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The Interactive Fiction Competition (IFComp) is an annual celebration of new, text-driven digital games and stories from independent creators. You can play as many of the entries as you like and vote for them in a ballot (requires a free signup). The vote is up to 15 Oct. I have played several of the choice based entries playable online.

Games I have finished and like:

Saltwrack: "A crew of three. A lost city, far in the north. A thousand miles of toxic ice. Plot your course, manage supplies, study apocalypse biota, and don't lose your mind. You'll find out why the world was ruined, or die trying. Content warning: This is a work of horror; it gets grim. Specific content warnings are available in the game's ABOUT page."

thoughts: I like it most. Very atmospheric, and the resource management gameplay really matches how grim and strange the world is.

Pharos Fidelis: "A romantic island getaway. CW: graphic violence, sexually suggestive content, toxic academia, denial of agency, hunger, death. Postmodern fantasy-horror gay demon melodrama"

thoughts: I find the world building with demon summoning intriguing. The gay reluctant summoner/demon romance is nice. I also like the check point system: saving me time to replay.

The Litchfield Mystery: "A wealthy businessman, dead in his study. Eight suspects, harbouring secrets and twisted truths. "There's always more to it than meets the eye..." To others, a tired cliché. To you, the cardinal principle that has successfully guided you in all your cases as The Sleuth. And you, Detective Pearce, are not about to let this one go cold."

thoughts: The walkthrough is very detailed and useful. The clues are reasonable, and the solution makes sense.

The Secrets of Sylvan Gardens: "When you find yourself sleepwalking in the lush ornamental gardens of the Sylvan Villa, you must discover how to break the thrall of a mysterious trance. You will be aided in your journey by the gardens' keepers: a gardener, a botanist, a librarian, and an enigmatic hermit. Form bonds of friendship or pursue a slow-burn romance as you roleplay, helping these companions with quests that draw you deeper into their individual stories."

thoughts: It's a cosy fantasy adventure with a good mix of puzzles. The NPc are cute and I love spending time with them. I also like the thoughtful ending choices, The creator(s) also created Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade (solving a mystery before an opera opening) & The Path of Totality (cozy fantasy road trip adventure), which are both enjoyable

Penthesileia: "Your husband is a very important man, he tells you; many would like to see his head on a silver platter. Content warning: Material may not be suitable for children; please note strong language, as well as allusions to death, sexual themes, and violence"

thoughts: It's linear and quite obvious how the plot will go, but it's satisfying to play to the end.

meikuree

this will mostly be me kvetching. props to this: I haven't read something which sparked such a polarised opinion from my own self in a while.

aesthetically this was a 4/5. I admired how experimental and unnovellike this was, the 'take it or leave it' approach to style and its avant-garde structure, and so on. great form, A+. but I hated much else of the book! I did not like the content undergirding that formal innovation, the entire scaffolding of ideas surrounding its (apparently) exploration of nature vs nurture or the place of intelligence in the contemporary world, so emotionally my rating is a 1.5/5.

in short: if there was an Olympics category for pissing me off, this book won it. the worst part is that the book is far from unsalvageable. it’s definitely original, good at points. it could have been pushed further. I could see many times how this book could've been better crafted to get across its (indeed defensible!) message better, but it just felt insular.

secretly, I also find this book to be ignorant and racist. not overtly racist, but racist in the way any book imbibing wider ideas about intelligence while leaving its core untouched will be: because of the fabric of how it conceptualises intelligence, and where the scope of its attention extends to (and also doesn't).

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snowynight

6 medium-sized apples, 5 eggs, 1 quart of milk, sugar, the rind of 1/2 a lemon and some almond or vanilla essence. Pare and core the apples, and boil them in 1 pint of water, sweetened with 2 oz. of sugar, and the lemon rind added, until they are beginning to get soft. Remove the apples from the saucepan and place them in a pie-dish without the syrup. Heat the milk and make a custard with the eggs, well beaten, and the hot milk; sweeten and flavour it to taste, pour the custard over the apples, and bake the pudding until the custard is set.

From Dr. Allinson's cookery book, comprising many valuable vegetarian recipes by T. R. Allinson (1915)