EctoComp 2013 - BLACKNESS

EctoComp is a SpeedIF contest…with a little bit of a twist.  Normally SpeedIF gives authors a set time limit to complete an entire game.  EctoComp loosely enforces a three-hour time limit, but the time needn't be consecutive - meaning a person can stop the clock so long as they are not typing on the keyboard.  A whole game can be planned on paper, so long as there is no copy-pasting of text from another window.  One supposes for Inform they someone could sneak a lot mechanics into an extension…but it's a very informal comp.  Three hours of coding AND beta testing.  Period.

Blackness

An interactive fiction of horror by Michael Wayne Phipps Jr

Okay, I know it's speed IF, but wouldn't it be easier to leave the banner alone rather than risk goofing it up?

Awkward switches from default second person to first person.   Possible rush is creating run-on sentences.

Long Hallway

Numerous patient rooms line this hallway. The nurse station is to the south, and the hallway stretches out to the east and west, a corner at the end of each. The hall is empty aside from equipment the nurses have left in the hall I have to wheel aside to clean the floor underneath. The smell of antiseptic is strong in the air.

As you walk through the sterile hallway, you are startled by something you see in the corner of your eye. For a moment, you thought you saw someone standing at the end of the hall. Well, perhaps not a person.. just.. a shadow. Once your eyes focus, you realize there is nothing there. You probably just didn't get enough sleep last night.

Yeah, probably.

I will say that all of the items I have on my person and nearby except the patient rooms are implemented.  Also so is MOP FLOOR, at least in this section of the hospital.  It doesn't acknowledge a floor anywhere else, but the mopping did inform me I did the entire floor.

A smell is described, and SMELL is implemented.  Good job

Soooo…not a lot happening.  I'm going everywhere I can, waiting for something creepy to happen after the something in the corner of my eye.  Locked door, duh I have a key.  Gonna put this sign so nobody will slip and cost the hospital a lot of money.

>hello nurse

That's not a verb I recognise.

So I can go to radiology and down the hall and the nurses station where nurses won't talk to me.

>hello nurse

That's not a verb I recognise.

>hello, nurse

You seem to want to talk to someone, but I can't see whom.

>nurse, hello

You seem to want to talk to someone, but I can't see whom.

I wait a bunch of times, nothing scary happens.

Perhaps the scary part is my blue collar janitorial job?

I'll get some attention…

Nurse Station

A large desk curves around one corner of the room which makes up the nurse station. The long hallway is back to the north. To the south lies the emergency department and the main entrance to the hospital. Nurses come and go at random once in a while, looking at something at the desk, then walking off.

>take off uniform

You take off the uniform.

>x me

You look down and see yourself wearing nothing at all.

Hmn. I'm apparently not a very sexy janitor.

And…I'm done.  I can't seem to trigger the next scary thing.