The Two Seasons: Encounter With A Vampire

The Two Seasons: Encounter With A Vampire

This game is a very well polished parser game. It's rare to see a game with this level of smoothness, with custom responses to most things, multicolor text, two protagonists, NPCs that respond actively, etc. Very well done.

Storywise, you play as Matty and Maddy, two friends in a band who discover that their teacher is a vampire. The name of the game somewhat implies more adventures in the future, and that would make sense. Together, they have to solve vaguely educational puzzles to collect the items they need to kill a vampire.

This author's last game, All That Shimmers..., had been described as a straightforward old-fashioned adventure. This one also has a lot of that in common. It lacks much of the irony and self-reflection of IFComp games of the past.

Instead, it feels very firmly like a game created in the culture of the 80s, specifically 80s children's work. Nerds are mocked, bullies are big and tough, the janitor gets drunk, teachers have romances, the boy's bathroom is gross and the girl's bathroom is clean, kissing is yucky, schools have computer labs (though, running Minecraft), history is boring, no cell phones in sight, teens are allowed to wander around without supervision, all of it feels like my childhood in terms of storytelling. The setting is definitely intended to be modern, though.

The game does involve a chapel and raiding it with Christ mentioned in a completely neutral fashion, which is something I've rarely seen (usually games involving Christianity tend to portray it negatively or, rarely, positively).

If you're looking for a parser game that provides traditional puzzles and which is not buggy, this is a good one. The hint system is excellent as well.