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IFComp 2024 Recommendations
Sep. 3rd, 2024 06:54 pmJudging period is over--I made it through 43 out of 67. I'll update this once I get through the rest for my final recommendations!
Favorites
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Other Recommendations
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Favorites
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- An Account of Your Visit to the Enchanted House and What You Found There (Walkthrough): Following an invitation from a stranger, explore a house full of magical beings. Charming and cozy with a great narrative voice and really entertaining characters.
- The Apothecary's Assistant: Take some time out of your day to help out at a magical apothecary. You're meant to play this for a few minutes per day over the course of some days; the daily scenes are cute and simple, and the optional cryptic crosswords and real-life charity donations add a lot to it.
- A Dream of Silence, Act 3 (Hints): Astarion is trapped in a nightmare of his old life that is slowly killing him; you've entered the nightmare and are finally helping him escape. I highly recommend playing the first two parts, as the process of gaining Astarion's trust and making yourself perceptible to him makes this hit harder. Normal mode is pretty hard, but extremely replayable. No idea how well this works if you don't know Baldur's Gate 3 but Astarion fans should play this immediately.
- Eikas: Plan meals and make friends in a fantasy world as you run a community kitchen. A lovely, cozy management game; planning themed meals, making money to buy your ingredients, and helping community members makes for a nicely complex game.
- The Maze Gallery (Walkthrough): Escape a surreal art museum. This is a huge game made by a ton of collaborators, but it somehow coalesces perfectly into a weird whole. Go with the flow and explore everything.
- Miss Gosling's Last Case (Walkthrough): You're a Miss Marplesque detective, and you've suddenly died. As a ghost, steer your well-trained dog to prove you were murdered and find the perpetrator. A charming, cozy mystery with a fun gimmick. Watson is the goodest boy.
- Sidekick (Walkthrough (ZIP file)): When an Old Western town is terrorized by bandits, never fear, Buck McSwagger is there! And you, his sidekick, trying to keep his dumb ass alive and save the day. Hilarious premise and really fun puzzles that make you feel smart for getting them. The clickable parser format also works really well.
- Winter-Over: Your brother has been murdered at an Antarctic research station; can you find the killer without succumbing to winter-over syndrome? A great setting for a closed-circle mystery with fun mechanics and an effectively oppressive atmosphere.
- Forsaken Denizen (Walkthrough): When a collections agency turns the people of your colony into monsters, save them with the help of your princess girlfriend whose fault this definitely is not. A funny and creepy survival horror game, with great gameplay and a snarky but sweet lesbian love story at the heart of it.
- A Very Strong Gland: After a disaster hits the spaceship onto which you have been abducted, fix the ship and help the aliens. A single-character parser makes figuring out the bizarre alien technology a ton of fun.
Other Recommendations
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- Birding in Pope Lick Park: A really chill birding simulator with lots of bird photos. Makes me want to go birding.
- The Dragon of Silverton Mine: As an apprentice mage, explore a caved-in mind to rescue the miners trapped there and find out what happened. A straightforward but delightful dungeon crawl with fun characters and some really nice cover art.
- A few hours later in the day of The Egocentric: Figure out how to investigate a suspect in the space of a four-panel comic. It's a short game with a really unique concept: you move from location to location through comic panels, with the comic progressing forward every time you move.
- Imprimatura: As an artist, look through the paintings your deceased relative and mentor left behind and decide how to finish your final collaboration. A thoughtful study of a complicated person with a great use of art. Note the content warnings.
- The Killings in Wasacona (Walkthrough): As a new FBI agent, investigate a series of murders in a college town. Many different options and endings make this an interesting play, and luck, logic, and deductive reasoning are all required to get the best outcome. Note the content warnings; sexual assault isn't described in detail but is a fairly important part of the case.
- The Saltcast Adventure: An ordinary woman makes a desperate attempt to provide for her family in a cave full of monsters. A dark, atmospheric story with fantastic fantasy worldbuilding--I'd read a novel set in this world.
- Welcome to the Universe: Live from childhood to old age though a weird and meta game. Hilarious writing and very thoughtful; playing as yourself instead of a character makes it more rewarding. Note the content warnings.
- You: YOU are in a strange forest, and something about YOU is wrong. A charming gender allegory with fun Wonderlandian puzzles.
- Forbidden Lore (Walkthrough): Examine your grandfather's magical study to finish the research he left behind. The parser is incredibly picky and you'll probably need hints, but something about the atmosphere of getting thrown in the deep end of research to discover what you can and need to do is really charming.
- A Warm Reception (Walkthrough): As a medieval tabloid reporter, find out what happened at the royal wedding you skipped (and solve a big problem left behind). A simple, fun game that would make a great introduction to parser games.
- Uninteractive Fiction (Walkthrough): The only winning move is not to play. ...look, it made me cackle. Sound on and make sure to check the walkthrough afterwards.
