IF Comp Review #1: Help! I Can’t Find My Glasses!
The Interactive Fiction Comp runs every year, and it is a huge deal among interactive fiction writers and fans. I first entered it in 2015, when I was very new to the whole field of IF, and the entire experience was intense and amazing and lovely. Apart from anything else, part of the forum is a secret Author’s Section where only those who’ve entered the contest that year can talk to each other.
The judging lasts six weeks, and during that time there are HUNDREDS of public reviews.
It is NOT a popularity contest. The community is expected to judge as fairly as they can, and the judges keep an eye out for suspicious trends. But the basis of the contest is community and trust, and I LOVE it.
I am a terrible judge. About half the games each year are parser-based, ie they have puzzles to figure out. Given that I barely know what day it is and live in a permanent state of near-panic, those games are no good for me. I’m also amazingly bad at figuring out even the simplest of computer-y instructions, so a lot of the games are cut off from me for that reason.
So, in sum, I’ll start with games written in the same engine as my own—ChoiceScript. There are three other than my own, so at some point I’ll gird my loins and see what other games are suuuper accessible for my particular neuroses. Because I aim to judge at least 5 games (which is the minimum to take part).
Oh yeah, and I don’t want to give my brain anything too dark, because my depression feeds on that quite badly. That includes any mental illness stuff, so I’ll be avoiding any “this is what it’s like to be mentally ill” games.
Enough rambling! Let us begin!
Help! I Can’t Find My Glasses!
ChoiceScript? Check. Non-Traumatising? Almost certainly. Short? Very.
This game sounds SO easy to play and judge. I’m in.
As a writer, this title is brilliant. It sets tone (tiny, real-world, highly relatable, small-stakes drama), it tells the reader exactly what the driving force of the narrative will be (need glasses), and it immediately makes me sympathetic towards the main character (it gives us a serious problem, as anyone with glasses can tell you, and also gives us a key vulnerability).
The first few choices immediately set name, gender, and sexual orientation, with non-binary options (although no asexual options for those who don’t feel like a fictional romance). This gets some mechanics out of the way very neatly (important in a short game) and allows gender and sexual diversity which immediately makes me feel safe. (Not that I’m in danger from a game, but it means the writer is kind and therefore much less likely to accidentally have casual racism or something else hurtful. The names also had some cultural variety.)
I was immediately let down by the grammar, which is clunky eg “Your hand swipes through…” is saying that your hand passes through solid wood, which would be magical… which is not what the writer intends. Referring to glasses as “it” rather than “them” makes me think English is the writer’s second language. Which makes this an even more impressive achievement. But if this was a longer game, I would quit within three choices. This is what beta testers and editors are for.
The author captures the helplessness of a person without their glasses very well, but the choice to either “beat”, “gut” or “forgive” the person who took them doesn’t allow for any middle ground between violence and forgiveness. Why can’t I report them to a teacher, for example? Or steal something belonging to them?
It’s also odd that someone would fall asleep in a club room. Yes, students will fall asleep anywhere, but it still needs a line of explanation.
My first ending I chose to go and take another nap, and my glasses just appeared back on the table as if nothing happened. It was a little abrupt, but okay (and, no romance happened). My actual theory is that Minh or Jaime knocked the table while being silly and the glasses fell on the floor. Let’s play again and see…
Second ending I discovered Jaime’s dark past (or at least some of it) and asked them on a date, which they agreed to. But I don’t think I found my glasses, so that was a weird ending.
Third ending I wandered around the school a bit, which was quite pleasant, and then I thought I was clicking through familiar endings when I was suddenly at the end. Oops? Or an error?
Fourth ending, I simply ran out of time and the game ended. That’d be the bad ending.
I won’t rate this game very highly, but the writer certainly shows promise. It was smart of them to enter a short game in the IF Comp—a (relatively) small amount of effort for a lot of feedback and community involvement.
Felicity Banks 
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