Author: Jack

The author acknowledges that “This project was supported with a fellowship from Harvard University’s Houghton Library on the occasion of their 75th Anniversary.” Given that relationship, it is not surprising that the library is the star of this work, and that at least some of the story is devoted to touting its resources, particularly its collections.

Setting the story in a real location known intimately by the author always runs the risk of apartment-syndrome, i.e., that the story world will come across as a high-fidelity simulation of the location, but will lack narrative force. There is a little of that here, but there is a story grafted onto this framework.

[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]

Continue reading “Review – Bookmoss”

This is the third of three submissions by Chinese authors that I have reviewed as part of this year’s IFcomp, and it is head and shoulders above the other two in terms of translation. The other two stories, The Murder in the Fog and The Fifth Sunday, were murder mysteries, but this one is more in The Twilight Zone horror category.

The format is the same as the other two works: text is displayed with a typewriter effect and requires a lot of button pressing to see a page of text. At the end of a page, there is a binary choice. I believe this game only offers to choices, but the second choice varies depending on the first one, so there may be more than four combinations. It takes some time for the text to display, so I only got through two runs of the game.

[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]

Continue reading “Review – The Living Puppet”

This work is titled an essay, but I think discussion might be more accurate. In a formal essay, I would expect a thesis followed by arguments that support the thesis. This work does not suggest that there is a one-size fits all conclusion that is supported by objective evidence, but lays out a personal account, mostly in chronological order, of how the author came to her current views of herself, her religion, and the intersection between the two. It is largely autobiographical and involves some soul searching, but frames the progression against what was going on in broader society at the time. In addition to being an opinion piece, the author has provided links to definitions for those not familiar with the subject matter as well as links to websites, videos, and other resources that provide additional information.

Continue reading “Review – Queer In Public: A Brief Essay”

A walk In The Park has a very schizophrenic feel to it — parts of the game are implemented in impressive depth, but the playing area feels arbitrarily circumscribed and the flow of play is unusually narrow, requiring some specific but not necessarily intuitive choices. The imbalance between narrative importance and degree of implementation gives me the feeling that this game might have been more an exercise in learning Inform 6.

[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]

Continue reading “Review – A Walk In The Park”

To be completely honest, I put off reading this story for a while because of the heavy subject matter — I thought a story about Alzheimer’s would be depressing and frankly wasn’t looking forward to such a downer experience. There’s no way to write about Alzheimer’s and not address themes of self-betrayal, loss of independence, and alienation of loved ones, but the approach makes all the difference.

A heavy handed story told from the perspective of a spouse or friend could come off as an emotionally exploitive made-for-TV LifeTime special, but this story is presented from the point of view of an affected, insightful individual, played out gradually, and not squeezed for maximum drama, but just described.

I have played a number of parser-based games by this author, but this is the first of his works in Twine that I have come across. If this is his first twine work, I would say that he hit the ground running, as the medium is well suited to this story.

[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]

Continue reading “Review – Will Not Let Me Go”

The blurb didn’t lie — this work is capable of spewing a great many things, some of them potentially offensive. And it will do it for two hours. And it uses an unusual technology to do it.

The game is written as a floo script, i.e., a text file that gets run through a floo interpreter. What’s floo? I don’t know, what’s floo with you? Sorry for the dad joke.

Continue reading “Review – Run of the place”

This may not be the first IF with escape-the-room as a theme (I’m pretty sure of that), but I think it is the first one to be a simulation of an Escape Room. I thought this worked very well as parser IF. The puzzles were of the sort that might be encountered in a real escape room, allowing that the player has to experience them through the medium of text. I thought the level of difficulty was spot on and that cluing was was fair (except maybe for a certain stealth futon).

Continue reading “Review – Ultimate Escape Room: IF City”

This story is, as the blurb advertises, depressing. But more to the point, it’s not engaging. The premise is that you’ve somehow gotten a hold of a phone of a recently deceased young girl and receive a text from one of her contacts that the owner of the phone would want you to go through the phone and see what happened.

If this were a murder mystery plot and I were a forensic detective, sure that could be a good gimmick, but barring that, if I found a phone and received that weird message, I would most likely turn it into the police to avoid disturbing any of the data on the phone. Objectively, I don’t even know for certain that the owner is dead. Best to rid myself of the device.

Continue reading “Review – Mikayla’s Phone”

Measureless is a medium-sized parser game in which the main character is cursed by unspeakable, ancient evil. In most cases, the protagonist has it coming — they know the risks of seeking books bound in human flesh and full of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, but they do it anyway. In this case, however, the protagonist did not say aloud the forbidden spell, sign a blood contract with a demon, or seek world-crushing power in exchange for his soul, he just handed a key to the wrong guy and was a collateral victim. The moral for young players: don’t hand a key to someone holding an ancient tome. Just say no.

[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]

Continue reading “Review – Measureless To Man”

I am curious to hear the story behind this game. In the banner information, it is copyrighted 2004 and the serial numbers agree. Further, it appears to be written in Inform 6 and the story file is in z5 format. Did the author find an old 1.44M floppy behind a couch?

This is a story about squirrels, and I am sad to say that squirrel stories are not yet recognized as a sub-genre of interactive fiction, but perhaps one day they will be. I have been sitting on an idea for a squirrel story for a number of years, and perhaps this will finally give me to the motivation to code it.

[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]

Continue reading “Review – Goodbye Cruel Squirrel”