Vain Empires is a parser-based espionage game by Thomas Mack and Xavid.
Although this entry is in the "spy thriller" genre, this main character describes life-or-death thrills as a minor bureaucratic hassle. The dry, aloof descriptions of people, places, and things provide a lot of entertainment.
Vain Empires uses an elegant trick of perspective to gloss over details that might divert players from the main story. You're exploring a seaside chateau that has been converted to a luxury hotel and casino, but you don't need to pay attention to things like heavy velvet curtains or whirring slot machines.
If you're at risk of getting distracted by your surroundings, the noncorporeal main character reminds you that these things are of little interest to those who inhabit the spiritual realm.
It's difficult to create characters in Inform that feel like real people who can interact with the player and with each other. This entry sidesteps that issue by having a main character that doesn't want to interact with people. His celestial nature makes him distant and unconcerned with the mundane actions of the human realm. Every human is expected to behave like predictable machinery, and you alter their behavior to get what you want.
As an American who grew up in the 1980's, "cold war struggles playing out on foreign soil" is a familiar theme, and that familiarity allowed me to focus on game mechanics that were a departure from normal parser-based puzzles.
As someone who is aware of my country's actions on the international stage, it was painfully appropriate and darkly comedic to be working for the forces of evil — it established the clear expectation that people would be mere objects used to accomplish my goals.
In Vain Empires, the opposite of poor impulse control lets bad guys have all the fun.
Artwork from Donald Conrad:
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