We were a little unsure whether to count this one. Is it a demo? Should we wait for the full version and just write up that when it's out? Is it a separate stand-alone piece, like Wurroom to the upcoming Ultra Strangeness, or Longest Night to Night in the Woods? Is it worth possibly counting twice? It bills itself as a "prologue," which may or may not be a part of the main game. I'm just going to write this, though, because it's really good and I want to share. If I end up covering it twice, so be it. It probably deserves it.

When the Past Was Around (Prologue) is the prologue chapter of an upcoming point-and-click game by Mojiken Studio (A Raven Monologue, She and the Light Bearer.) It's a sort of... it's not a room escape in tone, but gameplay-wise it has a very similar sense of "ransack the screen looking for things to use on other things to reveal the password which unlocks more things to use on other things." It also has a kind of artsy but serenely beautiful visual style, gentle piano music, and a vaguely hinted at story that feels like some kind of kind of abstract loss metaphor(?) that's more about images and moods and feelings than concrete plot beats. I have no idea what I just played except it had a slight Indie Game About Death aura and it was really good and I loved it.

In other words, to the surprise of absolutely no one, this is in fact exactly what happens when the Raven Monologue team makes a puzzle game.

Anyway, we're very much looking forward to the full version. If you're curious, the prologue is free in the meantime.

After bouncing off Plants vs. Zombies 2 because of how aggressively EA the series had become, I noticed a few comments lamenting that even the original had gone that route these days. This struck me as odd, because last I checked, my copy (an Android version I picked up from one of the original Humble Mobile Bundiles like a kjhgpillion years ago) still seemed fine?

I loaded it up to check if they'd ruined it in a patch or something, and no, this was still the same unspoiled PopCap version. I tried a couple levels just to make sure. And then a couple more, because this is a fun game when it's not microtransaction'd to death. And then a cou... aww hell, I fell back into this again didn't I.

So I've sort of been picking at it, a stage or two before going to bed here and there, and this morning I finally cleared Adventure Mode (again.) Other than it taking me back to the main menu without playing Zombies on Your Lawn, everything was exactly as I remembered it. And now here we are!

Plants vs. Zombies is a line defense game where you plants and they zombies and blah blah everyone knows this game. It's really good, enough that even I love it and I hate tower/line defense games, and it has an endless amount of personality and charm. And then EA brutally murdered it later. But hey.

Now that I have an Adventure clear, I can try the endless stuff, try to grind for the more expensive twiddlydinkies, etc. or just play through Adventure again someday. I'm probably done for now, but the option is nice to have. If you happen to have an original copy of PvZ1 lying around anywhere, treasure it. It's a constant reminder that, at its core, there is something great here, and that there's a reason this game is so popular and missed.

Okay, at less than five minutes long and barely interactive, this is really stretching the definition of what's substantial enough to even be considered a "game," but I'm including it because I want to (it's our blog) and it's a positive message that badly needs to be spread and heard.

This Is Fine is a short little narrative pixel game based on that one KC Green comic. It's about love and friendship and making your own little corner of the world cozier together, even as the rest of the world burns outside. It was made in 2016 when 2016 happened, but it's still incredibly relevant in 2019. It's also the most accurate Clan Sugardoom simulator I've ever seen, and recommended extra hard to them.

It's that time of year again! (With a dash of "Aaaa is it that time of year again already, what do you mean this entire post is due today" as usual.)

Game Year 2019 is officially closed; anything we play, complete or abandon, or otherwise write up starting now counts toward the 2020 awards. The 2019 field is set, and... things feel a bit mixed? I feel like the pickings among some categories might be a bit lean, while others have some of the strongest and greatest competition yet, worthy of contesting even among the previous years' winners.

2019 by the numbers: 26 complete, 7 abandoned, 2 ongoing, for a total of 34 game reports in 2019. (Bugs and Kisses was dual-classified as Complete/Abandoned.) This puts 2019 with slightly more gaming activity than 2017, but significantly less than 2018. Still, anything that gets me to write 34 mini-articles in a year has to be considered a success. I know 2019 itself hit our clanmates pretty hard, such that we're the only ones left still doing this this year, but we're still having a good time with it.

Speaking of which, because we both had a blast doing this last year, Sara and I will resume our co-hosting roles. As always, some of these we agree on, others we'll split our votes, some we have no idea what we're going to pick and others are a foregone conclusion that we're just trying not to spoil in this post. Speculation and predictions are welcome and highly encouraged--who knows, you might even change our mind if you make a good enough case.

( Onward to the nominees, then! )

This came as an extremely high recommendation from xyzzysqrl. She played it, adored it, and pushed it on me. She bought it for me as a birthday present, and then periodically leaned on me with "Hey I know you have a lot of games in your backlog to get around to actually playing someday buuuuut *sad puppymog eyes*" reminders afterward. She believed in and fought for this game like it was your player character's in-game hopes and dreams (more on that in a bit.) Because I knew it meant so much to her, I promised I'd cut Arcade Spirits in line and play that one next as thanks for saving our otherwise-doomed efforts to get this whole CD-i thing off the ground. (Seriously, it is thanks to Xyzzy's work connecting us to her "Hey I found this CD-i in my closet and I'm looking to sell" friend that we now have the only footage of Lost Sheep on the entire Internet. That is important and something I will likely never forget. That's the kind of huge game-changing favor that gets an "If this works I will play Arcade Spirits to show how grateful I am" promise.)

You can read her review here and probably should. It covers a lot of very important details better than I could.

So, Arcade Spirits. Here we are, after all this, with what is... *eyes calendar* probably the last game in Game Year 2019 unless some 15-minute thing sneaks in. Xyzzy pushed this. Was it worth it? Did it live up to her hype?

Yes. Absolutely, emphatically yes. Honestly, her getting me to play this was a favor almost as big as the CD-i thing.

It is the semi-future year 20XX, and you are a mess. Advanced holographic life coach cell phone apps exist, but so does the same old human condition of day jobs and rent payments grinding you down. You're a hard-luck sort whose family has always had to do what they could to get by, such that you refer to it as a "family curse" in all seriousness as you go from uninspiring minimum wage gig to uninspiring minimum wage gig. You can't have nice things. If you do, that's just the universe taunting you and getting your hopes up just to dash them later. Having expectations only hurts you. You're here to settle. It's what you've always done, what your parents have always done.

Depressed and between jobs (again), you find yourself in your latest attempt: a small local mom-and-pop arcade, itself struggling to keep afloat. In this game's universe, the game crash of 1983 never happened, and arcades have continued to be a major industry. Working in an arcade is hideously risky, not because arcades are dead, but because they're so alive that the industry is fiercely competitive and cutthroat. The game itself compares arcades to the restaurant industry, where everyone wants to be a world-famous five-star establishment but getting off the ground is an entirely different story. This is Ratatouille but with video games, up to and including an Anton Ego-like Evil All-Powerful Critic who becomes a problem later on.

This is a story about hopes and dreams, about when to have them and when to settle, about what's worth fighting for. It's about getting by versus seeking fulfillment and happiness. The arcade is more than a job; it's a family, and everyone there is there because they truly believe in something. What about you?

Unique to the VN genre, Arcade Spirits doesn't force you into routes or romance options. You can certainly date your choice of supporting cast in this game, or you can not do that--Just Friends (and Family) is valid, too. You're here to help out at the arcade, after all. You can do your job, or you can try to find your "why" and/or possibly find love along the way. You can forge your personality with responses ranging from "hot-blooded Super Robot Wars protagonist" to "Care Bear" to "Dad-joking goofball" to "Vulcan", and attract or repel other personality types accordingly. What kind of person are you and what do you want out of this story? What kind of person are you and what do you want out of your life? There are no wrong answers, just risks and rewards to consider.

And boy oh boy, do the risks hurt. The thing about depression is that sometimes it's a protective shell because opening your heart hurts. Getting your hopes up hurts. This game can easily bring you to tears, both the "happy moving" kind and the "everything comes crashing down" kind. (Heck, the one time I legitimately cried was a happy moving regroup-and-rebuild scene after everything came crashing down.) But with that pain comes... well, life. That "why" you were looking for, and maybe (hopefully?) an end to the family curse.

Side note: This game uses one set of androgynous-looking player character artwork plus your choice of He/She/They pronouns, rather than attempting to draw distinctly "male" or "female" player character bodies. You have options for hair color, skin tone, etc. but you will end up with either a somewhat feminine-looking man, a somewhat masculine-looking woman, or the best non-binary #bodygoals representation ever. It may take a bit of getting used to at first, but it should be fine once you adjust. Honestly, if you're the type of person for whom that sort of concession is a serious objection, then there's a good chance this game isn't for you anyway.

Five games have been vanquished, and so IFComp 2019 comes to a close. All that remains is to give them number scores, provide some closing thoughts about IFComp itself this year, and submit everything. We still have a couple weeks to play an extra game or two for extra credit, but I'm confident calling this this "Final IFComp scores 2019" post because if we play more, I'll just go back and edit them into this one.

Please refer back to last year's scores to put this year's in perspective. I stand by almost all of them except that, in hindsight and as they've aged and such, I wish to retroactively bump Animalia up from a 9 to a perfect 10. Otherwise, I feel comfortable putting all of those against these.

Thus, in the context of how everything compares to last year and to the overall judging guidelines, I am scoring this year's games as follows:

Pas De Deux by Linus Åkesson: 8
(LATE EXTRA CREDIT EDIT) Out by Viktor Sobol: 6
Skies Above by Arthur DiBianca: 6
Remedial Witchcraft by dgtziea: 5
Abandon Them by Alan Beyersdorf: 4
The Milgram Parable by Peter Eastman: 3

This means that Pas De Deux is about on the same level as Re: Dragon and just barely shy of Basilica de Sangre, Skies Above is about on the same level as that stealth parody dumb-on-purpose edutainment game I embarrassingly fell for and thought was real and earnestly defended anyway, my least favorite game of last year matches up with Abandon Them this year, and The Milgram Parable is (barely, by one point) the new official worst IFComp game I have ever played.

Honestly, all of these factoids scan. So yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right.

So.

IFComp.

Whew.

This year was... a bit draining, on all of us. Last year, xyzzysqrl, swordianmaster, and Sara and I all got through at least five each, and we all had at least a fair amount of enthusiasm for the better ones in our respective piles. Animalia was a genuine delight, but honestly, Instruction Set was the only game from last year I didn't enjoy overall (and even that was an "I like the idea" effort weighed down by flaws.) IFComp was fun and we were greatly looking forward to having more fun this year.

This year was a lot darker. Real life happened and knocked Xyzzy and Sword out of the competition almost entirely (Xyzzy did play one game) and we got some really downbeat draws to start off our end. I started including the chatlogs as we were browsing for our final three to show off the copies of some of the ones we rejected, and while I definitely recall being choosy last year as well, I don't remember there being this much of a sense of "Surely there must be something good in here that can save IFComp."

Fortunately, our increasing choosiness did seem to pay off, and the games did get better as we persevered. In fact, the scores versus the chronological sequence in which we played the original five (3, 4, 5, 6, 8) are in eerily perfect order. Pas De Deux (and later Out in the extra credit round) did save IFComp, and Skies Above and Remedial Witchcraft were at least okay to decent.

So... I don't know. I guess there was a miasma this year after all. Clan Sugardoom has depression, IFComp has depression, maybe it's a miracle that at least one (or two, hi Sara) of us were able to pull even this much good out of it. But with a last second buzzer-beater of a final pull, I do consider this to have been a worthwhile thing to do and an enjoyable experience overall, and I do still look forward to doing this again.

(And, of course, you the reader are welcome to join in as well, if you'd like! Play at least five IF games, do writeups, submit scores, help make Dreamwidth the somehow active mutual gameblogging circle it has become.)

IF is good. IFComp 2019 may or may not be, but I think that's the "2019" at fault more than the "IFComp." Huge thanks to Xyzzy for getting us into this, as always. See you in IFComp 2020! Hopefully everyone is okay by then.

IFComp continues.

Celine & Sara Kalante, [21.10.19 22:36]
" Your plan for a peaceful day out comes to a halt when you see a person selling cats on the pavement. The cats look sick and require immediate veterinarian help! It’s all legal, but it’s also wrong. You must find a way to save the cats.

The game offers three characters to choose from and a total set of 10 endings.

Content warning: Implied animal abuse (nothing explicit); environmental damage

15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based "

JESUS. No.

Celine & Sara Kalante, [21.10.19 22:40]
" Springtime, 1993. Prom night. A lonely road on the way to the big dance. This should be a magical evening, but your date suddenly seems distant and withdrawn. Is it something you said? Or perhaps something more sinister is going on...

Horror • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx (See guide) "

Looking at the banner, this is very obviously a werewolf story. Looking at the "Horror" tag, this is probably not played for "anyway your boyfriend is fuzzy now and that's hot." She should not click the IF game, run away run away run away, full moon is on the sky and we've other games we should play

Celine & Sara Kalante, [21.10.19 22:41]
" Years ago, orphan Henry Smyth was saved off the streets when he was adopted by Katherine Kellner - only to run away a few years later. Now, he’s finally made a decent life for himself. His world is turned upside down when he finds out that Kellner has been arrested on the charge of being a pedophile. This knowledge brings impulsive decisions and repressed memories along with it.

Play as Henry as he struggles to make sense of his past and come to terms with it. Your decisions throughout the story affect Henry’s confidence and morality – choose wisely.

Content warning: This game is intended for mature audiences only. Contains: strong language, violence, mention of child abuse and suicide.

Drama • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based "

See if you can spot the exact word where I noped out of this one.

Celine & Sara Kalante, [21.10.19 22:43]
" Play minigames to get your airship flying, tour the skies, and see what mischief is going on up there.

Parser-based • Glulx (See guide) "

There we go. Yes good we'll take it.

And so, IFComp 2019 pick number four is "Skies Above" by Arthur DiBianca. It's the first-ever IFComp game I wrote off without actually finishing it, yet it still somehow managed to be my favorite one of this year so far.

( Away we go! )

I have a Switch Online subscription and this was in their NES library. I remember Nintendo Power made it look really cool back when I was a child, but I never actually got to play it, and I've kind of always been curious.

So, how does actually playing an Aicom game from 1991 hold up to a lifetime of Nintendo Power hype, nostalgia, and curiosity?

( Well.... )

IFComp continues.

Full disclosure: I slept very poorly due to absolutely gutting bad dreams last night, and have been groggy and sluggish all day. It's almost dinnertime and I feel like I haven't even woken up and started the day yet, let alone... like... done anything. Xyzzy seems to be a bit out of sorts too, though, so who knows. Maybe there's a kind of general miasma going around my friend circle lately. Or maybe IFComp is just cursed with all-consuming depression this year, since this is my second downer game in a row.

I will try my best to set general feelings of blurf aside and judge this game on its actual merits, because I tend to just copy/paste these reviews into IFComp's actual score submission with minor edits as necessary, and "I'm a mess today so I'm going to dock points because I'm just not feeling this one" isn't exactly fair to the author.

Anyway. Next up we have Abandon Them by Alan Beyersdorf. Its copy:

"What exactly happened during the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel? How do we separate the fantasy of the folklore from the realities of starvation and abandonment?

"While often viewed as a fantasy story, my intention was to view this story from a psychological perspective.

"If you were a character in their story, what sorts of choices would you make?"

( Spoiler cut I guess, though it's one of those less-than-fifteen-minute games and it's very railroaded, so there's almost nothing here to spoil. )

Adventures With Anxiety is a free web game, mostly VN-ish by gameplay (pick the dialogue options,) and both incredibly Too Real and... actually really theraputic and helpful.

You are The Anxiety, here represented by a quite frankly adorable wolf. Your job is to protect your human from DANGER such as eating unhealthy foods, going outside, or not being productive enough in the eyes of society.

Full disclosure: I myself have pretty bad anxiety, and even had regular panic attacks for basically no reason (my body just physically decided it was panic attack o'clock) for a while there, until I got some therapy which... well, I don't get panic attacks anymore. I still have anxiety, but it's manageable. I have to refrain from a lot of things. (The literal first thing my therapist told me was to get the fuck off Twitter, for example.) If you have a food allergy, so you avoid the food you're allergic to, and then you're fine, it's not like you're cured because you'd still have an allergic reaction if you ate it again, you know? But you're okay as long as you don't, so... my anxiety is manageable now, is what I'm saying, and that's probably the best one could hope for.

This game... having been through the panic attacks and the therapy and all, I can vouch that it's scarily accurate, both in how having anxiety feels and the actual best way to cope with it if you have it. I went in with what my therapist told me and it's exactly what you're supposed to do here, too. This game reduces anxiety into a cute fluffy metaphor, which is incredibly helpful on two layers. It serves as something others can understand to know what it's like, and it helps sufferers themselves put their feelings into perspective and teach some healthy ways to tame that wolf.

This is highly recommended. It's free and half an hour long so it's in the "why not" pile. It's cute and adorable, educational and informative, and has a sweet and heartfelt emotional message to wrap the whole thing off. It pretty much did the Toy Story 3 thing of making me cry at the end and then whiplashing into a fun dance party credit sequence that brought me right back up again. A+ please check this out.



Sara adds: ... Not much, actually; Celine basically said it all. But just... yeah. I agree strongly enough that I wanted to go on record that I said it too. This is almost exactly what Celine goes through, except hers is a Totodile instead of a wolf. It's actually kind of eerie how spot-on this game gets it. This game is definitely an experience worth having and sharing with people who've had it.