Reviews by jakomo

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.

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).

This formerly commercial text adventure game really goes to great efforts to ensure its accessible to its target audience (of schoolkids). You will be subtly nudged, quietly coerced and gently goaded towards the correct commands to proceed. There are almost no red herrings, explorable areas are tightly constrained, and there is no death. If that's not enough, invisiclues and maps are also available.

It's a shame, then, that the story cannot quite live up to this excellence of execution. A fascinating setting, where Newtonian mechanics has become a religion, is squandered in service of a dull villain-steals-a-macguffin plot. Your character, a low-level clock mechanic, gives chase, explores the Steampunk city, solves some puzzles along the way, that's it. It's rote Harry Potter level stuff. It's the first part of the aborted "Klockwerk" series, which will never see the light of day since the company shut down, so it has to do the grunt-work of introducing people, places and concepts, without any of the pay-off, thanks to its cliff-hanger ending.

... this is actually a classic puzzle-based text adventure with a great sense of humour. You play a prehistoric man on a Quest For Bark... slowly making profound realizations about the world around him. It reminded me of the book "The Evolution Man, Or How I Ate My Father" by Roy Lewis, both in terms of tone and content.

It's a Ryan Veeder joint, so of course the writing is funny as hell. If you haven't played Taco Fiction, The Horrible Pyramid, or Captain Verdeterre's Plunder yet, why not? Go do it, then come back. Some of the descriptions are side-splitting: the first time you examine the cave wall, for example, is perfect comedy. There is only one real "puzzle", but the solution is totally logical and makes perfect sense. Its very satisfying.

It's too short though - the ending is hyper-abrupt (in fact, I'm not even sure if I got the definitive "win"), and there are some mysterious loose ends: does (Spoiler - click to show)the river changing its direction of flow mean something, or is it just a gag about you (Spoiler - click to show)turning around and not understanding what that means? Also, why are there (Spoiler - click to show)tyrannosaurs living alongside humans? They were millions of years apart!

This is brilliant! Classic Colbert-ian humour wrapped up in a ridiculous Narnia-styled fantasy choose-your-own-adventure. The player character is Stephen Colbert himself - "Your are Stephen Colbert! Congratulations!" is the opening line - and all the locations and possible actions are described in that deliciously hilarious style.

Obviously, there is no political humour here, as its a send-up of the adventure game genre (and Colbert has stopped doing that character for a while now) so republicans can play too, safe in the knowledge that their worldview will not be subverted! ;)

It's a quick ten minute romp that nails the Stephen Colbert style dead-on. If you're a fan, it's a must-play, if you're not, it may even convert you.