#ectocomp 2023

[twinegardening]

The Revenant's Lament, by 30x30

or, the Ballad of John Cassidy King Way out west, in the most lonesome of reaches, strange things are afoot. Cowboys around campfires tell ghost stories and tall tales, speak of impossible, supernatural things. They say the devil walks amongst men. They say he'll grant you impossible wishes at the cost of your eternal soul. They say he can bring dead men back to life. They say that somewhere out where the wind whispers secrets, there roams a cowboy who can't die. Abandoned by God and the devil alike, left to wander the range, forever searching for something. For someone - that accursed devil or a merciful angel or a lost love or death itself. And when the cowboy finds who he's looking for - there'll be hell to pay. The Revenant's Lament, they call this tale of woe, the unfortunate ballad of John Cassidy King.

[manonamora-if-reviews]

Forever and Ever by Petricake Games

IFDB - Game - @petricakegames CW: Themes of loss, grief and death of a child. Note: this was a La Petite Mort entry, and submitted to the Bare-Bones Jam

Summary: Halloween night comes to a close and you’re just settling in to get a good night’s sleep when your son Lucas lets you know there are monsters in his room. Again. A father’s work is never done.

This game might be short and concise, but it is quite well-written, impactful and heartbreaking. From the start, there is something not quite right with your son's interruption of your sleep, even if it is a yearly occurrence. Things just don't quite fit all to well, especially when your daughter appears or when the mother is mentioned (in hindsight... 🥴). But is is not clear until the end what is truly going on here. What seems at first like a slice-of-life with some spooky halloween aspect, turns downright terrifying. The reveal is not only depressing to internalise, but the implications are frankly hitting much harder than what you'd expect from the blurb and warnings. The final choice is, again, heartbreaking, whichever way you choose...

[petricakegames]

Forever and Ever

Forever and Ever is a short, interactive horror story written in Ink. Halloween night comes to a close and you're just settling in to get a good night's sleep when your son Lucas lets you know there are monsters in his room. Again. A father's work is never done.

Play the Game | Ko-fi

Happy Friday the 13th and hold on to your butts, folks! My second-ever interactive fiction game is here!!

Forever and Ever is an entrant into the La Petite Mort English division of ECTOCOMP 2023--meaning the game was written and coded in under 4 hours; as well as the Bare-Bones Game Jam--meaning it's published without any alteration or customization of the default UI.

This short, horror story clocks in at about 3,800 words with three possible endings. Hopefully, it's a seasonally appropriate, unsettling tale that leaves you feeling awful and uncomfortable.

Forever and Ever is written for an adult audience and contains themes that may upset some readers. Discretion advised.

[ifcomp]

2023 IFComp Results & Survey

The results of the 2023 Interactive Fiction Competition are now live at https://ifcomp.org/comp/2023

If you missed the livestream, it will be available over the coming days at https://www.twitch.tv/interactivefictioncomp and is permanently archived over on YouTube at https://youtu.be/N8AxhLAoEMg

Of course, we are already planning for the ‘24 Comp. Please provide your feedback on what went well, what could have gone better, what we should do more of, and what we should consider changing or leaving behind: https://forms.gle/1gFEwhmFAaszB4Tx7

We are so grateful to everyone who helped make this year’s comp happen.  Thank you! PS - We made an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT during the awards stream: next year's IFComp is bumped up one month so that IFComp no longer overlaps with ECTOCOMP. If you are thinking of entering the comp as an author in 2024, your game is due at the end of August instead of the end of September! Plan ahead!

[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 :)

[twinegardening]

Mothman Test, by Sara Messenger

This is a multiple-choice test about mothmen. You do not believe in mothmen. And your brother is not dead.  If you feel lost, look at the moon, as moths do. 5-15 minute playtime. One ending. FAQ, insight, and guide on my blog. Created for Ectocomp 2023 (English), Le Grand Guignol category.

[twinegardening]

Dark Communion, by alyshkalia

Two teenage girls. One abandoned church. ??? survivors. A short Twine game written for Ectocomp 2023. Cover photo by me.

[twinegardening]

Your Body a Temple, or the Postmodern Prometheus, by Charm Cochran

Oh, my dear, they’ve destroyed you, haven’t they? They could never understand a being such as yourself. Not to worry. We’ll build you a new body, with which you will take your revenge. Written in less than four hours for the La Petite Mort category of ECTOCOMP 2023.

[twinegardening]

Please Leave a Message, by Sarah Willson

To delete and rerecord, press 2.

[twinegardening]

GUT THE MOVIE, by Coral Nulla

It's a bad idea, and it's a movie! In this game there are three budding young rockstars called GUT who want to make a horror movie. Unfortunately, they don't have very much money. But they will try anyway! They just need you, whoever you are, to settle a few disputes. Made in four hours for the Ectocomp 2023 la petite mort category, and also fits with the restrictions of the Bare-Bones Jam. It doesn't take very long to play and isn't very scary.

[twinegardening]

End Of History, by n-n

An interdimensional visitation narrative. Submitted to ECTOCOMP 2023 Le Grand Guignol. Translation of Spanish La Petit Mort entry El Fin de la Historia.

[twinegardening]

Among the Haunted, by aurelim

Celebrate Halloween as a single parent living in a haunted house.

Being a single parent is never easy, especially when you have two kids to raise. You also live in a haunted house, where the supernatural inhabit the same space as the place you are meant to call home. Both of these factors equal chaos, which leads you to the present. It is Halloween. Live through the spooky day on 13 Hallows Lane and decide what you will do when the sun begins to set and trick-or-treat goers fill the sidewalks. What will you do? Decorate your house? Play some pranks on poor trick-o-treaters with help from the ghosts within your walls? Attend to your children to make sure they do not tell anyone that your house is haunted? The choice is yours!

[twinegardening]

Ah Lim's Chicken Rice, #01-08A, by Kastel

cooking | hawker center | family (Content Warnings: suicide, queerphobia, death) Everyone loves your chicken rice. Slice-of-life horror. EctoComp 2023 English.

[twinegardening]

YOUNGBLOOD; YELLOWBELLY, by swanchime

amadeus is back! from the amadeus vu series of works: the unfinished mothlily visual novel the novella in verse the poetry collection one of the zines another zine amadeus is my vietnamese hannibal-inspired meow. this is his cookbook.  if you have ever wanted a vietnamese hannibal cookbook this is the game for you.

[twinegardening]

Good Bones: A Haunted Housewarming, by Leon Lin

You've just bought a new home! Sure, it's a fixer-upper, what with the electricity not working and the walls cracked and crumbling. Not to mention the strange structures in the backyard and the odd art gallery with the spooky paintings. But the price was right and the location was good, and besides, your realtor told you that this place had the best quality you can find in any home..."Good Bones". All's well during the day, but at night things get a little frightening. A simple trip to the bathroom gets complicated when there are no lights, and no shortage of strange things in the dark that have an unnatural interest in you...

[twinegardening]

La Petite Mort, by manonamora

Help Suzette to get ready to go for an outing with her very particular grandmother… Aide Suzette à se préparer pour une sortie avec sa grand-mère un peu particulière…. Was first released for the French EctoComp 2022. A Remaster and translation was done for the EctoComp 2023