Ratings and Reviews by Tito Valenz

This was a pleasant enough game. You play as a bartender who is saving up money for a goal of the player's choosing. You interact with customers and mix drinks in a mini-game. It has a colorful and well-themed UI that makes use of lots of little tricks to add detail.

The story is divided up into days, and depending what you choose, you may see different scenarios on different days, my favorite being the visit with the elderly couple. However, I found that there were a lot of repetitive tasks that never varied. I expected the drink-mixing mini game to get more complicated over time, but the only change is to add a timed element. Even when I increased the difficulty, there wasn't any challenge to it. However, if you really enjoy mixing the drinks, you can opt to play an Arcade mode that just focuses on challenges involving the mini game with no story running through it.

It is a fairly upbeat story with comical characters and playful scenarios. However, as it stands now, the grammatical errors are pervasive and jarring. They are on every page, and they disrupt the rhythm of the passages. I usually try to overlook them and focus on the story, but there was no getting around it. Some extensive proofreading and editing is sorely needed.

I enjoyed this one a lot. It was atmospheric and slightly creepy. The gameplay centers around your character asking questions to a girl who is begging for help. You have to guess the right things to ask, and the NPC responds. The author has developed an impressive system in which a lot of what I tried got fairly relevant responses. I was genuinely motivated to figure out how to help the girl. There are no content warnings, as that would spoil important details, but be aware you may read descriptions or see images that could disturb some players. I was able to finish fairly quickly, but I am interested to see what other responses are available, so I would replay Thanatophobia again.

I really struggled with this game. I never really got the hang of it, even though it's centered on finding rhyming words. I used the hint system and look at the walkthrough, but I still couldn't come up with a strategy for solving the puzzles. It was clear a lot of work went into this game, and it has a fun, light-hearted tone, but I just didn't connect with it.

This game is just about as brief as they come. There were so few details that I didn't really get any imagery in my mind. However, it did create a certain feel. Rather than describe what it was like, I would say give it a try. It's so quick, you may as well experience it to make up your own mind.

Somewhat of a mystery, this game has the player exploring around for clues. However, there is more going on than a run-of-the-mill mystery. It took me a little extra time to put together what I should probably be doing, and I think that might have cost me: I ended up failing my first playthrough. However, I can't wait to try it again. I like the puzzles and mechanics; the Twine format makes it very easy to navigate and retrace your steps when you realize there is something else you can try. Recommended.

Here is a choice-based game that I found very pleasant to navigate. Despite being a sci-fi adventure taking place on another world (not my usual preference), I was drawn in right away; I attribute that to the fact that the setting is more of an underwater environment than an alien planetary location. There are five chapters to this story. I have played the game several times. While I enjoyed the writing, I was a little disappointed that it seemed like nothing you do in the first three chapters keeps you from arriving at the same place in the fourth one. Another nitpick is that in the first chapter, you have to choose what to say to crew members to hopefully inspire their confidence. However, even when I tried to choose carefully, the NPC's reactions seemed very random. On top of that, I didn't see how it made a difference at any point going forward. I enjoyed the exploration and problem-solving of the second chapter, possibly my favorite section. The third chapter lets you decide a few things, but as I said, you end up in the same place regardless. Probably the most challenging portion was the mini-game in the fourth chapter. Tension started to build here and decisions became more consequential. Still, the game is pretty forgiving, and it seemed pretty easy to get a satisfactory ending. I would have liked more time with the NPC mermaids, as they were the most interesting part of the story, but I also enjoyed a lot of the other strange creatures. On one hand, I appreciated the brevity. On the other, I felt like more details could have enriched the experience. Fun, not too difficult, it makes for a solid entry in the 2021 IFComp.

I found this game very addicting. I had a hard time putting it down, even though there were things about it that frustrated me.

First, this is an RPG. It kind of reminds me of a solo module, or a gaming paperback, like the Fighting Fantasy books. Except 4x4 is randomized, so even though some of the content is similar, enough changed that I found playing again to be just as much fun.

I have played two 5-hour session, each one with a different character. The first character I chose was a trickster, whose skills were magic and charisma. I think my mistake was that I tried to increase her fighting ability, when I probably should have concentrated on learning more spells. Even after hours of exploring, the character still was not effective against difficult opponents. I have not finished the story with this character yet.

So I picked a mercenary for the second try. This character didn't have the charisma to get me certain advantages, but was it was a lot easier to get strong enough to actually finish some of the quests.

This is a really big game with a lot of content. I think the author balanced everything out very well. There are a lot of other things to do besides fight, and a good amount of stats to track.

I played this game so I could score it for IFComp 2021. I am very lucky that I got to this game last. If I had gotten into it earlier on, I might have been so absorbed with it, I might not have had time to give some of the other games a chance.

In this story, you have to read messages to a dead person left by their loved ones. Then, you have to contact the loved ones and ask them to verify that this person is, in fact, dead. It connects to the story of another of the author's games, "Weird Grief," which shows a lot more of the characters. I was surprised at the reactions from the characters during the group chat. This was pretty sad. I recommend playing the other game first.