The Last Christmas Present

Adapted from an IFCOMP22 Review

And we’re back to the “What Do I Do With This?” Sub series of JJMcC’s Reviews Out Of Time. Today’s conundrum: an IF implementation of a real-life Christmas scavenger hunt!

Look, I could wax academic about the quality of the map - how sometimes directions get turned around, or exits not flagged, or verbs incompletely implemented so you struggle to (Spoiler - click to show)open a secret bookcase door. I could whine about how thrilled I was to use the nifty folding map player aid, only to realize after struggling fruitlessly for a half hour that I needed to also fold the map in the parser – that being the only way to unlock game state, so I could find what I was looking for in the places I had already tried to look. I could bemoan falling into the same trap later when I visually decoded a word puzzle, to then need to guess-the-verb to solve it again in the parser before I could advance. I could admire the chutzpah of implementing your own house in parser map, then more dramatically in a note-perfect Potter pastiche prop. There would be words about language choice, words about spare descriptions, words about lack of interact-able objects and NPCs, and words and words and words words words.

Then I’d have to score it.

I am becoming convinced that the entire concept of 'reviewing' is actually an elaborate social psychology experiment being conducted on me, and all of you ALL OF YOU are in on it. You seem to be testing the theory that any random person of good will, when given the power to pass judgement on another’s creative work, will inevitably become a callous monster, glibly making half baked pronouncements on hours on hours of truly impressive labors of love. Cold to the people behind the stories. Well I see behind the curtain IFDB, if that is your real name.

Today we have a work based on a real-life father MAKING MAGIC FOR HIS DAUGHTER ON CHRISTMAS! What’s next IFDB? Huh? A toddler writing IF to earn money for life saving surgery for his out-of-work single mom? A collective work by an orphanage trying to keep an opioid manufacturer from foreclosing the only home they’ve ever known?? An overworked animal shelter volunteer desperately cranking out IF because it is the only thing that distracts the puppy ward from counting days??? YES, ADORABLE, PRECOCIOUS, DOOMED, IF-READING PUPPIES!!!

I’m not playing your little game. Y’know what happened when I made an outdoor Christmas scavenger hunt for my wife? It rained. In a state where water from the sky is the stuff of myth, it rained. Screw this, I am rating this game 10 out of 10 for Father of the Year. Did you see the photos (The Last Christmas Present - Photos ) of that map he made?? Good lord who am I to shade on that?


Played: 10/28/22
Playtime: 1.5hr, finished with hints
Artistic/Technical rankings: Seriously, don't. (Spoiler - click to show)YOU HAD TO DIDN'T YOU?? Mechanical/Notable
Would Play Again? What’s happening to me???

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless