IF Comp 2012: Last Minute (Ruderbager Doppelganger)

Last Minute is a CYOA in Twine, whose premise is that the author is desperately trying to finish an entry for the competition. (Yes, others have had this idea.) As usual, the jump will be followed by non-spoilery comments; then if I have anything spoilery to say, there will be spoiler space. I don’t know that this had beta-testers, but because the Twine format makes it more difficult to test for that, I’m being a little lenient with the choice-based pieces.

“Self-referential CYOA set in the author’s home and concerning the tribulations of writing for the comp” is not on the face of it a description that fires me up with glee. Last Minute is an expectations-beating manifestation of that idea, though; no, it’s still not If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler, but it is written with boundless zany enthusiasm and contains several excellent turns of phrase and surprising bits of humor.

The essential business of the game is that you need to identify a protagonist, an antagonist, and a source of conflict for your story; Last Minute then mixes these together into a short narrative. To give some idea of what you’re working with here, the two protagonists I used in my two playthroughs were Pac-Man and Peter the Perforator, a superhero with an unusual gift for origami and other paper-folding arts. This makes for an entertaining quick diversion, and you will probably know from the first screen or two whether the humor is to your taste.

Saying a lot more about it would probably ruin the surprises (though I will say that I salute the authors’ taste in vegetables).

4 thoughts on “IF Comp 2012: Last Minute (Ruderbager Doppelganger)”

  1. Man, it is me against the world in regards to that specific vegetable, I guess. Are you sure you’re using enough butter?

    1. I think the REAL issue is in regards to the amount of the specified vegetable! (The correct amount is none at all.)

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