cat:

Played: 7/10/24
Playtime: 1/2 hr, 86 pts, fired; additional 1hr “won” with walkthrough goose
CW: AI art

CnL has a lot going for it, I wish so much of it was not qualified. This is a pretty classic parser experience, wrapped in an attractive package and oozing with wit.

The wit is the least qualified success in the work. It is suffused with pre-cancellation Scott Adams’ Dilbert vibes, which, death of the artist, when at its best was crushingly on point in its lampooning of empty business jargon. Most NPCs are endless fonts of vacuous business platitudes, and the game’s unbending commitment to the bit sells it terrifically. The game ups its ante by building these farcical lampoonings into its puzzles and plot beats. Occasionally laugh out loud, it is always wryly amusing and keeps things bubbling along. As a player you can decide whether this train of humor is still fresh, but for me, the work’s total investment just sold it.

The game’s presentation is crisp and clean - the vertical illustrations siding the clean font text panel establishes a graphic identity that is pleasing and engaging. The illustrations themselves flex between functional and part of the gag, and often work pretty well. There are some stylistic hints and non-uniformities that clue their AI authorship. For me, I concede that the artwork works with the vibe pretty well, introducing a 1950’s Man in Grey Suit overlay to 90s-00s corporate cult culture. It is not unsuccessful. The ambivalence you are detecting is that even when AI art is successful, and I have played other works where it was as successful as here, I inevitably struggle with its larger implications. “Death of the Artist” only makes sense to me when the artist was at least once alive. If this aspect of AI art does not bedevil you, you will doubtless find this less ambiguously successful.

The gameplay experience was more traditionally asterisk’d. There were many design and bug artifacts that I understand may now be addressed: weird state glitches, cross-room disambiguations, missing synonyms, moon logic puzzles and lack of reasonable alternate solutions.

These were not everywhere, by the way. There are plenty of lateral thinking, assemble the clues, and search for item puzzles that land squarely in parser tradition, often with humorous twists and satisfying clicks.

This review sounds kind of whiny and mopey doesn’t it? I actually enjoyed the experience a lot more than this review might be conveying. I think I got into that weird space where I enjoyed it enough to want to enjoy it even more, and felt those frictions more keenly. It is a worthwhile play - wryly amusing on several levels. Pretty fair, fun endstates even in failure. Its puzzles as often parser classics as glitchy-but-still-pretty-fun. I wouldn’t let my moping hold you back. Death of the Reviewer! (Especially as the updated version is probably even better)

Played: 7/9/24
Playtime: 45min, two restarts due to bugs

I was immediately won over by the sly, subversive wit that permeates the piece. It is nominally modern, but also medieval, and slides across its academia/occult knowledge/farce vibes with confidence and panache, dropping academic treatises and pop culture references with equal weight. It’s a quest for a portentious tome in the bowels of a library you are interning at. You need to make porridge, as is usually required in these things. There’s fights, snotty students, amusingly off-kilter puzzles. Two quick samples that I snorted in delight at: “[RE granola]The loudest, crumbiest of all the snacks.” “the medieval peasant you keep in your head for dialectical purposes cackles at you,”

It’s also, unfortunately, intrusively buggy in one of its central puzzles. In one early section, you are asked to concoct something. If you explore out of order, you can find yourself carrying the wrong ingredients for your puzzle solving mixture, with no way to replace incorrect items. In the course of decoding its mild complexity, I twice found myself in endless loops, unable to click free and needed to restart. This early in the game, not a huge problem but certainly jarring and unwelcome. If appearing in a longer work, would be game ending.

Even when not outright blocked, I was sometimes treated to buggy text as well, the following appearing after a paragraph of normal text:
"(set: the recipe card,jerky to it - jerky
what I can only presume to be internal code.

So yeah, a flawed experience, but honestly the rest of it is so witty and good-natured it was easy enough to forgive. The graphical presentation is pleasing, the use of sound amusing and deftly employed. A little more polish and it would be an unambiguous recommend. Will keep my eye out for promised subsequent chapters.

Played: 7/9/24
Playtime: 20min, 4 playthroughs

Sometimes my subconscious is an a$$hole. There is a phrase that came to mind during my third playthrough that was deeply uncharitable, kind of mean, and I could not shake once it hit. It also came kind of out of the blue, like a dreamstate free association. This is the second work by this author I have played, and I am just an outright fan of their prose. The dreamstate is a natural outcome of this mesmeric writing style, whose use of swirling imagery, conflicting clauses and poetic descriptions weave a spell like few others.

In IF I have encountered many, many attempts at this kind of word alchemy, vanishingly few this successful. The prose whisks you along, hinting at backstory through misty descriptions that leave an impression then maddeningly waft away, propelling you to the next thought or emotion. My first two playthroughs, I was driftwood caught in the eddies of this work, sliding to and fro, gently prodded to one direction or another and constantly, comfortably rocked while being so. I found it a joy to read. An example which, because I am a word nerd, stopped me in my tracks to admire it: “a place in her long shadow shaped exactly like you”

constellate tells the story of the reunion of two soldiers, one retired, who share an emotional history while hinting at the harsh backstory that led to their separation. The protagonist/player is processing deeply conflicted emotions at the reunion, and the gameplay centers around how you choose to engage that conflict. It employs one of my favorite (when done well) mechanics: links that change text inline to refine the sentence they inhabit. Here, this mechanism perfectly conveys the protagonists conflicted mindset, and gives the player some autonomy based on where it ‘resolves.’ I cannot tell if the narrative changes based on where the final click leaves things, but the thought that it might makes me happy. It certainly does yeoman’s work to sell the protagonist’s internal conflict.

So I went through twice in kind of a dream haze, savoring the warm, enveloping prose, the charge of conflict presented to player/protagonist. I think there was a weird schism there though, because while I definitely felt the conflict, the actual romantic feelings eluded me. If anything, an unhealthy lust, fueled by protagonist’s self-hatred, seemed a more convincing response… until some random firing neurons produced this:

(Spoiler - click to show)Space Nazis in Love

Once that cold, cruel phrase bubbled through the prose miasma to hit my forebrain, it became the only prism I could view through. My subconscious is an a$$hole, but, it’s not totally wrong? Without hint that the backstory is unreliably reported, which we have no reason to believe, we are instead left with two people who commit horrific acts, only one of whom seemingly has any regrets. Yet that pretty fundamental difference is still secondary to their strong chemical attraction. The author is not unaware of this contradiction, certainly the climax is fraught with conflict and compromise. As a player though, I kind of lost connection - sure, they’ve got pretty epic baggage, but even bittersweetness carries sweetness. Is that really what they deserve?

So my recommendation is play through this game for sure - admire its seemingly peerless prose; marvel at the effectiveness of the static links; get swept along by its rhythms and beats. Just stop after twice.

Played: 7/7/24
Playtime: 15min, 4 endings

I swear, fresh off their IFCOMP23 performance, @EJoyce has decided to just troll me exclusively. Veggie lasagna? With CATS??? About the only part of this game I related to was not wanting to let my partner down! This is a game where you try to make (occasionally dubiously hygenic) pasta while cats try to foil your every move. AS THEY ALWAYS, ALWAYS DO. You know where my dog was while I played this? Snoozing peacefully in the corner! Dogs respect your boundaries is what I’m saying, and I’m providing no glimpse into the wealth of counter-evidence at my disposal that might undermine that thesis.

As a choice select game, you are typically asked to choose between ‘do I indulge my whiskered tormentor?’ or ‘do I stay on task?’ while making lasagna. Which path is most successful? The answer may surprise you! Sure, the challenges presented by these feline monsters are varied, humorous and seemingly endless. The text is crisp and propulsive, never letting you get TOO mired in cat-minutiae. As other jams, it has one central conceit, lets you play with that for a while, then provides a subversive set of endings that justifies its runtime quite nicely. I went through four times, spanning the breadth from ‘get out of here whiskers, you’re my partner’s problem’ to ‘ooh pwetty kitty, what was I doing again?’ (that latter proving yet again, as if proof were still needed, just how heroic a reviewer your humble servant is!) The endings were suitably humorous, not the least of which… eh, I made it this far, no spoilers. I do recommend spanning the breadth of endings yourself. I do NOT recommend serving some of these to you partner!

Played: 7/6/24
Playtime: 35m, 4 endings - 3 short, one very long and very good

This work gave me cause to ruminate over the nature of multi-ending IF (MEIF for short). It’s got 14 of them. I have far from a categorical knowledge of this class of IF, but have seen enough to start to wonder about them. “Endings” is kind of a loaded term anyway, right? “Endings” implies a finality, a closure, in the context of fiction, a dramatic culmination. These are things you build towards, planting thematic resonances, scattering then gathering plot threads, evolving relationships and character traits to some final overarching statement of satisfying surprise or inevitability.

They are such fragile, complicated things, it’s a wonder authors can do ONE of those in a given work. What hubris stirs these IF artists to presume 5, 10, 14? There’s a few approaches to multi-ending that have enough merit to be enumerated.

The first is to eschew linear narrative constructs altogether - make the multiple endings the POINT of the work. There is little narrative flow beyond the simplest …and then… , it is the ENDINGS that carry all that weight and the more you see, the better you understand the narrative mosaic. Or, more often, the gag. Because this approach challenges our relationship with traditional narrative, it is particularly suited to humor.

The second is to use interactivity to change the player’s relationship to the narrative, but not the fundamental plot beats themselves. The varied ‘endings’ then reflect how successfully the player aligned to a linear plot - I do not mean this as a judgement. In classic IF this is the ‘You have Died’ ending. You failed to advance along the plotline beyond point X. One might conclude that this is the LEAST interesting MEIF, in that the “ending” is clearly not a NARRATIVE one, and the player is intended to try again and again until the true ending is achieved. A more interesting approach is to allow the player character choices responding to the plot - are they complicit in horrors, a victim of bad choices, or exonerated by thematic alignment? Great dramatic effect can be wrung from player ‘plot failure.’ The challenge is to craft the choice architecture to manage the different endstates in a way that feels organic and satisfying.

The most difficult by FAR is the branching narrative, where player decisions are meant to influence the plot. Cold mathematics quickly steps in to nP the space beyond human capacity, so the art here is to judiciously choose a manageable number of threads, then architect choices in a way that feels more open than it is. THEN ensure that everyone of them justifies itself against every possible permutation of player choice that terminates there! One approach to this problem gave us ‘hidden score threshold’ IF, where choices add up to a scorecheck at key branching crossroads. More manual solutions also exist, most successfully in smaller, tighter works.

There is some real existential hand wringing to do over MEIF for the prospective author. The first question to answer is ‘How do I want the player to engage this work?’ Will they be playing through only once, experiencing a narrative tailored to their specific choices, the majority of the work going unseen? Are they to Ash Ketchum that sh*t and greedily gobble up all of it? Somewhere between? How do you signal to a player which of those is the desired mode? And how does your game respond when players do whatever wild thing they want to do anyway?

Classic IF authors instinctively understood that if you characterize an ending as “FAILURE” players will want to reengage to get the win. That’s kind of a gimme. More elaborate constructs still feel pretty elusive to me - I have seen some very successful comedy pieces, one memorable mosaic ending dramatic piece. Telltale came as close to branching narrative success as I can think of right now. I have seen some dramatic failures in all those types though. The critical thing to understand about MEIF is that for subsequent runs, the player’s eyes are glazing over parts they’ve seen before. The more text you put before an interesting choice point, the more like drudgery it will feel to the player, and the more the endings need to justify or compensate that.

All of which brings us back to … Teatime. I played through four times. The first three endings were kind of unsatisfying. Variations on ‘life is hard and couch is comfortable, but should probably get up.’ But not really dramatically satisfying (though buoyed by energetic, fun text). Also, not for nothing, longer to re-click through than their resolution justified.

My FOURTH run though, I kind of took the game’s broad hints of ‘this is probably the path you should engage’ and did. I was treated to some Videodrome/Alan Wake II reminiscent stuff that was flat excellent, including a graphic presentation change, some talk show format clowning that had interesting choices, impactful character moments, and took a fun, funny, kind of endearing path to a dramatically satisfying close. It was also 4-5 times LONGER than the already kinda long other branches. Meaning, if there are multiple endings buried in that branch I will never see them.

But y’know what? I don’t need to see anymore. The remaining 10(!) paths could be long or short. If short, my experience says maybe not as satisfying as repeated clicking will warrant. If long SOOO much repeated text to get through, and hard to imagine it improves on the one I already got. That one long path was worth the price of admission, and I’m glad I stuck it out.

Which only made me ask… Given the narrative tightness of the longest path, what was the POINT of all those other endings? This work gave me cause to ruminate over the nature of multi-ending IF (MEIF for short). It’s got 14…