A few hours later in the day of The Egocentric

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

Four panel cartoons are in the twilight of their cultural ubiquity for sure. There have been a few spikes in relevance over the century-and-a-half or so of their existence - the formative years of convention establishment in Crazy Cat, Nemo and Li’l Abner, their 50’s bittersweet sophistication with Peanuts and Pogo, the heyday of revelance in the 80’s and 90’s where Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbs and (ehh) Garfield were full on pop culture phenomena. This cultural potency didn’t survive the marginalizaion of newpapers, at least not in their classic form.

But what a great setup for IF! Clicking through four separate panels to decode and assmeble a full story. Between the implied motion of the four panel setup, making for intuitive navigation, to the uniqueness of each panel facilitating multi-layered puzzle play, it was equal parts sparky and natural. Is this the first time this has been done? First time I’ve seen it, and what a great insight. This conceit alone earns it good will points it can spend with impunity. I hope more authors would take this idea up, there seems to be a LOT of ground to explore here!

I kind of wish the story had been as engaging. It is a more straight-forward police tale of cornering an offscreen suspect via an intermediary. Seemingly a middle portion of a larger story. As a story element, it didn’t really stand on its own, nor might it feel necessary to do so. As a standalone work, this does keep the piece from becoming truly engaging I think. Also, it requires multiple restarts to win, where the player must carry knowledge and sequencing from previous iterations to succeed. Lacking a central ‘time loop’ mechanism (which would be a tough fit here), a ‘successful’ story run actually doesn’t make a lot of sense. Looking in isolation at the final run, the detective would need to know things he had no way of knowing. It was only through prior failures the knowledge was gained. Ehh, its fine, it is a game after all. Certainly the loops are tight enough, and subject to enough variety that it never gets tiresome. I think the four-panel format helps here, it constrains things to not need TOO much repeated depth. But it would be nicer if the story held together a bit better.

This leaves me with a truly unique IF entry that leverages its strengths quite well, whose story is just shy of engaging to me. I think maybe it will really shine in a collected volume of the whole story some day. Y’know. Like Bloom County, or Mark Trail. Actually, just imagining a full page of independent four-panel adventures I could execute one after another is giving me late nite Doonesbury Onmibus vibes. In the immortal words of Bill the Cat: “Ack!”

Played: 9/24/24
Playtime: 15m, ~12 loops
Artistic/Technical ratings: Sparks of Joy/Seamless, bonus for clever ui
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