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COMPLETE: extraordinary_fandoms.exe
Oct. 22nd, 2021 01:33 amIFComp 2021 continues. This is our fifth played and reviewed entry. The rules for IFComp judges are that anyone can jump in and play and review as many games as they want (and more people should--a lot of these are really neat and thought provoking, and there are far more games here than we will be able to cover) so long as 1) you give each game a 1-10 score that more or less follows the spirit of their guidelines, and 2) you play and review at least five games. Therefore, we could just come up with some numbers for the five we've played so far and, oh, hey, we successfully IFComped this year, hooray. I do think we might stick around for a couple more bonus picks, though, as there were more in the pile that looked intriguing. No reason to stop if we're still having fun.
extraordinary_fandoms.exe by Storysinger (aka TheStorysinger or Storysinger Presents) continues our recent trend of sticking with this family of game developers. You know Bez, author of The Dead Account and Weird Grief (both of which we just reviewed?) Storysinger is his sister, and it turns out she also has a thing or two to say about viewing difficult and emotional real-life situations through the lens of online fandoms and the support of the friends and loved ones that one finds within them.
There are two main differences here. The first is that instead of furries, this game has a fandom for "C-Project," a fictional anime... idol group? I guess like Vocaloid personas without the software? It's a very clear knockoff of B-PROJECT, which is a real thing that we have never heard of before, so this game has already taught us something new (namely, that this is a thing, that exists.) I guess this is what we get for musing about what The Dead Account must feel like to someone who isn't a furry like we are; we have zero connection to the B-PROJECT fandom, and when the dialogue started reading like we'd accidentally joined Twitter k-pop stan Discord, we just kind of... smiled politely and took their word for it. It mostly makes sense in context, which is something we have to mention and credit; the dialogue is written well enough that it's accessible even to someone like us without the relevant context, and that is a good feat of writing for which we are grateful.
The real point of this game, though, is its second main difference: instead of a death in the community, this game's difficult subject matter behind the fandom is that our focal character is in a horrifically abusive and unsafe household, and the friends they make in that server are concerned and trying to help them find a way out. Chat sessions alternate between the team excitedly working on several revisions of their C-Project fansite and DMing our focal character to ask if they're okay.
Of the siblings' games, I would put this one in the same pile as Weird Grief for much the same reasons. Both are very compelling and authentic stories, with this raw and soul-baring feeling to them that makes us feel grateful to each author for sharing their respective experiences. We recommend both to anyone who's even vaguely curious about either (and who can handle the subject matter, of course.) Neither are... the most game games we have ever played. We spoke about this in our Weird Grief review, but strange_fandoms.exe might just be even less interactive than Weird Grief. It has enough "choices" that it technically qualifies as IF, but a large number of them are so meaningless (for example, choosing "Hi!" versus "Hello!" when the player first joins the server) that putting them in there to make this a valid IFComp game feels kind of like using a large font and triple-spacing to get one's essay past the required page count threshold. We'll allow it, but mostly because we really liked this story and found it worth experiencing, and we wish nothing but the best for this author. (Both these authors.) We have to note that it's kind of stretching the definition of the competition, though, even while we sing its praises and remain grateful that it was submitted.
We liked this one and will score it (and Weird Grief) appropriately; don't worry. We may just need to find another one of those straight up puzzle-solving parser adventure after this, is all, just so we can chase the experience down with something less iffy and more IFfy. (Hmm. Perhaps we shouldn't have done Finding Light first.)
extraordinary_fandoms.exe by Storysinger (aka TheStorysinger or Storysinger Presents) continues our recent trend of sticking with this family of game developers. You know Bez, author of The Dead Account and Weird Grief (both of which we just reviewed?) Storysinger is his sister, and it turns out she also has a thing or two to say about viewing difficult and emotional real-life situations through the lens of online fandoms and the support of the friends and loved ones that one finds within them.
There are two main differences here. The first is that instead of furries, this game has a fandom for "C-Project," a fictional anime... idol group? I guess like Vocaloid personas without the software? It's a very clear knockoff of B-PROJECT, which is a real thing that we have never heard of before, so this game has already taught us something new (namely, that this is a thing, that exists.) I guess this is what we get for musing about what The Dead Account must feel like to someone who isn't a furry like we are; we have zero connection to the B-PROJECT fandom, and when the dialogue started reading like we'd accidentally joined Twitter k-pop stan Discord, we just kind of... smiled politely and took their word for it. It mostly makes sense in context, which is something we have to mention and credit; the dialogue is written well enough that it's accessible even to someone like us without the relevant context, and that is a good feat of writing for which we are grateful.
The real point of this game, though, is its second main difference: instead of a death in the community, this game's difficult subject matter behind the fandom is that our focal character is in a horrifically abusive and unsafe household, and the friends they make in that server are concerned and trying to help them find a way out. Chat sessions alternate between the team excitedly working on several revisions of their C-Project fansite and DMing our focal character to ask if they're okay.
Of the siblings' games, I would put this one in the same pile as Weird Grief for much the same reasons. Both are very compelling and authentic stories, with this raw and soul-baring feeling to them that makes us feel grateful to each author for sharing their respective experiences. We recommend both to anyone who's even vaguely curious about either (and who can handle the subject matter, of course.) Neither are... the most game games we have ever played. We spoke about this in our Weird Grief review, but strange_fandoms.exe might just be even less interactive than Weird Grief. It has enough "choices" that it technically qualifies as IF, but a large number of them are so meaningless (for example, choosing "Hi!" versus "Hello!" when the player first joins the server) that putting them in there to make this a valid IFComp game feels kind of like using a large font and triple-spacing to get one's essay past the required page count threshold. We'll allow it, but mostly because we really liked this story and found it worth experiencing, and we wish nothing but the best for this author. (Both these authors.) We have to note that it's kind of stretching the definition of the competition, though, even while we sing its praises and remain grateful that it was submitted.
We liked this one and will score it (and Weird Grief) appropriately; don't worry. We may just need to find another one of those straight up puzzle-solving parser adventure after this, is all, just so we can chase the experience down with something less iffy and more IFfy. (Hmm. Perhaps we shouldn't have done Finding Light first.)
