ECTOCOMP 2013! - CRATER CREEK, DEAD PAVANE FOR A PRINCESS, FAITHFUL COMPANION

CRATER CREEK by Angela Shah

An inform game with no real cues what to do or what directions you can move in.  I have a nightstick and and ivory candle.  I walk past some houses that are described...the prose irks me.  It feels like every noun has an adjective and many have two.  It's like "The wood square house near the hard rock boulder is lit with bright yellow light and hung with green leafy leaves...."  I don't know if this is intentional to build up a poetic rhythm, but it annoys me how it trips along "the bump bumpy-dump goes tump tumpy-tump..."  I can't figure out what to do here.

Dead Pavane for a Princess
An Interactive Fiction by Emily Boegheim

Aw...Claude Debussy is zombified?  

Love this:

>push piano
You release the brakes on the piano's wheels and push it towards the door. It rolls easily - too easily - in fact it escapes you and crashes into the door with a nightmarish jangle. Yes, there are scratches on the poor thing now. "Sorry, old friend," you mutter as you lock the wheels in place once more. No zombie will be coming through the door now, though. You sit down on the now-lonely piano stool to catch your breath.

Oh, I'm Ravel?  I escaped using my beloved piano.  Short little work, very nicely written, but it didn't cause any chills or horror.  I'm more curious about why Debussy is a zombie.

Faithful Companion
An Interactive Fiction by Matt Weiner

Oh wow, this is the first entry I've played that is both understandable and has an actual substantially fiendish puzzle. There is a ghost who copies every move you make two turns later.  I need to open a door by pressing three latches in succession, but a second push will close the latch.  The ghost, therefore gets the first latch closed just as I open the third.  I actually made some diagrams to figure it out.  I haven't figured it out yet, but I may come back to this...this might be one of those things where the answer will suddenly pop into my head in the shower and I'll go "AHA!" and then promptly slip on the soapsuds and fall and sustain a nasty bruise on my forehead, which will make me forget the answer. Damn you, Matt W., if I can remember who you are in two days!!!

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