The 2020 edition of The Interactive Fiction Competition has passed the mark of 100 entries, and there’s a smorgasbord of options available to play. I focused mainly on choice-based games listed at 1 hour of game time or less, and after whittling them down to 15 that I found intriguing, I played and rated all of them.
I’m doing things a little differently for my review post: while in the past I’ve gone in-depth on my top 5 games of the competition, I realize how important breadth of feedback can be, so this time I’m providing shorter reviews that cover all 15 games I played! I’m also no longer showing scores here, but rather listing the reviews in roughly descending order of rating to focus on feedback rather than “grades” (though I will be adding ratings to these games on IFBD).
*Warning: The below reviews may contain spoilers!
Doppeljobs by Lei
A hardboiled story set in a fantasy sand world, Doppeljobs follows a newly trained doppelgänger who’s trying to make ends meet while avoiding (or seeking) a mysterious sand deity.
I loved the strong, catchy writing and subtle world building within the pulpy genre, as well as the neat framing device where some choices are surrounded by arcane symbols that map to an alternate serpent-related goal—which might turn out badly! There’s great flow to the game, with nice interactivity in each job episode, likely thanks in part to it being written in Inkle.
One thing I would have liked to see is more variety on replay, since the game teases four endings (I found two) yet many things appear to remain constant on subsequent play throughs, like the same sequence of clients and many choices appearing to play out in similar ways.
Congee by Becci
Congee is a beautiful, lived-in short story with light interaction and multimedia elements about a young woman who craves a piece of home while living abroad.
The story features strong, assured writing, with great sense of place and character. And the sleek interactive design with chat window choices and occasional visual asides sets just the right tone to deliver the mood and message of the narrative.
It’s hard to find a negative, other than I wish the game were just a bit longer, expanded to get some more characterization and narrative heft. As it stands, the piece feels closer to flash fiction than short story in impact, but maybe that’s intentional.
The Moon Wed Saturn by Pseudavid
In a highly experimental fashion, The Moon Wed Saturn tells a cinematic time-shifting story about a remembrance of a relationship between two young women that twists and alters itself as it’s recollected in three separate moments in time.
I enjoyed the idea of an experimental setup that hops between three conversations, and found the story to have a beautifully cinematic quality. The writing is deft and poetic, and I appreciate that choice points often feel like they have no “right” answer—everything has consequences in the past and/or future.
On the downside, it takes a while for the story and interface to gel, with some confusion at first about what’s happening. With the narrative jumping back and forth between conversations, it can also be hard to piece together a sequence of events for the plot. And on replay, the narrative seems to drive toward a single conclusion regardless of choice, which dampens its impact a bit in retrospect.
Tavern Crawler by Josh Labelle
A mini tabletop RPG quest in choice-based format, Tavern Crawler is chock full of fantasy tropes, stat progression, and relationship building as the player follows the intrigue of what happens after a dragon is slayed.
The choice points, descriptive links, and dialogue are great, totally in tune with a tabletop RPG campaign and often feeling like an interaction with a DM. The characterization is also solid, with the two companions being nicely fleshed out. I also enjoyed the UI and the sidebar that tracks stats and notes.
I was a touch disappointed that in my play through the game seemed to encourage moral ambiguity at first, yet choices felt like they mapped to “right” and “wrong” when determining the ending. Another note is that, being a short game, there are lots of elements to track (class, skills, gold, side quest status, dating sim progress, etc.) that are individually cool but could perhaps be pared down for a more focused experience.
Mother Tongue by Nell Raban
Mother Tongue is a cute text conversation narrative with the character’s mother imparting lessons in Tagalog, in the process exploring the ambivalence of what it means for second-generation folks to discover parts of their identity.
I found the framing device of a text conversation very effective; the chat screen and the little moments waiting for a response from the mother help to create a realistic and compelling flow. There’s also good use of subtext to develop the relationship underlying the language lessons.
Though it’s interesting to learn words and grammar in Tagalog, the game’s use of lots of “test” questions makes this sometimes feel more like a language learning app than a game/story. There are great moments where the language lessons serve the narrative, and I wish those had outweighed the more rote testing moments that focus on rule recall.
Babyface by Mark Sample
A spooky piece of dynamic fiction about someone returning to their hometown to investigate family secrets, Babyface uses interaction and multimedia effects to craft a bone-chilling horror story.
The game has very high production values with fades, music, photos, link replacements, and design that all helped to create a foreboding feeling. There is also solid pacing and build up in tension throughout the beginning and middle of the story.
On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed because while the build up is great, the climax/ending is more confusing than scary to me; it isn’t clear what’s happening, why it’s happening, or what really connects the protagonist to the final events. Also, the forced wait times between passages are a cool idea but occasionally slowed things down too much for me, to frustrating effect.
Phantom by Peter Eastman
As one might expect, Phantom is a retelling of the Phantom of the Opera story in a modern setting, fully from the perspective of Christine as she navigates opera house intrigue and encounters the titular singing tutor.
The story has very solid writing and characterization, with a Christine and Phantom that feel fully fleshed out. The scene-level approach to structuring choice points is also polished and a bit reminiscent of the Choice of Games style, usually presenting alternative approaches for overcoming an obstacle.
The flip side of this is that the game is very text heavy, with relatively few choice points and interactivity—it could have used some mini-scenes with lower stakes choices to create more dynamism. Also, something minor, but the musical component didn’t work well on my browser, only playing during the first and last scenes and cutting off abruptly after a bit in both cases.
Sense of Harmony by Scenario World
The first in a planned series, Sense of Harmony is a study of an android-like character who has sharply attuned senses and needs to balance emotional labor with her own needs, all while she seems to get closer to an understanding of her past.
I enjoyed the“sense system” idea, with data storage blocks color coded by sense that pop up to highlight or expand on different experiences for the character. There’s also some very solid world building, and polish in the setting and design.
While I like that senses play a key role, the boxes that pop up repeatedly create a lot of cognitive load and perhaps could be used more sparingly (at one point, the descriptive link “you’re alone” triggers a sense box for Hearing that reads: “Confirmed”). Also, the main narrative doesn’t have as much momentum as I had hoped for between the sense boxes, backstory boxes, and scenes whose dialogue and choice points are slow-moving and sometimes feel too low-stakes given the rich setting.
Big Trouble In Little Dino Park by Seth Paxton & Rachel Aubertin
With a parody title that signals wackiness from the start, Big Trouble in Little Dino Park is a choice-based game heavily inspired by the classic Choose Your Own Adventure style, which follows a disaffected teen as they try to escape from a Jurassic Park knock-off.
The setting and writing are hilarious, with very strong world building and snappy dialogue. Also, the amusing deaths and twists feel like loving throwbacks to CYOA, although I also like that there appears to be thought put into creating a puzzle that can potentially be solved to actually escape.
Unfortunately, the CYOA influence is a double-edged sword for me, because the experience can be frustrating. There’s a lot of branching leading to dead ends with trial and error required, and many choice points have that CYOA feeling of choosing between “go right” vs. “go left” with random-feeling consequences and little sense of agency. One other note is that while I appreciate the large sense of scale to the park, in some sections like the boat hopping scene it’s difficult to spatially follow what’s happening.
Electric Word, “life” by Lance Nathan
Sporting a Prince-inspired title, Electric Word, “life” is a slice of life Halloween story with light interactivity about the long-ago memory of a mysterious friend who shows up to a house party.
This is an interesting take on a ghost story concept, mixed with a classic, low-key Twine story. The game does a good job of setting a scene for the party with a chill, funny, and nostalgic vibe that is carried through nicely.
The main downside for me is that the piece feels more like a hangout than a fleshed out narrative. There are some nice descriptions for each friend, but I didn’t get a sense of who the characters were in a deeper way. For the crucial relationship between the two main characters, there’s very interesting subtext, but things stay mostly on the surface as well; though perhaps given the poignant, regret-tinged ending, this is partially the point.
Chorus by Skarn
Chorus is a cerebral, text-focused story that ambitiously follows a cast of fantasy characters through a day of carefully mediated interactions in a city full of secrets.
I was impressed by aspects of the writing, which is intriguing and uses evocative characterization to flesh out what appear to be a dozen or more unique characters. There also seems to be a nifty engine underlying the game that takes user-selected teams of characters and lets their interactions play out from different perspectives, Rashomon-style.
Unfortunately, the experience bogs down a bit throughout. The opening is very long, with stretches of text containing almost encyclopedic character-level details. These details then seem crucial to successfully choosing how the final sections play out, which is a cool idea, but the dizzying amount of information about each character and their motivations/relationships within the large cast is very difficult to track, so I ultimately felt rather lost.
The Cave by Neil Aitken
The Cave is a short, room-based RPG that involves exploring a dark cave and interacting with the environment, all while philosophical musings pop up on occasion to add color to the game.
I found there to be an evocative sense of place, with the design, color scheme, and flow of the game feeling very cave-like. There are also a variety of interlinked encounters with items, spells, and NPCs that hint at a puzzle that will lead to a solution.
In terms of writing and interaction, the fantasy tropes are present but don’t seem to provide any new twists on these concepts. And the philosophical musings that appear throughout are occasionally interesting, but feel somewhat at odds with the other aspects of the game. After circling the cave a few times, interacting with characters, and picking up items, I felt a little lost and didn’t quite have the motivation to finish looking for the solution to the puzzle.
You Will Thank Me As Fast As You Thank A Werewolf by B. J. Best
With a zinger of a title, You Will Thank Me As Fast As You Thank A Werewolf is what I’d call an auto-generated piece of prose poetry, leveraging a machine learning model to re-conceptualize a corpus of the author’s writing.
The piece uses an interesting “formal paper” style, with a doc-like format and footnotes as interactive marginalia elements. And I like that the goal isn’t to mimic a narrative, like with the AI Dungeon project, but rather to take a shot at something more poetic.
It can be difficult to review something like this; maybe someone wants to write an essay on philosophy and literary criticism about what this piece means for authorship and art? Trying to set aside how it was created, the effect to me was unfortunately more non-sensical than poetic. While there are some phrase-level gems (see the title), overall it lost me, especially given that the interactive links seem a bit tacked onto the experience.
#Vanlife by Victoria
#Vanlife is a sendup of influencer culture in gamified form, juxtaposing the veneer of an enlightened life on the road with the hell of dealing with freelance work (and terrible batteries).
I was very on board with the wry humor underlying this piece, and I appreciated the design: nice visuals and interface, and what appears to be a storylet engine that generates events.
Unfortunately, there are issues that make the experience very hard to enjoy. The math problems are jarring and not very accessible, the resources don’t seem balanced, and the events feel a bit random and repetitive after a while. Above all, it was hard for me to stay motivated after losing repeatedly to obscure battery management issues, even on “easy” mode—funny the first time, not so much after that.
Amazing Quest by Nick Montfort
A command-line focused game, Amazing Quest is true to its sardonic title in providing a satirical experience with the same binary choice at each step and some randomly generated content.
I appreciate the throwback interface and I figure that there are likely some hidden references here that might make this a funny joke to adventure game insiders, though I admit I didn’t really get it.
Setting aside any meta-level merit it might have, the game doesn’t offer much; there’s no progression, story, or conclusion, and the choices are repetitive and don’t seem to matter. I’ll also note that I didn’t read the separate intro/walkthrough for the game, since I believe the play through experience should stand on its own.