emshortif

IF Comp 2009: The Duel that Spanned the Ages

As has been my practice for the last few years, I’ve set my RSS feed to truncate entries so that I can post reviews without spoilerage. Within an entry, there is a short, spoilerless discussion (though the comp purists may want to avoid reading even that before playing for themselves); then spoiler space; then a more detailed discussion of what I thought did and didn’t work in the game.

I’m also pursuing an approach I came up with last year: I’m playing and reviewing games that have listed beta-testers, and skipping those that don’t. Last year that turned out to be a pretty fool-proof indicator of which games were going to end up scoring 4 or less on my personal scale. I’m hoping this will mean I have more time to devote to the remaining games, which in turn will (I hope) be of higher quality, and you, dear reader, will have fewer rants inflicted on you.

Now: The Duel that Spanned the Ages, Episode 1: The Age of Machines.

You too can play it if you download the comp games, or even try it online.

Continue reading “IF Comp 2009: The Duel that Spanned the Ages”

IF Comp 2009: Earl Grey

Now up: Earl Grey.

You too can play it if you download the comp games, or even try it online.

Continue reading “IF Comp 2009: Earl Grey”

Bespoke IF

In the midst of IF Comp may not be the best time for this, but life happens when it happens:

I am auctioning a short piece of bespoke interactive fiction to raise money toward a friend-of-a-friend’s medical expenses. In essence, I’ll write a 10-15 minute game to suit the winner’s preferences, with the restriction that I am not offering to write very gory or explicitly sexual content. Want a conversation game featuring a specific historical figure? A Savoir-Faire-verse puzzle game set in your house? A regency-romance short-short? A surreal synesthetic exploration of the concept of orange? You think of it, I write it. Details are here.

The awesome Yoon Ha Lee is also offering bespoke interactive fiction for this auction. Her listing is here. Edited to add: this offer was originally for fanfic-based IF, but it is now expanded to cover any form of short IF.

Bidding runs through Oct. 10, and if you’re not in the market for custom IF, there’s an assortment of fun stuff of generally fannish appeal as well — books, artwork, beta-reading services, jewelry, etc. — not to mention some awesome-looking baked goods.

An overall explanation of the auction’s background is here. If you decide to bid on anything here, please be sure to read the instructions about payment. Short form: please use PayPal, but try to avoid it being a credit card-based transaction, as the overhead on those is higher than on echecks or transfers of existing balance.