#ectocomp 2022

[twinegardening]

Quintessence by Lapin Lunaire Games [IFDB]

Galina has always been Good. How could she not be? Beloved daughter of the town blacksmith, sweetheart of the farmer's most charming son, and envy of her peers—Galina's life is as close to ideal as it can be. Sinister powers may lurk deep in the forest, where waters run cold and unafraid, but Galina is well-protected; after all, how could anything less than blissful befall someone so good?

Her constant longing for perfection, however, is more dangerous than she knows.

[manonamora-if-reviews]

Starlight Shadows by Autumn Chen

============= Links

Play the game See other reviews of the game See other games by Autumn or follow @cyberpunklesbian

============= Synopsis

Lyra Leblanc has a mission: to save her city from the infiltrating nanotech entities. Help her gather allies to fight the demons that threaten her home.

============= Other Info

Starlight Shadows is a Dendry* game, submitted to the 2022 Edition of the EctoComp. This game was made in 4h or less. *Autumn is also an unofficial maintainer of the Dendry format.

Status: Completed Genre: Sci-Fi

CW: / Note: Violence, Telepathy

============= Playthrough

First Played: Nov-2022 Last Played: 02-Jun-2023 Playtime: around 30min (2 playthroughs) Rating: 4 /5 Thoughts: Something is coming... will defeating it be enough?

============= Review

Starlight Shadows follows Lyra, a teenager with some sort of telepathic and prescient skills/powers, trying to figure out what to do after she gets a message that something wrong is about to happen at this (costumed?) party...

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

This short game is quite simple: you have one hour to gather your fighters before a fight with those strange entities is about to break out, and fight them. Unlike Autumn's other time/resource-management-gameplay games, you are able to interact with (and potentially recruit) every named individuals: your twin brother who's annoyed by you derailing his party and would only relent to help with threats, your (maybe more/less) ex who's witnessed your powers before and know you mean business, the social butterfly who's just a school acquaintance and is really into that one old book series, and the underprivilege gifted kid who is a loner. Whether you convince them is a different story...

When you have recruited your agent(s) - you need at least one - you wait until the clock strikes 8 to run fight those strange entities. Follows a turn-based beat-em-up fight against one entity, revealing two endings: one failure where you are saved and told you require more training*, one winning where you realise there will be more fights ahead. *This was an interesting ending, teasing something a bit ominous, maybe an experiment?

The game feels more of a preview of a larger one (and it kind of might be), where you'd follow Lyra as she takes on fighting different entities, and save the world (or maybe not...) (and maybe explore that past incident?). But considering it was constrained to a 4h deadline for writing and coding, it is an impressive rounded piece on its own.

Even with its limited sizes, there are a handful of Easter Eggs from Autumn's previous work: referencing A Paradox Between Worlds in the book Cy is reading or during your conversation with Cassie (she is a big fan!) (also Cassie's name feels very APBW too), the mentions of DNA-storage/archiving mechanism from The Archivist & the Revolution*... Also the recurrent theme of the main character not liking being around crowd/attending parties (very Karen from Pageant vibes). *If the names of some of those characters are familiar, it's because they appear in documents of TA&R, making this game some sort of the latter's prequel...

Final note: only when writing this review did I realise that all characters were named after a constellation... and that is also related to the title...

[artwithoutblood]

in MY GOD IS THE SUN, you are death, and you were once one of the 22 members of the arcana, a cult dedicated to some far-off god. you are the last survivor, the rest gulfed in inferno. you just didn't expect the first person you met once you reached the outside world again to be the "deity" you once worshipped. the fanfare and love is gone, though, and he's glad it is.

after a few days in the hospital (all expenses paid), genesis, demon of dissonance, helps you choose a new name. my god is the sun is a short story about rebirthing yourself in more than one way, with a dad that adopted you like his own.

my god is the sun is a game about nothing. a game in melancholy unreality of a dream and a demon. 

it is a sequel to GOD IS IN THE RADIO, my 2022 ectocomp entry.

[manonamora-if]

Explore the house and find the truth? Help Suzette, an eight year old, getting ready to meet her peculiar grandmother for an outing that afternoon at her as-peculiar job.

La Petite Mort is a short slice-of-life interactive adventure made in Twine, which was originally created under 4h for the French EctoComp in 2022. It has since been translated into English and expanded.

In LPM, you play as Suzette, an eight year old on holidays at her grandmother's, getting ready for a very special day: she will learn what her grandmother truly do at her job! That is... if you get her there on time.

Features:

Available in English et en Français

~11k words (~12k mots)

6 endings

Accessibility Settings (font type/size/etc...)

Mobile playable.

PLAY GAME | RATE GAME | REVIEW GAME

[lapinlunaire-games]

Play Quintessence!

Created for Ectocomp 2022 (English; Le Grand Guignol) in four days, with a lot of tea, fountain pen ink, and code crises.

Galina has always been Good. How could she not be? Beloved daughter of the town blacksmith, sweetheart of the farmer's most charming son, and envy of her peers—Galina's life is as close to ideal as it can be. Sinister powers may lurk deep in the forest, where waters run cold and unafraid, but Galina is well-protected; after all, how could anything less than blissful befall someone so good?

Her constant longing for perfection, however, is more dangerous than she knows.

Rich, branching narrative inspired by Slavic folklore and gothic fantasy

Control Galina's fate — player-shaped story with multiple unlockable endings

Discover the secret haunting the forest surrounding Galina's home, explore her relationships with her loved ones, and face her fears

Unlock more details in your Codex and character profiles

Mobile accessible

User-adjustable font size and style

Curated display themes inspired by classic works of art

Recommended playlist (for those spooky mermaid vibes): run, rusalka, run

Mild blood/gore, mentions of death and violence. This game is intended for players 16+.

Play Quintessence | Rank Quintessence for Ectocomp | More From Me

[empyreneabits]

Get ready for a mini-game drop tomorrow for the 2022 ECTOCOMP jam!

[jsnlxndrlv]

My game, "This Old Haunted House", is playable as part of the ECTOCOMP 2022 competition's Le Grand Guignol category. Go play those games: voting ends November 20th!

[twinegardening]

Something Blue by E. Joyce [IFDB]

A young bride writes letters to her sister.

[twinegardening]

Origin of Love by Sophia de Augustine [IFDB]

heretical poetry for your undead lover. 23:4 - though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil: for you are with me. entry for ectocomp 2022 in the "la petite mort" category: 4 hours or less!

[twinegardening]

MARTYR ME by Charm Cochran [IFDB]

From the moment you first saw me, you knew what you had to do.

Contains strong language, violence, and gore, all purely on a textual level.

Created in less than four hours as an entry to the La Petite Mort category in ECTOCOMP 2022.

[twinegardening]

The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt by manonamora [IFDB]

Friday February 2nd, 1923 My dearest friend, Such good fortune has befallen me, that I scarcely dare write you in case it is merely some joke played on me by fate. Lord knows that Fortuna has not been kind to me in this life. Yet fortune is fickle, and it seems the Lady has finally deigned to smile on me. It had been years since you last saw Edward Harcourt last. Along with this sudden wish to reconnect, Edward promptly invites you to join him in his new abode of Castle Gairbuie, on the North-Western coast of Scotland, and to reward your loyal friendship. You do not believe this vague letter is all there is to this mystery...

[twinegardening]

The Good Ghost by Sarah Willson and Kirk Damato [IFDB]

A wholesome haunt in five acts.

[artwithoutblood]

GOD IS IN THE RADIO is a short interactive fiction piece about performing a ritual for your god by finding his song by flipping between radio stations. submitted for ectocomp 2022. loosely based within art without blood’s universe.

[manonamora-if]

Retrospective 2023 (2)

See Part 1 for the Retrospective Infographic

2023 has been a rollercoaster of stuff, with some very high-highs, and some pretty low-lows. Things have been pretty busy this year, then got busier and weirder. I didn't manage to do things I wanted to do, ending up doing a lot of different things instead. This year was kinda the perfect storm to do all those new stuff and experimentation I've published.

It's been good, it's been bad, it's been ugly, and it's been cool. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Long post ahead - breaking here.

Goals for 2023

Last year, I made big-ass post about what I hoped to achieved during those next 12 months. The main one being: Get things off my desk and shelf it for good! The goal was to finish WIPs and remasters of "completed" projects.

And I... somewhat did that? But also... did whatever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Taking the list of the "plan":

Goncharov Escapes! was: re-written, re-coded, and translated (to French). The new version also now includes music!

La Petite Mort was: re-written, added content, and translated (to English) for this year's Ectocomp. It just need one more or two things tho

The demo of P-Rix - Space Trucker is now playable on mobile! (and the template based on the game is out too)

The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt didn't get just one but TWO updates last year!

A bunch of templates! 5 to be exact: 3 focused more on visuals (Sci-Fi, VN, Title), and the other 2 more on code (Setting, Charac Creator).

So... what's extra? Well... a lot. Maybe too much...

A lot of new titles under my name: DOL-OS, The Rye in the Dark City (wip), The Roads not Taken, À la Campagne, Entre-d'oeuf coquilles/An Eggcellent Preparation, Collision, Intersigne, Clarence Street 14, The Dinner, In the Blink of an Eye, Tower of Sleep, and Dévoiement. From bite-size to full large game, that makes TWELVE new thing this year! I... may have gone a bit overboard with this...

Aside from the template, I've also worked on the SugarCube Guide, a guide that covers all markup, macros, functions, methods, and APIs of the SugarCube format. From the basics to the very advanced code ~ Which will receive another update when the 2.37 comes out for real.

After the @seedcomp-if, I continued to organised more IF events: Neo-Twiny Jam, Single Choice Jam, Orifice Jam, Bring Out Your Ghost, Bare-Bones Jam, ShuffleComp... and helped out other events (the IFComp, y'all!).

I've been a tad less active on the Tumblr front lately, mainly because I've hung out more on the Forum or the @neointeractives Discord. But I've been plenty active reviewing games, especially since last May (@manonamora-if-reviews). The count is over 300 now...

I made a zine?????

So yeah... A LOT this year. (and there would have been more had I not gotten sick...)

2023 Achievements and Milestones

There were probably a bunch of itch/analytics milestones this year, but... I've tried to stay away from numbers as much as I could, because I realised it was a source of anxiety. I want to make games for fun, not worry that I haven't achieved a certain play level by a certain date. So I've even edited my itch's dashboard to hide it all. (I'm still updating the analytics sheet once in a while tho) And anyway... nothing will ever be as popular as CRWL, even when I'm trying to push other - and much better imo - games down everyone's throats.

Some other stats on itch:

22 [total] games on itch (incl. the experiments & demos) we're getting closer to my goal of 1 game/birthdays

9 free-to-use prompts

7 free-to-use templates

3 coding guides

1 zine

I also participated in 22 different jams and comps, almost always using one game for multiple jams at once (I'm crazy, but not that crazy). I ranked pretty high on multiple jams, which I am really happy about, and got some amazing reviews and lovely comments. A bunch of my games from 2022 were nominated for the IFDB Awards (and two were mentioned in the Top50 IF too)! (maybe next time I'll get a spot too !)

But the major thing coming out of it all was winning a big competition too, with DOL-OS at the start of the year. Holy shit, did that make my year. I really wasn't expecting it because so many of the games that year were incredible! This was such a confidence booster! I think that's my biggest achievement this year. (I just finished the puzzle I won too, and that was loads of fun) I am so so so proud of that game, especially after releasing the remaster.

Some non-numerical achievements I'm happy about:

I continued experimenting this year, with non-linear stories (DOL-OS), shorter and more kinetic content (Neo-Interactive jam entries), and... well... a thing. The experimentation included trying out other programs to make game too!

Speaking of the thing... I've made a monster of a Twine, creating a bad (oh so bad in convention) parser... which I still haven't finished fixing. I talked at length about here.

I've made an actual proper parser game, following the conventions of the medium... and enjoyed it a lot. From creating puzzles to solving the puzzle that was coding it. It didn't rank super high, but it got some good reactions! Making a parser strangely helped me playing them, and appreciate them more.

Has it been a lot of stuff? Yeah... it feels a bit like a lot...

Some 2023 personal things

Like last year, I've continued to struggle with feeling like I was not doing enough during the year (or the month, before doing the monthly dev logs). Not enough words written or progress made. It was a pervasive thing last year, and I've been working on myself to feel less so, especially with all I've been doing anyway this year. But it's still there.

I think I recently found one of the reasons I've been feeling this way: not working on or finishing the WIPs I started with back in 2021 and in 2022, not making substantial progress that would warrant an update... It's been especially hard when seeing other authors churn out updates left and right and I have little to nothing to show for. Maybe that's why I've been compensating with all the new little projects and jam entries throughout the year (and half-way through 2022). I mean... there hasn't been a month where I didn't publish something new, whether it was an update, or a new game, or a template/guide, or brought out a whole-ass remaster of a game.

And by working on those other little things, I think I found myself in some sort of cycle, where the time spent on those new things is not spent on the WIPs, and I start feeling bad about it. But when I open the file, with all that pressure I put myself, nothing gets written or fixed. So I distract myself with a different thing... and I end up not making any progress on the WIP. It sucks, because I want to see those WIPs done. I want to finish those stories. But it's been hard. Who'd have thunk it??? I'm a stupid human being after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know breaking that cycle will happen... when I work on those darn WIPs. I just need to push myself to get there... But I also want to enjoy what I am writing too, because the quality of the writing really sucks when I force it... So silliness has been happening in the meantime.

Will it continue like this? In the near future, most likely. Hopefully not to the extend of the past year and a half. At best, I'd want to have 1-2 updates on a bit WIP, 1-2 new medium-sized games, and a handful small silly experiments, during a year.

Not that I owe anyone an explanation, but anons being nasty about the whole no-progress thing - essentially why @crimsonroseandwhitelily was offline for a whole while, or why I haven't answered many questions lately.

Also gonna take this moment to not address the very personal stuff that happened IRL, even with the very insisting messages I got. I was tempted to go on a whole tangent about what's been going on, but I'm a bit paranoid about my privacy on the internet (and with the anons wilding lately, I've become more careful), and I don't really want IRL to flood this space either (more than it has anyway - considered leaving a few times tbh). I like this specific corner to not be about IRL, to have it as an escape and spend some time just not having to think about it. So yea... you can ask all you want, I'm not going to answer. But it's been a time... I'm coping by being here damnit. Maybe you'll get an(other) autobio game about it one day xD

Here's to a more peaceful state of mind (and inbox) next year...

2023 is OVER officially

And what a fucking year this was. It's made me even more excited to see what 2024 has in store for me.

I want to learn more, for sure. I think I reached a bit of a plateau with SugarCube, where the only thing I feel I haven't tried yet is some sort of RPG adventure/combat system. Or diving further in JavaScript/jQuery (it's inevitable...). Or have less of a spaghetti code... Though it didn't really start as a conscious effort, I'm glad I tried different IF programs and Twine formats this year. It helped me think more about IF game structure and coding. It really pushed me to grow and appreciate the variety there is in IF outside of Tumblr. It did reinforce my love for Twine, especially SugarCube xD

I know I've complained about having done a lot but also not feeling I did enough, but strangely this year has also been pretty fulfilling. Having achieved things I didn't think I could, mess around and create unmentionable bits of code that should not have seen the light of day, learned how to handle new formats, met and talked with a bunch of cool and knowledgeable IF peeps, and just tried to do some good for the community.

I would love to be as fulfilled in this new year too!

I was shocked with all the good things I got in 2022, but I didn't imagine it would be even better this year. How much I got out of this year. How much I got done. How much I learned. How much I grew as a person and a creator. I'm glad I stuck around another year.

I'm really lucky I was able to have the year I had, to be surrounded by such lovely people, to get such positive return on stuff, to be in this community, to have the friends I have, to still be here.

So, thanks for sticking around too, and partake in my silliness :)

[manonamora-if]

Retrospective 2022

Long image below, transcript in Read More. Links to published project in Read More.

Changing the format compared to last year, a lot more has happened this year than the last one. There is also much more I would want to touch upon (like STATS :D), but that'd make this post way too long (already the Post-Mortem of The Thick Table Tavern last month was a lot).

Below is the TLDR. Here is Part 2. The Stats are in Part 3. And the Future is in Part 4 (TBP).

Last September, I had made a little Schedule for the End of the Year. Obviously, I was way off. I only published/updated half of the things I said I would, and ended up putting out new smaller (more fun, less frustrating for me) projects instead.

Next year's expectations is to... finish my WIPs (starting the smallest ones to have them off my desk). I have too many projects in my hands, and it's not sustainable. I've been preaching about not having too may WIPs, but don't even follow my advice. My goal is to have by the end of the year only Crimson Rose & White Lily, SPS Iron Hammer, and The Thick Table Tavern still unfinished (TTATEH is dependent on MelS's progress more than mine). Knowing me, I'll try to squeeze a few Jams/Comps entry anyway...

Links

Assets:

Templates: 100% Good Twine SugarCube Templates (Simple Book and One Page)

Tweego: Ready-To-Use Tweego Folder

Guide: CScript to SugarCube Transition + Compiler

Tutorial/Resource: Coding Support

Games (first release date order):

Meeting the Parents (Complete - EN/FR)

Crimson Rose & White Lily (WIP - EN - @crimsonroseandwhitelily)

Exquisite Cadaver (WIP - EN)

SPS Iron Hammer (Incomplete/Hiatus - EN - @sps-iron-hammer)

The Thick Table Tavern (Incomplete - EN)

The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt (WIP - EN)

La Petite Mort (Incomplete - FR)

Goncharov Escapes! (Complete - EN)

P-Rix - Space Trucker (WIP - EN)

Le Jeu de la Dévotion Partim 500 (Temp* - FR) *will be moved to my website soon

Sites:

Personal Website

Itch Page

IFDB Profile

IF Anonymous Confession Box: @if-confessions

The SeedComp! website (@seedcomp-if on Tumblr)

Interact-IF Tumblr: @interact-if

Other Sideblogs: @manonamora-rb, @crimsonroseandwhitelily, @sps-iron-hammer

Transcript

Retrospective 2022

January: Participation in the Interact-If Jam, seeing the release of SPS Iron Hammer, a sci-fi IF project.

February: - UI Update for Meeting the Parents - Release of Scene 2 of Crimson Rose & White Lily - Ending Guide for SPS Iron Hammer

March: - Ending Guide for Meeting the Parents - Release of Scene 3 of Crimson Rose & White Lily - Starts re-writes on Exquisite Cadaver - Announcement of The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt

April: - Re-haul of previous Scenes of Crimson Rose & White Lily (grammar/style edits) - Re-writes of Exquisite Cadaver continue.

May: Beta for Crimson Rose & White Lily starts, while finishing the writing of Scene 4

June: - Published the introductory Post for The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt - V1 of Personal Website. - Release of Scene 4 of Crimson Rose & White Lily

July: - Re-writes for Exquisite Cadaver continue - Start of the ground work on The Thick Table Tavern - Release of the first SugarCube Template: the Simple Book template

August: - Bonus content for Crimson Rose & White Lily (Summer prompts) - Exquisite Cadaver V2 is released (Story Mode until Round 9) - Release of the Ready-to-Use Tweego Folder - Start of the #coding support - The Thick Table Tavern build continues

September: - Release of the ChoiceScript to SugarCube Guide - Focus on The Thick Table Tavern

October: - The Thick Table Tavern is released for the IF Comp - Release of the One Page SugarCube Template - Demo Release of The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt - Release of La Petite Mort - Re-writes for Meeting the Parents starts

November: - The Thick Table Tavern is available on Itch - Ranked 37 on the IFComp, 1st in the French EctoComp, and 3rd in the English EctoComp - Release Goncharov Escapes! - Completed Translation of Meeting the Parents

December: - Meeting the Parents is updated for the final time. - Organised the SeedComp!, a 2-Round creative IF Jam - Released P-Rix - Space Trucker - Participation in the Partim 500

2023 Expectations

Completion of Projects: - P-Rix Space Trucker: missing content, mobile accessibility - La Petite Mort: missing rooms, English translation - Goncharov Escapes! : text edits, French translation - Exquisite Cadaver: missing rounds

Updates of Projects: - The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt: dependent on MelS - The Thick Table Tavern: if time

Hopes: - Update of Crimson Rose & White Lily - New SugarCube Templates - Start re-writes of SPS Iron Hammer - Entry to Jam/Competitions

[manonamora-if-reviews]

EctoComp mini-Reviews

The EctoComp is an annual competition for interactive fiction celebrating the SPOOKY MONTH OF HALLOWEENTOBER, aka Halloween, Day of the Dead, All Saint's Eve, or just ghost stories and creeping people out. It is open to any IF program, in English since 2007), French (since 2022) and Spanish (since 2017).

While it has no mandatory theme, the EctoComp has 2 categories:

La Petite Mort, for entries written and coded under 4h

Le Grand Guignol, for entries requiring more than 4h to complete

I played all French and English entries. As some of them have also been submitted to the Bare-Bones Jam, this will be mentioned in the post/tag.