COMPLETE: My Gender Is a Fish

Wrapping up the last few extra credit entries from IFComp 2021, after already having hit the "anyone can be a judge but play and score at least five of them" threshold. Which is fortunate, because I actually don't think we're going to score this one. I mean, we played it, and we're writing this review right now, but I just don't think there's enough here to qualify as an IntFic game.

My Gender Is a Fish by Carter Gwertzman is a short Twine narrative. You ventured into some kind of fey forest and the magpies stole your gender identity. Now you must construct a new one. As you walk through the woods, you go through a few rounds of seeing one of two sights to choose between, both of which invite some gender-related musings. (Is your gender an eagle, flashy and majestic but performative, or a fish, quiet and plain but practical?) After a few rounds of such choices, the story concludes.

It's a neat narrative. It has some intriguing and well-written thoughts. It's worth experiencing. I like it and I'm glad we played it. Alas, it's short, not really interactive, and we just don't consider it enough of a game to qualify for IFComp. Rather than bringing out the dreaded 1 rating for something we actually liked, I think we're just going to pretend we officially never played this and just not submit a score.

Unofficially, though? It's good. It took me longer to write this than it will take you to play it, and the writing is pretty, so like... why not, right? It's a little after-dinner mint of a "game" but it's nice. It's neat.

COMPLETE: You Are SpamZapper 3.1

More IFComp 2021 extra credit games. The judging deadline is in a few days, so this may be the last one, actually.

You Are SpamZapper 3.1 by Leon Arnott takes a look inside the world of computers, as many of the games we played this year did. You, as you might have guessed, are SpamZapper 3.1, an email plugin tasked with screening all of your human's incoming emails and approving or zapping them.

The player character begins this tale incredibly jaded; ages of having to read brain-dead "who could possibly fall for this crap?" spam letters all day every day has brought them to the point where they hate their job and they hate people in general. This creates a bit of dissonance which is one of the things for which we have to ding this game: we ended up liking the early portion of the game a lot more than our POV character did. The "approve or deny incoming letters" mechanic is done very well. It feels interesting and is a clever and creative way to present the world of this setting. Even the obvious pointless filler spam letters are written to be amusing to read, and the way the game furthers its plot with the letters from the human's friends in between all the spam is an inventive way to handle the pacing and the drip-feeding of the game's story. It even makes what is actually a somewhat railroaded plot progression feel interactive, with all the letters to approve or deny. All in all, we were really liking this! Unfortunately, SpamZapper wasn't, and having our POV character constantly raining on our parade did feel a bit unfortunate.

Said plot is very intriguing when it picks up, as it explores the question of living and self-aware computer programs and the rules by which they must play, even as they find themselves in the role of unlikely heroes tasked with saving one of the human's closest friends from her overly controlling religious conservative father. It had quite a few moments that the other woodlings, particularly Sara, related to. The plot is gripping, intense, and... unfortunately something like three or four hours long. IFComp has a very strict rule about spending more than two hours on a game. Games longer than two hours are permissible, but only the first two hours can be reviewed. Prospective judges just stop at the two hour mark, write a review, and stick to it without changing it based on any later information. Alas, we were so engrossed with the plot that we lost track of time, missed that cutoff point, and therefore are unable to adhere to those rules without cheating. Therefore, this is another game that we are unable to score and submit.

Still, unofficially? This was outstanding. We love the story and we love the creative gameplay mechanics through which the story was told. It's a strong recommendation overall.

Final IFComp scores 2021

We played the necessary five games, and then played four more for extra credit, and then didn't score three of them, so I guess we're submitting six scores overall?

The Dead Account by Bez: 9
And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One by B.J. Best: 9
Weird Grief by Bez: 7
extraordinary_fandoms.exe by Storysinger: 6
Finding Light by Abigail Jazwiec: 5
This Won't Make You Happy by Mike Gillis: 4

Infinite Adventure by A. Scotts: Not scored/submitted. It's less a standalone game and more something one plays for about five minutes and then plays And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One.
My Gender Is a Fish by Carter Gwertzman: Not scored/submitted. In our opinion, not long or interactive enough to really qualify as an IFComp game.
You Are SpamZapper 3.1 by Leon Arnott: Not scored/submitted. This one partly our fault; this game is well over two hours long (it says one and a half hours on the IFComp ballot page but that's... not correct) and we lost track of time and missed the two hour cutoff, thus making us unable to judge it fairly.

After having to skip IFComp 2020 due to personal life matters/mental health being... well... 2020, it feels good to have done it this year. We played some really good games that we're happy to recommend others play as well. IFComp is back and it feels good.

At a score of 9 apiece, we have a tie for our top-rated games this year. Of the two, I would say that The Dead Account has a more engrossing and emotional story, while And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One has better gameplay. The Dead Account is our favorite between the two, but not by such a large margin that they get different point totals.

Anyway, this was a blast, and we hope to do it again next year.