COMPLETE: My Gender Is a Fish
Nov. 12th, 2021 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoWrapping 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.
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.