Reviews by Max Fog

I’m going to struggle to write a lot about this one. I liked it. I liked it a lot. It didn’t quite go on for as long as I’d hoped it would, but it’s all relative, I suppose. The game starts out seeming sci-fi - interesting concept, I remember myself thinking, but surely that makes the game not super fun as there’s no challenge in getting away. So then you go around, trying to get in, and have an odd conversation with a woman before getting into the vault. Good writing, as well, so that definitely helped push it along beyond the extremely basic puzzle which felt a little too much like lawnmower options.

Then, the game flipped. Every single thing our PC had casually mentioned, the odd interaction, the entire concept of the game, suddenly fell into place and made so much sense. How didn’t I see that before? I remember thinking. Now, that is the best way to create a plot twist.

Of course, we are given one choice at the end and I am happy with the choice I was given, so I don’t feel I need to go back and try the alternative. However, I do feel like while the puzzle was only there to slow the pace and not feel like a kinetic novel, I wish there was something more to do in that moment - a clever puzzle that maybe even gave away another subtle hint to the condition of the PC, obviously without giving it away yet, but something to create more investment in the story before the flip.

Okay, wow. That was one confusing romp. I’m getting through all the short games and then seeing what I can do about the longer games later, if I can get to them at all. These days are numbered for me. I start school tomorrow.

Anyway, the game. Immediately, you’re thrown into the midst of the action, falling from the sky. I love the use of stretching to find rhymes in this case especially, because it was actually quite amusing. Then you fall and struggle to find out how to survive, and restart again and again. Most verbs are blocked, as then they would have to be implemented - a shame, absolutely, but understandable to an extent.

I had to use the walkthrough to get through, and it’s so obvious once you get it. Very silly, slightly amusing, but frustratingly underimplemented.

So, just previously I was talking about minimalistic games with a linear storyline/puzzle sequence, and explaining that the rest of the game still needs to be implemented to a sufficient level, in a way that guides the player through. That is exactly what Black Thumb does.

Sure, call me exaggerating: the game in question is very short and doesn’t do anything super innovative or excitingly different. However, what it does do is implement the entirety of the room in detail that allows the player to feel immersed in the simulation. The different parts of the descriptions are given their own responses, and there is subtle guiding through reliance on assumptions the player makes, and then it soon uses these to make the player do things that you never would have imagined yourself enacting, much like the meat puzzle in Coloratura, but on a smaller scale.

The parts about implementation may seem like a bare minimum, and in a way it is, but on the other hand many games that do similarly tend to be puzzle heavy games, and they like to create descriptions that often imply “that isn’t important” or “you don’t need that yet but keep an eye on it”; this game creates descriptions that do exactly that, but without being dimsmissive. I don’t know how to explain it. The descriptions are fairly poetic as well, which helped create this cozy atmosphere about it.

I know that others will likely give this a 3-star or 4-star, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Okay, I am not going to lie, the very start immediately hooked me. You’re on a plane, very minimalist description style. Something in my brain clicked.

But then - the implementation threw me off. There was nothing to do in the scenarios except that which was intended to progress the scenes. And if that was the idea, to have the player focus on the important parts, then unimplemented moments need to have more guidance. Take Portrait With Wolf, for example. While there is only one verb and four objects at any one time, the game guodes you whenever the player attempts to examine things mentioned that are unimportant, rather than just a simple “?”

I didn’t quite understand what was happening in the scenarios, but I quite liked the vibe. I’ll give it that.

This game is an extremely simple concept: wake up, read mail, and gather supplies to go and kill the King! I love the idea of making things more complicated than they have to be, especially when you start with a basic problem and it escalates out of proportion.

However, this game didn’t quite get that. There was no depth or build-up. It was exactly what it said on the tin, but in a way that felt quite unsatisfying. I would in the future try to build a progression of events that brings players beyond what they were drawn in by. For example, if then there was a budgeting puzzle where you had to trick a set of shops into getting you what you wanted with a small amount of money.

Furthermore, the implementation left much to be desired. There were multiple sections where the default responses were left in immediately after a custom response, for example “You can’t go that way.” on the winning move! Beta testers are a really useful tool, and I know many people who would be glad to playtest.

Overall, while there is a long way to go from here, everyone has started here, whether they eventually released it or not.

Anyway, I played through this game to some of the endings, and I have to say up front, this was a very enjoyable romp through a space station, fixing things and sometimes breaking things in order to get around a Catch-22 situation you’ve been forced into. The layout and UI was very simple but overall I found it easy to work with - I would way rather something simple and not too complicated but no issues with it, rather than a highly stylised and very pretty game with an extremely difficult interface. (Unless it’s SPY INTRIGUE. But I digress.)

The game’s tone felt especially Douglas Adams, with funny moments of what I can only describe as corporate irony (such as the throwing the gizmos out into space because it’s cheaper than actually shipping them to people). The tone was spot on the whole way and I never felt lost in the lore of the world, but it also didn’t feel over-explained. I think this game is a must-play and honestly, a really great start to Spring Thing!

Song: Right. I was thinking of something space-esque, probably slightly ironic considering the underlying metaphor of the whole game (that I picked up on). So, unfortunately, I don’t have anything close enough to call it a match. But I think the vibe (and some lyrics of) Polyethylene (or Banana Co?) by Radiohead might be worth a listen, but don’t take my word for it.

I played this game as far as I could by myself, then I had to use the Walkthrough to proceed from there. My first note is that the puzzles seem quite far-fetched in terms of knowing what to do next. I’d be surprised if anyone got some of the puzzles, but that isn’t to say I admire the commitment to the small scope of the game (which is a thing I really struggle with). I also think it’s worth noting the idea of the entire game is very simple and yet, uh, not so simple. I found the ending quite funny and it certainly surprised me!

…That said, the game mainly struggles with interaction/implementation. By this, I mean there is very little room description and all the implemented objects are in a list at the end. However, all the doors for instance could be made undescribed (or however it is done in Inform 6) and then mention them in an extended version of the room description, so that the player feels more part of the story than simply a robot scanning all potentially usable items (I don’t know if that makes sense)… And again, maybe synonyms for objects (eg. plane for aeroplane); finally, objects in room descriptions need to be implemented, such as a desk in the office, or a sink in the bathroom. Even if not really described in much detail, just an acknowledgement that they exist is worth a lot to a player. I was testing a game a year ago with these incredible descriptions of the objects, and I really enjoyed them, but nothing in the object descriptions were implemented, so I went through the start of the massive game and just pointed out all the missing objects. Sometimes, just a “that isn’t important to the story” (or, better, a ~15 word description of what the object is) is enough.

Anyway, the game is a promising first start, and I’ll be interested in seeing Solarius again!

This is going to be a very short review, simply because I find it difficult to talk about a game that seems to resist any clear understanding of what is going on. I got the main general gist of the loop, and the characters were interesting and I enjoyed the dynamic between them, though it definitely got way too confusing to follow at times. Most of the time I sort of wandered, choosing what I thought was better. Also, I thought the parallel links at the bottom with more clear defining of what each of the choices led towards was interesting but I couldn’t pin down a meaning. It got more interesting once there were no links in the text and only in the navigation bar at the bottom, which ultimately led to (Spoiler - click to show)the supposed escape from the game that the story seems to commenting on. I liked the idea, and (Spoiler - click to show)if you look at the url of the ending, it seems to be by Tundish, so I wonder if D E Haynes is Tundish, or that is simply a citation?

One note is the entire text seems like it has more padding on the left than on the right side of the box, which is a subtle but wrong feeling. (I’m certain it isn’t purposeful, so just noting.)

This story was a fairly straightforward story of a woman working on a research task about disproving an alien arrival, and getting caught up in the opposite.

It was pretty well written, and the story was coherent and clever. I also thought the side story with the mom actually was a lot deeper and better than it first felt, so I'm glad it was there.

Unfortunately, on a phone at least, the game does not look so good, with text going out the disk of blue and some bits looking very off. With some tweaking, that could be fixed.

Overall, I'd say it's worth playing.

The second chapter in my sequence of "review mathbrush games that haven't been reviewed", I review *9 Secret Steps*. It's a curious game, with a lot of things that seem dark at first, but slowly become slightly funny. At least to me they were. The first time I played, (Spoiler - click to show)I didn't click any of the red links (I didn't know they were links!). This ended up with me playing through the game, seeing a dark, shadowy, very cult-like version, which I thought had a nice mood to it. And then as I reached that final story page (before the song lyrics themselves), it flipped on its head and became a good game with a twist ending. Replaying after, I noticed you could click the red bits earlier, which on subsequent runthroughs is really cool but for a first runthrough it makes the game confusing.

Despite the positive vibes, I couldn't help but feel that the nodding didn't ultimately affect the outcome, though I'm pretty sure it did. The randomised messages were so similar, I couldn't tell whether the choice of object-location actually affected what was printed, and if so, why. This led to the feeling I could optimise the outcome of the game. But I didn't actually know how.

Overall, I liked it quite a fair bit for such a small game, but the limitedness made me feel there was something missing. Worth playing through once without clicking the red links, then once more clicking them. Then don't overthink it. You may have a more positive reaction.