IF Comp ’08 Review – David Batterham’s Opening Night!

[spoilers haven’t begun yet but if the IF crowd is going to be reading these I feel I should warn them I have a fairly filthy mouth]

I actually opened this game yesterday and thought it looked rather charming, but at the time I was somewhat distracted by the three extremely disgusting and sexually explicit conversations I was having in three different KoL chat channels. Oddly enough, Joan Jett featured prominently in all three, but only in /clan were her testicles anywhere near Willard Scott’s face. It was not the proper time to review what appeared to be a sweet, charming, old-fashioned IF game, is what I’m trying to get across here.

It is now Sunday night and I just got off the phone with my mom, who is being taken to the musical Hair for her sixtieth birthday and hopes she has seats right up front because when she saw it in ‘71 she was too far away from the nudity. There could not be a more appropriate time to play this game.

[okay, spoilers begin here, filthy mouth remains constant]

IF Comp ’08 Review – xyzzyman’s The Lighthouse!

The first thing I’m going to do is to check and see if xyzzy’s been implemented, and if it hasn’t, I’m docking this game half its marks. Let’s get right up in there.

[spoilers are not healthy for children or other living things but they do begin here]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Jeremy Freese’s Violet!

Hard to go wrong with a one-word, evocative, fairly vague title, which makes me think I will either like this or it’ll be too far on the side of the pretentious and the trying-very-hard. Let’s find out together!

[spoilers looming below]

[SERIOUSLY, IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THIS YET, STOP READING SPOILERS ABOUT IT AND GO PLAY IT. IT’S VERY GOOD.]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Dean Menezes’ The Absolute Worst Game in IF History!

Definitely going for something light after that one. Let’s see, what looks like a comedy… Grief is right out. Everybody Dies sounds promising, except that everybody dies. I’m sorry I already did the dog one; that’d’ve been perfect. Hmm. Looks like it’s between Recess at Last, Channel Surfing, and Nerd Quest. The first two are giving me ish with the glblorx thinger being too new, or not new enough, and Nerd Quest – the hell? Java? Folders?

[side rant] You know, I have been sucking on Microsoft’s nipple since I was like six, and although I’m starting to get the hang of this Macintosh, it is still sort of like trying to do everything with my toes. Also what happened to the rest of the apples and the Lisa? [/side rant]

Okay, we will go with the first non-depressing-sounding thing we can get to work, and the winner is… Dean Menezes’ The Absolute Worst Game in IF History! Games like this are generally either pretty damn funny or sort of sad and limp and lukewarm. Hoping for the former.

[spoilers start here]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Kazuki Mishima’s Buried in Shoes!

I’m picking these games based on the titles, and Buried in Shoes is up next ‘cause it made me go “huh?” I mean, it’s a simple enough concept to grasp, buried in shoes, but how someone would get… buried… in shoes… like earlier tonight when Kevin took me in the truck to Del Taco and I was trying to think of one reason for there to be lightbulbs in the glovebox, not even a good reason, just one semi-logical convincing-when-you-squint-at-it reason, and I could not. Buried in shoes? Buried in shoes? Buried in shoes?

[spoilers begin here]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Hardy the Bulldog and Renee Choba’s Snack Time!

Despite my doubts as to Hardy the Bulldog’s actual contribution to this game, I am not yet disposed to despise it (blinking the flowing slows!), because at least it isn’t called Gossamer Albatross:   Eternal the Memories in Form of Game (Sincerity Version).  I shall play it while noshing cold Del Taco fries.  I think that is how Hardy the Bulldog would have wanted it, were he deceased and therefore open to speculation regarding things he would have wanted.

[spoilers begin here]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Simon No Last Name’s The Hall of the Fount of Artois!

I may owe Rick Dague an apology for thinking The Lucubrator was a pretentious title for an IF game.  I had not yet seen The Hall of the Fount of Artois:  An Interactive Distraction, and when I did, my lips actually physically curled.  Not “actually physically” the way people misuse “literally” but really like the molecules in my lips moved three-dimensionally through meatspace, qualifying this as a severely, extremely, irredeemably pretentious-sounding title.  We shall see how the game lives up to this.

…see?  It’s got me being all “we shall see.”  *shudder*

Or, wait, Splattergroit is not wanting to add the .exe?  Huh.  Sorry, Simon No Last Name’s The Hall of the Fount of Artois Subtitle An Interactive Distraction End Subtitle, you’re not going to get a fair review from me, assuming that was even likely.

(Yes, I know the program’s not called Splattergroit, but it might as well be.  Also, Spatterlight?  I hardly know her light!  Am I right?  TRY THE VEAL!)

BRAND NEW EXCITING UPDATE:  I am now able to play this game!  And I am going to!  Is it going to get a fair review?  Oh, fuck no.  I am not sweet and nice, I am evil and mean, which is why Jim Carrey’s character does not want me.

[please to begin spoilers!]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Rick Dague’s The Lucubrator!

As mentioned in the previous review, I hate this game already for being called The Lucubrator, although that’s probably my own fault for not knowing what a lucubrator is. Perhaps if you grow up in a certain part of the world you’re surrounded by lucubrators from a very early age and casually referencing them does not seem at all pretentious. I do feel justified in hating the game’s second sentence, however: “Blinking, the flowing slows.” This is a terrible sentence. It’s possible that Rick Dague is a very lovely person and kind to kittens and the homeless and I am just being unnecessarily mean here but goddamn is that a terrible sentence.

Well, if nothing else, I got to perform an action without being thanked for commenting. Watch and learn, Harry Wilson’s Lair of the CyberCow!

[spoilers begin here]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Mark Jones’ When Machines Attack!

Tonight on Fox!

[here come the spoilers, like sniffin’ dogs]

IF Comp ’08 Review – Jonathan Hay’s Red Moon!

Update, February the fourth, 2009:  I have calmed down a bit and would like to, well, not so much apologize to Jonathan Hay as, say, buy him a muffin, or something.  A cute muffin with maybe a little face or some ears made of frosting.  I am of course referring to the American kind of muffin, which an English friend of mine once described as “cake for fat people.”  Then again, that describes about seventy percent of our non-meat food.  Anyway.  Jonathan Hay?  You, me, muffin, cute little face.  And never ever end your game like that again.

[spoilers begin here]