Ratings and Reviews by JJ McC

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

I don’t know what to make of this entry. It presents as a super light, highly randomized FRPG kind of thing. You get an apparently randomized starting character with a name, race, some traits and background. None of those come into play again, except maybe magic use. Then you walk, trade and warp until you either win, decide you’ve had enough, or a bug ends the game. I achieved two of those in 45 minutes of pretty repetitive playtime.

You have a short list of items, effectively a status screen, that tells you what you have or don’t (helpfully pointing out you can GET them). Walking and warping lets you navigate the world, such as it is, but there is no map per se, just an endless series of terse, repeating random encounters that kill you, give you money, or neither. When I say no map, I mean your location has no discernible effect on your encounters, or even your relationship to other areas. You can still find Inns and Houses inside a Labyrinth for example.

And you can die. Either because you randomly encounter foes you are not yet equipped to beat, or you just open a box. It’s not really that big a deal, as you immediately respawn with most of your stuff, but is that fun?

In practice, gameplay is just as repetitive as the encounters. You walk (dying as often as you need to) until you have enough money to get stuff (some of which has game effect, others do not as far as I can tell). Or you warp to some area you’ve been before, but if locations don’t matter not sure why you would. Repeat many many times. I don’t think I’ve ever typed the word ‘walk’ that many times in 45 minutes before.

I did hit a small bug - I would lose money if I couldn’t afford an expensive item but already had a sword and tried to trade. I hit a big bug — an ‘out of range’ crash on something called TT. But the game asked so little of me, neither elicited a reaction. Ultimately, I stopped playing when I jerked awake to see that I had typed ‘wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww’ on the command line.

So yeah, what is this? Is it art, a wry commentary on FRPG gameplay? A zen mindfulness exercise? An impressionistic IF that you bring the story to from your head? I don’t think any of those things are for me.


Played: 10/10/22
Playtime: 45min, 1 crash, 1 quit, so many respawned deaths
Artistic/Technical rankings: Bouncy/Notable
Would Play Again? No, not my cuppa

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

Can you like a game for pointing out how shallow you are? Cause I kinda really do. When I get in a IF consumption mood, it sometimes turns into a gluttonous, overindulgent frenzy. There’s times I may not be completely zen when I power these things up. The moody, pixelated black and white artwork shoulda been a clear clue. The melancholy music shoulda been a clear clue. The fact that it shattered my preconceptions within minutes when I went from “yeah yeah, help an old man remember, got it” to “crap, wait, there’s supernatural in here.” That shoulda been a clear clue too.

Not for Inspector Bull of the Chinashop PD, no sir. I hammered my way through the house like a warrantless entry, clicking nouns like they were Ticketmaster tickets on opening day. I was able to slow down enough to appreciate the early mechanism: connecting supernatural investigative thoughts to picture and word clues, but only just, and hammered into phase two where you (Spoiler - click to show)bring artifacts to the spectral presence you are trying to save. Only to be justifiably punished for trial and error in a completely narratively satisfying fail. This caused me to rock back. I’d made a terrible mistake here.

I poured myself two fingers of calm the F down, and restarted, and this time I tried to breath the atmosphere of this thing on its own pace. Holy crap you guys, it is the complete package. The artwork resonated so finely with the music, the page layout, the mental connection investigation mechanism… I went from ENGAGED, I’M ENGAGED, OUTTA MY WAY ENGAGEMENT COMING THROUGH to…

engaged.

The conceit of (Spoiler - click to show)effecting the rescue of a woman who was essentially so unseen by her family and so self-denying that she faded away. And that rescue requiring that you see HER, and not all the things that are not-her that clogged her life, and then TELL HER THAT YOU SEE… And the genesis of all that not being evil forces from beyond, just casual, amiable taking-for-granted from those that notionally love you. What a heartbreaking story whose only solution is to understand the heartbreak squarely and fully. You have to (Spoiler - click to show)assemble her story from artifacts in the house, then deduce what they mean to her when others may not have bothered to. Yeah, some of the artifacts’ meanings are not revealed as well as others but the whole tapestry of artifacts, spread logically and perfectly throughout the house, builds as complete a picture as you care to deduce. It is a super rewarding, tightly constructed, fragmented narrative that builds like a puzzle regardless of the order of your discoveries. It really is a terrific achievement. It is hard to believe the author was not also commenting slyly on Inspector Bull as well - if you as a player insist on treating her as a problem and not a person, your rescue is doomed to the same forces that put her there to begin with. You have to consciously care about her story, and her as a person to succeed.

Wait, was I like, the perfect IF player-partner, whose bad behavior textbook showcased the full breadth of the author’s artistic vision??? You’re welcome AML! Also shocking twist ending, even with what I thought was extreme due diligence, I needed still more focus to get the best ending! That is just the perfect thematic capper. It’s not enough when I think it is, she is the only arbiter of that.

Were there issues? Yeah maybe two. The connect-thought and inventory-use mechanisms were very clicky, required a lot of motion to do a little. That could be streamlined. And maybe when one puzzle is (Spoiler - click to show)the name of the victim DON’T PUT IT IN YOUR TITLE. That’s all I’ve got. It was so deeply Engaging if there were other flaws they totally didn’t register.


Played: 11/3/22
Playtime: 1.5hr, finished after restarting to adjust my attitude, “there is hope” ending
Artistic/Technical rankings: Engaging/Mostly Seamless
Would Play Again? Yes, bring her all the things!

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

This is another nifty little puzzle game. You are a 'bot squashing bugs via a series of unlocking-style puzzles. Either explicitly unlocking doors, or unlocking new abilities needed to solve subsequent puzzles. The puzzle design is reasonably pleasant and seems to play pretty fair. It does require some logical leaps or guesses, even trial and error from time to time, but that is far from rare in IF, classic or modern. The text descriptions are succinct with a light, breezy feel that keeps things chugging along and doesn’t grate when you re-enter rooms multiple times.

It does a few things really well. For one, I really dug the ascii maps. They were easy to parse, eminently useful, and exuded an old-school vibe that matched the text tone nicely. The game seemed to disconcertingly read my mind at one point. I realized there were a few interesting items littered about behind me, but I really didn’t remember where and was not looking forward to exploring to find them again. No sooner did that sour thought form than BAM I unlocked “ITEM mode” on the map to helpfully point them out! Had to be a coincidence, right? The alternative is super creepy.

While the game did not really implement deep NPCs (most are one-response once their puzzle-state responses are exhausted), like the room descriptions their dialogue is short and to the point with a splash of personality. Since they are bots anyway, this doesn’t really jar - making a strength of its limitations! Same for the limited vocabulary - as a relatively simple bot, there isn’t really an expectation of full autonomy and the limited action palette feels pretty natural. Between the marriage of form and function, the enjoyable puzzles, crisp page and map layout and snappy writing there were plenty of Sparks of Joy. There was however also a friction-y design choice and one small but really annoying bug.

Bug first. It’s a parser game, and the web implementation autoscrolled on command entry for a while. Until it didn’t anymore - instead, it autoscrolled whey you typed the NEXT command. What this meant was, you would go say W(est). The descriptive text of the new room would appear below the bottom of the screen, and only after you input a character THEN it would scroll up for you to see. This had the effect of needing to type something/anything after your command, then maybe erasing that and putting the real command in. Eventually I figured out I could hit Enter-Backspace to force the scroll but man was it annoying. I don’t really have a bead on if it was the author’s bug or maybe the web implementation.

The second was in command choice. This is a parser game, but it implements very few commands. It tells you what they are, that’s fine. Most of the frequently used commands (cardinal direction, look, wait) are implemented as single letters. This has the effect of keeping things light and moving quickly. There are some mode and status commands which are full words, but as they are rarely used that’s not impactful. However, the special powers you accumulate, and use all the time (sometimes in elaborate sequences), are 3 letters. Now, you are instantly thinking less of me because I am going to complain about three letter commands instead of 1. While that is 300% more typing, I accept your scorn. But in a game this light, with a vocabulary this limited, having to repeatedly type the same 3-letter words just starts feeling unnecessary. Especially when all of the ones I unlocked could have started with unique single letters!

The cumulative weight of these frictions led me to a point where after a particularly involved surprise side mission (which I had mistaken for a ‘core’ mission) I didn’t feel compelled to finish the game. So, definite Sparks of Joy, short of Engagement. As I look at the ‘intrusive elements’ above (buggy text scroll, why can’t I type less?) while it for sure informed my experience they don’t really rate as ‘notably buggy.’ Just a spot where more lubrication could have been applied. Hey-O, that’s what sh… no. Just don’t.


Played: 10/30/22
Playtime: 1.5hr, did not finish
Artistic/Technical rankings: Sparks of Joy/Mostly Seamless
Would Play Again? doubtful, got the gist

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

Aaaah, TADS. Like slipping my feet into a warm bath. This is the parser-based IF experience I look for. Amazing, goofy premise and quest, large map, many puzzles from lever-and-button to locked-door to coerce-NPCs to (probably) wildly inappropriate and satisfying uses of everyday objects. The narration is capable and fun, integrating game-facilitating pointers and sly humor in equal measure. It’s not perfect: one NPC seems to attach to you without much lubricating text; a few incidents of can’t-do-that would benefit from a variable list; dense place descriptions without subsequent shorter summaries and/or bolded direction cues.

But really, those feels nit-picky. Especially in the face of a tremendous effort to flesh out nearly every noun with flavor text that makes poking around rewarding in the best traditions of early IF. Even the relatively limited NPCs which won’t make you fear the singularity, they are imbued with enough personality to remind you of NPCs of days gone by. Yes, they are code constructs, but they are amusing and welcome ones.

And that map! A gloriously dense and elaborate multi-level map to explore. Daunting even. Many locations have 4 or more cardinal exits and maybe some ups and downs too. Navigating the map was a treat - most locations have personality too, unique and idiosyncratic: weaving flavor and nav puzzles all over the place.

And here’s where my unfortunate game experience intrudes. For the first hour I wandered around mapless. I was so caught up in the delightful spell the place descriptions were putting on me I darted from one shiny exit to another without much rhyme or reason. And boy did I get lost. Over and over again. It was fun doing it! But eventually I realized I was never getting the dress this way. So I saved my game at one hour, determined to pick up next day with graph paper in hand.

Next day I went to restore my save… and couldn’t. It turned out to be an artifact of my own inexperience, exacerbated by some unfortunate HELP text (subsequently clarified to prevent others following my misguided path). It ended up being a happy accident though, as my flailing for solution showed me that there were maps (and walkthrough) available! Armed with those maps, I decided efficiency would make up the difference.

At the second one-hour mark I had fully recon’d the mall (locked doors notwithstanding) and a bit of its grounds, but only really ‘solved’ two puzzles. Plenty more were tantalizingly laid out before me. The narrative tone is friendly and fun, details plentiful and unique, and puzzles littering the joint. I found myself typing faster and faster as I noticed the clock running out, trying to eke out just one more location, conversation or search. If that's not the textbook definition of Engaged, I don't know what is!

This thing hums with love for the traditional IF form, and is a wonderfully capable pastiche in the best possible sense of that word. It stands fully on its own with wit and verve, and echoes all the best traditions of IF.


Played: 10/6/22
Playtime: 2hrs, incomplete
Artistic/Technical rankings: Engaging/Mostly Seamless
Would Play Again? Of course. Calls to me like a Siren from the 80's.

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

I had been low-key looking forward to this one for a while - both due to the philosophical connotations of the title (originally posited to refute the concept of ‘sentient AI,’ there is some nice resonance to IF design itself) and because as a former Cold Warrior… Russophile is not the right word. I need a suffix for “morbid fascination with.” How about Russophiliasis (second ‘i’ is long)? What I’m saying is I have an unhealthy fascination with modern Russian culture, especially the more Kafka-esque aspects of it.

I was faintly disappointed when I once again encountered the black/blue/white Twine formatting. If ever a game was crying out for all-greys, with an occasional splash of impactful color this was it. That superficial reaction was quickly dispelled when I noticed it was a double game, of interlocking IF stories. That’s a cool conceit. And it can be simultaneously played by two players? Loving the ambition. Checked in as Caroline first (as advised) and off to the races!

Caroline is a housewife, mother of two near-adult children, married to a minor politician. Her life is one of quiet burden that she shoulders matter-of-factly. This part I found really nicely painted. Here the use of interactivity, specifically lack of choice, really resonated when contrasted to her undramatic acceptance. The husband is obliviously self-absorbed but not an absolute dick. She ekes out joys for herself with cooking and her kids. This table setting for me was super impactful to what follows. It so cleverly aligned me with the protagonist: both my sympathies and my wearied acceptance of the-way-things-are. The latter is challenging to pull off. As game players, a natural impulse is to be WAY more action-hero than real life would support. This first section defuses that impulse in an impressively successful way.

I think this is going to end up being more spoiler-y than most of my reviews, let’s see if I can keep it coherent. It’s after the protagonist gets involved in a political job that a some serious cracks intrude. To this point in the game, I am basically welded to the protagonist - kudos for that! Then choices start presenting themselves that do not resonate, specifically (Spoiler - click to show)possibly flirting, then pursuing an affair with your ‘boss’. For me this failed on two counts: 1) the object of these decisions is not compelling. Like at all. So much so that even the presence of the options felt jarringly wrong. At best the character in question is an amiable blowhard which sure, maybe better than a self-important blowhard but really not a sufficient upgrade. 2) there is text that portrays the protagonist as reacting much more strongly to this character than any of my decisions and attendant prior text suggested. It felt unjustified and contrary to the protagonist we had carefully crafted to that point and I kind of rejected it. This showed me the second edge of the IF sword. While a traditional narrative can sometimes get away with “I don’t get what they’re doing… but whatever, I guess the plot needs it” if you have invested the energy and skill to get the IF player aligned with the protagonist, those disconnects suddenly become personal.

So that was a sour note. Conversely, there is some dramatic business with the kids late in the story that landed like gangbusters. It had everything to do with how real-feeling the interactions with the kids (and husband!) were prior to that point. Whether the text actively accommodated prior player choices, or was at least deft enough not to contradict them, it was so, so much more successful.

Then there’s the matter of the ending. I should make clear at this point I was playing solo. Shite, I guess I just need to… (Spoiler - click to show)Ok, throughout the middle of the game, you are periodically ushered to a mysterious room, have a colored light flash at you, then given the option to match or not-match the light. There’s no rhyme or reason to this, but it is faintly sinister. Cool. Turns out you were torturing people somehow?!?!? At least, that’s what the government said about you in court. Nevermind that it was a government(?) functionary that coerced you to do it (probably deniably so, to be fair). The court scene kind of fell apart for me, top to bottom, and not because I rebelled at the premise. (Spoiler - click to show)A totalitarian government politically prosecuting an individual on absurd charges is absolutely believable and horrifying which was almost certainly the aim of the piece. The implementation details just torpedoed it for me. Up until this point, the narrative employed precise use of no-choice interactivity. It’s super-effective! Here, as the protagonist is (Spoiler - click to show)literally battling for her life, the ‘no choice’ takes the form of adhering to advice from her lawyer. Yet that lawyer came across as kind of hapless at best, and a possible prosecution functionary at worst. At one point the game even rubs this decision in your face by headfaking a choice that doesn’t exist. The equation had shifted and acquiescence suddenly became a mimesis liability, not a feature. It was further exacerbated when (Spoiler - click to show)the options I chose in the mystery room were not used against me. To the contrary, the state seemed to imply I took actions I decidedly did not. Now they can lie, sure, but at that point why even bother with the mystery room? How much more effective would it have been to map (Spoiler - click to show)my ‘crimes’ to actions I had actually taken? And the decision to only obliquely allude to (Spoiler - click to show)the horrors my oblivious button-pushing caused, that was an opportunity to drive home some personal horror just forfeited.

I think the game makes one final small mistake with a disproportionate impact: it spends a lot of time detailing (Spoiler - click to show)the ‘strategies’ being used in the court room. This has the effect of underlining again and again the absurd nonsensicality of the prosecution argument, and to a lesser extent the ineptitude of the defense. (Also, I’m not sure I agreed with how the Chinese Box problem was employed in these arguments, but I’d need to look at it closer.) None of this is the problem, it actually could be parlayed into a strength, (Spoiler - click to show)showing how hollow the prosecution is. But it isn’t, because (Spoiler - click to show)the text also alludes to actual humans in the audience being persuaded. It’s almost a throwaway scenic element but it does so much damage to the reality of the scene I didn’t recover. How much more effective would the horror have been, if it was clear the audience saw it too?

Above, I burned two and a half small paragraphs on what I liked, and three large paragraphs on what didn’t work for me. This is deeply unfair. I actually liked what those two and a half paragraphs describe SO INCREDIBLY MUCH, I think that caused me to take the subsequent shortfall way too personal. What it did right were white hot Sparks of Joy straight out of Flashdance. Those two crucial misfires though kept it from breaching into Engaging. I can’t help but wonder how the interlocking second story is going to play out, and whether that ultimately overcomes some of this or not.

Yeah, I’m definitely playing that other half. Also I kind of dig the thematically appropriate (Spoiler - click to show)‘redacted’ feel this review took on.


Played: 11/3/22
Playtime: 1.5hr, finished 1/2 stories
Artistic/Technical rankings: Sparks of Joy/Seamless
Would Play Again? Of course. When your Russophiliasis flares up, its best to let it run its course.

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

Here’s something you hear every year around Oscar time: “Comedy is hard, why isn’t it respected like manipulative, obviously thirsty, overwrought sob-fests?” Well, you mostly hear it phrased like that at my house, but the sentiment is trotted out pretty consistently. This is going to be relevant in a few minutes.

Historically I like some things about parser IF better than others. Way at the bottom is the ‘search’ ‘look under’ ‘look behind’ mechanics. Its classic, I get it, but it feels so unrewarding to both look at something then look again ONLY IN A MORE SPECIFIC WAY. AWAN, you have turned me around on this. This is a one-room joint where you have to find a comedically large number of things in an exasperatingly spartan environment. And you do and its hilarious! Using all of those mechanics deliberately and precisely, this game is a perfect “I know its around here somewhere” simulator. Its the first time I’ve ever seen them used so effectively.

Here’s another thing I’ve never really liked: abrupt, non-foreshadowed instant endings that require restart or undo. AWAN fixed that too! The 3 abrupt endings I got were laugh out loud non sequitor funny and I happily Undid to see more. Usually my spoilers are kind of vague, but this is a no-fooling overt one: (Spoiler - click to show)OMG Try calling everyone on the red corded phone. DO IT!

I always appreciate a narratively integrated hint system, but AWAN upped the ante even further. You can call out to your partner to a) solve puzzles, b) get hints and c) get snarky offhand replies to dumb questions. To the point where I decided to be the Ikea guy just to see how far I could push things. (If you don’t know what I mean, google “IKEA Donna youtube puns.” Totally worth your time.) I really wanted to preface every conversation thread with “Hey Donna. Hey Donna.”

I don’t want this review to just be listing delightful things, though maybe we could use some of that these days. (Spoiler - click to show)Wait’ll you get the TV on. There are so many to find on your own. The implementation is mostly seamless, light, and amusingly frustrating but in a way we can all satisfyingly relate to. And it does it all with economy and verve. It gets in, makes its impact, and gets out while you still want more.

It also does some small things absolutely seamlessly: its choice of characters allows the player to slip cleanly into place, regardless of gender/sexual preference without fanfare or menus. In particular there is a point where you might want (Spoiler - click to show)to open a window before you’ve found your shirt. The game handles this lightly and elegantly with no false notes.

So here’s where I strike back at the Oscars. AWAN is just consistently and effortlessly its own funny thing that had me completely Engaged and often grinning in delight. Get on up here, AWAN!

We will play you off though.


Played: 11/6/22
Playtime: 45min, 4/18 endings
Artistic/Technical rankings: Engaging/Mostly Seamless
Would Play Again? Was thinking no, until the game told me there were 18 endings. So yeah, probably.

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

Hey, there are IF works for new readers! This was an absolutely delightful interactive rendition of a children’s book. When first few clicks showed no choices, I grew uneasy. The illustrations were note perfect for the milieu, but my family situation is quite removed from kid-lit. Turning virtual pages was not significantly different than leafing through a kids book which I never do. (I mean, Seuss excepted, what am I a monster?)

That ungenerous thought couldn’t even gel before the choices started. At that point the illustrations, text and choices played off each other wonderfully. Even then, I wasn’t won over immediately because I am damaged. For whatever reason after a few choices I spontaneously conjured an imaginary child next to me… what? you don’t know my life! Reading this work, imagining a small child sounding through, making choices, then experiencing the results of that choice — that’s when it clicked into place for me. The playful problem solving, character frustration, trial and error, evocative illustrations and unexpected outcomes would play like gang busters to a new reader, and through that imaginary child’s eyes I could experience their delight.

Older IF fans take as writ that interactivity is the differentiator in this medium. The (however illusory) perception of choice, narrative influence and immediacy provides a whole new dimension of immersion to the reading experience. Esther’s uses its new reader format to remind me that even the most tired, hoary cliche’ is going to be someone’s first time and that initial exposure can be deeply revelatory. That came out wrong, I’m not suggesting Ester’s is cliche’d, just using that as a poorly chosen metaphor for IF in general. What I’m driving at is that its deliberate invocation of children’s lit tone, illustration style and whimsical content re-presents the form in a first timer perspective. How magical is that? At least that’s what I got from my imaginary co-pilot.

Scoring this feels like a no win situation. I mean would I criticize the narrative voice in “Hop on Pop?” The graphic compositions in “Hungry Caterpillar?” Like this work, they meld text and illustration into a product aimed at delighting children. That’s really the only metric worth discussing I think. Esther’s stands shoulder to shoulder with its paper inspirations, even before it ups the ante by integrating interactivity. While I wouldn’t say I found it engaging, I did get Sparks of Joy watching my imaginary companion’s delighted introduction to IF.

This review was brought to you by the word ‘delight.’


Played: 10/6/22
Playtime: 10min, finished.
Artistic/Technical rankings: Sparks of Joy/Seamless
Would Play Again? Maybe to share with grandkids WAAAAAAAY down the road

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

This is a deeply adult work, and I don’t mean in the sense of “tee hee nudity and devil worship.” I mean actual experiences and challenges relevant to actual adults. You are a digital artist working in a near-future digital art gallery. It's kind of an office drama, and it is crackerjack. The lived in setting of the office, the casual jargon-filled interactions, the constant tension between satisfying your creative urges and getting the job done, the highly specific triumphs and failures that are impenetrable to outsiders. All of this is painted so crisply, so matter-of-factly it is instantly immersive.

The characters in the workplace similarly feel organic. Over time you get enough background to establish with certainty why they are in the business they’re in, and where they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the work. It is insanely lived in. No notes! It also makes the crucial decision to effortlessly establish that it is these common intellectual and artistic passions that provide a baseline attraction, not “ooh, hotty!”

It is all so satisfyingly subtle. The piece builds attraction through dry academic texts and deeply technical dayjob project work, so that when the inevitable “wow those bike shorts” injects it feels like the involuntary chemical reaction it is - as much a result of what came before as “wait, humans can just be horny.” Now I can’t decide how much this resonated for me because I happen to ALSO be deeply interested in the digital issues the protagonist and 'love' interest are. (Which by the way, loved every single detail of the future corporate/online/cultural world building. There is a special place in my heart for (Spoiler - click to show)The Handmaid’s Tale video game being used to hawk makeup) Would someone less fascinated by these topics find this as compelling? Dunno, irrelevant to my experience!

The interactive choices on display here were similarly just perfect. You were choosing small, harmless(?) actions, so small they often didn’t register as choices in the sense of steering the game. The writing in the choices was laser precise - it was clear WHAT you were doing, but the game steered super wide of WHY. Are you flirting up to a tittilating line? Filled with shame? Actively looking for something new? Lying to yourself about your motivations? Only rarely did the game weigh in on any of that, mostly that was between you and your mouse. What a powerfully immersive choice that is, a fragile illusion you are creating that is so easily dispelled by incautious word choice. AP almost never cracked.

I’m gushing here. 3/4 the way through I was already crowning this Transcendent in my head. I was anticipating equal subtlety all the way to the end, where my mental model of the protagonist and dramatically chosen world events collided in a natural and unpredictable way. I was positively crestfallen, when amidst the super slow and organic building of tension, I was abruptly confronted with a metagame choice: (Spoiler - click to show)do you pursue an affair, try to stay friends or cut off contact? This choice was so different than everything that came before: it was blunt and confrontive and shattering of carefully constructed character self-delusions. I could see a scenario where narratively this brutality could be justified in-story and even be rewarding, but that wasn’t the case here. I could similarly conceive the game jumping in and saying, ‘all that subtlety was self-deluding lies, because here’s the reality of all that weaseling.’ Which it kind of was? I needed more text for any of that to land, I’m afraid. Without that, all the work the game had done was discarded with inadequate compensation.

In the end, this was such an impactful design choice it eroded the Transcendental experience I was having. It redeemed somewhat when I reloaded and explored the alternatives, only to find (Spoiler - click to show)it didn’t change the ending! I’d already baked the character and it was gonna be what it was. Adultery is a choice you make for sure, but its not a choice ONLY you make. That was kinda cool. This is a top 5, maybe top 2 game for me. Its application of interactivity and world building was qualitatively more mature and nuanced than almost everything else so far. I wish that one thing didn’t undermine it right when I was soaring but it got me so high in the air, I had room to drop.

Also quick shout out to the phrase “using steamed baby carrots to expore her facial orifices.” That is now just endlessly echoing in my head behind everything I’m doing.


Played: 10/27/22
Playtime: 1hr, 1 ending 3 different ways
Artistic/Technical rankings: Transcendent-/Seamless
Would Play Again? Yeah maybe, if I can get past the fear that I’ll destroy the butterfly by looking too close

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

Old School Parser IF, like yr momma used to make! The setup is fun: a lazy wizard student trying to fake his way through finals to graduate from not-Hogwarts. Notwarts? Notwarts. He is 100% a not-Hufflepuff. (sidebar - Hufflepuff is totally the party house right? The other three houses are wrapping themselves around the axle with “evil returns” or whatever, these guys are doing keg stands and bong rips. That’s just canon.) It is super light in tone, puzzle solving and narrative. It’s components are consistently light in a satisfying way - no part seems out of place, it is a unified experience.

There are some really nice touches too. It has a components-based spell system, adding spell component quests (and often creative use of spells) to the puzzle tree. In particular it does what many satisfying puzzle IFs do: (Spoiler - click to show)require you to use an object or spell different ways for different puzzles. That is inherently more satisfying than one-and-done items that just take up pocket space after their only use. There are one-offs as well, to be clear, but I always appreciate the effort when they’re not ALL that way.

The implementation is solid - no glaring bugs, lots of scenery to examine with short, amusing blurbs. Not a huge map, but not cramped either. A character-based hint system that’s a step up from mimesis-breaking commands or menus. It makes some smart gameplay choices too, for example restocking expendables automatically rather than having you slog across the map to replenish every time. The NPC conversation menu tree is effective (and snappy!) and often context aware, adding discussion options as you learn about them. It really is a very complete experience.

So why does it peak at Sparks of Joy and not into Engaging? There are some text burrs to be sure. One spell’s description explicitly notes it will only work on (Spoiler - click to show)people of lesser intelligence then proceeds to work on a character that does not answer that description. The Hinting Jinn who is your sometime companion will randomly beam into the room to say ‘hi’. Some of his ‘arrival’ and ‘present’ text bump against each other in weird ways. Characters will still try to give you things you’ve already got, and seemingly not remember they gave them. The game sometimes thinks you have expendables you have, well, expended. These kinds of things happen often enough that it is notable without interfering in anything. Unlike other Notably Buggy entries though, these present as really minor - either because the light tone of the text lets them slip past without fanfare, or because it does SO much without these glitches that they are diluted with volume. I think I have to split the difference and round up here. Its not mostly seamless, its not, but its Notable bugs somehow intrude less.

That’s kind of dodging the question though. The above paragraph asked about Artistic Response, and answered Technical Intrusiveness. Notwarts just seemed to be missing something. There was a soucance of wit in the text but it was a light sprinkling, not a consistent feature. The setting, for all its interesting map was word-rendered kind of lacklusterly. There is nothing of those crane shots in Harry Potter that pan over the magical majesty of the dining hall, or the slippery stones of the underground rivers. Notwarts is kind of low rent that way.

Hogwarts has classrooms suffused with elaborate antique woodwork, rough hewn stone, iron candelabras and a palpable sense of ancient mystery. Notwarts has a bunch of desks in front of a chalkboard. Hogwarts has sumptuous holiday feasts, magically preparing themselves on the table in a festival atmosphere. Notwarts has an overworked gnome in a cramped kitchen making sandwiches. Now this is actually an amusing contrast, but the text does not sufficiently mine it for laughs, just lets it lay there. I don’t want to imply it was free of humourous Sparks, it definitely was not. The puzzles were fun, the tone was pleasant. But it couldn’t crest into Engaging because it didn’t draw me in. I don’t need Notwarts to be Hogwarts. I actually kind of like that it isn’t. But I would like to enjoy how MUCH it isn’t a good deal more.

This is a rock solid entry I enjoyed spending time with. That’s cool, right?


Played: 10/31/22
Playtime: 2hrs, almost finished, 74/93 pts, 7 achievements
Artistic/Technical rankings: Sparks of Joy/Notable rounding up to Mostly Seamless
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 IFCOMP22 Review

There is no real graphical flourish to this work, little interactivity, and the few puzzles you need to solve there are no clues to decode to succeed, making it effectively random. I think I have complained about all of these things in other reviews. But here, my reaction was exactly opposed – I unreservedly loved it. The intro text probably is the key to this. It sets the stage with the fruitless grind of the work, the dieing optimism, the modest yet still out of reach goals, and does so unsentimentally and resignedly. Before you know it, you are knocking on doors, really just clicking house numbers, one after another until the time runs out.

And oh my god the neighbors. Many are just not home, and sometimes the text makes it clear that’s a good thing. When they are home, each is uniquely and specifically unhappy to see you, but you still have to engage. Sometimes you inadvertently say the right thing, sometimes you say exactly the wrong thing and they slam the door. It's not that you don’t have control (it seems), it's that you have no way of knowing what motivates or sets people off so you take your best shot. And it's thrilling when it works, and self-recriminations and if-onlys when it doesn’t. But, still gotta get to the next door and do it all over again.

I am kind of in awe at how finely calibrated the game is. Its individual interactions are either disappointingly abrupt, or whirwind verbal fencing matches, but every encounter is exactly the length it needs to be. Neither victory nor defeat is dwelled on, because on to the next. A quick click washes the previous encounter away and is charged with promise of the next one. A pee break if you’re lucky, then your shift ends at what feels like the narratively perfect point, leaving you with regret over the houses you didn’t get to. Text and screen organization within and between encounters pace every step of this experience just so. Until its unceremonious ending, you simultaneously feel “this shift just keeps going” and “I need more time.”

“A Community Organizing Simulator” is its subtitle. Before you start, you would probably be thinking "it's funny because it's too small a game to be a simulator." After you’ve played, including that chef’s kiss of a denouement, you’re definitely thinking, "OMG IT IS THE MOST ACCURATE SIMULATOR EVER MADE." I am saying that this work marries IF interactivity to its subject matter so thoroughly and precisely it is what most aspire to when they talk about form-function synergy.

Frankly, I am only resisting calling this Transcendent due to my suspicion that my recent grass-roots volunteer experiences may be coloring my reaction. Thanks Lauren?


Played: 10/10/22
Playtime: 15min, finished
Artistic/Technical rankings: Engaged/Seamless
Would Play Again? Sadly, living it

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