IFComp 2024 Impressions is a series where must-play entries from the aforementioned jam are showcased for your convenience. Final Arc would like to give a disclaimer that it does not encourage readers to vote for any particular game mentioned in this series.
Vivienne Dunstan is a woman of many talents. She's an independent academic historian specializing in various aspects of 17th–19th century Scotland, an academic computer scientist, a genealogist of her family tree, a musician of multiple instruments, a learner of languages, and a Call of Cthulhu role-player (keeping track of that huge ruleset is a talent in my book). However, I'd like to highlight her skill as an interactive fiction (IF) author.
Dunstan is a Top 100 Reviewer on IFDB. She’s also made five known IF games to date, two of which are mysteries set in 15th and 16th century Scotland respectively. The fifth, which we're looking at today as part of our IFComp 2024 coverage, is set in what I can only presume is modern day... England?!
What is Bad Beer?
>l
Inside the Pub
This is the main room of "The Dog and Duck", your local pub. You've spent many a happy night here. The room is quaint, with wooden beams. You feel the sense of history here. There are several tables and seats. To the south is the front door leading onto the street, and to the north is the area behind the bar.
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
Bad Beer is a parser text game set in your unnamed player character's favorite English pub. There's just one catch: The booze has gone bad, and the owner Jack has asked you to crack the case. The gameplay uses standard text adventure mechanics but the story is where it gets interesting. As you crawl the pub looking for answers as to why the alcohol flavors have gone AWOL, you learn more about its history. And in Bad Beer, the truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
>drink beer
You raise the glass to your lips, and drink. But unlike the usual good drink here, this tastes like something really bad, rotten, just all wrong. You pull a face, and put the glass back down...
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
Dunstan's skill as an author comes from a long history with the medium. She's played IF games since the heyday of Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls, and continues to participate in the hobbyist scene to this day. What stood out the most to me from her history is how she once wrote quests for a Multi User Dungeon (MUD) at her university. For those not old enough to know: She has street cred. And as I'll discuss later, her experience working with MUD's is a big part of why Bad Beer succeeds. Not to mention, her experience as a fan of TTRPG's comes into play as well since the story's based on a piece she wrote from an RPG scenario writing course. There are more influences I could go on about, but mentioning them would spoil the twist...
One big thing Bad Beer does well
Behind the Bar
This is the area behind the pub counter, where Jack and June often stand to serve the patrons, though they are not here right now. Rows of taps for pulling curiously titled beers and ciders run along the wooden counter top, delivering drinks from the kegs stored below. Behind the standing area are shelves holding glasses for the drinks. Exits go to the south, east and west from here.
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
My favorite part of Bad Beer is the writing. While playing I noted how the pub felt so real to me. Bear in mind, she's not writing up huge storms of descriptions for each room. On the contrary, they're as terse as it gets for a text game, with shorter sentences being the norm. Yet the text gave me the sense that this digital pub—which I could only imagine in my mind—was in fact, a living, breathing world.
For example, here's a little line about one of the pub owners, June, that's a brief description of her activities:
This is mainly June's area, and she pops in and out during the pub's opening hours.
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
It's such a small detail about a character you only speak to a couple of times, yet it also shows so much about the space she inhabits. We don't learn much about June, her husband Jack, or really anyone else aside from their employee, Sally. But we do learn a lot about the pub itself.
>ask june about beer
"Oh Jack's so worried. The beer has been off for a while, and we can't find anything wrong with the setup," says June, shaking her head sadly. "Though it's not the only strange thing that's been going on here," she says, nodding to you significantly.
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
Dunstan's skill with describing a dynamic world in such a precise way surely stems from her MUD days. If you log onto MUD's such as LambdaMOO you'll encounter room descriptions which focus on creating a believable fiction in players' minds that won't bore you with miles of text. They're not like isolated IF game files where there's typically only one user playing at a time. In a MUD you're crafting a space for a community to thrive in, an intention I felt while playing Bad Beer. It's one of the few games I've ever played where I was immersed without a doubt. During the first few minutes I felt like I was at home, an experience that felt cozy and familiar. The Dog and Duck pub is a place to be alive in, not just play in.
Who should play Bad Beer?
"Even the vicar's been looking into it!" says June. "We'll have an exorcism next at this rate, you mark my words." Sally laughs.
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
Anyone who enjoys parser games should play Bad Beer. It's on the shorter side and sweet enough to feel like a justified use of your time. There's also an interesting gameplay element in the second half of the game that was a welcome surprise
Suddenly you hear those fateful words again...
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
Cozy mystery fans will also have a great time with this game. There may not be any murders in Bad Beer but there's enough sleuthing involved to keep them intrigued. And at risk of repeating myself, they'll love this charming little establishment with its endearing cast.
Before you start tasting the goods...
>ask jack about pub
"I've been here twenty five years with June," muses Jack. "Reet happy we've been too. But now, oh I'm so worried. If it's not the beer it's the other strange goings on. Ain't right. That's what I say!" he says, slapping the pub counter.
- Text by Vivienne Dunstan.
While writing this article I was sitting in my local pub. No, I wasn't drinking, I was just sitting there for the atmosphere and to look cool. The bartender didn't like me much. Anyways, I was leaning on the bar to look like I was ruminating on something important when voices whispered into my ears! Here's what I remember:
"I had a lot of fun writing Bad Beer, and it's given me the confidence that I can move on to longer, more ambitious pieces in future. But I also hope that it offers players an atmospheric yet compact setting, a good dose of light spooks and scares, while still hopefully not being too hard for parser newbies."
Let's get a move on, then! If Jack's supply tastes bad then the regulars won't come anymore, and then business will die down, and then the pub will close down, and we can't have that, now can we? You can find out the truth in Bad Beer through the IFComp website or IFDB.
Justin's many things: Memer, designer, developer, game maker, Tarot reader, writer, and more. Now he's a keyboard monkey for Final Arc (don't tell them he said that). Website: heyjustinkim.com
