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Space Wizard Rendezvous, by WizzBizz

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Space, magic, and crime(-ish)! (4/5)

This short entry combines my favourite things: wizards, space, and crime(-ish). Following Castillo and Daffodil through their little adventure (though it seems like you might be playing as Daffodil), with the goal of removing a curse casted by Daffodil's ex, you must participate in a little heist to gather enough gold.

As with every heist, things go wrong and flight must happen to save your behind. Being a wizard, you can cast some spells to thwart the guards and escape! Choose the wrong ones and… : / I didn't have that issue, picking all the good ones from the get go, and finding the sweetest ending!

As for the spellcasting mechanic, the game provides you with different level of difficulty: a description of the spell, only the emojis representing the spell, or both - with the middle option being the hardcore one. A spellcasing book explaining each spell is also available for download. And the mechanic is very charming, especially with the emoji chosen to represent the spell itself. I would be so down playing an extended version (maybe even with the same characters) with even more spells and shenanigans!

Being part of the ShuffleComp, the entry was based on the song Charlemagne by Blossoms, whose vibes were very much anchored in the game (with the break up/hurt vibe, the magic from the video). The entry also included lyrics of the song between scenes, forewarning the next snippet.

It was very sweet and charming, with the right amount of tension at the right spot.

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Jabberwocky, by Outgrabe

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Whimsical adaptation

This binksi game is an text-adventure adaptation of the Jabberwocky "poem", with hand-drawn background to represent each location/bit of the story. The text is quite a faithful adaptation to Carroll's whimsical (and slightly dark) style, and I'd even see the illustrations being part of a printed edition. While I managed to beat the monster on the first try (completely at random, because I forgot how the poem went - a poem included in the game, btw), it was fun restarting the game and try other directions, finding other monsters - ones you are not prepared to fight…

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A Vine on a House, by Outgrabe

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A multimedia adaptation of an old story

I think the synopsis says it all: it is a reformatting of an old short story, accompanied by contemporary pictures and music. This is supposedly meant to enhance the ambiance of the short story. You can go back and forth in the story, which is shown a couple of paragraphs at a time.

Though I do like adaptation of older work into an Interactive format… It didn’t really work for me, especially when portrait-oriented pictures were included (forcing you to scroll up/down the page). I found the contemporary pictures kind of going against the story, not finding the link between the specific picture and the text shown on the screen. I think it might have worked better if the adaptation also included more interactive text…

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The Peter and Paul Case, by jkj yuio

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an incomplete interactive mystery

In this pulp-like murder mystery, you play as Detective Picton (the same as in Murder at the Manor), now accompanied by his strangely attired assistant (a sci-fi suit?? in a 70-80s-like setting? the uncanney valley of her face creeeeeps me out), set to solve a new murder! This time around, the suspects are Peter and Paul, the nephews of the victim.

Visiting the murder scene, you get to investigate different rooms of the victim’s home, under the watchful eye and comments of your not-always-so-professional but very competent assistant. After finding a couple of required elements, the game ends abruptly, like it was bugging/freezing - but it is just the end of the demo.

The game does an interesting thing, mixing choice-based actions with point-and-click mechanic on images (I liked being able to “move” around the room and get a different angle)… though it is a bit finicky getting the element to click rather than bringing the image forward (a white outline above bright images are pretty hard to see). The images sometimes disappear when clicking on certain elements (the ones that display a new interactive picture). It would be nicer if those interactive pictures could be set more apart from the text…

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FEAST OF SENSES, by graymeditations

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Strange feast

The context to which the game was first released (the Worst Game of the Year Jam) helps understand this pretty strange game. This short minimalist bitsy game introduces a handful of "maze" screens, where you must find the element to interact with (often a "sense") to move to the next screen. It is pretty silly and nonsensical, and if you manage to pass the first screen (I think your cursor is "invisible"?), you'll be in for a wild ride…

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No Space at the Movies, by Kobato Games

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Pocking fun at hardcore fans? (3/5)

In this short Twine adventure, you play as a "fake Star Wars/Trek" fan, excited to see the anticipated new movie. Fan as you are, you even have a whole costume, with accessories, ready for the event. But oh noooo!… you didn't manage your time correctly and find yourself unable to get inside the movie theatre. Your goal is to find a way in and see the movie, whatever the cost!

The game provides you with different possible actions, branching into different fail/success scenarios - some funny, some pretty embarrassing. It's clear the PC feels very entitled to a spot in the event, even if it was their own fault they didn't get there - ready to even start a riot, if that is what is needed.

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The Loyal Doom - A PowerPoint Game, by Dev Vand

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A creative use of a non-IF medium!

It is always interesting seeing people explore IF with mediums not usually made for IF - it kinda shows that anything can be IF if you sets your mind to it. It’s pretty refreshing!

So here we have: a minimalist mysterious adventure created in PowerPoint. With limited words on the page, often just 3 separate nouns, next to a couple of 1-word actions, you can explore some sort of dungeon, face judgement, and maybe save yourself? I got lost for a long while :joy:

While it is a pretty creative way to use PowerPoint this way, it comes with some caveats: you must only click the “link” actions to move between slides, and wait before the (much too lengthy) animations to do anything… or you will end up on the wrong slide. Shortening the animation would have made the experience a bit smoother.

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That's It Again, by Dev Vand

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A low-res vague conversation

This kinetic (and looping?) entry spans a conversation, between two unnamed/undefined pixel characters, about a vague subject ("it") -- how it was made, what value it has, and whether to end it. The game advanced by clicking on the pixel circle appearing on the screen, rather than through choices or other active participation.

It is a bit strange and quite confusing. What is this "it"? Are we the "it" those those characters talk about? The snippet is much too short and vague to provide any answer.

The low-res interface is pretty neat tho! with the little animation of the background and the characters.

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Troll's Tale 2023, by Outgrabe

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Slightly tedious and silly fetch quest (3/5)

The game is a short-ish explorative game made in bitsy, reminiscent of point-n-click (except you use your keyboard arrows instead of your mouse), where the goal is to find all treasures of the Dwarf King. There are about 20-30-ish screens that you must go through to find all treasures, some where you will find the wanted objects, others where an element is interactive. This "fetch-quest" relies on your memory of having already explored a certain screen or not.

The game is a bit silly in its premise, with (internet?) trolls having taken treasures and hidden it. And the design of each screen, with it's 3-colour palette, is reminiscent of old school games. But it is made extra tedious by the choice of program, as bitsy relies on pressing arrows to move the cursor around…

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Bill's Passage, by Benny Mattis

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Min/Max-ing US politics (3/5)

Interactive Fiction has an immense potential in making educational topics fun, especially concepts and procedures that feel pretty unapproachable and complex. Gamification and all that!

As much as bill passing can be explained simply (representatives vote on a bill they read, and it can pass - or not), it is clear there is more to the process. With needing to find support, raising funds to change minds, but not taking too long before submitting the bill to a vote… the process includes a lot more stakeholders, each with their own agenda or influence. From the Assembly to the Office of the President, you will need to min/max your way to pass your bill.

An interesting way to get a bit more of an insight into US politics (as a non-US citizen).

As a sidenote: Bill reminded me of Clippy.

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Time's Gap, by mxelm

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What is a body but a vessel with holes

Time's Game is a short body horror story, where you conduct a magic ritual aimed (?) at breaking the fabric of space and time (holes). As you get ready, snippets of strange memories (yours? someone else's?), also orifice related, rush through your mind, debilitatingly so. Your body, unable to take it all, breaks and rips into multitudes.

The writing is very evocative and gross (in a good, Porpentine way). It makes you uncomfortable, but in a way you can't really take your eyes away from it. It crawls up your spine…

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The Good Weapon, by Madeline Wu

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What good will it do? (4/5)

This almost kinetic visual novel follows three (vigilante?) fighters inside a bunker plotting against a controlling (otherworldly?) organisation called VIRGIL (Big Brother-vibes). The latter’s control is so spread and wide that the only way to fight it would be to essentially nuke the Earth - or it would regenerate. Away from “real life” to ensure their safety and so their plan wouldn’t get discovered, the three characters uphold different view on how to approach the issue - discussions turning more into arguments with the “weapon” being ready.

While there aren’t meaningful choices, none that really affect the story at least, the story is quite engrossing. The story sets up enough to get an understanding of the conflicts, but stays vague, forcing you to piece things as you get more information. The culminating scene is satisfying even if as a player I barely has anything to do with it - putting an end to the MC’s struggles with their goal and their wavering will.

The visuals, with the limited palette and sprites looking like they were sketched, complements the writing and the scenes, with blinking and shaking elements, and an interesting focus on gazes.

I stiiiiiiilll… wished we could have had one choice at the end, rather having the PC making that choice for us (even if it made sense story wise).

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Door, by Dev Vand

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Doors. Just… doors. (2/5)

Door(s) is a tiny game where you are shown doors on the screen, which you can click open or close, and throw them off the screen. Mess around enough with them and the screen will change, showing a different bit of text. Though it is obviously interactive, there isn't much narrative wise - the text only amounting to a sentence.

I guess the concept is interesting in a philosophical way, in that doors can open and close before us (opportunities/paths), or we can leave them behind (changing direction), but that they can still be there? There is only so much you can extrapolate from just a sentence…

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Murder at the Manor, by Jkj Yuio

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So… why was he murdered again? (2/5)

Murder at the Manor is a short pulpy murder-mystery game, where you play as Detective Picton, tasked to solve the an unsolvable case. The game, however, only lets you interrogate the different suspects. The corpse and murder weapon have been sent for testing, and you don't even get to investigate really where the murder took place. You only get information about the case through the suspects' answers (who give very little, throwing blame on one another).

With the murdered chosen at random with every game, the whole mystery relies on a he-said-she-said about each other's alibis - each suspect never changing their location but sometimes changing their stance on whether they saw the other NPCs. After talking to everyone (which you are forced to because the butler is weirdly invested in being part of the investigation), you can accuse someone and the game ends. You are told whether your choice was correct or not in an ending sequence, which, if you were successful, mention how tight your investigation was, with a folder full of evidence (WHERE?).

Because of its length, and the surface-levelness of the investigation, neither the good or the bad ending feel quite satisfying. You accuse someone and thrown forward in time to after the court case, told only of the result. Not knowing why the suspect would murder the major, or even how they could have done it… what was the point of it? Where is the conflict? Why was there a murder in the first place? How could they have done it?

I restarted the game a handful of times, randomly picked a suspect without going through the whole interrogation… and managed to get the correct murderer half the time. I think it would have worked better if you could actually do some investigating, searching for actual clues, maybe get the coroner's report or more information about the weapon, or pressing for motives.

On the interface side, the chosen colours for the links made it pretty hard to read with the dark background. The "Undo" button wasn't working either when you reach the end. There didn't seem to be a "Restart" button either.

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Occhiolism, by DagitabSoft

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Choices were made, but you won't make any. (1/5)

In the format of a kinetic visual novel (you have one choice that doesn't affect anything), the story follows an almost fusional couple, brought together by a traumatic event. With surprisingly similar principled values (pretty conservative and somewhat condescending views on relationships and intimacy), the couple faces a bump in their relationship when Patty Nicole starts behaving strangely.

Unable to go to certain spots or to talk about what is bothering her, the games makes it obvious what happened to her (CW: attempted assault), though it does it with a twist ( the assault wasn't physical at the end, because she escaped him, but he cursed her by "removing space" with magic???). Honestly, it feels like trying to make some sort of allegory for sexual assault on pure/virginal women, but spoiling it with its implementation of an otherworldly/fantastical element. SA is a very touchy subject, and the game handled it carelessly.

The games lays it on thick on the critique of society, especially the loose morals, individualism, and the focus on money rather than relationships. It comes out as pretty patronising, especially when opposite values are presented to the couple -- if you don't follow their principles you are bad -- and almost childish.

And that's without going into the last third of the game, where the couple deals with the Patty Nicole's issues, which weirdly turns into some sort of anime-like fight, with the big baddy monologue before the "power of love" punch ends it all. It does cheapen the whole thing…

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Bittersweet Harvest, by DagitabSoft

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Didn't quite hit the mark (2/5)

In the format of a kinetic visual novel (there really aren't any choices), the story follows an Harvester - an otherworldly being who 'harvests' human memories - on a case: a young woman wanting to erase the memories of her former lover and the child she gave away.

I… don't know what to take from the game honestly. I can't say what the message of the story was. It seemed to be critical of one-night stands and loose morals - almost condescendingly, with pushing the almost unattainable 'pure love' - while dealing very carelessly with the situation of a child (in what world was the child given away without getting the father's approval?? when the father was told about the pregnancy and birth? It seemed to hint the child was some months old?). It was as if the story put itself into a corner with having the child involved into the woman's back story and just… yeeted it away when it became too cumbersome. That was… very uncomfortable.

As for the climax of the game, the story kinda pulls the rug from under you, by having the Harvester "seeing the light" and becoming a human because of what he witnessed with that case. I don't really get how this was the turning point for them to change this way. It felt a bit cheap?

I did like the introduction of the game, with the exposition of Harvesters and one of the humans who used their services. I thought it could have been more interesting following that person after losing their memories…

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The Last Mountain, by Dee Cooke

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Running down that hill (4/5)

I could not be furthest from the intended audience for this game: I absolutely hate running. I just don't get the appeal or why people would push themselves to exert themselves this way. Anything related to it will give me the hives…

Yet, I found myself engrossed with the story. Your will to finish this gruelling race, hopefully getting a good time too. Your frustration with your running companion, who is unusually lagging behind and whose condition is starting to worry you. And your struggles with the path, not quite as safe as you hoped.

While you are the character advancing the story, I felt it was more about Susan (or your relationship to Susan) that mattered most here. There are hints through most of the game to why your companion doesn't seem like herself -- though her condition is only vaguely mentioned in the ending, it is easy to assume what's what. Depending on your actions, the ending you get is heartwarming, even if a bit bittersweet, or pretty tragic…

The game is pretty short, with three and half room and hinted puzzles, branching into multiple endings (I think I managed to get three by myself?). One branching choice seems to have a random component to which path you'll end up taking (with the correct direction potentially changing with each playthrough).

It was a good well rounded short game!

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