If you liked my last post linking to something I wrote about a game from 2017... here's another one.

If you're interested in my in-depth thoughts on the narrator from a 2017 parser game, you can find them here.

The Blind House

The Blind House
By: Amanda Allen

Another entry from IFComp 2010, this one exudes creepiness and evocative emotion. It's well worth giving it a try - although if you're anything like me, you'll be left wondering exactly what's going on and how you're supposed to affect it.

You can grab the story file from here, which you'll need to run with an interpreter from here (I used WinGlulxe).

I also needed this walkthrough, which, unfortunately, doesn't take you through everything in the game.

Divis Mortis

Divis Mortis
By: Lynnea Dally

Another entry from last year's IFComp, Divis Mortis is a straightforward game of exploring a zombie-infested hospital and fighting to survive. The tone is possibly an acquired taste, veering between unapologetic silliness and effective atmosphere, but if you liked the black humour of Romero's classic Living Dead films, it's worth giving this one a whirl.

You can download the story file for Divis Mortis here, or play it online.

Aotearoa

Aotearoa
By: Matt Wigdahl

The winning game from IFComp 2010 is in many ways the direct opposite of my own entry. Where Rogue of the Multiverse is extra terse, Aotearoa is quite wordy; where I saw the competition as an opportunity to make a game without newbie-friendly amenities, Matt Wigdahl crammed his game full of tutorials, hints, keyword-highlighting and neat convenience features; where my game prizes focused interaction, Aotearoa is deeply implemented in its responses to unprompted commands; where I prioritised an easy flow, the puzzles here are involved and offer multiple solutions.

A family-friendly adventure through an alternate New Zealand where dinosaurs never died out, Aotearoa simply oozes craft and attention to detail - it's so jam-packed with cool stuff that it absolutely deserves its place at the top.

You can play the game online here.

Face Time

Face Time
By: Noyb

Interesting coincidence: Noyb's Face Time was released as part of a "masquerade" event that obscured its authorship, and it was Noyb who resolved a little matter of authorship confusion arising from my last post. Staying faithful to the theme: in this game, exactly who's who (and whether it matters) is quite the issue.

At first, Face Time may not seem very promising: a visual novel without any character graphics, it hits you with adolescent angst from the get-go. But persevere and it becomes apparent that this is actually a neat little deconstruction of typical romance/relationship games.

Starborn

Juhana Leinonen's Starborn is a short, keyword-only IF game about the home-sickness of someone who's never been home. More of a vignette than a full-blooded story, it's well worth the five or ten minutes it takes to complete.

You can play it online here.

Silent Conversation

Silent Convseration
By: Gregory Weir
Format: Browser
Play it|Blog Post

Gregory Weir's latest of his monthly games is a platformer that takes place within the texts of various public domain works. It's arguably not as fun as just sitting down with the books themselves, but Weir conjures some truly striking landscapes and effects out of their words.

Cacophony

Cacophony
By: Owen Parish
Format: Z-Code
@IFDB|@IFWiki

Cacophony is a surreal, well written adventure that seems to empasise the puzzley more than the literary.

Town; Afternoon in the House of Secrets

Town and Afternoon in the House of Secrets
By: Anna Anthropy
Format: Browser

These two games are simple, succinct, and controlled entirely by clicking hyperlinks in the text. They're notable to me in particular because of how similar they are to what I'm attempting to do with my current work in progress, and they also happen to be fun, well written adventures to boot.

Of the two games, Town presents less of a challenge, but also, I think, makes better use of the format.

The King of Shreds and Patches

The King of Shreds and Patches
By: Jimmy Maher
Format: Glulx
Homepage|@IFDB|@IFWiki

The result of over two years development, The King of Shreds and Patches is a Lovecraftian mystery set in a carefully researched depiction of Elizabethan London.

The game includes a graphical map, a hint system, and a (perhaps incongruously chatty) tutorial mode for those new to Interactive Fiction.

My Uncle George

My Uncle George
By: Filipe Salgado
Format: Z-Code
Homepage|@IFDB

My Uncle George is a short, deeply implemented game with a strong narrative voice. It's not perfect - there are a few typos and the player seems to take more of a reactive than active role in events - but it's short and to the point, and it's relatively rare to see an IF game with such a strongly characterised PC.

IF Progressive One

IF Progressive One
By: The IF Progressive Team
Format: Z-Code
Homepage|@IFDB|@IFWiki

This is a rather strange little thing. I'm all in favour of unusual titles, but such a dry moniker seems like a short, unfair route to obscurity. IF Progressive One is the result of 'an experimental IF game project in collaborative authorship' - possibly inspired by Alabaster. Eight different authors worked on the game, each subsequent author being allowed full access to all the preceding segments.

Where Alabaster pulled off the impossible feat of having a very strong, unified voice, despite its collaborative authorship, this game goes quite in the opposite direction. The first segment is a richly described, puzzle-free and wonderfully characterful piece of IF. The second... Well, it begins like this:


Suddenly there are almost no descriptions, and the player is still expected to... well, there's no obvious direction or motivation for this segment either, or hints (so this is where my time with the game came to an end). Still, a game that can change from completely fiction focused to a completely old-school puzzler at the drop of a hat suggests that those interested in collaborative IF might find this to be an experiment with very interesting results.