Category: Interactive Fiction

It’s time to review the 2021 edition of The Interactive Fiction Competition! As usual, I focused on choice-based games listed at 1 hour of game time or less. I’m reviewing 10 that I enjoyed here, with a “capsule” three-paragraph format: an overview of the game, what I liked, and finally some constructive feedback. I’m listing the entries in roughly descending order of rating, but won’t show actual scores in order to focus on my thoughts rather than “grades” (though I will be adding ratings to these games both on IFDB and as a judge in IFComp).

A difference from last year is that I only played through games I got some enjoyment from in the first five minutes; so the below list doesn’t include games where I bounced off early based on presentation, theme, writing, vibe, interface, or some other reason. I did this both to be fair, since it’s possible that a game might be “not for me” but still good, and also to make this annual experience sustainably fun.

*Warning: The below reviews may contain spoilers!

The Golden Heist by George Lockett & Rob Thorman

Set in Ancient Rome during a turbulent time, The Golden Heist follows a protagonist who seeks to avenge their father by facing off against a power-hungry and unpredictable emperor.

The writing, tone, and pacing are expertly carried out, with a particularly great sense of setting. I appreciate how this has the feel of a tabletop RPG campaign: the story has a fixed direction in mind, but the ways in which goals are met and obstacles are overcome vary in a tangible way based on the player’s choices.

A minor note is that I expected more negative consequences for messing up, e.g. when I wasted time talking to a couple at the party, or later missed the inside contact’s secret symbol. The game fell forward almost too smoothly with not even “close call” types of consequences, which dampened the tension of the narrative somewhat.

A Papal Summons, or The Church Cat by Bitter Karella

A short but sprawling journey, A Papal Summons enters the Vatican and delves into the depths of horror as a rural priest tries to get an audience with the Pope, but discovers a rotting institution in bureaucratic chaos instead.

The writing is pitch perfect—if it were a paperback, it would be unputdownable. I was engrossed by the evocative details, from the cat spewing increasingly horrific Bible passages to the vivid scenes of debauched religious fervor. I also enjoyed finding a fair amount of new content on a second play-through, which provided added nuance to the plot.

I did feel that the finale was oddly muted, which left me wondering if there might be a better ending just out of reach and I had simply made the wrong choices. On a second play-through, I got the same ending, and I was left wishing for a conclusion with a bit more impact.

we, the remainder by Charm Cochran

The choice-based exploration piece we, the remainder tells the story of a girl who wakes up in a deserted community and seeks out food and answers to the mystery behind everyone’s disappearance.

The structure of the piece is beautifully realized through a gradual exploration of the eerily empty community, which allows for bits of memory and story to come together piece by piece into a frightening but powerful whole. I felt a pervasive sense of dread building as I played, and I was fully invested in the outcome by the time the climax hit.

I will say that I was confused by the climactic scene, which reveals the truth of the community in a flash of memories and/or visions. I realize that there’s a blend of reality, visions, and religious symbolism throughout the piece—angels appear in physical form—so I do understand why details might have been kept vague.

Fine Felines by Felicity Banks

The life-simulator Fine Felines deals with the ups and downs of a protagonist juggling a new and exciting cat breeding business with the grief of a parent passing away and the dawning realization that they’re suffering from a chronic illness.

The writing and choices here brim with compassion, creating space for the player to consider their character’s needs and those of others: close friends with active children, a budding romantic interest, a neighbor who worries about the presence of cats, and, of course, the cats themselves! I love that the cats have their own personalities, and each delivers their own laughs and adorable moments.

I was surprised when the ending seemed to arrive abruptly, perhaps because I assumed the story would last a full year (it ends halfway through). Some of the plot threads, like the relationships with the dad, friends, and romantic interest, are appealing but don’t feel resolved; I was left wishing for more of an arc structure to them.

Weird Grief by Naomi Norbez

A heartfelt, slice-of-life Twine piece, Weird Grief details the loss a beloved person and explores how the people in his life grapple with the gap created by his absence.

The writing is raw, real, and put me squarely in the place of someone battling grief after the loss of a loved one. I appreciate how straightforward it is in tackling topics of depression, sex, love, and the furry community, with dialogue that feels very lived-in.

I do wish there was more choice and interactivity in the story, especially since I became invested in the story and wanted to help shape the responses of the protagonist more in my play-through. I’ll also note that there are a fair number of spelling and grammar mistakes, but I wonder if this might be an intentional way to convey something about the protagonist; I didn’t notice this with the companion piece “The Dead Account.”

The Dead Account by Naomi Norbez

A companion to the above piece, The Dead Account follows a content moderator in an online community who faces the decision of closing out the account of a person who has recently died.

The interactivity of the game fits well with the story, as we get to browse through chat conversations that people in Mike’s life have continued using for various reasons: an outlet for anger and disbelief, a way to grieve by speaking to him, etc. The decision of whether to close the account or not is a heartbreaking one, especially if this piece is played after its companion piece and we know how much the characters are struggling with Mike’s loss.

I was expecting more of a consequence at the end for not closing the account (e.g. having to face the supervisor), which might have made the decision feel more weighty. Also, the game might have a bit less impact on its own without the context of its companion piece. I’d rate these two higher as a pair than individually, and I almost wish they had been packaged as a single two-act piece.

How it was then and how it is now by Pseudavid

How it was then and how it is now tells the story of an abstract race against time where the protagonist and his on-again, off-again partner try to hold off an impending apocalypse of geometric objects while also dealing with their own unresolved issues

I like the disorienting effect of the different elements: visuals that don’t seem to match up with the options provided (questioning the player’s senses), dialogue choices that often don’t have the desired effect on Clara, and snippets of flashback that only start to make sense after playing for a while or on replay.

While I got a bit of new dialogue on multiple replays, it didn’t appear that my actions had much of an effect on the overall flow of the narrative or the ending. The piece was also so abstract that it was tough to understand or become fully invested in the relationship or the intriguing setting.

Funicular Simulator 2021 by Tom Leather and Mary Goodden

The magical mystery game Funicular Simulator involves taking a ride up a mountain with an odd assortment of possible companions who each hold the key to a different possible explanation for the celestial phenomena at the peak.

The writing is compelling, and the companions are each evocative in their own way with a distinctive background, personality, and theory on the aurora and crystals. It’s fun to mix and match, going “all in” with a companion and then replaying with a different one, like a super-short dating sim. I also like that past trips up the funicular impact some dialogue options on subsequent loops.

Although the game seems to offer many different paths (three loops per play-through, each time picking one of four companions), I didn’t notice any variation in the companions’ behavior based on which other companions I had previously picked. Also, while each companion’s scene offers a long sequence of choices, they mainly seem to boil down to (a) engage more, or (b) distance yourself; this made the conversations a bit less compelling, since I couldn’t figure out what benefit or interesting outcome came from not engaging.

Universal Hologram by Kit Riemer

In the sci-fi game Universal Hologram, a simulated protagonist undergoes an astral projection experience and becomes tasked with getting back to the original universe to make a decision that could free everyone.

The writing is enjoyably trippy and creates a nice sense of place, as do the computer-generated images. When proceeding through the piece, I felt transported to life on Mars, astral-projecting into different spaces, and wrestling with questions of existence in a simulation.

Oddly, the choice structure of the piece felt a bit like an add-on rather than a core part of the experience. There’s some navigation to different locations, and some quizzes whose impact I didn’t understand. This is coupled with a somewhat disjointed quality to the narrative as a whole, which left me confused (though not unpleasantly so). I’m left wondering how the piece would read with less interactivity, say as dynamic fiction where the vibes could just wash over the reader a bit more.

The Waiting Room by Billy Krolick

The Waiting Room is an exploration horror game that takes place in and around a haunted nursing home, with a central mystery that needs to be solved before very bad things happen.

I like that the piece proceeds at a brisk pace and is easy to follow, and I appreciate the sense of setting, geography and movement. There are some intriguingly creepy room and object descriptions, and I also enjoyed working through the light amount of puzzle solving needed to understand the mystery.

On the other hand, the ending that I found felt rather rushed, and overall I wish there was a more gradual buildup and a mix of some slower scenes/moments for the horror story to breathe and take on a more nuanced shape. I also wish I had gotten a better sense of who the protagonist and the final bad guy are, what motives them, etc.

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.

For the 2020 edition of the Spring Thing Festival, I played each choice-based game with the “short” play time label, and greatly enjoyed the variety of styles and voices among them. Below are thoughts on three notable games for me.

*Warning: The below reviews may contain spoilers!

So Are The Days by Dawn Sueoka

Appearing in the non-competitive Back Garden section, So Are The Days consists of a suite of very short experimental stories related to the concept of sand, with a sensibility to which Porpentine is the closest analog I can think of in the IF space.

The stories play with various qualities of sand, and they evoke a sense of the malleability of it, how it can represent the passage of time, and how the tiny pieces can wash away or form into something larger. One story allows the reader to move backwards and forwards as events transpire in a town, shifting how randomized occurrences from the past rewrite the story that plays out in the future. Another is a single page of text with a sort of slider at the bottom that gradually erases letters or brings them back.

Most importantly, though, a sure writing voice holds together these formal experiments by maintaining focus on the underlying themes and ideas, infusing meaning into the structures. The combination of high quality prose and interesting experimental forms results in a work that I could see getting recognition in the year-end XYZZY awards.

The Golden by Kerry Taylor

A classic short Twine story, The Golden depicts a moody, near-future setting at sunset in a beachside house, with hints toward a more symbolic, apocalyptic sunset over the world at large.

While the location and choice design, as well as the Twine stylings, are relatively bare-bones, the story builds slowly but stealthily as details are revealed piecemeal about the unsettling backdrop to a seemingly normal family life in a house by the sea. Given the current state of the real world, I relate to the mood of knowing that something is wrong yet trying to carry on as normal, like the father who pretends not to notice that the family’s food is running out.

The story’s coup de grâce occurs when the family plays a matching card game to pass the time. There is an almost grotesque variation of figures on the cards (a clown head, a little orange man, a bomb, paint spatters) that seems to grow as the game progresses. The characters’ startling realization at one point that the cards have stopped matching creates a brilliant metaphor for the loss of control; the reader senses that pretense has finally fallen by the wayside, and what the characters had hoped might be oil rigs out on the Pacific are revealed as maurauding pirate ships coming at last to claim their bounty.

Another Love Story by Hélène Sellier

The only game in the festival using the Ren’Py system, Another Love Story presents a tale of growing obsession with a mysterious figure in the wilderness. A series of photographs of open, remote places in nature accompany the story and are woven in with a suggestion that the protagonist may be taking these snapshots during their long walks, which is a nice touch.

It’s unclear to me how much the decisions affect the course of the story, but it seems as though the protagonist can make choices that either show more compassion and understanding for their live-in partner in a remote town, or drift further and further into a sort of outdoor dream world in pursuit of a shadow that becomes a lover.

The rapid pace of scenes (each is only roughly one sentence long) helps build suspense and keeps the reader hooked, though this ends up feeling a bit at odds with the vast, dreamy locations that the characters inhabit. I occasionally found myself wishing for more space for the prose, and story, to breathe. However, there is undeniably a strong sense of isolation, beauty, and mystery that permeates the story and holds interest to the very end.

The 2019 IFComp marks its 25th anniversary with a record number of entries ranging in scale, format, and theme. After playing about a dozen that intrigued me, mainly choice-based games with play times under one hour, I’ve put together a list of my top 5 from the competition.

*Warning: The below reviews may contain spoilers!

1. The Good People

Rating: 9/10

The Good People is a beautifully written and designed, emotional, and very personal story about a man and his girlfriend exploring the ruins of a town where his ancestors once lived, in a region that he escaped from years ago, with memories and supernatural occurrences arising the further in they get.

Varying font sizes and the use of spatial areas on the page, representing the jumbled thoughts of the protagonist as he navigates the ruins, are very effective at marking the different regions of his mind that are in conflict with each other. Does he want to find out more about his past, or repress his memories? Does he want to connect with his girlfriend, or ignore their communication problems? The images used for the village are also evocative, representing the sketched quality of its ruins and memories that feel half-formed and ethereal, existing in a liminal space that is occasionally embodied with compellingly menacing mythological figures.

The choice structure also feels closely tied to the difficulties of communication. Occasionally, we want to nudge the protagonist toward feeling comfortable enough to open up to his girlfriend, but the choices end up leading to self-sabotage no matter what we select. At other points, opportunities do open up for meaningful connection if the protagonist is willing to listen and be honest about the difficulties he’s facing in confronting his past. It feels like we’re observing a real relationship, with it’s small moments of sarcasm and anger, or comfort and kindness. This allows the culmination of the story, which involves some supernatural twists, to feel fully earned.

There are occasional moments when language or word choice indicate that the writer isn’t a native English speaker, but a fitting explanation of this is given as the protagonist is an expat who occasionally struggles to speak his girlfriend’s language. I loved how this also tied to broader themes of straddling two worlds, having shame around your origins, and the struggle of not always being able to put these things clearly into words.

The deftness of the writing, mythology, story structure, and themes, in concert with the beautiful use of interactivity and visual design, make this my favorite piece of the competition.

2. Night Guard / Morning Star

Rating: 9/10

Night Guard / Morning Star explores haunting themes around the sacrifices that are sometimes made in the service of art as well as the difficulties of living in the shadow of a self-centered parent. These themes are beautifully rendered through scenes where paintings come to life in ways that illuminate the protagonist’s past, revealing and developing the characters through off-kilter, scattered memories.

It’s a wonderful example of interactive structure serving the story, as the physical layout of the gallery, the description cards for all the paintings, and the ability to enter paintings in order to explore a scene from the past, all fit tightly and satisfyingly with the dark and vivid story being told.

The characters also pop amazingly well. The aunt and the Morning Star are vividly rendered and memorable as their images become embodied in different ways while they beckon and cajole the protagonist into action. And the relationship between the protagonist and her mother is deliciously fraught: the protagonist is able to see conflicting perspectives she and her mother had on different moments in the past, and this, along with their occasional clashes during the course of the story (over the phone and eventually in person), lead to real character development and multiple endings that each feel like a unique yet earned resolution of the protagonist’s journey toward empowerment, as well as a (literal) exorcism of the ties and memories that have haunted her for a long time.

I also appreciate the fact that this piece seems to have been edited down to the essentials, fleshing out the characters and capturing every necessary story beat in exactly as much space as needed. The story clocks in at half an hour of play time, quickly picking up speed and maintaining momentum in the storytelling while still providing a rich, complex, and satisfying literary meal.

3. robotsexpartymurder

Rating: 8.5/10

robotsexpartymurder is a game I didn’t get to complete, since it takes longer than two hours, but even with where I ended up (I’m guessing around the midpoint) it feels like a successful pastiche of a surprising variety of genres: a visual novel-esque dating sim, a dystopian prison/workplace simulator, and a dialogue-based murder mystery. It ties these experiences together into a hilarious package with tightly written prose, a fast pace, and nary a dull moment.

The game pushes the envelope in terms of design, graphics, and music, with a very strong point of view: a theme of blue on black and retro looking fonts that feel like throwbacks to a 90’s vision of a cybernetic future, as well as a UI that’s framed within what looks like an old computer terminal linking together different options accessible to the player throughout the game.

The choice structure mixes the IF dating sim and murder mystery genres in a way that I hadn’t seen done to this degree, and they fit together very nicely. The same conversations where the main character is trying to get information out of the androids present opportunities to advance relationships with them, although I’m not yet sure how those relationships will factor into the endgame. Also, the use of choice structure to convey sex scenes as lists of clickable items with resulting sound effects is hilarious; more generally, the freewheeling approach to mature themes has just the right tone and avoids either prudishness or sleaziness, which I applaud.

While I mostly gravitated toward shorter interactive fiction experiences in this competition, this game was gripping enough to hold my attention, and then some. I’m looking forward to continuing on and seeing how the killer sex robot mystery plays out.

4. Dull Grey

Rating:  7.5/10

Dull Grey is an intriguingly dark and fatalistic piece, with a main character who seems unable to control his own destiny. It’s a beautifully designed experience in terms of presentation, with a gray-scale palette illustrating a bleak landscape in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic world, remnants of robots scattered around and a cult-like, fire-based religion hinted at throughout.

In terms of interactivity, it uses an interesting mechanic wherein the same binary choice is presented at each decision point. The repetitiveness fits well with the theme and setting, and the progression also builds in a powerful way as we follow a map and travel from scene to scene toward a momentous decision in the protagonist’s life, in a way that feels inevitably hopeless. The writing also leans into this with short, terse sentences and deadpan evocations of death, disaster, and a world seemingly on its last legs.

My first play-through (choosing lamplighter at each step) felt like the most fitting, as it created a strong characterization of the mother as obstinate yet resilient, sticking with tradition in a world that has become increasingly difficult to navigate. I was somewhat disappointed that this led to an “unhappy” ending, but was intrigued to find out which combinations of answers would lead to “happy” ones.

Different paths through the story presumably depend on the characters present at each decision point being more amenable to one option or another (lamplighter vs. tallyman). While I like this idea in theory, in the couple of replays I tried it felt like the sequence of scenes remained very linear regardless of choice, and I didn’t feel a connection to the decisions or any real sense of where they were leading me. Perhaps the game requires many replays to understand the subtleties, but the repetitiveness and linearity of the scenes made it difficult to remain motivated to continue replaying further.

This is a piece that resonates in terms of mood, setting, writing, and art design, with just the interaction/replay aspect as the element that wasn’t quite as satisfying for me as I would have hoped. However, it stands out as a unique and memorable entry in the competition.

5. Faerethia

Rating: 7/10

Faerethia has a novelistic and cinematic quality that I enjoyed. There’s a lovely mix of philosophy, human experience, and speculative scenarios, all sketched out in a short amount of space and written in a sure hand. As a multimedia short story, it’s also nicely rendered through silent movie inter-titles and the framing of vignettes interspersed throughout the piece, along with variations in font and background.

The themes of the story came through poignantly for me, especially in the dialogues between two unnamed characters that appear in a few sections. While the notion of this sort of technologically achieved utopia has been covered many times before, the writing was fresh and the emotional stakes high, leading to a satisfying ending.

In terms of the interactive elements of the game, I enjoyed the sections that explored Faerethia as well as the interview with the computer, both of which used light amounts of interactivity in effective ways. Some of the other satirical asides—the mini-game and the eye-winking descriptions in the paradise creation software—were amusing, but sometimes felt distracting and tonally at odds with the rest of the story.

Still, I found this to be a compelling piece of writing, and I’m left with the desire to delve into further philosophically tinged stories by this author.

The 2018 interactive fiction competition has brought together a range of games covering different formats, themes, and play times. After playing about a dozen that intrigued me, focusing primarily on choice-based games, I’ve compiled reviews for my top 5.

*Warning: The below reviews may contain spoilers!

1. Bogeyman

Rating: 9/10

Bogeyman is a deeply disturbing and successful piece that takes a malleable entity from folklore and embodies it in a specific setting, casting the creature as a sadistic paterfamilias who employs psychological and physical abuse to ensure the children he abducts remain “good”.

The design choices for the game are bold and effective, without overshadowing the story. These include a white-on-black palette, text fade-ins, spooky images during chapter breaks, and a haunting, thrumming soundtrack. If they were removed, the story would remain strong on its own, but they provide a great added touch.

The choice-based flow of the game is relatively linear, with short passages that move the reader through the story quickly and smoothly. Every passage adds to the dramatic tension, slowly piling on indignities small and large, flowing through days of quotidian chores and tasks that range from the banal to the grotesque, all in the service of building a complex portrait of life under a tyrant whose moods and reactions are often unpredictable. An undercurrent of tension about what fates await the children, as well as an occasional glimmer of hope for escape, ratchets up from chapter to chapter, ensuring that the reader remains hooked to the very end.

The game is able to deftly tackle a number of themes ranging from abuse to the nature of punishment and whether complicity is ever morally acceptable, all while delivering a gripping story with moments where it’s often as difficult to look as it is to look away.

2. + = x

Rating: 7/10

+ = x is a story about hurtling through the galaxy at some point in our planet’s future, where a sinister sorting device decides the destinies of people unlucky enough to encounter it, assigning them different mathematical symbols that can either add, multiply, or equal, but, in line with the forward motion of the planet, can neither divide nor subtract.

The story’s momentum is carried along by short, yet dense, dark-humored sci-fi passages that call to mind a tradition ranging from Kafka to David Mitchell, wherein characters helplessly navigate a dystopian future full of institutions that are as arbitrary and laughable as they are ominous.

The UI is split into two types of interaction: in some passages a forward button propels the reader further into the story, while in others a drag and drop, slot-based UI simulates the mechanical quality of the sorting device as paper gets fed in and fates get spit out, indelibly, in ink. The UI allows for a modicum of choice, albeit hidden—in many passages, three unnamed bars are available as options to slide into the machine, with no indication of what the outcome will be.

The story is able to leverage its unique take on interactivity to enrich its dystopian satire, allowing the reader to share first hand in the helplessness of its unlucky characters. It succeeds because its interactive elements remain invisible and fluid as they integrate seamlessly with the themes of the underlying piece of short fiction.

3. Ürs

Rating: 7/10

Ürs is a gorgeously illustrated game about a rabbit who lives in a warren that appears idyllic on the surface, but which opens up into a larger extraterrestrial world with signs of an older civilization whose technology may be able to help prevent a looming disaster.

The gameplay of the story is focused on navigating through the world of the rabbits, including the warren, the tunnel system leading to the surface, and finally a set of ancient ruins. The detailed illustrations help visually orient the reader as to the current physical location in the story, and there is an interesting input mechanism at one point in the story that highlights links within a text-based map, allowing easy hops to adjacent rooms within a multi-room building.

While navigating through the space is delightful, the story struggles a bit to keep up. The focus from passage to passage rests strongly on exploration, but progress is ultimately very linear. A compelling narrative could pick up the slack, but the story doesn’t deliver on initial promises of tension, character development, or momentum. There are some welcome opportunities to engage in dialogue with key characters, but these dialogues don’t lead to impactful choices, and much of this dialogue ends up functioning as exposition or instruction for how to complete the main puzzle. And while the world building is generally intriguing, it remains more of a sketch than a realization.

The overarching puzzle in the game is executed very cleanly and beautifully, but is also fairly straightforward. And because of the lack of dramatic tension throughout, the feeling of success at the end is somewhat tempered by the sense that there’s not quite enough meat on this beautifully carved set of bones.

4. They Will Not Return

Rating:  6.5/10

They Will Not Return is a game about a helper robot navigating a future in which disaster has arrived in a previously tranquil setting, with choice-based interaction and some surprising shifts in its narrative flow.

The first half of the story offers a piercing look into how the peace and routine of serving others morphs into a sense of desolation as time passes, entropy sets in, and it becomes increasingly clear that things will never return to how they were before.

The decision to have the reader revisit and explore the same location repeatedly, across a consequential period of of time, creates a beautiful tension in the first half of the story. There’s a sense of discovery, as in a video game like Chrono Trigger, where one can visit the same world in different eras and observe the staggering effects of time. Here, this choice is also a powerful way of exploring themes of human-induced natural disasters and disease, especially through the perspective of a helper robot who isn’t equipped to deal with these eventualities. The use of reduced choice dialogue options when a second robot enters the story is likewise powerful. As a reader, one may want the main character to come to terms with its situation more quickly, but the limited range of options reflect what the robot is capable of feeling and its slowness in adapting to the situation, given its programming.

The second half of the game shifts to a more standard adventure quest that navigates through a few different settings: on the street, in a police station, and finally in a robotics facility. These scenes offer some light puzzles and additional tidbits of information about the fate that befell the world. On balance, though, they’re at odds with and dampen the effect of the first half of the story, due to the sudden shift in tone. The finale offers a set of choices that hint at interesting ideas around self determination and free will, but the different endings are somewhat abrupt and lean toward the formulaic.

The game is thus a beautifully effective story about the passage of time, with interactivity that brings depth to the experience of a house robot in a hypothetical future, but is also ultimately led somewhat astray by an unnecessary coda.

5. smooch.click

Rating: 6/10

A cafe serves a bagel-centric spin on avocado toast, a party has an analog radio playing in background, and a cousin’s loft is decorated with a shiny new vitamix. After this, a moment of hesitation, of anticipation, or of self-doubt. A bit of pretentious banter about jazz from him, a flirty line about ears from her, or a smile from them. And finally, after a moment of consideration, there’s a kiss, clean and smooth, or close-lipped and awkward.

smooch.click is a procedurally generated game in 5 extremely short acts covering various settings, moments, and feelings leading up to a fateful kiss. The progression from one act to the next appears to be fairly random, with each act containing three or so possible links that are drawn from a larger pool and are cycled through in real time. These UI choices support and enhance the themes of anticipation and possibility in the game.

While simple, the game is effective at creating a sense of place, time, and feeling in a very small package, with the short length encouraging replayability. After several playthroughs, additional themes emerge: the commonality of human experience and desire across infinite possible permutations, the serendipity of chance encounters, and the delight in making the most of the cards you happen to be dealt in one potentially special moment.

A man wanders the streets of Paris after a personal tragedy.

The Imposter is a piece of interactive flash fiction, written in the Windrift framework. It was entered in Spring Thing 2018, and is listed in IFDB. It’s free to play and available here.