Ratings and Reviews by Simon Deimel

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A Week in the Life, by Neil James Brown
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Makes you think, January 12, 2014
by Simon Deimel (Germany)

Honestly spoken, I liked the concept, although the game exclusively presents guess-the-verb puzzles. The description of the location (which is not a concrete place but an abstract concept) contains several objects, and the player has to find a way to deal with them. Some of these actions seemed arbitrary to me, so I really relied on guessing and sometimes was surprised when I got it right.
The author states in an afterword that he is aware of the aforementioned disadvantages. I think I understand the meaning of this game for the author, and I pay respect to it. In the end I did pass the week, so the game can be finished. The writing is okay. The implementations are not perfect, but sufficient, and I did not find obvious bugs.

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What-IF?, by David Ledgard
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Not what I need, January 12, 2014
by Simon Deimel (Germany)

This project is not bad in itself, but it does not fit into the category of a game; it is a collection of articles about alternate histories. It may serve educational purposes, yes, it may even be informative. If someone wants to read a number of essays, that is. But I suppose that is not what people search for in Inform projects; they want text based games with interactivity and a positive ending that can be reached. Nothing of it can be found here.

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They're After You!, by Bob Reeves
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Zombocalyse!!!, by Mr.Manpants
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Another little diversion, January 9, 2014
by Simon Deimel (Germany)

It is a short story with the background of a typical zombie apocalypse. So nothing new at all, but how is it executed?
Principally not bad, the paragraphs are quite short, so it is an easy and fast-paced reading from choice to choice. And there are some choices and some endings, so yes, this is interactive. On the negative side it is a short piece and the ending is a bit too abrupt -- an open ending. I felf slightly unsatisfied and did not have the feeling that the story had come to an end... it did not seem like a resolution to me.
Nevermind, even though I think this can not compete with the flagships of interactive fiction, it is surely worth a try.

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Badlands - Prologue, by AlexThorland
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A rush job, January 8, 2014
by Simon Deimel (Germany)

The approaches to a story are not bad, I was thinking about the choices that were to be made. The paragraphs were short, the language sufficient. It was an easy walk to the ending. There should have been more to it and again I get the impression that the author was hastily publishing it without even trying to make improvements to the result.

Unfortunately this is not a genuine game, but just a prologue -- there is no plot, this is just one scene meant to be an introduction to a story, so I do not want to give a rating on the scale. The writing, although there is not much of it, seems to be relatively competent as opposed to other novice authors; the author should have finished a small project instead of starting a big one and publishing only a first small part of it. Nobody wants to read the prologue of a book without a chance to read the rest, as it is usually just a tiny fragment of the storyline; people want to read a complete story.

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Our Boys in Uniform, by Megan Stevens
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Interesting concept, January 7, 2014
by Simon Deimel (Germany)

When I started this and saw the first page, I just thought, "Oh no, what is this gonna be? A history lesson?" I am not a history buff, because what history teaches is more or less the history of politics, but I prefer the anthropologic aspects.
But to my own surprise I found this very short piece not that bad. It is not fiction, but has educational approaches. The concept is simple: try to find truth and lies within history as it was recorded. I found pleasure in checking out the highlighted words. It is a clever idea.
In the end it was a pity that this piece is very short. It could be expanded. Other continents could be included. There are many possibilities.

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Calliope, by Jason McIntosh
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CRUSH, by Thom Scullion
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Acceptable, January 7, 2014
by Simon Deimel (Germany)

It was okay, I have seen worse, but also better developments of a story. The narrative is sufficient, the structure is logic and events happen in a likely order.
I replayed this some times but I could not find any way to win -- in the end there seemed to be no possibility to "win" this game. Maybe there should have been a possibility to score with the crush (or maybe I just missed it).
The premise is not groundbreaking but fairly promising, so i think this could be extended.

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Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time), by Julian Fleetwood
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for the sake of illuminating the movements of my thoughts, by Finny
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Justice?, January 6, 2014
by Simon Deimel (Germany)

The text is quite abstract and makes you think about it, and there is surely some truth behind it, but the excessive use of metaphors has an effect of disadvantage on me: it lets the arguments become blurry. Maybe a philosophical statement (and justice is a philosophic topic) would have more impact without many metaphors. So language may be created in a sense of beauty, but its message may be partly lost or misinterpreted as an unwanted side effect. Nevertheless it is sometimes enjoyable to read the thoughts of someone else.

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