IF is Dead. Long Live IF.

This game is a Twine review of all the 2014 IFComp games, portrayed as a conversation with the author's 2004 self. The old self is surprised to hear about Twine, Inform 7, Dr Who, etc.

It's all fairly amusing, but it also has great value as a snapshot of a changing IF landscape.

There is some strong profanity, but the reviews are generally benign, with some real moments of pathos as they discuss their response to games that touched them.

To start with, this isn't a game, or even fiction: it's a Twine document with musings ("reviews" would be too strong a word) on the IFComp 2014 entries.

Now that that's out of the way, is it any good? Well, the central conceit is cute, the writing is good if not outstanding, and I laughed out loud a number of times, which is more than most IFComp reviews pages get from me. On the downside, this isn't really what I look for in IF criticism: I enjoy reviews that are meaty, discuss the techniques used (both technical and artistic), and provide at least enough information about the game to make me decide whether I want to give it a shot. Some of the pages in IF is Dead are one sentence long, and not a particularly generous one. Even the longer ones assume that the reader has either played every entry, or has read enough other reviews to have at least an idea about them.

An enjoyable way to waste fifteen minutes, but I don't know whether I'll remember it a week from now. Give it a read if you want; there's nothing bad about it. Just don't let it be your first introduction to the 2014 entries, or you'll just be confused.

Try out this game if you are lazy to look up reviews on the Comp games. Found it nice! :)

That I was exceedingly sad to be left out of it.