If you're familiar with MST3k, you know what to expect. It's a bad IF game, Detective, its text interspersed with jeering commentary by the characters of MST3k.

The jokes don't make the game more playable, but they are entertaining. The sheer incomprehensibility of the original game makes the despairing comments relatable. They're not just funny; they give a sense of camaraderie that is just enough to keep you going to the end.

There was a later release of this game featuring a brief interview with the author of Detective: he made the game when he was 12 years old, and he's fine with the parody. Honestly, I'm glad to know it. This parody was, apparently, written without his knowledge, and Detective is so obviously the work of a child that it seems mean-spirited to make fun of it. This story was entertaining, but I'm glad we didn't see a deluge of these in the ifcomp in the following years.

The IFDB only lists two other stories tagged 'MST3K', but MST3k was popular enough to inspire works in various media. I have an email in my archives dated 1996-03-04, Mystery Fanfic Commentary Theatre 3000 comments on "Natsumi, the Magical Girl, chapter one.", and there were plenty more like it in the succeeding months and years.

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"Detective"
An Interactive MiSTing
By C.E. Forman (ceforma@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu)
Created using Unix Inform 5.5
Original AGT version by Matt Barringer
Release 101 / Serial number 950814 / Inform v1502 Library 5/11