So, what did everyone vote for? (Previous years there’s always been a discussion under the polls; if that’s not wanted this year, just let me know and I’ll delete this!)
There are inevitably a lot of games in the “underappreciated” poll that deserve more love, and it’s almost painful to have to narrow them down to three votes - but when I saw Paradox Factor on the list, I checked that box with indignant haste before I’d even finished reading the list. Paradox Factor is a masterpiece, a little game with a scope of lifetimes, a game about grief that I can’t bring myself to play when grieving but can’t stop thinking about either. It’s one of those rare works of fiction that have changed the way I live in this world.
I’ve voted for Donor in previous years, and I’ll keep voting for Donor as long as it keeps showing up in the polls. Okay, I know not everyone likes games with fixed protagonists, but this nasty and pensive little horror story is worth stepping outside your comfort zone, especially if you like your vampires with genuine bite: gleefully soulless and yet horribly alluring.
Life as a Lich was a bit of a sentimental choice for me - I had a lot of fun testing it, and Adrao is an author I’ve always enjoyed working with - but it definitely deserves more attention. For one thing, it’s pretty impressive that it can be played as a standalone or as a sequel to either of two very different games. You can have a pet familiar, which is always a plus. And it’s great fun to alternate developing your skills with using them on episodic quests.
Runner-up that would have been my fourth vote if I had one: Community College Hero: Fun and Games
Something I have the urge to say is just how much of a special game “Iron Destinies” is. It feels so unique that I truly have no idea what choice does what. Obviously, Interactive Fictions give you a choice, and you can infer the outcome of that choice. What Iron Destinies did to me was basically spin me in circles. Simply turning left instead of right, with zero context, would send me down a story that I had never seen before. It’s the fact that the most subtle choice will decide what story you see, and that is the reason it’s my most replayed game.
Note: I haven’t played any of the other games on the list, so I could only vote for Iron Destinies, but I still stand by my choice.
Cinderella: The Day After Ever After deserves more love, it’s such a fun read, one of my favorites HG titles. It’s a bit sad seeing it in the list this year too…I hope it gets some visibility!
Gray Painter, Donor, Butler Did It. I think the same as last year.
I think that the big mistake this game made is that it locked a lot of the content behind a gender-locked romance option. There’s a lot of content in that game that you’ll never get to see unless romance a male vampire, and that includes the ‘good’ endings. I think that if you’re gonna lock so much story content behind a single RO, you should make that RO gender-selectable.
I feel like I could write a whole essay about this, which is one of the joys of the game for me! The game is so much about the push-pull between wish-fulfilment/fanservice/artificial agency/player denial that I feel like the locking is part of what’s great about it. Though of course it makes it less of a crowd-pleaser, and I agree that that’s probably why it’s in the underappreciated section. (And is why I feel like it might have gone down well in IF Comp, in which games-about-games often get positive attention, especially if they have an arch sense of humour like this one.)
Much appreciated. It’s a mixed blessing to see it here. On the one hand, I hope it would eventually earn enough to surpass this qualification. On the other, if it can place it’ll get a sale and juice everything a bit, which is nice. Also, at least it means it didn’t fall out of the poll on the bad side; the games that sold so poorly they don’t make the cut to be included. Nuclear Powered Toaster nearly placed one year (finished one or two places out of being in the sale), but by the next year it was gone because too many higher-grossing games had crowded it out. Which, you know, fair. In over seven years it’s made me a whopping $700 in royalties. Day After by comparison is more than five times that.
I’m the biggest The Gray Painter glazer and that’s going to continue for sure here, one of the best little stories I’ve read. Donor super doesn’t deserve to be “underappreciated” but I don’t know where I’m going to put my 3rd vote.
I’m not sure what I voted in previous years (I am a long, long time lurker) I voted for Donor, Courting of Miss Bennet, and Don’t Wake Me Up.
Donor is my Roman empire, so I will vote for it as long as there is breath in my lungs. Even if you don’t normally play gender locked games or games with a pre-established character, play this one. Narratively and mechanically it’s just so, so good. Fingers crossed that one day Elena writes an IF version of Bait or gets a revised version back in print.
I’m not the biggest P&P or Austen fan in the world (though I have read the book and seen the Keira Knightley movie), but Courting of Miss Bennet was just so much fun. The author did a great job of adapting it for IF while cultivating a unique voice, and it was so much fun poking through all the branching. I never played any of the author’s other games, but I revisit this one on occasion.
I only played Don’t Wake Me Up once so I don’t think I had a good pitch for it, but I think it’s an experience that every IF player should at least check out. I plan to play all/many of the endings one day, but I really valued my experience of playing the game and didn’t find that last part jarring (sad, yes, but jarring? no, it felt resonant with the rest of the game and I loved it).
I definitely need to buy the full game of Gray Painter, though! I loved the demo but missed the initial drop and never got around to buying it.
I’m a bit shocked that Donor is on the list! I played a demo and read a bunch of the author’s commentary. A game with a clear vision and meticulous, dedicated work.
My day off work is greatly overlooked, it was one of the first cog/hg I read and it’s definitely still a classic. It was ahead of its time, even after all these years I still rank it among my favorite. It has a very simple short story that can definitely branch out into the absurd, I also love the replayability of it, I used to pretend I was groundhog daying and see what actions led into what. Definitely an underrated gem imo.
I think you and me have similar taste, I also need more votes . Donor, Paradox have been my long term favs and I do really like Lich as well (even to the point I made some fan art which I rarely do these days). I’m glad to see a number of my favs in the top ten. Also putting in some others that I think deserve more love that aren’t quite there including Steelthorne, and I just like how different Icepeak is in what it’s tried to do. I understand why Day off work is there and Cinderella but it’s nice to see that they have a fan base too.
Yup I’d say it’s still selling over the threshold. The under appreciated category seems to have to sell over and under a certain threshold I’m guessing over the last year as I’ve had games on this list that have fallen off so probably not overall sales (not quite sure where those thresholds are but the lowest games aren’t on there. And if it is overall sales then So you think you’re possessed did very well for a while after initial release so 100% isn’t an under achiever.)
Is this referencing donor? Because I don’t think that’s the case at all. One of Donor’s “problems” in the popularity stakes is definitely it’s gender locked, but it’s also because it is very light on romance.
. Donor, Paradox have been my long term favs and I do really like Lich as well (even to the point I made some fan art which I rarely do these days). I’m glad to see a number of my favs in the top ten. Also putting in some others that I think deserve more love that aren’t quite there including Steelthorne, and I just like how different Icepeak is in what it’s tried to do. I understand why Day off work is there and Cinderella but it’s nice to see that they have a fan base too.