Reviews by streever

I'm slightly biased against twine style games, but this is done well, and feels more like a traditional parser-based IF in the interaction and mechanics of the central puzzle.

I think there should be a trigger warning: it is about a violently abusive man, but this is a good game with excellent writing.

Very fair, and very consistent. There were no short-comings or technical flaws I found.

The poetry and writing is fun--this is a short, light-hearted game.

I thought this must have an obvious inspiration, but was unable to find one. The opening says it is in the the style of "Ambiguous Adventures", by which I think the author is referring to a children's classic or game series that I never heard of, and not the classic literary work by Cheikh Hamidou Kane.

This is a short, possibly unloseable game, with cute poems, descriptions, and an excess of adjectives. While it isn't going to win the Man Booker, I enjoyed the poems, which seemed heavily influenced by Seuss and other classic kids books.

This is a fun, short game, with a rewarding outcome & well-implemented mechanics. Ryan Veeder seems to enjoy creating games with slightly different scoring systems (misleadingly exact scoring systems!), which provide some real enjoyment and amusement, even when you suspect the switch is coming.

I would not have played this game based off of the blurb at all. I only played it because I've enjoyed other games of his and saw comments by Emily Short regarding it being much better than the blurb would suggest.

I don't love twine games, except when they are exceptionally well-done.

In this case, the game has a second strike for me--it presents heavy-handed political opinions as facts.

While I largely agree with the author, and I imagine we'd have very agreeable discussions on politics, the US, and imperialism, I couldn't help but be turned off by the heavy-handed approach of requiring me to agree with the POV as presented in the story in order to continue. It felt artificial, and I didn't enjoy my experience.

I don't think this is a terrible game, and I can see it perhaps having a real impact on someone who doesn't think these things already, but as a committed liberal, it was a little too on-the-nose for me.

I originally reviewed this shortly after playing it during the IF Competition, which was a mistake. The stress/strain of having limited time to play brought out a (bizarre) inability to even figure out the basic mechanism at play.

I've since re-played it: it is very, very clever, but far from impossible.

Don't spoil this one: most of the joy is in figuring out the mechanic and exploring it.

On top of the excellent puzzle mechanic, the writing is good, fun, and crisp.

I liked this game. It isn't the best of the 2013 entries, but it mostly worked well, and the author has made a fun, modest game.

"One world to...not quite even save." is the tagline, and it is appropriate--this is a story more of a person coming of age and learning that life isn't about bullies & being alone.

The essential statement here seems to be that life isn't just the things you experienced in high school, and that thoughts of grandeur are unlikely. Life is about taking small steps, applying what you know, and building relationships with other people in the world around you, without pre-judging them.

A modest game with a modest premise, it felt slightly unfinished in the IF Comp, and hopefully the author will continue work on it.

I enjoyed this game--in particular the daily tasks of my character, reading the paper, my brief interactions with neighbors, etc... the writing was good, the characters seemed (mostly) well-written, and the actual game had me hooked.

The ending was a bit of a let-down: I found two endings, but wasn't entirely sure what was going on, and was left uncertain about my characters future.

All in all, I enjoyed this game, and am hopeful of reading other (spoiled) reviews with different impressions of the ending.

The game ending and full plot spoiler below--

(Spoiler - click to show)
Were you satisfied with either ending?
I don't really understand what happened.

A vampire moved onto my street, and forced me to kidnap and murder a young woman at the opening? The vampire seems to be sexually attracted to my character, but I don't understand why, or what he wants from me.

The neighbors were interesting, although limited, they mostly felt real and different from each other.

In the "good"? ending, I gain my soul back from using Elisabeth's mirror--I think--and my character wakes up in the hospital bed post coma. But, I apparently murdered a woman and then failed in suicide, so I'm not sure how good this is.

In the bad ending, I think I wake up as a newly created vampire, and slave to the new neighbor--so, definitely not good.

Any other thoughts? Did I misread those?

The implementation left a lot to be desired--there were some interesting & well-done bits, but the actual mechanics were too clunky to proceed without extensive hints.

It was very hard to navigate in this short game.

The writing wasn't great: it wasn't bad, and Brown avoids the worse sin of over-flowing purple prose, but combined with the technical problems I'd avoid this game.

I do hope that he fixes some of the implementation issues and releases an updated version. It isn't a bad game, but it could use a little refinement.

My most frustrating two puzzles below
(Spoiler - click to show)
OK, so you have to open a secret door behind a painting--but you have to slash the painting to get in there, I don't think there was any clue at all to the location of the door.

Now, to get a razor to slash the painting, you have to do something specific to the bath taps--the bath taps which don't really trigger any results on things like "Look at bath" "X bath", which mostly gives you stock error messages, suggesting to me that the bath wasn't implemented even as scenery.

The second issue is an insta-death scenario resulting from not ripping a cupboard off a wall. Ripping the cupboard off doesn't get you something behind the wall--it gets you a piece of the cupboard--which is odd. Who would think to go looking for that? There is no in-game clue that suggested to me that it was important to tear a cupboard off the wall.
</spoiler

In general, I think the implementation needs to be tightened, and some of the actual plot elements need a little more QA.

This game has some rough spots and wonky implementation, and I hope the writer smoothes them out post-contest.

Even if she doesn't, I urge you to stick with it, because it is a really powerful piece of fiction and a great game to boot.

There were some odd mishaps that really frustrated me at times--making me feel like I couldn't solve this game--but when I checked the hints/walkthroughs I'd see I'd been doing it right, but just didn't get quite the right verb/noun.

With a little editing and polish, I think this will be an incredibly accessible game that deals with some powerful themes and features excellent writing.

I'm really looking forward to more work from this developer/writer. I enjoyed Beet the Devil, and this game is significantly stronger in content, tone, and mechanics.

I suspect this is a take-off/parody of Harold & Kumar, and I don't know if I'd have enjoyed it as much if I'd seen Harold & Kumar.

I enjoyed it. It was amusing, well-written, and randomized enough that I felt like my choices were making real differences in outcomes. While it isn't a particularly interactive game, it FEELS like one, and presents some choices which don't seem to have any bearing on the outcomes, but still feel engaging and real.

This is another well-done CYOA from the 2013 Inform competition.