Doug's Top Ten of IF Comp 2016
Recommendations by Doug Orleans (Somerville, MA, USA)I played all but one of the 58 entries in IF Comp 2016 (I couldn't play Labyrinth of Loci because I don't have access to Windows or Mac OS). These were the top ten games on my ballot.
Note that I rate games on slightly different criteria for the IF Comp than I do for IFDB; in particular, as per the Comp rules, I select my vote after playing a game for no more than 2 hours, and thus I tend to dock a point or two from games if I feel like there's significantly more to the game than what I experienced in 2 hours.
In practice, it wouldn't have made much difference in my rankings this year; in fact, both of my top two games went longer than 2 hours, but I liked them both enough within my two hour experience to keep them as my top two. Inside The Facility was the only game on my top ten that I ended up materially penalizing for length: while I did get to a victorious ending within 2 hours, it still felt a bit disappointing (only half of my map was filled in!). After the comp I played it for another 4 hours, getting to the ultimate "trophy" victory ending, which was pretty fun and satisfying. So I'd probably move it up from 6th to 4th place in this list, were I considering them outside of the Comp context.
1. 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds
by Abigail Corfman
(2016)
Average member rating: (64 ratings)
2. Night House
by Bitter Karella
(2016)
Average member rating: (15 ratings)
3. Hill Ridge Lost & Found
by Jeremy Pflasterer
(2016)
Average member rating: (10 ratings)
4. Detectiveland
by Robin Johnson
(2016)
Average member rating: (44 ratings)
5. Eight characters, a number, and a happy ending
by K.G. Orphanides
(2016)
Average member rating: (12 ratings)
6. Inside the Facility
by Arthur DiBianca
(2016)
Average member rating: (38 ratings)
7. Pogoman GO!
by Jack Welch and Ben Collins-Sussman
(2016)
Average member rating: (23 ratings)
8. The Shoe Dept.
by Aquanet
(2016)
Average member rating: (9 ratings)
9. Ariadne in Aeaea
by Victor Ojuel
(2016)
Average member rating: (23 ratings)
10. Color the Truth
by mathbrush
(2016)
Average member rating: (54 ratings)
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