Katie Benson. 53rd place, IFComp 2022.
Short, Gentle, all the feels.
What’s working for me:
Captures the arc of a slip into a sad fog and the beginning of the climb out of it perfectly.
The series of “stop doing” lines at the beginning is an effective depiction of feeling crushed by the weight of the world, referenced later by the weight of the blanket.
Feels very complete. No bugs, lots of good editing choices in here.
What’s not working for me
Interactions are pretty limited to advancing the story, and sometimes expanding a phrase for a little more detail. These additional details don’t add a whole lot. They might be intended to capture that spiraling feeling, but maybe don’t go far enough; letting each go three or four clicks deep might create that feeling better. There’s a couple of tiny branches (tea/no tea) of intentionally minor consequence, tuned about to the kind of decisions one is capable of making in this emotional state. Overall there’s a little justification for “interactive” here, but not my favorite use of the form.
So I think this would be about as strong if non-interactive, but that’s not to say it isn’t very effective at communicating this experience. What is there is so well done and I like it very much.