Reviews by jakomo

As a pure text adventure, it's passable: a standard short horror story with a twist of the type that now litters the internet. The parser is awkwardly non-standard (use LOOK ROOM, LOOK <object> and GO <location> instead of LOOK, EXAMINE and compass directions) and causes initial frustration.

But it's not a pure text adventure, it's displayed on a monitor screen attached to an old computer in a dark room: and this visual and sonic ambience surrounding the text is crucial to the experience, delivering the shocks and surprises so the text adventure itself doesn't need to.

This forms chapter 1 of "Stories Untold", a commercial compilation of four spooky adventures, and it sets the creepy tone very well. This chapter can be downloaded for free from Steam and GOG.

Reigns was a good proof-of-concept. Her Majesty picks it up, and runs with the ball. The writing is spikier, the events are more interesting, difficulty is seemingly dialled down a little.

A genius concept, perfect for on-the-go smartphone users (just swipe left or right to make binary choices). Stylish art, fun and jokey writing, but punishingly difficult throughout. There is a long-term meta-game that spans multiple lives, but it is very under-clued and somewhat unfair to achieve.

I expected a straightforward football management game with some sense of narrative. I didn't expect it to have such a sharp wit, coupled with a biting cynicism about the game. Clueless owners, moronic players, corrupt agents and two-faced press all play a part. As the manager, you are the lone voice of sanity in a world gone mad. Much more interesting than I had anticipated.

Played on Android. There has since been a new release, "Swipe Manager: Soccer 2018". I don't know if this is a sequel, or the same game but made free-to-play with ads.

This Android app collects all 20 volumes of Joe Dever's classic gamebook RPG series into one fantastic game.

The series was always leaps and bounds ahead of its nearest competitor (the Fighting Fantasy series) by virtue of telling one continuous story. Your character, "Lone Wolf", is a Kai Lord: a cross between a Shaolin monk, a ninja, and a Tolkienesque ranger: Book 1 is largely spent running away from the bad guys, but you gain new skills and abilities with each book, and by Book 20 you are trading blows with demi-gods. The world of Magnamund is really well thought out, a step removed from the generic D&D lands of the mid-80s, and the writing is definitely more evocative than the norm.

This Android version is nigh-on perfect: all the finicky dice-rolling, stat-keeping and inventory-managing is done for you, it plays just as well as the paid gamebooks from Tinman, Inkle, Cubus etc, but is nevertheless completely free. You can pay for optional extra bookmarks, but don't need to as if you get killed you are only sent back to the beginning of that book. If you're an Android user, install this immediately!

A very simple choice-based comedy skit: thou must saveth thy princess from thee dragon. Naturally, things don't go to plan. Plays in a browser window and is over in a flash. Very linear, but guaranteed to raise a smile.

The current eruption of the Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii has led to lots of speculation that the goddess Pele is back and she's angry. But this game has taught me there is another form of Pele's Curse: if you take any local rocks away with you as souvenirs, bad luck will befall you. This scares the thieving tourists enough that many send the rocks back in the post: as a Hawaii tourist board employee, you need to drive around putting them back in their rightful places.

This is very much a postcard from Hawaii, both in size and style: an excuse to implement a "what I did on my summer vacation" as a text adventure. Not that there's anything wrong with that. "Bolivia By Night" is another really good example of that kind of thing. There is not much to do, puzzles aren't really difficult, and it's short, but well-written throughout.

Absurdist silliness in the style of Clickhole's Choose-Your-Own-Clickventures. Does exactly what it says on the tin: you play a struggling journo following Corbyn around, convinced he's about to join ISIS. Adds a slice of political satire to the mix: a jab at the right-wing British media, but this is unlikely to be toppling the establishment anytime soon. It's more about the protagonist than the February 2018 GQ Cover Star. Lots of losing endings, so lots of replayability. Is there a winning ending? I didn't find one. I laughed.

A cruel game that takes delight in being unfair, the Wall Street stock exchange was founded in 1792.

Is this the vicious skewering of the capitalist economy you've been waiting for? If that vicous skewering of the capitalist economy includes two youtube videos about monkeys, then YES!

It's Clickhole. Fans will already know what to expect. Or not expect. Non-fans need to know: the entire Clickventures series is surreal, off-the-wall, and brilliantly funny. "It's Your First Day On Wall Street" hits the mark. It is shorter than most, but the videos are a new (and delightful) development.

Highly impressive. A Study In Steampunk's title may be slightly misleading (steampunk stories usually take place in our world's past, rather than a fantasy analogue of it), but that is the only mis-step in an epic-length rollicking ride filled with devious spy-craft, grisly crime, intriguing magic, and high adventure round every corner.

It's clearly influenced by Sherlock Holmes, Jules Verne, Fu Manchu, but the story is very original and filled with unexpected curve-balls, characters are very well developed, and of course the world-building works beautifully.

Options are frequent and plentiful, and cleverly they are written as "thought bubbles" for the player character (a doctor and war-veteran in service of the crown). Often, the choice you are making is not the action you will perform, but rather *why* you are performing it.

A Study In Steampunk not only sits alongside the best Choice Of Games releases (Choice of Robots, Slammed!, Hollywood Visionary etc) but surpasses them, through the power of literary quality and technical innovations (it has a save game feature, for example).