Mike Russo reviews Not Just Once: "Once and never again" October 28, 2024 "Continuing the review-a-thon run through the highlights of other events, we come to Not Just Once, which was intended as an entry in last..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Someone Else's Story: "Married to the mob" October 28, 2024 "We’ve now reached the first of a couple Goncharov games in the thon. I’m dimly aware of the provenance here; there was a social-media..." - See full review |
EJ reviews Traffic: "Traffic review" October 28, 2024 "In this game, the PC is run over by a car that veers onto the sidewalk and killed—and then regains consciousness in the body of the..." - See full review |
EJ reviews Return to Claymorgue's Castle: "Return to Claymorgue's Castle review" October 28, 2024 "In this game, the PC leads a team of specialists to explore a mysterious castle. It’s a choice-based game that tries to emulate a..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews THE RUIN OF 0CEANUS PR1ME: "Space Whales pt2" October 28, 2024 "Played: 7/27/24 Playtime: 2.25hrs, 3 deaths, ‘won’ with walkthru This is a companion piece to A1RL0CK, and I do recommend playing the..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Sunburst Contamination: "That equally the soun of it wol wende / And eke the stynk, unto the spokes ende" October 27, 2024 "While at 43 I often find myself feeling like a bit of a graybeard, my contemporary experience with vintage-era IF is actually fairly..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Your World According to a Single Word: "Word world" October 27, 2024 "One cool thing about the review-a-thon is that it seems like a lot of the games were entries in jams or events that passed me by, so it..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Tribute: Return to the City of Secrets: "Secrets and ruins" October 27, 2024 "There’s a story I remember hearing about O Brother Where Art Thou?, the Coen Brothers’ The-Odyssey-by-way-of-Appalachia musical,..." - See full review |
EJ reviews Redjackets: "Redjackets review" October 27, 2024 "Redjackets is a paranormal thriller about a sort of vampire bounty hunting agency, which is to say that they hunt vampires and also some..." - See full review |
EJ reviews Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value: "Quest for the Teacup review" October 27, 2024 "In this game, the protagonist finds her favorite teacup missing, and embarks upon a quest to retrieve it—a quest that will take her..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews NYX: "Space Horror on FFWD" October 27, 2024 "Played: 7/27/24 Playtime: 5min, 3/3 endings Back before the internet enabled pervasive access to, euphemistically, “externally authored..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews Lysidice and the Minotaur: "Who's a Fierce Monster? You Are! You Are!" October 27, 2024 "Played: 7/26/24 Playtime: 1hr, finished This is billed as a beginner parser, and ok maybe. Certainly, veterans will find the puzzle play..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews A Collegial Conversation: "Real Beaurecrats of Zelio City" October 27, 2024 "Played: 7/26/24 Playtime: 15min, 5 playthroughs One word review: MeYOW. Four-word review: I really dug this. Multi-word review of..." - See full review |
MathBrush reviews Doki Doki Literature Club: "(In)famous visual novel with dark themes behind cheerful exterior" October 26, 2024 "I was making a game that had some thematic elements in common with this one, from what I'd heard, so I wanted to try it out. Pretty much..." - See full review |
A new listing for The Moments Before Death, by Itsuten October 26, 2024 This is a text-based adventure visual novel, meaning that you will be able to type in responses to the story! The gameplay involves reading through the story, and when the player is given the option, the... |
Mike Russo reviews Zugzwang: "Black metal Mega Man" October 26, 2024 "German is one of those languages which, if it didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent: it offers up an essential myriad of..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews 19 Once: "Post-teenage wasteland" October 26, 2024 "It’s a truism that there’s a lot about being young that only makes sense in retrospect. One can interrogate whether that’s..." - See full review |
EJ reviews The Killings in Wasacona: "The Killings in Wasacona review" October 26, 2024 "This is a murder mystery game in which you play as an FBI agent who’s been called in to investigate a string of murders (possibly the..." - See full review |
EJ reviews Forsaken Denizen: "Forsaken Denizen review" October 26, 2024 "Forsaken Denizen is a survival horror game taking place in a far-future space monarchy. An extradimensional investment group has..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews WHOM I SHOULD LOVE ABOVE ALL THINGS: "Forgive Me Father, For We Have Sinned" October 26, 2024 "Played: 7/26/24 Playtime: 5min This is a short, very short excerpt from a longer work. I am not convinced reviewing this in isolation..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews The Revenant's Lament: "Wild, Weird West" October 26, 2024 "Played: 7/26/24 Playtime: 45min My introduction to this author was via their prose which typically lands squarely in my thirsty, thirsty..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews Cycle: "Entitled Heart, pt2" October 26, 2024 "Played: 7/25/24 Playtime: 10min, 3/3 endings It is kind of gratifying to watch an artistic arc. So much art is consumed one-and-done in..." - See full review |
Canalboy reviews Lost: "I could spell better as a five year old." October 25, 2024 "The game claims to have had multiple beta testers. One wonders what it was like previously as I counted four typographical howlers on the..." - See full review |
A new listing for Idle Judgment Day, by ODD PIZZA! October 25, 2024 Idle Judgment Day is a very simple and short idle / clicker with real-time progression created in Twine (Harlowe) over a couple of days. Though it was created mainly as a proof-of-concept and experiment, it... |
A new listing for Stellar Odyssey, by Nick Marentes October 25, 2024 "Cruising through the tranquility of space, you are awoken prematurely from suspended animation by the ship's on-board computer. Trouble lurks for the ship has stopped, power is low and the rest of the... |
Lance Cirone reviews The Mean Story: "Not the sum of its parts" October 25, 2024 "The Mean Story bases itself on offensive humor and warns you multiple times about it. I'm not really a fan of this, but I can't blame the..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Moon-House Technician: "Grinding moondust" October 25, 2024 "When I was a kid I went through a phase where Howard Pyle was one of my favorite authors. A turn-of-the-century writer and illustrator,..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews The Postage Code: "Postman Flat" October 25, 2024 "I have to give Postage Code massive points for what seems like a simple thing: it starts when you double-click it. It’s a Python game,..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Yurf: "Alice in Onewordland" October 25, 2024 "The rise of choice-based games to co-equal status alongside their parser cousins has had a lot of positive effects, in my view, among..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews Collision: "Impact Imminent" October 25, 2024 "Played: 7/25/24 Playtime: 5min, 5 playthroughs, 5 deaths The 'Thon has exposed me to a higher density of works..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews idle hands: "Do I Make You HORNY, Baybee?" October 25, 2024 "Played: 7/25/24 Playtime: 5min, ah, finished This is a linear piece of short erotica. Interactivity is mainly used in mouseover phrases..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews Dark Communion: "But I Don't WANNA Go to Church, Mom!!" October 25, 2024 "Played: 7/24/24 Playtime: 15min, 3/3 rescues, 2/4 fails, 3/5 awards This is an entry for a Comp I do NOT judge! Weirdly, as EctoComp’s..." - See full review |
A new poll by Canalboy, Games With Extended Underwater Sequences created October 24, 2024 15 votes for 15 games That is games that have immersive (pun intended) sub aqua areas of more than, say ten locations. |
Cerfeuil reviews House of Wolves: "The metaphorical life of a college student during lockdown" October 24, 2024 " Your life has looked almost exactly the same for every day of the past however-many months. You wake up, do the bare minimum to keep..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews The Samurai and the Kappa: "Enjoyable puzzling marred by ill-advised historicity" October 24, 2024 "I’ve never dug that deeply into Text Adventure Literacy Project games, mostly just because I’m already fairly overcommitted when it..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Project Postmortem: "An academic-thriller amuse-bouche" October 24, 2024 "It’s unfair to Project Postmortem to compare it to The Mysterious Cave, a pretty-but-buggy Adventuron game that consists of one basic..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Free Bird: "Fail forward" October 24, 2024 "Free Bird’s blurb conveys at best a profound ambivalence about its value: of this short game functioning as a proof-of-concept for a..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews It can't be true it mustn't be true: "3/5 of a Review" October 24, 2024 "Played: 7/24/24 Playtime: Act I (2x) 5min; Act II (3x) 5min; Act III (4x) 8min I made the call to review these three Acts together, given..." - See full review |
JJ McC reviews Remembrance: "Selective Grief" October 24, 2024 "Played: 7/22/24 Playtime: 8min, 4 endings Hitting quite a run of these Short Story IF works. I suspect (and only suspect, not having..." - See full review |
dfranke reviews Delusions: "Hasn't aged well" October 23, 2024 "When I first played Delusions as a teen in the late 90s, it blew me away. Coming back to it, I find that it has not aged well. Delusions..." - See full review |
A new listing for The Darien Gap, by Kurmi Xochitl, influencia indebida, Gaz October 23, 2024 Choose your own doom as survivors of this perilous trek. Patients who have survived describe everything from falls off cliffs to drowning in rivers, and from kidnappings to sexual abuse. The Darien Gap, a... |
DemonApologist reviews PARANOIA: "Is 'Dr. Iblis' in the room with us right now?" October 23, 2024 "In Paranoia, the devilish Dr. Iblis has tasked you, the player, with exploring a series of copies of the same room. Your job is to..." - See full review |
perkiio reviews LATEX, LEATHER, LIPSTICK, LOVE, LUST: "Spicy!" October 23, 2024 "It is a lot of storytelling and little to no gameplay aspect. But the story delves into interesting matters." |
perkiio reviews The Den: "amazing!" October 23, 2024 "I love the structure of the game and the interactiveness with all the different paths being able to take. Even though I have to pick..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews Beef, Beans, Grief, Greens: "Salad days" October 23, 2024 "It is nothing short of miraculous that Andrew Schultz has now made eight large, robust games centering on a very specific bit of wordplay..." - See full review |
Mike Russo reviews The Mysterious Cave: "Caveat lector" October 23, 2024 "“Your goal is to navigate through the forest, solve puzzles, interact with characters, and ultimately discover the truth about your..." - See full review |