Thanks for the shoutout! Excellent list, I only wish I had time to play all of these great games. Also, love the format of this newsletter. 10/10, would get lost in a dark cave again.
Lonehouse was such a beautiful and close to home experience. I remember going through my sister's house after she passed away. I even have her journal still, on my nightstand, unread. I feel strangely lighter having experienced that. <3
I'm playing your interactive fiction game, "Fix Your Mother's Printer" - great job, Geoffrey! It feels too real (being someone who does tech support AND having a mom) 😁 Wishing you the best for the contest!
I'm going to shout out Detective Osiris here, I liked it a lot. Also want to play Mark Antony and Cleopatra Case IV but that requires a second player, a co-op detective game is exactly the sort of thing I want. I think the current version of Fix Your Mother's Printer is a good improvement over the original version, liked the additions.
Thanks for the additional recommendations. I'm going to check those out, though I wonder if I could get my wife to play Case IV. (She's not big into games.) Love the concept of multiplayer IF. I'm working with a friend on a project along those lines, though it's a very different execution.
And yhank you for replaying! I'm so glad you enjoyed the new version.
Thank you, Ben! I’m curious to learn more about Plotopolis. Many years ago I was hired to design games for Facebook messenger and I always thought texting was a unique space for games. I’m guessing you agree?
Yes - I think texting games could be magical. I researched implementing Plotopolis on text/sms, but services (like Twilio) are prohibitively expensive for the kind of volume I wanted to do. I do think there's a lot of potential for chat apps>
You get for free: 1) notifications, 2) persistent presence, 3) where the audience is
On the other hand, I've found explaining the concept fairly challenging to anyone who's not tech-inclined, and payment (subscription/etc) might be challenging, if we go that way.
We'll see! ... so far this is an experiment, but I'm going to run hard with it to see how we do.
The company I was working for decided to make their own game chat app with the hope of charging for access to games or choice options within games, like what Choices and Stories do. They were also pursuing branded content. I wrote a tie-in text game to the magician film Now You See Me. So yeah, there are lots of possibilities. Excited to see where you take it!
Thanks for the shoutout! Excellent list, I only wish I had time to play all of these great games. Also, love the format of this newsletter. 10/10, would get lost in a dark cave again.
The games stay up indefinitely, so there's time to play them, but there's only a week to make your voice heard about them.
Thank you! I wish Substack had anchor links, so I could make a post like this fully clickable.
I know, but when I think about that I remember the 30 other IF Comps full of games I haven't played...
Anchor links would be cool.
Lonehouse was such a beautiful and close to home experience. I remember going through my sister's house after she passed away. I even have her journal still, on my nightstand, unread. I feel strangely lighter having experienced that. <3
When I experience a work of art that changes how I think or feel in a profound way, it's like magic. I'm so glad you experienced that with Lonehouse.
I'm playing your interactive fiction game, "Fix Your Mother's Printer" - great job, Geoffrey! It feels too real (being someone who does tech support AND having a mom) 😁 Wishing you the best for the contest!
I'm going to shout out Detective Osiris here, I liked it a lot. Also want to play Mark Antony and Cleopatra Case IV but that requires a second player, a co-op detective game is exactly the sort of thing I want. I think the current version of Fix Your Mother's Printer is a good improvement over the original version, liked the additions.
Thanks for the additional recommendations. I'm going to check those out, though I wonder if I could get my wife to play Case IV. (She's not big into games.) Love the concept of multiplayer IF. I'm working with a friend on a project along those lines, though it's a very different execution.
And yhank you for replaying! I'm so glad you enjoyed the new version.
Thanks for the mention (The Whale's Keeper). Great newsletter - and of course I loved Fix Your Mother's Printer.
Thank you, Ben! I’m curious to learn more about Plotopolis. Many years ago I was hired to design games for Facebook messenger and I always thought texting was a unique space for games. I’m guessing you agree?
Yes - I think texting games could be magical. I researched implementing Plotopolis on text/sms, but services (like Twilio) are prohibitively expensive for the kind of volume I wanted to do. I do think there's a lot of potential for chat apps>
You get for free: 1) notifications, 2) persistent presence, 3) where the audience is
On the other hand, I've found explaining the concept fairly challenging to anyone who's not tech-inclined, and payment (subscription/etc) might be challenging, if we go that way.
We'll see! ... so far this is an experiment, but I'm going to run hard with it to see how we do.
and I should add the caveat that while chat platforms is 'where the audience is', connecting with that audience is going to be an interesting hurdle.
The company I was working for decided to make their own game chat app with the hope of charging for access to games or choice options within games, like what Choices and Stories do. They were also pursuing branded content. I wrote a tie-in text game to the magician film Now You See Me. So yeah, there are lots of possibilities. Excited to see where you take it!