Buggy

This is a work that I’m not quite sure how to describe. It’s a very short parser game written in Inform 7, and it’s quick to play—usually over in just a couple of turns. You’re riding in a buggy (as in the type of cart), in pursuit of a mysterious foe.

I recommend playing it, because it’s hard to say much more than that without spoiling its central conceit. So go do that first. Or, if you don’t care about spoilers:

(Spoiler - click to show)The core of this game is puns. The game is buggy, in the sense that it’s got (intentional) typos and also in the sense that that’s what you’re riding. You’re as good-looking as Ever (your brother Everett), and you can jump on the spot fruitfully (catching a branch of crab-apples). You think there’s a Suchthing around, but you can’t quite see it. The fourth wall is thin here, and every message the parser produces is also happening in the world itself.

This is another short game, where getting an ending takes only a couple turns but there are plenty of different endings to find, and I think that’s the right structure for it—its brand of surrealness would get old if it were drawn out much further. Though I do wish I could eventually find out what we’re pursuing.