The Stack

Spoilers follow the break.
Read more »

Bucking trends and stirring trouble, our next entry is (a) CYOA-style (that is, rather than a text parser, it prompts you to select choices from a list like the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books) and (b) only playable through the Web. Spoilers follow the break.
Read more »

Glorious spoilers of the worker follow the break.
Read more »

Dinosaurs! I can’t escape them! I don’t really want to! Aotearoa is a work of alternate-prehistory sci-fi, positing a microcontinent in the place of New Zealand that was unaffected by the Cretaceous extinction event. Spoilers follow the break.
Read more »

Spoilers follow the break.
Read more »

Owen Parish, author of last year’s out-of-Comp game Cacophony, brings us more surrealism. Spoilers follow the break.
Read more »

First up, a memorial piece by Hannes Schueller. Spoilers follow the break.
Read more »

A while back, I wondered how I was going to squeeze in the Comp this year. At the beginning of the year, I had decided on a schedule of 25 games from the Stack, with two weeks reserved per game, leaving just two weeks of the year free — and that schedule was slipping. How was I going to fit in a month of IF?

Fortunately, the more recent games have been taking considerably less than two weeks to play. A sign of the direction the industry has taken? Or just a sign that short games don’t stay on the Stack for more than a few years? Probably a little of both. Regardless, I have plenty of time to spend on the Comp. There are a mere 26 entries this year, and Emily Short’s initial impression is that it “looks like a strong year”. I encourage my readers to play along and judge the games for themselves. Let us begin.