Winners of the 2016 IFComp

Robin Johnson

New Losago, 1929 - a town full of creeps, clowns, mobsters and, if you know where to look, the occasional honest citizen. Guide private investigator Lanson Rose through a series of puzzling cases: solve the city's liquor supply problem in "Speakeasy Street", track down a missing food scientist in "The Big Pickle", and investigate strange goings-on under a dilapidated mansion in "A Study in Squid".

Includes (optional) music and sound.

This work also won 3rd place in the 2016 Miss Congeniality Awards.

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mathbrush

Rosalita Morales is dead, and you have to figure out who did it. The four people closest to her had the motive and the means: her partner, her secretary, her ex-husband, and her sister. Re-live their memories of Rosalita's last days to discover what really happened. But be careful: Everyone has something to hide, and everyone will Color the Truth.

Color the Truth is conversation-based murder mystery game that takes roughly 2 hours to finish. It is designed to be accessible to players who have never tried parser games, and comes with adaptive hints accessible by typing HINT.

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Astrid Dalmady

Somewhere between New Mexico and Arizona, three friends were driving through a barren desert of red rocks, and wide empty skies. It was the end of summer, the end of high school, the end of so many things.

And then they found the Cactus Blue Motel.

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Liza Daly

You're good at what you do: tell tourists pretty lies about love, money, and life after death. That's what people want from a boardwalk psychic, and you deliver. It's not the future you imagined for yourself, though, and sometimes you think you're waiting for your real life to start. That wait ends today.

The curtain is opening, and it's got something it needs you to see.

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Abigail Corfman

You're a vampire hunter on your night off.

You're getting a manicure, seeing a movie, and eating fast food.

But there's a vampire in this McDonalds.

If you don't do something, then in one hour it will eat the cashier.

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Jack Welch

The world is full of Pogomen, and now that you don’t have a job or family to worry about, you might as well get back to it!

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Hanon Ondricek

As the most famous self-published Science Fiction author residing in Hillview, you are eminently qualified to judge their annual Elementary School Science Fair.

Note: Filfre interpreter is not supported, please use alternatives when not playing online.

This work also won 2nd place in the 2016 Miss Congeniality Awards.

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Bitter Karella

You're eight years old. You wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but you soon realize that not everything is as it seems in the house tonight. Where has everyone gone? Your family is missing and strange things are lurking in the shadows. Night House is an atmospheric text adventure about things that go bump in the night.

Download for best experience.

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Jeremy Pflasterer

When he fears that a reclusive neighbor’s weird ministrations are leading the locals astray, an old cowboy takes it upon himself to amble back up to Hill Ridge and set things a-right.

Note: This game was designed for the HTML TADS Player Kit (http://www.tads.org/tads3.htm). Another interpreter that appears to support the game is QTads (http://qtads.sourceforge.net/downloads.shtml). Some universal interpreters, including Zoom, Spatterlight, and Gargoyle, do not support this game.

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Brian Kwak

The disgrace and humiliation of last year's defeat is behind you. This time, with the help of the gods, you'll win this competition for sure.

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Els White

Offered up as sacrifice to the wolf-gods of the forest, hunted by beasts and man alike, Ella must find a way to survive.

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Victor Ojuel

Isle of Aeaea, the eastern Aegean. 3,500 years ago. In the northern wastes, the Achaeans have a new and warlike chieftain. Palace after palace is falling to his armies. On the shores of Crete, the Minoan civilisation awaits at the eve of extinction. At her sanctuary of Aeaea, the cunning Circe struggles to coordinate a political counteroffensive... And somewhere in the sticks, a young Minoan priestess named Ariadne wakes up to a hangover of mythological proportions.

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Arthur DiBianca

Your friend Mike thinks no one can infiltrate THE FACILITY, but you're going to prove him wrong.

A light puzzle game. In the author's opinion, it's totally family-friendly.

(Note: All players should look at the Facility Mapping Kit by clicking the "Walkthrough" button below. It's not hints or a walkthrough, it's a mapping template intended for everyone. If you would like a walkthrough, one is included in the "Download" zip file.)

This work also won 1st place in the 2016 Miss Congeniality Awards.

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Ade

It is a long million, this. The Septem Tower, held in the Manifold by the Tagides Rings, grinds on and on - its grey walls pressing close. The only thing to look forward to is the long, cold, endless Waste.

The Royderlanks in the Body, aloof and cruel, expect too much and give too little. Only the Game of Worlds can take your mind away from the crushing obligations of a Vociferant worker. And finally, a wildcard into the Tournament of the Perfect Aphelion - only held once every ten progressions. This is your chance.

The Cards await. The Tournament begins. The tables are prepared.

(Note: If you have downloaded the zip, the game is played best by launching the index.html file in the browser, but I have included a gblorb so you can play in your favorite 'terp.)

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Chandler Groover

These beasts won't feed themselves.

A puzzleless exhibition. Ten to fifteen minutes.

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Lee Grey

Ash is an autobiographical story about the final days of life, and the loss of a parent.

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Marco Vallarino

Ovranilla: a gloomy land full of traps. And wicked monsters. Carmilla, Millarca and Mircalla: the priestesses of the god Valmar, waiting for you in the devil's hole. Welcome back, Martin Voigt. Will hell be bad enough to stop you?

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Aquanet

What has two tongues but can't talk and follows us everywhere we go? Our lovely, leathery shoes, of course, the absolute last thing any person would ever expect to harbor a terrible secret. Fifteen-year-old Michael Cherry, for example, has no idea.

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Phantom Williams

500 Apocalypses is a web installation memorializing collapsed civilizations from across our universe. This interactive space is designed to allow contemplative engagement with five hundred curated entries from the Encyclopedia Apocalyptica.

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Fade Manley

A little microbe in the primordial ooze has grand dreams! Dreams of survival, by and large, but small goals lead to large ones. Can you climb your way out of the ooze onto the land, into civilization, and up to the stars? And by the time you reach space, will you be wearing the fanciest of all fancy hats?

[This game file can be opened and run with any browser, but tends to work best in Firefox.]

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K.G. Orphanides

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

As you wake to find yourself on the acceleration couch in Control, you can expect the muscle memory of your training to come back first: the product of intensive drills designed to prepare you for both combat and the stresses of command. The reintegration of your memory framework follows: your years at the academy and all that came before.

Finally, critical mission data will be directly encoded to your mind, giving you the most recent status reports available, for all that you weren't even aware of your own existence during the ship's long journey to this distant star.

This is what you trained for. This is what you are. So why don't you know what you're supposed to be doing here?

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Chandler Groover

Your mirror never lies.

A puzzleless reflection. Fifteen to forty minutes.

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Devin Raposo

The walls are high, the hole is deep. She is trapped, on a distant planet. Watched. She may not survive. But, she did live.

(When playing the online version of this game or downloading it from this website, there will be a ~minute or so-long loading time. This is normal - it is loading all the audio upfront for a seamless experience. If you prefer, you can download an offline version of the game (different from the downloadable from the competition page) which includes all the sounds in a zip file. For the smaller size .ogg audio version (45 MB) which does not work with Internet Explorer, download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6V5SSq3s80nVUJoSlFXUVIxVW8/view?usp=sharing ; for the larger size .mp3 audio version (109 MB) which works in Internet Explorer, download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6V5SSq3s80neDR6bXM2U213M1E/view?usp=sharing . You may have trouble playing this game with the Microsoft Edge browser - if you do, Chrome and Firefox work 100% of the time, and Internet Explorer seems to work well most of the time. Thank you for your understanding.)

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Xalavier Nelson Jr.

SCREW YOU, BEAR DAD! is a game about puns, rampant drug use, learning to enjoy life despite uncertainty, and elderly women in attack helicopters.

Also - bears.

[Note: game contains strong language, and brief scenes depicting familial abuse.]

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Felicity Banks

The year is 1860. The place is Bearbrass, Australia: a sprawling metropolis of tin, steel, brick, stone and brass.

Queen Victoria is visiting Bearbrass for Australia's own Great Exhibition. All the sharpest minds of the colony have worked day and night to perfect their devices and displays.

An infamous rebel named Emmeline Muchamore has declared her intention to gain independence for the state of Victoria.

The two powerful women meet in the marvellous, magical heart of Bearbrass.

Rating: PG

You can play it online at http://philome.la/FBanksBooks/stuff-and-nonsense/play

The images will not work if the game is played offline, but the game will still function.

If you use the back button more than once in a row, you'll be stuck in an eternal loop. Make your choices wisely.

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Madison Evans

A twine game where the reader explores a stack of letters left on their desk from someone they cared about. She has hidden herself inside her words, and all you can do is read between the lines. Can you find her?

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Arno von Borries

A comedy in four parts about exciting games of instinct and wits, set in childhood. Not necessarily for children.

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Katherine Morayati (writing as “Amelia Pinnolla”)

You are battle-weary. Your armor is scanty and your countenance is loathsome; you tire of the swords flicking at your neck. But you have a duty. There is nothing you can't take.

(Content warning: Violence, implied adult themes, fameballs.)

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Story, Art, & UX Design by Jenny Goldstick, Development by Stephen Betts & Owen Roberts

A graphic memoir exploring the author’s memory of her first heartbreak.

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Jim Munroe

You're at Burning Man, with six choices to make before the world goes white. Choose wisely. Or wildly. The dust storm won't care.

Zero puzzles, sixty-four endings.

Cover: Trish Lamanna

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Marco Vallarino

Vigamus, the Video Game Museum of Rome, has been attacked by zombies. To save it from the monsters, you can only count on your brain and the relics and gadgets exhibited in the building.

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Ned Vole

Copepods hate this game.

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Owlor

As the only diplomat of a doomed island nation, you need to learn the culture and customs of the Horses in order to succeed with your mission. These aliens are outwardly friendly, but secretive to a fault. You journey to the island of Hagia, where you have the opportunity to learn the secrets of the Saints, a type of religious folk-heroes whose likeness is inscribed on the plains in massive Geoglyphs.

You'll encounter a peculiar world full of spiders, strange animals, sickness, anxiety and various sundry things that may or may no try to kill you as you quest to find the mysterious Traitor Saint.

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Adam Whybray and Edgar Allan Poe

"MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch". (Edgar Allan Poe, 'Berenice', 1835)

This condition will never change! But you can, at least, banish it for your mind awhile with 'Evermore: A Choose Your Own Edgar Allan Poe Adventure'!

Containing over 60 of Poe's stories, poems, and essays in adapted, truncated, respectfully disfigured, and exciting "hyper-textual" forms 'Evermore' is the only game with the hubris to connect "all" of the great author's works into one, branching-pathed Leviathan and labyrinthine narrative.

----

Best played in Chrome or Firefox as sound effects in ogg. form to meet space requirements. If downloading, please extract audio files to the same folder as the html file.

Content Warning: Murder, torture and asphyxiation.

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Skarn

Counseling is no easy job.

When someone requests your help, within the space of a few questions, you must have learned enough about them, about their strengths and weaknesses, about what they want and what they need, to give them some appropriate advice, guidance which will do more good than bad.

And, in your specific case, you also need to answer many, many questions about your mother.

---

See walkthrough for full credits.

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Cecilia Rosewood

You're probably familiar with those stories where people suddenly develop mysterious powers, and save the day. Well, this isn't one of those. Not the 'saving the day' part, at least.

In this game you'll play as a member of the ASCD, a sort of militarized branch of the local police force, tasked with dealing with anomalies. These anomalies are people who gained mysterious powers either during or after the surges of power. Most of them are relatively harmless, but there are some who possess the power to level cities to the ground. Better watch your step.

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Taylor Johnson

Your city is burning.

Parker, a riot control officer, is thrust into the heat of his first riot when one mistake changes everything.

Now he wanders through the bedlam, harbouring a deadly secret.

*Play Online For Best Experience*

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anbrewk

“What distinguishes a memory palace from a memory labyrinth is that each place of memory in a palace is intended to be found, while in a labyrinth the structure is more than a means of storage: it is a way of hiding what one wishes to be kept secret."

This game attempts to create a sense of lore, of place, of journey for an undetermined character. By the end of a single playthrough, the player ought to feel that they made choices, that they felt something for the person they were playing, and, hopefully, that their character was theirs and not mine. There are many paths and many endings, though only one labyrinth. [Contains graphic descriptions of violence and death]

(Press “Escape” to quit.)

For macOS users, the following link provides a mac build: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3eVaVjgrSpgQmZxck10Y2RrMlU?usp=sharing

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verityvirtue

I am a sigil reader. I work in a city where sigils are a matter of public health, for a maliciously inscribed sigil could mean the ruin of a business - or a soul.

Except today I wake to a changed world. The sigils are distorted. And the Station is silent. I fear I am responsible.

A short parser game about exploration, loss and restoration.

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Andrew Schultz

Years after the Problems Compound, Alec Smart still runs into reverses.

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Naomi Norbez (call me Bez, e/he) (writing as “Norbez”)

Better get back to the dorm if you don't want to get hurt, Evelyn Grey.

**This game contains mature language, alcohol, abuse, and a brief scene of violence. Player discretion is advised.**

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Peregrine Wade

The heat is stifling, the hotel room is vastly overpriced, and your heart is in pieces.

But the worse is yet to come...

WARNING: This story contains potentially humorous depictions of Mexican headgear.

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Diego Freire, Ruber Eaglenest

The skyscraper is silhouetted against the horizon, an open scar on the skyline, rising until it’s lost in the clouds. A promise of prosperity, of something never reached. A monolith of what we once were and might not be again. A beacon in the night, for those who still believe in the strength of concrete, steel and flesh.

[This game contains explicit language, intense violence, blood and gore, drug consumption and sexual references.]

[The game is mobile friendly and it is optimized for all screen sizes.]

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Marie L. Vibbert

Guess it's time to take over the world. Somebody has to.

You live in East Cleveland, Ohio, so your options are limited, but urban-chic.

Find the right evil lair, recruit a mad scientist, and foil the East Cleveland authorities. Who knows - you may even end up leading an army of giant robots through Pittsburgh before you are done.

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Andy Joel

What is in the blood-soaked envelope the archaeologist gave Tanya just before she died?

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Michael Kielstra

The dazzle of the theatre: the footlights, the bows, the adoring crowd! It's your job, as a tech crew member, to make sure that the actors and, especially, the actresses, get enough of that. Not for you the ten-minute standing ovation; your lot is to deal with pushy stage managers, issues with the fly tower, and a bartender who, no matter what, flat-out refuses to give you free drinks. Even when you could really use one. Especially when you could really use one...

Maybe, just maybe, this could be your ticket to the big time. You could single-handedly get the production back on its feet, win the praise and adulation of all, and, possibly, even aid a damsel in distress. Alternatively, you could do your job quietly, stay out of peoples' way, and have no reward but the quiet smugness of an underrated worker. Fame, glory, and a trek in search of rope await!

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Phil McGrail

The Automatic Hotel, once hailed as a symbol of scientific progress and invention, stands crumbling. Surrounded by protesters trying to save the historic landmark and mired in rumors about the hotel's once-great steam-powered automatons, the building now represents something much more sinister. It's the last place that you saw your husband alive.

You must find a way to enter the mysterious hotel and discover the secretes of its celestial prison. But more importantly, you must make a choice. Which is more important – the life of your husband or the survival of humanity as you know it?

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Caroline Berg

... you do not know how you got here. The last thing you remember is going out to eat at a fancy restaurant. Perhaps you were drugged. Perhaps you had a bad case of food poisoning and wandered off, feverish, into the outskirts of town. Whatever the case may be, you are here now. Wherever here is. And you want to leave.

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Jeron Paraiso

You've just crash landed in a mysterious forest. The only clue you have about your identity is the black cultish clothing you wear. Lucky for you the local old man is willing to help you learn and survive! You must explore, collect, consume, craft, and equip yourself in order to escape and take revenge on those who have sabotaged you. Make sure to revisit and re-inspect previously explored areas and find hidden stuff.

Features:

Openly explorable environment filled with danger

Smart action prompt, only giving you simple, 1 to 2 key input actions that are all valid at the time of decision

NPC Dialog

Deep combat system with attack/react techniques

Hunger system

Hidden rooms

Leveling system, based on your choices (Your experience applies when you rest)

Save system (Use the Journal action anytime you aren't in combat)

Cheats/God mode (see readme)

Check the SMReadme.txt in the download for game mechanics overview and details on how to launch it.

Format: This game is built in Ruby. The download comes with an .exe/bin for Windows/Mac, and an easy install+gem file for linux. If you have trouble for any reason launching the game, let me know via the email link. It's my highest priority to have you experience the game.

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Nahian Nasir

Is the Red Apple the only place in the world that has hosted a god within its walls? Float through several psychedelic experiences, and interact with demons, monsters, and some more!

[This game contains horror, gore and profanity.]

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Hippodamus & Company

To understand the life of Zephyra, my Parthenos and protector, I have to take you back many years. We need to return to Kyzikos, the heavily-wooded little moon that orbits Arctonnesus, the giant cloud-covered planet, in the Propontis system. She struggled against forces both worldly and divine. She restored freedom and prosperity for her people.

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BillyJaden

Kims love smells like a poppy, sedating your body and senses until only darkness is left. But something is whispering from beyond; a long since forgotten memory of consciousness .

A poetic sci-fi story with music. [Triggers: violence, surreality, possibly gore]

Headphones recommended.

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Andrew Brown

An attempt to write a humorous TWINE IF game... The walk through is included... (Hmmm... This isn't a very exciting blurb, is it?)

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Megan Stevens

Your girlfriend has gone to work and you're alone in the house. What will you do? Learn a new language? Take up an instrument? Train for a marathon?

Or I guess you could take a nap.

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Adam Bredenberg, Danial Mohammed Khan-Yousufzai

An interactive ghazal-sonnet on love and longing, fire and passion.

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Daffs O'Dill

You've only heard that one could see past or future lives through the use of certain teas, and a good rest.

Surely you weren't expecting this.

[This game contains a death scene, blood in multiple cases, and nudity.]

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Rob Chateau

Manlandia is a utopian interactive fiction that describes an isolated society composed entirely of men, who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order: free of war, conflict, and domination – but the result is also a thrilling interactive story involving an aeroplane, a bold trio of explorers, daring encounters and escapes, and other amazing adventures.

Cover art image CC BY-SA 3.0 (C) Gert Germeraad 2011, Portret van een man005.jpg

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Chet Rocketfrak

ToiletWorld: it's time to enter... the world of toilets.

COPYRIGHT 2016 UNITED PLUMBING

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