IF Comp ’10 – Anonymous’ A Quiet Evening At Home!

It’s natural, when first handed some sort of creative tool, to use it to model things you’re familiar with.  This is why there are so many children’s crayon drawings of houses.  (I am personally guilty of having rendered the office both partially in Fallout 3 and completely in Sims 3, complete with a little sim me and a little sim Riff, to whom I gave the “Loner” trait and who consequently got a bonus to his mood whenever little sim me wasn’t around, which made actual me feel sort of odd.)  Making an in-my-apartment game as your first IF is completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of.

It’s just that everyone has decided they absolutely are not interested in your shitty apartment game because it has a very good chance, based on all of their previous experience with shitty apartment games, of being garbage.  Still, there’s only one way to find out.

Let’s crack this bitch wide open.

[spoilers begin here]

Huh.  This is a game about having to pee, apparently.

>unlock door
(with the backpack)
That doesn’t seem to fit the lock.
Wow.  Okay.  Remind me not to assume my character has any common sense.

You open the backpack, revealing a copper key.
Wait, I wear a whole backpack just to carry a single copper key?  Also, my house key is made out of copper?

>unlock door
What do you want to unlock the front door with?
I should not have been surprised by this, and yet I was.  Now I’m angry at myself.  No wonder tiny sim Riff always wants to be alone.

Foyer
A place to decide, up or down, in or out.
I kind of like that.

must…pee…now…
I can’t find the damn bathroom!

you didn’t make it to the bathroom in time,  you’re terribly embarrassed, and your evening is ruined.
This is a lot like the Sims, really.  I feel very comfortable with this game.  Now where is the damn bathroom?

There are photographs of water on rocks along the wall
That’s hilarious.  I wonder if this game is intended to make the player have to pee?  I’m totally going right the hell now.

Ah, that’s better.  Good old Puppies On Top Of Other Animals calendar.  Monkeyback is indeed terrifying.  Where were we?

Your bedroom.  When you travel, you often miss your bed.
Clearly I am travelling either the wrong distance, or in an opposite direction from my bed.

Okay, I peed, game.  What should I do now?

You can see a garbage can (closed) here.
>open garbage can
You open the garbage can.
>look in garbage can
The garbage can is empty.
Oh.  That was fun.

Y’know, directions back to places would be helpful.  I tend to remember stupid things like “to get here I went southeast” more often than not, but I’m probably some sort of freak child.

Hey, wait up, two of the few implemented objects in this game are a microwave and a hamster.  Am I expected to microwave the hamster?  Because I’m not doing it and you can’t make me.

You are suddenly hit by an acrid spray and are overwhelmed by a penetrating foul odor.   You realize immediately that you’ve been sprayed by a skunk.  Your evening, your clothes, your backpack, copper key, Netflix envelope, trash bag, and garbage, and likely the rest of your week, has been ruined.
Okay, that was pretty funny.  Clearly I need to find a flashlight.

This game has replayability, at least.

>take condiments
You’re not interested in any of these condiments.
Then why do I even have these condiments?

Oh no, this soup can is closed and locked!  How will I eat soup now?

Where the hell is my can opener?  Related thought:  how sharp are my hamster’s teeth?

Cheating.  Oh, okay, the hamster will find the opener for me if I give it some exercise.  That’s cute.

Whee, following a hamster around my house!  That’s a whee-type situation, no?

Hmm, what to do while this soup cooks?
>sing
Your singing is abominable.
That’s a default message, isn’t it?  It’s rather mean.

>take soup
(the hot soup)
Taken.
>eat soup
(the soup can)
That’s plainly inedible.

You remind yourself it’s trash night tonight.
Hmm, yes, the trash needs to go out.
I already took the trash out!  I did it as soon as I got home so there would still be daylight!  Please don’t make me go back out there.  There are skunks out there!  Think of my Netflix envelope!

Oh, shit, apparently I was supposed to include my empty soup can.  Maaaaan!

Wow, do I have to carry my garbage can from my side yard all the way through my house every single trash day and back again?  Does the author of this game do that?  Is there no better place to keep it?  Isn’t that horribly inconvenient?

What do you mean “am I sure I closed and locked all the doors” if only one of the doors actually locks?

Man, this whole end phase with the “are you sure you did all this stuff that responsible people do before going to bed” gameplay is sort of obnoxious, especially this bit here about “did you turn everything off?”  I am pretty sure I actually did turn everything off, unless there’s something that was already on.

YES I AM SURE I PUT AWAY THE HAMSTER

Oh, the walkthrough says I must not be carrying or wearing anything?  That’s logical enough, but it wasn’t hinted.

you feel like there’s something you’ve forgotten to do. Are you sure you put away the hamster
I PUT AWAY THE DAMN HAMSTER

Oh Jesus Christ I am not sure I closed the hamster’s cage.  Carol Channing’s tits on a carburetor.  All right.  We’re good.

>sleep
You drift off to sleep and you dream you’re about to have sex with a sexy person from that show you like, only to get interrupted by someone yelling about toothpaste.  You wake too early in the morning and can’t get back to sleep.  Ugh.
It was almost worth all that hamster business for the phrase “have sex with a sexy person.”  That’s great.  I’m stealing it.

So, Anonymous, chalk this one up to experience.  You can now competently implement a lot of basic stuff, and that is awesome.  Next time you submit a game to the comp, I would like to see that you’ve built on this foundation technically.  I would also like to see some consistency with things like capitalization and periods at the ends of sentences, some compelling juicy words within the sentences themselves, maybe even some plot and characterization.

If it takes place in another apartment, I swear I will punch you in the genitalia.  Game gets a three.