Going Home

This is a zombie game with a fairly gruesome ending.

You play as someone caught in a zombie invasion. The game has a fairly clever gimmick of having your choices all be zombie-language, making the links a sort of maze to get out from. But overall, its short and underimplemented, which makes sense for a speed-IF.

(Disclaimer: I participated in EctoComp 2016.)

Going Home is a very sparse zombie horror story in Twine. The PC is attacked by zombies and turned into one of them in the opening scene. This scene, and the PC's ensuing disoriented attempt to go home, are written in a semi-comical fashion, with plentiful use of growls and zombie noises. While there is horror here, it is not really emphasised.

This is followed by (Spoiler - click to show)a rather restrained and tragic scene of the PC attacking and eating their little daughter.

The Petite Mort class of EctoComp is of course under extreme time pressure, and taking the limitations into account, this isn't a bad story, but neither does it rise to any great heights. The succinctness undermines the horror, and of course, reactions to the horror and emotive content are going to vary from person to person. There is a game-like maze element (in the "going home" segment, all your choices are represented by guttural noises). It's not long enough to get frustrating, and it's a cool idea in theory, but in practice there does not seem to be any way to solve it other than by trial and error.

To sum up: there are some good points, such as some black comedy and a fairly powerful ending, but by and large I found it unmemorable. Still, it's short enough that it's worth a try.