Reviews by JJ McC

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

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

For many years, my wife worked in civic Storm Water infrastructure. A lot of it is vital but unrewarding civic communication, badgering businesses for compliance when it is easier to pay fines, dealing with politicians interested in uneven enforcement and so on. Her favorite part of the job, and by extension mine, was going after Pumper Dumpers. These usually fly-by-nite Commons Parasites charge companies to pump hazardous waste under promise of proper disposal, effectively immunizing companies from liability, then just dump the waste into sewers and storm drains, uncaring of the potentially catastrophic effect to infrastructure and environment. Seriously, screw those guys.

In my favorite tale, neighbors called in a tip, and (before the days of hyper-miniaturizations) the city fab’d a fake utility box and filmed the miscreants doing their dirty deed. It was Law and Order: H2O!

This background is necessary to understand the dread this work evoked in me BEYOND its horror-tinged narrative tensions. The game MADE ME a Pumper Dumper, the lowest of the low! I’m not gonna lie, just encountering this setup in IF was a Spark all its own. It is so niche, so off in the weeds of modern life, it was a real ‘worlds collide’ moment for me.

In the end, I think I am forced to admit it was the biggest spark of the whole thing. Gameplay is a bit clumsy. For one, items are strewn about the truck that are only accessible from one location, one SIDE of the truck. This effectively creates 4 truck locations, and the text does not successfully establish this convention. Items are described in one location that are link-inaccessible, making it unclear where it would be in reach. The mechanics of its puzzle are pretty straight forward, it falls into the class of work ‘I know what I want to do, but the game is pretty opaque on how I can.’ Giving the hose two sides for example is a simplifying implementation choice that comes off clumsy to the player. So it is all about exploring, dying, restarting, and figuring out which clicks get you to the solution you have grok’d almost immediately. Works that better balance their technical challenge and cluing can elicit sparks with this gameplay, but works that are too opaque and under-described don’t. For me, this work tilted to the latter.

There is added tension in a lurking monstrous presence that threatens from multiple angles, is initially (Spoiler - click to show)repulsed by light but quickly outgrows that. Your work then is complicated by needing to avoid this threat, and further complicated by fussy machinery that needs constant goosing. The nature of the threat is nicely understated, and sets up an eventual mild charge of ‘oh, I see what that is!’ But the gameplay again makes navigating this threat more difficult than not through opacity. I think I would have been more motivated had success NOT been defined as (Spoiler - click to show)emptying your toxic tank into a lake. As it was, I kinda cheered for the monster in every pass? To the point, once I identified all the moving pieces needed to solve the puzzle, I declined a final run implementing them to get the ‘win.’ It was enough I could see how to do it, without actually seeing the Dumper (me!) escape. Screw those guys, monster fodder is what they deserve. (sidebar: there was an achievement that telegraphed an ending I would wholly endorse, though again, the mechanics of navigating the puzzle were daunting enough to discourage achieving it.)

So yeah, Sparks for sure, but very idiosyncratic sparks, very aligned to my personal life experiences. The more generally-relatable aspects of gameplay were just confounding enough to fall short.

Played: 9/27/24
Playtime: 1hr, died 5 times, got the gist
Artistic/Technical ratings: Sparks of Joy/Notably clumsy navigation and manipulation
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

I love the genesis of this work unreservedly. An anthology of sorts, multiple authors coming together to build a dream-logic museum that needs escaping. The conceit is just dynamite, and by virtue of its broad author pool allows for many different visions of weird art and distorted history. Its many voices are every bit as integral as individual narrative beats in establishing an off-putting environment that constantly surprises and keeps the player off balance.

It also makes for a variety of self-contained room puzzles, from moon logic leaps to more traditional find-carry-use. From the jump, with its inhumanly cheerful and contradictory usher, the mission is clear. Explore and escape a dream-logic environs, more soaking in it than ‘solving’ it. It was always going to hinge on how compelling this weird subconscious space could become.

There is a reason David Lynch is such a singular creator. He seems, perhaps naturally perhaps supernaturally, attuned to a collective well of subconscious imagery that he leverages to tell tales that defy and-then construction, but nevertheless FEEL right every step of the way. In lesser hands, his works would be overwhelmed by incoherence and befuddling choices. (Some charge that Lynch himself does not always escape this.)

Now imagine attempting a Lynchian anthology. The defining challenge would be, who do you pair with him? What cast of creatives can match his singular connection to our ID, yet ALSO have a uniquely compelling voice of their own? You can be forgiven stalling on the problem of who could even play in that field. And what would that finished work look like, how would it hold together?

My impression of MG was that as much as its patchwork instability was served by its multiple authors, inevitably it was going to be uneven: some areas were going to be more effective than others. I don’t think I am interested in doing a full vignette comparison, it’s not clear how much of the perceived differences I could resolve beyond my own head to anything of general interest. I will highlight two I really responded to though: there was a Tiny Art room that presented some inventive miniature imagery and the surreality of the Hungry Room really landed like gangbusters for me. Both of those had a surge, not only of strangeness that was present throughout my explorations, but of danger that were not as present elsewhere. Those were bright hot sparks, no doubt. They recognized, as Lynch often does, that the strange is often implicitly THREATENING. Either because it is untethered from our fleshy concerns and constraints, or because of its repudiation of a reality that has gotten too comfortable. Strangeness, without threat, just has a little less charge for me.

In the end rooms without that charge landed less resoundingly. Couple that with a work that, by design, stitches together visions of reality that are gleefully at odds with each other, and the player is left off balance, renegotiating the game with every new room. The downside to this approach is that the game never establishes a rhythm of its own, it is very much of its disconnected parts. This constant start-and-stop of rules reset pushed back against my engagement - any time I started to get a grip on a room, a gameplay style, it was time to start over with a new one. I just didn’t get into a flow.

I cannot stress enough that this is not a WEAKNESS of the game - this is its core design, the major effect it is aiming for! With that in mind, I openly admire the folks charged with stitching it all together, both in mechanics of coding, in integration of sound design, and delivering a complete package. The subject matter may jar in its divergent visions, but the player’s experience is as smooth as possible, ensuring the creative dissonance is no more or less than its intended. It is a bold, successful experiment, greater than its Sparky parts, but also not escaping its inherent asymmetry and conflicts that keep true engagement from ripening.

Played: 9/27/24
Playtime: 2hr, Part4/4 Hungry Room
Artistic/Technical ratings: Sparks of Joy/Mostly Seamless
Would Play Again?: I honestly don’t know - its contradictions have left me adrift!

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

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

Clive Barker was a formative author in my horror-entertainment journey. I encountered his books first, where somehow his reputation developed schoolyard buzz back when the internet wasn’t the primary medium for such things. I consumed a lot of his fiction and his talent was compelling as hell for young me. His wildly offputting imagination, narratives that piled human venality on strangeness in compellingly intricate ways, it was a heady mix executed with dark confidence. I’m not sure where I am on the zeitgeist here, but I personally find the movies based on his works imminently rewatchable and always at least partially successful. Stephen King wishes he had that filmography!

One of my favorites, though probably the most in need of forgiveness, was Nightbreed. It has a long history of studio meddling, mercurial story telling, and has had multiple, multiple re-edit versions over the years. Its constant revisions tell a fascinating meta-tale of creative preoccupation. As befuddling or confounding as its multiple versions are, there is a magnetic core concept that demands revisiting, augmented by Barker’s singular creature creations.

It’s about an underground city of monsters, beset by a persecuting world of humans and internal politics.

I’m not sure when my neurons decided the Saltcast were Midians, but once they did, the work had my unqualified fealty. Here, you are a desperate peasant woman, taking on an impossible task for the King to either secure a life-changing monetary reward or die trying. For your family. By going to Midian.

Like Barker’s work, it is as much metaphor as physical adventure… actually it may be MORE metaphor here. As deep and interesting as the lore and mechanics of the monsters were, I felt like the physical adventure was shortchanged by two choices. 1) it is never clear what the protagonist brings to the proceedings besides desperation and opportunities for empathy; and 2) the narrative attaches her (you) to a team that brings a LOT to the table. So much, it is unclear why they need the protagonist at all. Granted I’m only two hours in, that revelation could still be ahead of me. The first is given an interesting spin, in that (Spoiler - click to show)empathy is not always rewarded, sometimes it is punished! That is a Barker-worthy twist that on the one hand was VERY welcome over its somewhat trite alternative, but that also had the effect of undermining the protagonist’s only real contribution! Too, the blocking of the adventures didn’t really gel, cinematically. The protagonist’s companions are a mix of super-distinctive and… hind-leg animals. More of the former please! In particular, the (Spoiler - click to show)ghost with the giant metal anchor-hand was a high point. But, when the narrative needs them to hide or skulk about, the overriding impression is “wait, how would that work, exactly?” Couple that with your companions’ capable adventuring skills and suddently their occasional deference to your IF decision making feels… unconvincing.

The adventure part didn’t quite land for me, but the setting sure did. Yes, some of the creatures felt like they were phoned in, but so many more did NOT. For every ‘this one is a raccoon’ you get ‘this one was a riot of interconnected limbs that roiled and surged across the floor, accomplishing a jerky motion that more resembled tides than strides.’ (Not from game, just a flavor) Room designs were fun and idiosyncratic. The writing was occasionally inspired, bringing in fanciful images that surprised with the protagonist’s unique viewpoint. A favorite ACTUAL quote:

“Your gaze is met with an iridescent constellation shining in the light of your lantern, coruscating like the hands and throat of a well-decorated noblewoman.”

There is real meat in the concept here, as the never ending Nightbreed versions can attest. There is real flair employed in this telling. Creature conceptions are as often inspired as shortchanged. These are all Sparks in the work. The mechanics of its plot did not reach the same level for me, so that when the timer ran out, I never got BEYOND sparks.

Played: 9/24/24
Playtime: 2hr, nearly exiting mirror maze
Artistic/Technical ratings: Sparks of Joy/Seamless
Would Play After Comp?: No, experience seems complete

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