The Games of the 2021 IFComp

This document lists all the entries of the 2021 Annual Interactive Fiction Competition, with their cover art, blurbs, and other author-supplied information exactly as they stood when the competition opened for public judging on October 1, 2021.

To play the games, please find and explore the folder labeled "Games" that accompanied this document. It contains a complete collection of all the listed work. You can always download a fresh copy of this collection from the IF Archive website.

The online version of this page features controls and links that can help you download and play these games individually.

You may also wish to read some further notes about the 2021 IFComp, including a list of the volunteers who helped make it possible, and advice for playing the different kinds of games found among the entries.

4x4 Archipelago

Cover art for 4x4 Archipelago

Agnieszka Trzaska @agat_writes irimion@gmail.com

Adventure waits for you in a procedurally generated Archipelago! Discover strange new lands. Make a fortune from trading. Swing a Really Big Sword at a dragon. Fight wild beasts – or turn them into your allies. Meet the puffins (if you're really lucky). With dozens of possible enemies, quests, and items, no two visits to the Archipelago are the same.

Cover art and in-game map art by Sarah McMenomy.

Fantasy RPG • Longer than two hours • Choice-based •

AardVarK Versus the Hype
A Text Adventure of Garage Bands, Brain Slugs, and a Convenience Store

Cover art for AardVarK Versus the Hype

Truthcraze @truthcrazeIF truthcraze@gmail.com

November, 1997, somewhere in the suburbs:

Carpenter jeans.

Mixtapes.

Alt Rock.

A mind-controlling vaguely-citrus soda.

A beat-up 1989 Toyota Celica.

A gas station that sells snacks.

And the band whose name would echo through history, the world saviors/rockers: AardVarK

Light Scifi Thriller • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx

After-Words

Cover art for After-Words

fireisnormal @fireisnormal

Resolve problems. Open Gates. Free Skycity. Go home.

A game where you explore a surreal floating city, in which all room descriptions, lines of dialogue, item descriptions and action text are a maximum of two words each. Custom interface.

Half an hour • Web-based

And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One

Cover art for And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One

B.J. Best @bjbest60 bjbest60@gmail.com

Title: Infinite Adventure

Year: 1986

Genre: Adventure

Summary: Wander through an apparently infinite number of spooky mansions, solving a basic puzzle in each one.

ForgottenGames.com rating: ★ ★ ★

Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx

An Aside About Everything

Cover art for An Aside About Everything

Sasha

A girl has gone missing and He has set out to find her. Join Him on an adventure through fantastical and strange worlds in an effort to find the one closest to Him.

Adventure, surreal • One hour • Choice-based •

At King Arthur's Christmas Feast
An adaptation of the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Cover art for At King Arthur's Christmas Feast

Travis Moy moytravis@gmail.com

One Christmas at Camelot in charged a strange fellow,

a giant man all green, great axe in hand,

and called out a challenge in the court of King Arthur:

"Bequeath me one blow, behead me clean,

and then,

in one day and a year,

pay your price in blood red!

Come to my chapel queer,

to kneel and lose your head!"

Two hours • Choice-based •

The Belinsky Conundrum

Cover art for The Belinsky Conundrum

Sam Ursu samcelroman@gmail.com

As a top-secret agent Enhanced with cutting-edge neural implants, your job is to do whatever it takes to protect the national security of the United States. But when a celebrated scientist dies under mysterious circumstances, you are given your most difficult mission ever - assassinate an innocent family!

Just how far will YOU go in order to protect the world?

Content warning: This game is all about making difficult ethical choices

Thriller • Half an hour • Choice-based •

Beneath Fenwick

Cover art for Beneath Fenwick

Pete Gardner snackypete@protonmail.com

Fenwick is a serene, nineteenth-century township located deep within the wetland regions of western New England. Only a short drive from the storied academy known as Ealdian College, you have long been looking forward to experiencing everything this quaint, off-the-grid community has to offer.

It's not long before you realize something's amiss. The people in this decaying town are just... weird. And the school residences are over-booked, so why is your boarding house almost empty? And what's with that gardner outside? It's like he wants to tell you something, but can't.

It's a shame you don't get to see the college. In fact, most things don't turn out as you -- or any sane person -- would expect.

Beneath Fenwick is primarily choice-based but plays like a parser game.

(Note: Will not run on Safari. To play on OSX or Apple devices, use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Also, this game has a long load time for older devices, so please be patient -- best to download locally if you can.)

Suspense, with horror overtones • An hour and a half • Choice-based •

The Best Man

Cover art for The Best Man

Stephen Bond

An hour and a half • Choice-based •

BLK MTN
An Interactive Novella

Cover art for BLK MTN

Laura Paul @laura_n_paul lauranpaul@gmail.com

A young man named Jackson drives through the southeastern United States in search of someone – or something – he calls “Bluebird” as he experiences visions of the historical past.

As you decide who Jackson meets and where he travels, the differences between times begin to merge into one, and “Bluebird” may finally prove herself to be real.

Surreal • Two hours • Choice-based •

Brave Bear

John Evans @Chaoseed johnevanscs@gmail.com

Your owner is in danger. They must be protected.

You are not a cowering toy. You do not shrink from darkness. Your bravery comforts and inspires. You are a Brave Bear.

Magical realism • Half an hour • Parser-based • Z-code

Closure
An ill-advised sad teen heist

Cover art for Closure

Sarah Willson @swilllson sarahwillson@gmail.com

Kira hasn't been the same since the breakup. Now she's done something really reckless, and she's asking for your help to figure out what went wrong with TJ.

What else can you say? She's your best friend.

Texting adventure • Half an hour • Parser-based • Glulx

Codex Sadistica
A Heavy Metal Minigame

Cover art for Codex Sadistica

grave snail games @theiceberge hello@psberge.com

Your band has come to play at the greatest metal venue around: the Blood Furnace’s INFURNAL STAGE. There is only one problem: the act before you is—*shudder*—playing glam metal! And worse yet, they’ve gone way over the alotted time for their set! This is terrible. This is unacceptable! You must do something. Wielding the power of the ancient codex of metal, you must track down your fellow bandmates and reclaim the Infurnal Stage!

Rally your bandmates! Jam with your friends! Vanquish the vile Faramir Spidermoon and his glamrock thralls once and for all!

Content warning: Cartoonish violence, mild gore and horror, plenty of cussing, drugs and alcohol, sacrilege, references to stalking. Not intended for children.

Sacrilicious Storygame With Some "Heavy" Puzzles • One hour • Parser-based • Z-code • Download includes additional content

The Corsham Witch Trial

Cover art for The Corsham Witch Trial

JC Blair

Headphones blasting in your ears and the bitter taste of stale coffee clinging to your tongue you leaf through the heavy wedge of fraying files on your desk. The rest of your floor long since having abandoned ship for the night, your flickering screen and desk lamp are the only pools of light visible in the office. The request was both worryingly urgent and irritatingly cryptic: review a series of old case files.

Content warning: Descriptions of violence, abuse and child endangerment

Crime, Legal • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based

Cyborg Arena

Cover art for Cyborg Arena

John Ayliff @johnayliff contact@johnayliff.com

In the dystopian future, cyborgs have been stripped of their rights and treated as property. You find yourself owned by an entertainment company and forced to fight other cyborgs in brutal arena matches. Choose your badass cyborg body and your ridiculous cyberpunk weapon, and face off against your opponent in the Cyborg Arena!

Content warning: Violence, suicide references, swearing, non-explicit sex scene

Cyberpunk • Half an hour • Choice-based •

Cygnet Committee

Cover art for Cygnet Committee

P.B. Parjeter pbparjeter@protonmail.com

The year is 2049. Your mission is to take down a military cult that has formed around Joan of Arc.

Note: The competition version below is for Windows PCs. There will be Mac and Linux versions available at https://pbparjeter.itch.io/cygnet-committee after the competition begins.

Content warning: Moderate visual violence

Sci-fi / military / surrealism • Two hours • Choice-based •

D'ARKUN

Cover art for D'ARKUN

Michael Baltes mail@michaelbaltes.com

Long forgotten proceedings have changed the coastal area north of Altenkirchen forever. Now, almost a century later, the proceedings have begun again. You're about to discover the sinister secrets of this place where the wild north sea meets the last tails of the headland.

Content warning: scary situations, medication abuse, mental illness, death

Mystery • Longer than two hours • Parser-based • Z-code • Download includes additional content

The daughter
Who killed the first child born in millennia?

Giovanni Rubino @GioBorrows gioborrows@gmail.com

In the far future everybody is queer, immortal and childless and looks like hot 30 years old. The first daughter being born in thousands of years is found killed in mysterious circumstances. Angra is asked to investigate.

Content warning: Death, subtle implication of suicide, bereavement

Queer Utopia Sci-fi • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based

The Dead Account
When does "just doing your job" cross a line?

Cover art for The Dead Account

Naomi Norbez (call me Bez, he/they) @NaomiNorbez mninorbez@gmail.com

Per Hivekind's 12.3.14 Update, you are required to shut the account of dead users. As it is your first day on this job, you must only close one: Mike Stanvinchi's. How will those closest to him take it? Play and find out.

Made in 8ish days for the Interactive Fiction Competition. Also play the companion game, "Weird Grief", which is also in this year's comp.

Author's Note: Yes, I am a furry. No, I am not taking any other questions at this time. Thanks!

Content warning: This game contains detailed discussion of death & grief, and adult themes & language. Please play with care.

Realistic Fiction • Half an hour • Choice-based •

Dr Horror's House of Terror
A horrifying tale of the restless dead and their world of unspeakable evil!

Cover art for Dr Horror's House of Terror

Ade @psyhivegames mikepreston99@outlook.com

The Grave cannot hold them...Nothing human can stop them...Torn from their tombs to terrify the world, the cravings of their undead blood made them kill...kill...KILL!

Feel the chill of the crypt in your veins as you experience the petrifying mysteries and demonic puzzles of Dr Horror!

Dare you enter his House of Terror?

Content warning: Comic Horror. Violence and death. Mild profanity. Gore. Black magic.

Comic Horror • Longer than two hours • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content

Enveloping Darkness

Cover art for Enveloping Darkness

John Muhlhauser, Helen Pluta marshall.muhlhauser@gmail.com

Your brother is dead. Well, that’s what everyone tells you. He was taken by orcs when you were eleven, and since then, you’ve been living on your own.

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

extraordinary_fandoms.exe

Cover art for extraordinary_fandoms.exe

Storysinger Presents eliana.antoinette.z@gmail.com

extraordinary_fandoms.exe tells the story of Pinecone, their friendships on Discordant, & how those friendships helped them through difficult times.

Content Warning: Discussion & Depiction of Abuse

Anime sprite in cover art is Creative Commons work by shida

Content warning: Content Warning: Discussion & Depiction of Abuse

Online slice-of-life • One hour • Choice-based •

Finding Light

Cover art for Finding Light

Abigail Jazwiec

You remember fire and smoke when the raiders invaded the town, chasing you until everything went dark, but now you are alone, and Aurel is missing. You have to rescue him, no matter the cost!

It's a perilous journey though: one that a human may not survive... but perhaps a fox might.

Luckily, you are both.

Content warning: Contains some use of strong language and depictions of violence (some of which may not be suitable for young children)

Fantasy Adventure • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx

Fine Felines
Have you ever wished you could breed cats for a living?

Cover art for Fine Felines

Felicity Banks @FBanksBooks fbanksbooks@gmail.com

You are a twenty-four-year-old who just inherited $10,000. Can you run a successful cat-breeding business?

---------------

There is a spoiler-filled Cheat Sheet option at the very beginning of the game for those who want to know how to achieve certain goals (or how to explore the paths not taken). It is impossible to get stuck anywhere in the game and there are no bad endings.

Although this game is intended for an adult audience, it is also designed to be kid-safe. There is no violence or sex of any kind (the cats become pregnant 'off-screen'). No cats or humans are hurt or killed, although the Bengal cats may catch a mouse (which you either "dispose of" or "deal with in a humane manner"). There is optional G-rated romance for any gender or sexuality (the player character can be non-binary although the romantic options are all either male or female).

Having said all that, the story is bittersweet in some ways as the protagonist deals with their mother's long illness and recent death, as well as being given a diagnosis of a disabling chronic illness.

I am disabled and have also received feedback from other disabled people.

Realistic • One hour • Choice-based •

Fourbyfourian Quarryin'

Cover art for Fourbyfourian Quarryin'

Andrew Schultz blurglecruncheon@gmail.com

After conquering Fivebyfivia to create a full Twelvebytwelvia in ParserComp 2021, your homeland is looking to expand again! The seven small bordering Fourbyfourias are just waiting to become part of something bigger and better and yet still tidily bounded, even if they aren't aware of it yet.

Your fast horse has died, and you're older, but you're more cunning. You'll need that cunning to coordinate allied bishops and knights and even their traitorous counterparts. Coups are stressful, sure, but four people banging aroudnd is so much less stressful for everyone (yes, even the kings you'll be deposing) than outright wars with thirty-two pieces on a chessboard!

Fourbyfouria features normal and hard modes and an in-game tutorial location.

Puzzle • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Z-code • Download includes additional content

Funicular Simulator 2021

Cover art for Funicular Simulator 2021

Tom Leather funicularsimulator2021@gmail.com

Every twenty years, the aurora appears over the crystal mountain. Are the celestial lights a miracle? A scientific phenomenon? Or a message from another world? Take a seat beside one of four strangers, ride the funicular to the summit, and unravel the mysteries of the aurora, the mountain, and each other.

Content warning: drugs, terminal illness, food

Dreamy mystery • One hour • Choice-based • Web-based

Ghosts Within

Cover art for Ghosts Within

Kyriakos Athanasopoulos hnioxos1998@gmail.com

The smell of damp moss fills the air. Wet grass and dirt surround you while you are lying face down on the cold forest floor. Your clothes are dirty, wet, and slightly torn in places. Your head's left side is throbbing, your heart is pounding irregularly, and your limbs have gone numb from the pain. You try to examine your surroundings, but the lighting is dim from your current position to do that. You try to stand up, but it feels way too exhausting. You try a second time with the help of a nearby fallen branch; finally, you manage to raise yourself from the ground...

Three different paths unravel before you, and the choice is yours. But you wonder: Did I ended up here by accident? Did someone else do this to me? Or are there unimaginable otherworldly powers at play?

Mystery • Longer than two hours • Parser-based • TADS

Goat Game
A Hollow-Horned Rumination

Cover art for Goat Game

Kathryn Li @yobel_labs kathrynliart@gmail.com

Empathy, entanglement, and an ethical dilemma.

Oh, and everyone is a goat.

One year after you land a research assistant position at Yobel Laboratories, a prominent biotech company in Aegis-Liora, the city must bear witness to a scandal that unfolds at your workplace.

Content warning: natural disaster, references to mental illness and substance use, language

Fable, science fiction • Two hours • Choice-based •

The Golden Heist

Cover art for The Golden Heist

George Lockett and Rob Thorman george.lockett@gmail.com

The domus aurea. The Golden House.

Nero built his crowning marvel, the greatest folly of his reign, on the strength of your father's genius. And then he cast him aside.

It's time to get your own back. And, hopefully, a vast amount of gold.

Break into the Golden House during Emperor Nero's birthday festivities in this comedic historical heist caper.

Content warning: Contains swearing and incidental references to historical slavery

(Semi-)Historical Adventure • One hour • Choice-based •

Grandma Bethlinda's Remarkable Egg

Cover art for Grandma Bethlinda's Remarkable Egg

Arthur DiBianca a_dibianca@yahoo.com

How do you break out of handcuffs when all you've got is an egg?

Parser-based • Glulx

Hercules!

Cover art for Hercules!

Leo Weinreb timelee9@gmail.com

The man. The myth. The soon-to-be legend. Your cousin has tasked you with twelve impossible Labors, but nothing is impossible for the great hero HERCULES!

…so long as you remembered to bring your inhaler with you. Wait, did you not? Shit.

Oh Gods, is your eczema flaring up again? This is going to be one bumpy ride.

Content warning: Bad language, some violence, a few scatological scenes.

Mythological fantasy parody • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content

The House on Highfield Lane

Cover art for The House on Highfield Lane

Andy Joel the_pix@hotmail.com

The house at the top of Highfield Lane has always scared Mandy, though she could never say why exactly. Perhaps today is the day she should confront that fear!

This is in the style of a classic parser-based game. That means there ARE puzzles! But if you do get stuck, type HINT to go to a list of InvisiClues that get increasingly more useful.

A note about genre... I struggled here. The scenario is escaping the mysterious house that is warped in time and space, which is classic horror, but there are no walls running with blood, no nightmare monsters chasing you, etc. So "Horror... without the horror."

A note about compatibility... This game runs on JavaScript ES2015, and should work fine on any reasonably up-to-date browser. It has been tested on Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari; and on Windows, Mac, Ubuntu and Android.

A note about downloading... The game is designed to be played on-line, but you can download it as a .zip file if you prefer. It will need to be decompressed to play. Once unzipped, double click on the file "index.html".

Content warning: There is occasional swearing, including the F-word.

Horror... without the horror • Two hours • Parser-based • Web-based

How it was then and how it is now

Cover art for How it was then and how it is now

Pseudavid @pseudavid

Who would be asked to travel to the center of an apocalypse? Two smart people walking to the center of many disasters, including the disaster they made for themselves.

Fantastic • Half an hour • Choice-based •

How the monsters appeared in the Wasteland

Cover art for How the monsters appeared in the Wasteland

V Dobranov @vd_cheshire cheshire@ifiction.ru

“Moog, a new run! Quit fiddling with your irons and charge the batteries!” A printout of the waybill flutters down next to the big magnet I’m lying under. Releasing the wrench, which immediately sticks to the round plate, I grab the printout. Yep. Haul from the Enclaves to the Citadel, one refrigerated container, usual “do nots”: DO NOT raise the temperature, DO NOT open the cargo hull, DO NOT fall into the hands of the Nomads.

Another sunny day in the Wasteland. With a sigh, I scramble out from under the hovercraft and go to fight through the crowd at the charging station.

A chase on a post-apocalyptic Highway • Half an hour • Choice-based •

I Contain Multitudes

Cover art for I Contain Multitudes

Wonaglot wonaglot@gmail.com

You are Chandra Fitz, a young engineer serving on the cruise ship Prinzessin Anna Alexia. This magnificent ship is the first purpose-designed vessel of its kind, meant to take passengers not to an international destination of import, but on 'nowhere voyages' which meander about the sea like lost sperm whales. Critics decry this pastime of the wealthy, and although it is the target of some ridicule in the press due to its frivolity, the steam-powered Prinzessin is nonetheless a vessel of remarkable engineering and planning. Despite the controversy, the presence of a number of famous passengers has made this, the Prinzessin's maiden voyage, something of a sensation. All the world has been observing the ship, and at every port of call, reporters write enthusiastic articles about the lackadaisical cheer with which it wanders the waters of the Triton Sea.

Everything was going so well until last night, when the Bishop of New Elmee disappeared.

*For best results, consider downloading Quest to play the game file directly on your computer. You may encounter game-breaking hanging when textadventures.co.uk tries to load text in the online version. This is an ongoing issue with the site.

Content warning: blood, light gore, alcohol, abduction, sacrifice

Horror-Mystery • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Quest

Infinite Adventure

Cover art for Infinite Adventure

A. Scotts

The Abort/Retry/Fail team is proud to present the famously lost INFINITE ADVENTURE. This game is a visionary pioneer in procedural text generation, randomly generating rooms, maps, items, descriptions, and puzzles for a text adventure set in a Victorian mansion. INFINITE ADVENTURE was available for sale for only one month through a Spring 1987 shareware catalog published in Cleveland, Ohio. After the author’s tragic, sensationalized death (his lover’s ostrich farm in Arizona remains a grim roadside attraction), all extant copies of the game were destroyed. According to our anonymous donor, this 3½-inch diskette was recently purchased for fifty cents at a garage sale in Appleton, Wisconsin. Requires DOSBox (download at DosBox.com) or a similar DOS emulator or environment to play.

Half an hour • Parser-based •

Kidney Kwest
Reinforcing lessons for children with kidney failure

Cover art for Kidney Kwest

Eric Zinda, Luka Marceta, Art by Kristina Ness

Auditions for the play are tomorrow but you've been left behind...without a costume. Oh, and you're having a bit of trouble with your kidneys.

You're going to need a little magic to take great care of your body *and* pull together something great to wear...

-------------

Kidney Kwest was designed for a Kidney researcher who wanted to find a way to reinforce to her patients (8-18 years old) a couple of key messages about a medicine they take and the foods they need to avoid. It is designed to be played while they are on weekly dialysis (roughly 3 hours).

Since many of these kids are unlikely to have played interactive fiction games before, it uses a new engine that understands full english sentences and doesn’t include most standard shortcuts from the interactive fiction world. “inventory” won’t work here, but “what am I holding?” will.

Fantasy puzzle • Half an hour • Parser-based • Web-based

The Last Doctor

Quirky Bones @SamirShotaro samirshotaro@gmail.com

In a walled enclave, a doctor does the best they can with very little.

Content warning: Medical gore, violent themes

Half an hour • Choice-based •

The Last Night of Alexisgrad
A two-player piece of interactive fiction

Cover art for The Last Night of Alexisgrad

Milo van Mesdag @MiloMesdag m.mesdagwriter@gmail.com

The sky is dark. It is a time of mystery, change and struggle. It is a time of opportunity.

In this asymmetric, two-player piece of interactive fiction, you and your partner each take on the role of a leader of a great nation on the last night of a war. A war one side did not even know it was fighting. Will you play as the general of the King’s army, riding north to retake the lands that rebelled against the royal line hundreds of years ago? Or will you play the Dictator of the Republic, who finds herself abandoned in a city wholly unprepared for war, now apparently only able to decide what her last few hours will look like in the city that she loves?

Both have little doubt that the city of Alexisgrad will fall tonight. The question that both must ask is how it will fall.

Both you and your gaming partner will need a copy of ‘The Last Night of Alexisgrad’ in order to play.

Content warning: This game contains graphic descriptions of warfare and death, as well as allusions to torture.

Two-player, Experimental • One hour • Choice-based •

The Libonotus Cup

Cover art for The Libonotus Cup

Nils Fagerburg nils.fagerburg@gmail.com

“You? Win the Libonotus Cup?” Sammy scoffs. “I'd be impressed if your ship even makes it to the starting line tomorrow morning, let alone Portobello.”

“Aye,” you say, “me ship may have taken a beating in that last raid, but I'll bet ye 500 doubloons I can still beat you to the finish line!”

You'd better get to it, the race starts at dawn and your ship isn't exactly seaworthy at the moment.

Puzzly pirate racing • One hour • Parser-based • Web-based

The Library
A textual nightmare

Cover art for The Library

Leonardo Boselli @1001avventura leonardo.boselli@youdev.it

When you read in the evening and a tale catches you, you immerse yourself in reading late into the night, until you fall asleep. It's night. You are reading the "Library of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges. You imagine that huge collection of all possible books, some of which are been or could be written, but most of them nonsense, when... you notice in front of you a creepy guy who looks like Laurence Fishburne playing Morpheus in the movie "The Matrix". He glances at you with a pleased smirk behind his round dark glasses.

Weird • Two hours • Choice-based • Web-based

Mermaids of Ganymede

Cover art for Mermaids of Ganymede

Paxton @sethpaxton spaxton0492@gmail.com

Trapped at the bottom of Ganymede's ocean, beneath a thick layer of ice, your survey ship has crash landed. Your crew has begun to see things swimming out there in the dark, and no one has ever made if off Ganymede alive. What will you gamble with to save your crew? Will you become a friend of mermaids, or will you seek out other powers along the ocean floor? Dark secrets await beneath the ice. How deep will you go?

Content warning: Violence, Body Horror

Sci Fi • One hour • Choice-based • Web-based

The Miller's Garden

Cover art for The Miller's Garden

Damon L. Wakes @DamonWakes damon.l.wakes@gmail.com

When the miller died, he left his garden. And when the mill was torn down, the river changed its course.

Experimental • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based •

My Gender Is a Fish

Cover art for My Gender Is a Fish

Carter Gwertzman

Magpies from the forbidden woods like to steal things: coins, jewelry, your gender identity. It's starting to get dark, so you'd better find your gender fast.

If only you could remember what it looked like...

15 minutes or less • Choice-based •

Off-Season at the Dream Factory

Cover art for Off-Season at the Dream Factory

Carroll Lewis

As in orcish thought you stand.

An hour and a half • Parser-based •

A Papal Summons, or The Church Cat

Cover art for A Papal Summons, or The Church Cat

Bitter Karella @bitterkarella

The pope -- the holy father himself! -- has summoned you to Rome for a personal audience. But the Vatican is a massive, bustling city, full of twisting avenues and winding corridors and so many oubliettes, so what are you chances that you'll ever find the pope's office somewhere in this edifice?

This is a grotesque camp horror story inspired by the works of Franz Kafka and Kobo Abe. It contains content that is not appropriate for minor or sensitive players.

Content warning: Body horror, medical horror, prostitution, child murder, violence, sexual violence, pedophilia, anti-semitism, islamophobia, transphobia, racism, animal cruelty, torture, dead bodies, body parts, mutilation

Horror • Half an hour • Choice-based •

A Paradox Between Worlds

Cover art for A Paradox Between Worlds

Autumn Chen cchen.intfic@gmail.com

It is the year 201X and you are a teen online. The Nebulaverse fandom has been your safe place, and it is about to be torn apart.

A Paradox Between Worlds is a game about fandoms, internet melodrama, and the stories we create for ourselves.

Content warning: Contextual warnings included in-game

Slice of life / metafictional cyberpunk isekai • Two hours • Choice-based •

Plane Walker

Cover art for Plane Walker

Jack Comfort jack.e.comfort@gmail.com

Set out on a dire mission through worlds with nothing but amnesia and intuition.

*Requires an interpreter that can display special characters

Science Fiction • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx

Recon

Cover art for Recon

Carlos @_Pamies96 carlos.pamies9@gmail.com

Baltimore, 2058. Faro controls the city at will. The social and economic gap is widening bigger and bigger because of the imposed regime.

It seems like any other day. You, your beer and your faithful companion Blanco. But things start to go awry when your clan mate disappears.

Sci-Fi • One hour • Choice-based •

RetroCON 2021

Cover art for RetroCON 2021

Sir Slice craig8878@msn.com

It's finally here, the convention you've been waiting for in Las Vegas, RetroCon 2021! Spend your time replaying some old retro games and do a little gambling while in town!

Some games will not display correctly unless using Google Chrome as browser.

Gambling/Sports/Card Games/Adventure •

Second Wind

Cover art for Second Wind

Matthew Warner @MatthewWarnerVA mattwarner@matthewwarner.com

Journey across a post-apocalyptic wasteland to get medical help for your pregnant wife.

You and Lorraine live in Shelter 5. It's an airtight building in a radioactive desert. It's airtight to prevent exposure to werespores left over from the war and which would transform you into a mindless proto-human. When Lorraine goes into labor with your child, she needs a C-section, or they will die. The only doctor qualified to help is your ex-wife, Wendy, miles away in Shelter 4 -- and Wendy hates your guts.

Getting help before Lorraine dies of exhaustion will require escaping Shelter 5's confines, a perilous journey across a desert and bombed-out city filled with hostile weremen, and confronting your greatest nemesis: your ex. Your family is worth it, though. So put on your environmental suit and start running.

Content warning: Violence/gore, childbirth trauma, profanity

Science Fiction • Two hours • Parser-based •

Silicon and Cells
Machina Ex Deus

Cover art for Silicon and Cells

Nic Barkdull nicbarkdull@gmail.com

Jaya Koto's plan was perfect: One big VR heist, and she'd be set for life. Too bad the city’s psychotically devout cybercops chose that exact day to screw with her.

With no big score and the city’s security apparatus tracking her every move, Jaya's next step is to find out who's responsible and how she can get revenge. On her way to crack the police state, Jaya collects astounding transhumanist abilities, explores virtual worlds, and uncovers a conspiracy of manipulative oligarchs. Ultimately, this journey leads Jaya to discover the truth of what it means to be human—or something more.

Silicon and Cells is text adventure meets Metroidvania in a retro-futuristic cyberpunk setting with a large dose of parody. Choose bionic or psionic abilities to navigate Jartekan City and investigate its mysterious past!

Content warning: Some violence, especially against machines and false deities. Brief references to alcohol and tobacco. Light amount of colored flashes, so please be careful if you are prone to epileptic seizures.

Cyberpunk Metroidvania • Two hours • Choice-based •

Smart Theory

Cover art for Smart Theory

AKheon @AKheon

A strange, new thought system has been spreading like wildfire through schools and institutions - it has even taken over the university that you go to. What could this all mean? Perhaps we'll discover the answer as we partake in Dr. Paul Bother's (mandatory) crash course on Smart Theory.

Comedy • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based •

The Song of the Mockingbird

Cover art for The Song of the Mockingbird

Mike Carletta serialoffenderif@gmail.com

A ruthless outlaw.

A kidnapped dancer.

A singing cowboy.

A long dance of death in the Texas sun.

You're unhorsed and disarmed, but you still have your wits and your guitar. You can only hope they'll be enough.

Singing cowboy western, puzzle-based, merciful • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content

The Spirit Within Us

Cover art for The Spirit Within Us

Alessandro Ielo hi@jqrsound.com

THE SPIRIT WITHIN US is a psychological thriller & exploration game with four different endings based on the choices made during the game, leaving the player to decide the best course of action. THE SPIRIT WITHIN US follows natural rules. The player has only one life, and if the energy level reaches zero the player dies and the game ends.

It integrates a simple but effective "verb-noun" parser and a manual. The download for this game is a zip file containing executables for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the nature of the contents, this game is NOT suitable for children.

Content warning: Violence and paraphilic themes.

Psychological thriller & exploration game • Two hours • Parser-based •

Starbreakers

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E. Joyce eejoyce02@gmail.com

You and four others are in a race for survival. Only one of you can win.

Science fiction • An hour and a half • Choice-based •

Sting

Cover art for Sting

Mike Russo russo2116@gmail.com

Six bees. Five bags of groceries. A four-pound dumbbell. Three sailboats. One twin.

Sting is a puzzleless parser memoir about ordinary days and unexpected interruptions.

Content warning: Some profanity, bee attacks

Memoir • One hour • Parser-based • Glulx

Taste of Fingers

Cover art for Taste of Fingers

V Dobranov @vd_cheshire cheshire@ifiction.ru

Xianggang. Mere 20 years have passed and they don’t call the city its normal name anymore. Never was a fan of flying here.

Still, here I am: left alone in a foreign country, in the middle of a sprawling city, with no knowledge of its strange culture and the language, at a time when the world has suddenly decided to meet its unpleasant end.

Postcolonial horror • Half an hour • Choice-based •

This Won't Make You Happy

Cover art for This Won't Make You Happy

Mike GIllis

Trek into the fearsome Caves of Despair in search of the Jewel of Happiness! Encounter grotesques and total weirdos! Collect all the shiny, shiny gems! All this and more in THIS WON'T MAKE YOU HAPPY——a sort of funny, sort of sentimental game by a real-life, non-fictitious comedy writer named Mike Gillis.

Experimental, Meta, Comedy • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based •

The TURING Test

Justin Fanzo jfanzo1@yahoo.com

The TURING project seeks to create the ultimate artificial intelligence to aid mankind in space colonization, and it is also too successful in this text adventure that sees the reader taking on the role of an MIT roboticist who must use the Turing Test to distinguish man from machine on the International Space Station. You are in a desperate race to save mankind and clock is ticking. Don't press the wrong button...

Science Fiction/Horror • Two hours • Choice-based •

Unfortunate

Cover art for Unfortunate

Jess Elizabeth Reed @jex_ewizabee jesselizabethreed@gmail.com

Just because you aren't the most inherently talented fortune teller doesn't mean that you can't give fate a little push in the right direction.

Cover art by Katherine Uhlenkamp

Content warning: mild sexual themes

One hour • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content

Universal Hologram

Cover art for Universal Hologram

Kit Riemer slugzuki@gmail.com

Dreams are nothing but organic simulations.

In a computer-generated universe, the citizens of a far-future Martian colony begin projecting their consciousnesses out of their bodies using astral projection techniques in the hopes that doing so will provide meaning, or at least entertainment, to their simulated lives.

Content warning: contains swearing, discussion of suicide, depictions of illness/death, descriptions of and AI-generated images of gore

Science fiction • One hour • Choice-based •

The Vaults

Cover art for The Vaults

Daniel Duarte admin@vaultsgame.com

Enter the world of Alexandria where some say is the center of all existence. Traverse through the world to find scrolls and unlock abilities, gather items and equip them onto your followers to try and save the world and its inhabitants!

Content warning: Contains cartoon battles and violence

Fantasy Roleplaying Card Game, Strategy • Longer than two hours •

Wabewalker

Cover art for Wabewalker

Ben Sisk wabewalker0@gmail.com

You are trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, reincarnating throughout Japan, only to be murdered once again. Most don't remember their past lives, and neither did you, until you catch a glimpse of your dead body on television.

Surreal Puzzle • Two hours • Parser-based •

The Waiting Room

Cover art for The Waiting Room

Billy Krolick @williamkrolick wkrolick@gmail.com

A haunted nursing home. A mysterious past. And life-or-death choices that actually matter. Can you solve the mystery of Back Hall before it's too late?

Horror • One hour • Choice-based •

Walking Into It
A random adult-helping-child teaching/learning moment

Andrew Schultz blurglecruncheon@gmail.com

How you win or lose matters. Well, how you lose. And how they win. Don't worry--there are only so many ways to let the kid win. It's a simple game. An adult did the same for you once, sort of. Time to pass it on.

This game should be runnable on any computer with Python installed. You need only extract files to a directory and run wii.py.

Puzzle • One hour • Choice-based •

we, the remainder

Cover art for we, the remainder

Charm Cochran @othercharm

it's been twenty-four days since everyone else floated up. you haven't been out since then; Momma doesn't like you leaving the flat without her, and the effort of getting down the stairs hasn't been worth it anyway. but you ran out of food days ago. your stomach is growling nearly constantly now. you need to find something to eat.

this game is best played full-screen in Chrome or Safari on a desktop.

Content warning: This game contains themes of abuse, sex, and violence. More specific trigger warnings can be accessed from the main menu.

Horror • One hour • Choice-based •

Weird Grief
Mourning is hard. A story of grief, sex, and escapism.

Cover art for Weird Grief

Naomi Norbez (call me Bez, he/they) @NaomiNorbez mninorbez@gmail.com

Mike Stanvinchi is dead. Juniper, who was in a polyamorous threeway with Mike and his spouse, Roger, must navigate her relationship with the surviving partner. But grief isn't always easy. . . Help her navigate it in the few days during and after Mike's funeral

Made in 3 days for The Interactive Fiction Competition. A companion game to "The Dead Account", which is also in this year's IF Comp.

Author's Note: Yes, I am a furry. No, I am not taking any other questions at this time. Thanks!

Content warning: This game contains detailed discussion of grief, and adult content, including explicit sexual content. Please do not play this if you are under the age of 18.

Realistic Fiction • One hour • Choice-based • Web-based

What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed

Cover art for What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed

Amanda Walker beachwalkera@gmail.com

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving…

Come home to Goldengrove, a beautiful old house haunted by a lost soul. Uncover the secrets of your tormented past in a tale of unrequited love, jealousy, violence, betrayal, and vengeance.

"What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed" is a puzzle-driven, parser-based gothic horror story with a unique command set.

Content warning: This game contains violence and child abuse.

Gothic horror • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx

What remains of me
An exploration of my old home in search for an objective in life, the way I observe the world, with thoughtfulness and humour.

Cover art for What remains of me

Jovial Ron

Sometimes we all dream about old places we visited or places we lived. While dreams can take from the calmest to most hapazhard scenarios, sometimes they help us gather our thoughts that the conscious mind is just not trained enough to think of. Perhaps you can even have some fun when on this subconscious journey.

Finding an objective in life is a thought everyone gets every once in a while. But occassions like New Years Day or watching some motivational enough movie often lead a large number of people on a quest to find their aim in life.

In this world, you are me. It's circa 2010. You are flapping around a flip phone. People around you are living just the way they always live, but to the outsider things might look in disarray. Everyone could use some help. Can you help, and in turn help yourself to get set on this journey, which in gamified terms is a literal journey. An easy puzzle for you to get on a train takes you around this world, interacting and helping people, you might like some people, you might be confused by what they are doing, you could be from anywhere in the world, but you are me in this simulation ... aagh hmm ... game.

Contains easy puzzles, surprise interactions if you try to use everything on everyone. Ofcourse the main game puzzle has intentionally been kept easy enough to ensure my playtesters could actually finish the game without a walkthrough. An walkthrough would be uploaded if it looks necessary.

The game expands further in it's attempt to tackle the line between screwball humour and surrealism, but much of it has been kept out of this ifcomp submission to avoid unforeseen bugs and the worse enemy of an IF writer - spelling mistakes.

Playable on the Web. Parser based with a retro GUI, press Alt + Enter for Fullscreen. Open Source. Source available on Github.

Explorative adventure with light comedy • Half an hour • Parser-based • Web-based

You are SpamZapper 3.1

Cover art for You are SpamZapper 3.1

Leon Arnott @webbedspace

DISTINGUISH TRUTH AND SCAMS IN OVER 130 UNIQUE EMAILS • PROTECT THE INBOX FROM URBAN LEGENDS • EXCHANGE WITTY REPARTEE WITH YOUR PLUGIN COWORKERS • CROSS SWORDS WITH A DEADLY EMAIL WORM • LEARN WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT YOUR USER'S FRIENDS

Content warning: Parental abuse / Fundamentalist Christianity / Anti-technology conspiracies / Social anxiety / Depression / Mockery of suicidal ideation / Mockery of Christianity / Online identity theft / Nonconsentual mind control / Toxic parasocial relationships

2000's workplace dramedy • An hour and a half • Choice-based •