#barebonesjam

[petricakegames]

Forever and Ever

Forever and Ever is a short, interactive horror story written in Ink. Halloween night comes to a close and you're just settling in to get a good night's sleep when your son Lucas lets you know there are monsters in his room. Again. A father's work is never done.

Play the Game | Ko-fi

Happy Friday the 13th and hold on to your butts, folks! My second-ever interactive fiction game is here!!

Forever and Ever is an entrant into the La Petite Mort English division of ECTOCOMP 2023--meaning the game was written and coded in under 4 hours; as well as the Bare-Bones Game Jam--meaning it's published without any alteration or customization of the default UI.

This short, horror story clocks in at about 3,800 words with three possible endings. Hopefully, it's a seasonally appropriate, unsettling tale that leaves you feeling awful and uncomfortable.

Forever and Ever is written for an adult audience and contains themes that may upset some readers. Discretion advised.

#forever and ever #interactive fiction #ink #ectocomp23 #barebonesjam #halloween

[neointeractives]

Have you ever wanted to create a game, but felt overwhelmed by the visual aspects? Or wished you didn't need to edit the UI?  This jam is for you!

The Bare-Bones Jam is a month-long game jam (Oct 1st - 31st) for text-based games where you cannot change the formatting of the chosen program. Not only are graphics prohibited, but so is changing the interface or presentation in any way from the engine defaults.

During the jam, the focus is on the text only. After the jam, you can do whatever you like with your game.

This jam was inspired by the Naked Twine Jam from 2014, but it is not restricted to twine.

Constraints and Rules:

You cannot make changes to the visual of the game, and must keep the basic UI and formatting of the chosen program. [Excluded are the uses of basic text formatting (italics, bold, underline, etc...), lists and tables.]

Games should not include assets, like images or sound - the focus should be on the text.

Games should not include any generated AI content.

The Jam is open to any program/medium, as long as the piece can be considered Interactive Fiction (i.e. the game is interactive, and its focus is on the text).

The Jam is open to any language.

The Jam is open to NSFW content, as long as you indicate it in your submission (in the Content Warning of the form).

Spam or hateful content will be removed!

During the duration of the jam and the two weeks following the deadline, the submissions should be free to play.

You can submit up to 3 entries!

Join the Neo-Interactive Discord 

#interactive fiction #gamedev #game jam #itch.io #itch jam #neointeractives #discord #jam #game submission #unranked jam #barebonesjam #Bare-Bones Jam #october jam

[cheryl-writes]

The sky is empty when you look up at it for the first time in the last thousand years. 

You squint through the slumber still clinging to your mind and wondered whether the air had always been quite this uncomfortable to breathe, wet and earthy against your lungs. Darkness surrounds you, and while you don't remember it ever bothering you, now you shift restlessly against the tightness that seemed to press against you. 

For the first time, you ponder whether you are dreaming. Because this was not how your awakening was supposed to be: in total darkness.

STARLESS tells the story of a prophecy playing out but from the point of view of the monster you destined to bring destruction to the kingdom.

You are a dragon awakening from their thousand years long slumber only to find that things don't add up.

A prophecy has stolen your life and shaped it to its liking. Your guide through life, anchor to this world and only friend is nowhere to be found. All your efforts to be accepted gone with him.

Find out what happened to him. Why would he break his promise to be there for you when you wake up after so long?

Let the prophecy complete its course and control what little else is left of your life. Or make your own destiny.

Meet your new guides to this new strange future.

Find the person behind it all and confront them. Or try to.

This game was created for the BAREBONE GAME JAM and will be subjected to updates when the jam ends.

Don't be afraid to send me and ask. Feedback and constructive criticism are very much appreciated :)

— STARLESS —

#barebonesjam #interactive fiction #new project #fantasy #high fantasy #i'm sorry i had the urge to write about dragons so i wrote about dragons ;^;

[manonamora-if-reviews]

Forever and Ever by Petricake Games

IFDB - Game - @petricakegames CW: Themes of loss, grief and death of a child. Note: this was a La Petite Mort entry, and submitted to the Bare-Bones Jam

Summary: Halloween night comes to a close and you’re just settling in to get a good night’s sleep when your son Lucas lets you know there are monsters in his room. Again. A father’s work is never done.

This game might be short and concise, but it is quite well-written, impactful and heartbreaking. From the start, there is something not quite right with your son's interruption of your sleep, even if it is a yearly occurrence. Things just don't quite fit all to well, especially when your daughter appears or when the mother is mentioned (in hindsight... 🥴). But is is not clear until the end what is truly going on here. What seems at first like a slice-of-life with some spooky halloween aspect, turns downright terrifying. The reveal is not only depressing to internalise, but the implications are frankly hitting much harder than what you'd expect from the blurb and warnings. The final choice is, again, heartbreaking, whichever way you choose...

#Forever and Ever #Petricake Games #interactive fiction #complete #2023 #review #ink game #ectocomp #barebonesjam

[bntarwarn]

To Burn A God Down

Read Here

Tonight, you set out to kill a god.

A fantasy interactive story, involving a vengeful outcast who seeks to kill a god, after an incident where the god killed their last family member. They first intend to go kill the god on their own without getting anyone else involved, until the other stranger they're traveling with offers them a hand.

yippee!!!

yeah, i've just finished writing another interactive story. this one pretty much started from the idea of all the times i've joked about wanting to kill god for... various reasons. then i decided to turn it into something resembling an actual story, and boom. local guy goes kill a god.

i couldn't wait until tomorrow to upload this, plus i would end up unable to go sleep, so yeah, happy 10pm!!!

#barebonesjam #twine interactive fiction #interactive fiction #twine game #ocs #my writing #project: to burn a god down

[wigc]

No Formatting, Just Text: 'The Bare-Bones Jam' Has Begun

I love interactive fiction - particularly the kind that's entirely made up of text. Like, say, those that will hopefully come to be during The Bare-Bones Jam, which is well underway. Oh, and the interesting thing about this particular game jam is that, well, you have to create a bare-bones game.

Continue reading

#The Bare-Bones Jam #BareBonesJam #game jam #interactive fiction #text games

[manonamora-if-reviews]

ConfigurationUploader by Autumn Chen

IFDB - Game - @cyberpunklesbian Note: this was a La Petite Mort entry, and submitted to the Bare-Bones Jam

Summary: ConfigurationUploader is a program for uploading configurations.

When I saw the game pop up on my feed, I honestly thought Autumn had built a new program and had just uploaded a legit but bare documentation for it. But now, this is an actual IF, pure science fiction (I hope...) bundled up in an unusual format.

The whole gameplay feels like going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole (you know the ones, where you open links on the current page into a new tab to read later, because who knows if you'll find them again, and now your browser is lagging and it is 5h later) mixed with an incomplete and obtuse documentation for a program that doesn't exist (at least here) and doesn't seem to have a clear use (by going from the starting page/game blurb).

As you go deeper into the pages, finding that this program was lead by a university professor and eir students (some of which have left the projects in suspicious ways), it is possible to piece the mystery together (or the big picture at least). The implications of what is afoot is quite frightening, and bleak.

An impressive amount of content for just 4h!

#ConfigurationUploader #Autumn Chen #interactive fiction #complete #2023 #review #ectocomp #barebonesjam #custom system

[petricakegames]

Devlog #2: ECTOCOMP & Bare-Bones Jam(s)

Not a bad week of progress! Not as much as I would've liked, but when is it ever? As far as I can tell, a defining trait of being a writer is not getting as much done as you hoped to.

But! I'm finished with the first draft of my game for ECTOCOMP (La Petite Mort division) and the Bare-Bones jam. It's out with a couple friends right now for feedback and I have 50 minutes left on the timer to edit. I'd love to give it a thorough tonal edit to ramp up the creepiness but I edit even slower than I write, so I probably won't have time. Shock.

I've never spent so much time thinking and meditating on sentence-level text before. It was a bit overwhelming. And I had such a hard time getting started! Knowing I only had 4 hours made me afraid to misuse a single second. Which was a great exercise, but not one I think I'll regularly do.

I enjoyed working with Ink (Inkle? Inky? I'm still not sure which one to call it...). It works well for shorter stories but I think my brain can parse longer stories better in Twine. I like seeing all the "sticky notes" to track story progression.

Forever and Ever is a short, interactive horror story written in Ink. Halloween night comes to a close and you're just settling in to get a good night's sleep when your son Lucas lets you know there are monsters in his room. Again. A father's work is never done.

Word count came to about 3,800 and the game has three endings. I'm planning on publishing on Friday the 13th because....of obvious reasons. Hopefully, with the 50 minutes left on the timer, I'll be able to inject a bit more creepiness into the tone of the story.

I've started on the second game for ECTOCOMP and I'll have to hustle but I think I'll get it done. I'm really bad at gauging how many words I need to tell a story, so who knows. I might switch that one to Twine and drop it out of Bare-Bones (because, I'm sorry Twine, your default UI is not for me). Maybe I'll try another short game in Ink. Writing horror is really fun.

That's all for now! Be kind to yourselves, folks <3

#dev log #interactive fiction #barebonesjam #ectocomp23

[manonamora-if-reviews]

Photographs from the Summer of 1987 by catsket

IFDB - Game - @catskets CW: animal violence, human and animal death, descriptions of gore, violence, and torture, cannibalism, implied sexual themes.

Summary: you find an old photo book in an antique store. summer of 1987. photographs by adonis d’amour. if lost, please return to ███████

Holy shit, the whiplash from this one. I was warned by the content warning before playing the game (READ THEM, FOR YOUR SAKE), and still I did not expect how much it would affect me. I expected some strange stuff, I always do with catsket's work, but how the gruesomeness was introduced twisted my stomach.

Gruesome content aside, the writing is VERY vivid. The descriptions of the photographs inside the book paint quite the pictures (hehehe, bad pun). Even if short, they say just enough to be able to imagine those faded and maybe yellowed shots.

The start is actually quite lovely, depicting a fun solo roadtrip in nature, where you end up meeting someone cool, and they tag along for the rest of the summer. Shenanigans ensue, obviously. But the activities of two young peeps on a summer roadtrip are really not what you'd expect. They seemed to have fun... some gruesome fun!

Anyway… I will stay away from antique stores for now, and definitely leave weird photobooks alone…

#Photographs from the Summer of 1987 #catsket #interactive fiction #complete #2023 #twine game #review #barebonesjam

[manonamora-if-reviews]

The Loneliest House by Tabitha O’Connell

IFDB - Game - @tabitha-writes Note: this was a La Petite Mort entry, and submitted to the Bare-Bones Jam

Summary: You’ve always been drawn to the lonely old house on the hill outside your town. It’s been abandoned for as long as you’ve lived here; you’ve never seen it get any care or attention. To everyone else, it’s just a part of the scenery. But to you it’s always been something more–a mystery, an omen, a promise.

This is a short parser letting the players use only one command: examine (X / L), where the point is to examine the abandoned house, and its different element, as if you were exploring it. Examining an element gives you a description, which focuses on other smaller elements, which if you examine those will describe further details, and... so on and so forth until the details are simply too small to see, or until you examined all elements to reach the end.

The gameplay reminded me of Nested, where checking an element gives you details you can look out, each if checked will give out subsequent details, and... Except, unlike Nested, TLH doesn't loop back to repeat ad infinitum if you take one specific path.

As for the whole, it felt a bit voyeuristic, especially in the descriptions of each details of the house, as, even if it is abandoned, you sort of see yourself opening the door or looking out the scenery from the window. You wish you could be inside the house, but you can't. You're on the other side of the fency, gazing with envy at the house. It's pretty eerie...

Also: +1 for including a walkthough! -1 for not being able to pet the dog (/jk)

#The Loneliest House #Tabitha O’Connell #alyshkalia #interactive fiction #complete #2023 #inform 7 #parser #ectocomp #review #barebonesjam

[manonamora-if-reviews]

POV: You’re a Teenage Girl in a Conservative Christian Family by alyshkalia

IFDB - Game - @tabitha-writes

Summary: A little piece of my religious trauma.

I'm going to need a hug after this, and so will you.

The piece is fairly short, with a couple of hundred words at most, and it will make you hate yourself (maybe) when you reach the end. Entrenched in the very harsh environment that is religious conservative norms, the game explores what it feels to be denied the little joys of life and exploring your identity.

It is not just a tour-de-force to be able to hit those emotions with so little words, but the way the choices are formatted hits like a ton of brick. As you click and come back to the main page, choices appear and disappear from the list... until there is nothing left. Until you are denied everything.

Strangely, the harsh Harlowe interface and palette adds another layer of bleakness to the situation.

#POV: You’re a Teenage Girl in a Conservative Christian Family #alyshkalia #interactive fiction #complete #2023 #twine game #review #barebonesjam

[manonamora-if-reviews]

Bare-Bones mini-Reviews

The Bare-Bones Jam was an unranked interactive fiction game jam organised by the @neointeractives, spanning the whole month of October. It was open to any form of IF, as long as the UI stayed unchanged.

The following reviews does not include the entries that were also submitted to the EctoComp.

#barebonesjam #announcement

[petricakegames]

Devlog: ECTOCOMP & Bare-Bones Game Jam(s)

Final devlog!! Late night, brain-empty thoughts comin' atcha.

This has been a wild month, but I'm glad to say I have finished 2 games within it. I haven't really parsed how I feel about it--probably because I've spent about 25hrs in the last two days starting and finishing game #2. Proud? Probably proud.

But Laurie, no one asks, what about that game you talked about ages ago? You had cover art for it and everything. You invented (and purchased) merch for it because the idea cracked you up so much. Well, dear player, what happened was I fell really in love with a story that kept growing. I realized if I was going to get it done before the end of October, I'd have to cut a lot of things out of it. I decided it was worth it to do it right. Never fear! The project has been moved to Nano and will (fingers crossed) be published by the end of November. I got about a third of it written, I love the characters so so much and I didn't want to rush them.

I decided that with about two weeks left before the end of the jams. Plenty of time to do another small game and I thought it'd be really neat to get 2 games finished. And I had a ton of ideas--teens break into a Spirit Halloween to do a seance and shenanigans happen; you've been set up on a first date for Halloween and the order in which you, well, order your food determines the ending you get; it's the far-flung future and your a teen on a space ship feeling disconnected from the life you know and a friend found some old Halloween party guides from earth and is throwing a Halloween party--and as much as I liked them, I never found the spark that makes a story catch fire for me. I was ready to be content with the game I had made.

Until 3 days ago. When the opening line "Honey! I've got some hair wrapped around my toes." popped into my head out of nowhere. Suddenly, this horror story develops whole cloth in my mind. And it's...a kind of horror I don't usually engage with. It's uncomfortable to write. I feel a little conflicted about publishing it. It's not about Halloween and I really wanted to make a game about Halloween! But it's done so I am. There are enough narrative things I find interesting that it seems worthwhile to share. And it's pretty good horror.

I still have to finish some backend stuff--write copy for the game page, finish some placeholder text in the game itself. I ended up going with Twine (Harlowe), even though the UI makes me want to cry. I knew I wouldn't be able to figure out pathing and variables well enough to make Ink work (not without something even more clunky than what I've got). And I really needed italics and base Ink doesn't do italics

Anyway, that's all. It's late and I should sleep but I've spent so much brain writing the last couple days I'm enjoying vegging out with youtube. I'll do a post mortem for both games because I have Feelings about them. And I get a whole 2 days without writing nonstop before nano starts! 😂😭 Thanks for reading!

#dev log #interactive fiction #ectocomp23 #barebonesjam

[petricakegames]

Devlog #3: ECTOCOMP and Bare-Bones Jam

Forever and Ever is available to play!

I completed a game in under 4 hours! Which ended up being an incredibly stressful experience. I'm glad I did it, but I don't think I'll revisit that particular restriction 😂 There was _so_ much pressure to make sure I was using my time as best as I possibly could and to make every sentence as great as it could possibly be on the first go. My editing process usually involves a lot of staring and thinking and I wasn't sure if that time counted so I counted it and then all I could think about was ohmugawdi'mwastingtimestaringwritesomewords.

Yeah.

But I did it! Hekkin proud of myself for that. Work is trucking along to What Has Sacred You, I've got it about a third of the way drafted (I think) and switched it over to Twine since I've dropped it from Bare-Bones. I have an itch still to make another game for Bare-Bones because I had fun with Ink and making 2 games for a jam would be another feather in my cap. But, I also want the story I'm working on to be as good as I can make it. It'll be the first IF I've completed that has true narrative branches and I wrote a scene that's so funny I've got to share it with the world. Guess I've got to finish it!

Two weeks is gonna pass anyways, right? Might as well work my ass off making story games

#interactive fiction #dev log #barebonesjam #ectocomp23

[petricakegames]

Devlog #1: ECTOCOMP & Bare-Bones Jam(s)

Two jams at once! Never thought I'd be here and yet...here I am. ECTOCOMP was a given to join--Halloween is the greatest and I find horror to be a versatile and interesting genre and I'm excited to be writing horror IF. Bare-Bones Jam I was more on the fence about--I don't care for default Twine UI and it's all I know coding-wise. I was hesitant to try out a new IF tool as I often get carried away with details and fall down learning holes. But Ink is straightforward enough that I can learn the basics and make a good story out of it and the default UI is quite nice.

Now! Here's the kicker part: ECTOCOMP has two sections to it. La Petite Mort for games made in 4hrs or less and Le Grand Guignol for games made in over 4hrs.

Here's how my brain managed this: --pfft, no. Impossible. There's no way I could make a game in that short a timeframe. Get out of here. Long version for me, thank you very much --how would I even....no. Stop thinking about it. There's no way --well, I guess if I didn't have to worry about the UI that would leave more time for writing...nope, focus on your other story idea. We're not going to bother with this one --!!IDEA!! --oh...dang. That's a cool idea... --it's short. You could write it in 4hrs....probably... --it'd be pretty funny if your first IF is a big, chonky boy at 25k words and your second is a smol bean under 2k words

And that was the nail in the coffin. I will always commit for the LOLs. I had a similar Rejection of the Call experience with the Single Choice jam and that one turned about pretty good. There won't be any neat mechanics or anything--I'm a storyteller before I'm a coder, after all--but there'll be a pretty good story (I have a lot of Big Thoughts about interactive fiction as games and I still haven't nailed down how I feel about the idea but I strive for my stories to be benefitted by the medium of IF--to have something crucial to their telling that's enhanced by the act of playing. There's something powerful in the nature of choice-making)

I still love my original idea and will be doing that as well:

Haven't decided yet if it'll be Bare-Bones, too, or just for the longer portion of ECTOCOMP. It'll depend on if I can get the first idea done within the time limit, I suppose.

Oh, gawd. The jams have started today. I need to get to work! But first...breakfast

#dev log #interactive fiction #ectocomp23 #barebonesjam

[neointeractives]

Will utilizing the option in Choicescript to change the background color mid-game be allowed?

Hi Anon!

Changing the background colour would go against the don't change the visual rule ;) (nope, not allowed)

#barebonesjam #neointeractives