Reviews by streever

Homecoming is one of those short, smart little works of Interactive Fiction that doesn't feel complicated, but is incredibly novel and entertaining.

The novelty in this case rests almost entirely in the writing; VanEseltine creates a memorable and relatable character out of a near-minimalist work of Interactive Fiction. The game can be played to a satisfying end with a few directions typed into the parser, or you can meander and wander a bit. Either way, you'll discover a surprisingly deep game behind the simple mechanics.

The level of skill and craft on display here is subtle; the expertise and practice that went into it makes the final display feel effortless and easy.

There are a number of possible endings, and variations within those endings; this is a game you're going to want to play multiple times.

This short work by Veeder is well-written and interesting.

An unnamed protagonist is mildly obsessed with a distant tower; at points, I thought of Kafka's The Castle, with its themes of alienation and futility. While this touches on similar themes, it's a very different story.

It's melancholy, lonely, and occasionally mixes pronouns; if it wasn't for the protagonists lack of relationships and connections, I'd think that the occasional odd message referencing the wrong person was an error. In the context of the narrative, however, it feels intentional; the protagonist, you, doesn't really connect with these people or achieve any closeness to them.

As the classic unexplored 'you' of interactive fiction, you have one goal; ascending the old gothic tower.

The journey is well-described, and the narrative voice is as strong and original as any other work by Veeder.

I've only played once; I feel like I missed sections or areas, and am going to play again, but I suspect my ending will be the same. This isn't a game that holds your hand or forces you to explore every paragraph of text; it's a brief and rewarding exploration, that lets you pass up points of interest and explore at your own pace.

I highly enjoyed it and enthusiastically recommend it.

Bibliophile is a long, ambitious game, full of characters, locations, and lots of walking. The premise is a familiar one for readers of interactive fiction; a Lovecraftian horror is being summoned to Earth, and you are the only one who can stop it. The game genuinely shines in a few places, but could use some extra polish and love in many others.

You will need to manually walk through many locations that don’t feel necessary and which serve purely as window dressing. Error messages suggest that certain locations will later be relevant, but they remain unavailable for the entire game. As the game progressed and I realized just how linear it was, I felt frustrated by the arbitrary local flavor, which made me walk extensively around the map. A game this linear would really benefit from using a simple go-to mechanism.

In such a large setting, I’d typically expect to spend time exploring and uncovering various nooks and crannies, but that was missing here.

Compass directions to your destination were good and helpful; however, they also contributed to the overall sense of linear gameplay without player agency. At times, this felt like a series of RPG fetch quests. Clear directions lead me to my goals, which really just required showing up, and didn’t require much creativity.

The tone of the writing is humorous and used to good effect to establish incidental characters. However, it felt too glib at times, and lacked characterization. One of the principal characters, an elderly librarian, tells me to go into a basement and find something because ‘I’m too old to go all down there and rummage. But you’re into that shit,[...]’

Young, hip, and slightly snarky; it felt more like the omniscient narrator than a member of the world around me, and when I get down to the basement, the description text tells me no one has been down here in sometime but the librarian.

Proper names are sometimes are only mentioned once in introductory text, and you have to scroll back to read them again; the opening of the game has you visited by special agents who are checking to see if you have a specific book, but they only refer to it by a pronoun after their initial greeting. If you don’t remember the actual name, you can’t look up the book in your electronic catalog. If you can’t scroll up to re-read it, you’ll need to start a second run of the game & get the name.

Experiences like this made the game feel a bit on-rails, which clashed with the realistic locations and open areas that I was enjoying exploring. In general, the descriptive writing was strong, and made objects feel real; there were nice touches, like the dinosaur sticker adorning my laptop. These little bits gave my character a concrete identity outside of the parser response to actions, and gave me a quick sense of who I am and what I’m about.

I don’t mean to bash this game. In the end, I enjoyed it, and thought it was impressively ambitious. I’ve played a few other games by Tenner, and think that this shows progression from earlier attempts, but coming slightly short of the initial promise and suggestion of a larger, more open game experience.

I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys this type of theme, and just be aware that the game is a bit crueler than the rating may suggest; I suspect it is a bug, but there are a few places and areas that make the game impossible to finish with no acknowledgement by the game.

If you’re worried about falling into this, read the following very minor spoiler.
(Spoiler - click to show)Pick up the letter opener in the Librarian’s townhouse when you see it.

I've omitted my rating. While the current experience is a 2 star in my book (enjoyable thematic game with some serious bugs/poor implementations), it's not a bad game, and I don't want to hurt the average rating. I suspect people who enjoy mysterious Lovecraftian games will appreciate this game regardless of the quibbles I've listed above.

If the game is updated, I'll play it again, & revise my star rating.

This is a fun little piece, with an attractive design and layout, meant to be played multiple times before you can reach 'the good' ending.

It's not difficult; actions are well-clued, and although you'll die several times learning the parameters of the Cave, the deaths are funny and enjoyable.

I really liked the attention to layout and design; this is an easy-to-read Twine.

I had a lot of fun reading this and highly recommend it; the poetry is awful in an endearing way, and packs this short adventure with whimsy and joy.

While on a routine mission, a small crew discovers an unknown alien presence, and accidentally brings it on board the Speedwell. The premise of this long, branching CYOA is a much-loved staple of the sci-fi horror genre, reminiscent of Ridley Scott's Aliens. Despite the use of a standard convention of sci-fi, this piece is both original and creative.

The game starts with a choice between two protagonists, both women, with their own personalities, backgrounds, and identities. All of the characters feel unique and interesting, transcending their archetypes and having complex relationships with the protagonist and the rest of the crew.

The quality of the writing shows throughout the story, in descriptions, dialogue, and pacing. This is a well-written piece.

This work is fairly long, and could take between 20 minutes and an hour on your first play-through. You'll want to play it again; some choices close off other parts of the narrative, and you won't have a complete picture of many of the characters if you don't repeat your game and try different options.

There are many endings possible, and though I've only experienced a few of them, I suspect that there is no clear-cut 'happy ending'; while there isn't a 'perfect score ride into the sunset ending', there are certainly different happy epilogues where your protagonist salvages her future and has a satisfying life post-tragedy. Perhaps more enjoyable is the chance to learn more about the crewmates and the protagonist, instead of worrying about optimal choices and keeping a spread-sheet of outcomes.

Some parts of the plot are pre-determined, but they set the overall tone of the story, and the work would suffer if they could be avoided. Despite these pre-determined outcomes, my decisions felt natural, organic, and true to the character I was playing; at no time did I feel like I was a passive observer, no matter how little control my protagonist had over the events around her.

Presentationally the game shines as well; using an evocative typeface, a great cover illustration, and a well-designed layout, it's a joy to read and interact with.

All in all, this is a highly recommended Twine story which should provide a lot of replay value.

As a footnote, I'll mention that this is one of the few commercial modern interactive fiction projects I've seen, and it's built in Twine no less. I was impressed by this attempt at selling a game written in Twine, and happily paid above the minimum price listed. I think this is an exciting experiment, and hope it proceeds well.

I could tell it was fantastic, and it kept getting better.

This is essentially an autobiography, with a fun element of interactivity in that you can control some of the details; ages, names, and relationships of (relatively) minor details can be changed by the reader until you've progressed out of a scene, which fixes them for future copy.

Essentially, this is a story of a self-described gender-queer person growing up between different cultures and customs. It is well-written, engaging, and provides a fresh perspective to interact from. The interactivity largely influences the emotional aspect of a scene, in ways that may or may not be significant; I kept feeling like I was having a really solid personal conversation with a close friend, where everything I said was something they'd already thought of, and we were just clarifying our discussion and our deep friendship.

Kiai has a real talent as an autobiographer in making their story personal and relatable. Although it is vastly different from my own experiences, I found myself seeing comparisons to my own life, and feel grateful to have read this story.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the formatting, which was done quite well. I narrowed my browser window to make it a bit easier to read it in a flow, but the type-size, typeface selection, and color scheme all worked together well to make the experience flow nicely.

I had to let this one sit for a bit.

It's well-done. The writing is good, poignant, and authentic. It's a Twine game, and with that, comes the feeling of restriction/lack of options and interactivity that often comes with Twine; in this case, the feeling of restriction serves the plot and overall experience, in a way that isn't completely clear until you've reached the end.

You are a robot; you work for a bitter, unkind woman who comes across as a rich once-upon-a-time debutante turned petty tyrant.

Your choices are extremely limited; each page typically has several prompts to explore memories, followed by a misleading list of choices. Mousing over the choices crosses them out, leaving only one choice--submissive compliance to your owners latest command.

At first, it felt like a gimmick, or a novelty, but the truth is that the unclickable links are significant and build on one another as the story progresses, leading to a fitting & unexpected ending. Portions of the game that initially confused me took on deeper meaning and poignancy.

My standard criticism of many Twine games holds true here. The text formatting and layout doesn't make it easier to read. Text is presented in dark on a dark background at a fairly small size. It's hard to read, and does at times detract from the overall experience. This doesn't in any way change my enthusiastic enjoyment or recommendation; it's fairly typical of Twine games, and is more of a criticism of the medium than any individual work.

In this story, I didn't have a good sense of progression, which made it hard when I was reading some of the longer memories. I wasn't sure what any of it was building up to, or when I'd get there. Make no mistake; the journey was enjoyable on its own, and the destination definitely made up for any rocky moments, but I think the writing could be tweaked slightly to give the sense of progression, so the reader has a sense of how far they've progressed and how far they have to go. It's a basic 'mechanic' of books that we appreciate without noticing; simply by virtue of their physical size, we have a sense of how far we've gone and how quickly.

The game design in particular is impressive, but I can't talk about it without spoiling it. I'd recommend playing the game before reading this next bit.

(Spoiler - click to show)OK; something that at first alienated me from the game was the memories. I wasn't sure who the memories belonged to, and kept looking for ways that the memories were inter-connected. They weren't (well, some of them weren't); some of the memories were from different people, but I kept thinking there was a thread through them. Largely, I thought this because of the use of color for the memories. I thought it was a hint as to whose memories were being experienced. I think it wasn't as clear as it could have been.

Regardless, though, I appreciated the lack of clear delineation among the memories, as the game revealed that you're holding the memories of many people. The jumble and confusion made sense in the new context, and made me appreciate the earlier experience.

At the end, they finally open up the choices, which works exceedingly well. It's quite clear that any of the decisions you make now are permanent; that they will advance the story and close off one line of inquiry. I really appreciated that, and thought it made the overall experience stronger. Too often, games want to leave every door, path, and side-street open to the player; it's a brave decision to let the player definitively decide "I'll read this, but not that." I appreciated it, and it worked into the context of the overall piece nicely; in the last moments of the story, you realize how significant all of your earlier non-choices were. In each case, you were reading the submerged and, out of necessity, personality of your character.

In that regard, I saw the earlier choices as all being valid; each one accurately expresses how your character feels. I even used the browser back button to go back and re-read them; it provides a fresh insight into the experience and story.

In my re-read, I was surprised at just how many themes the game touches on or addresses, all without ever resorting to a polemic or feeling pointed. From social justice issues to existential questions, You Were Made For Loneliness is a surprisingly deep game.

Lastly, I appreciated the meta-commentary on the reader in this work. Much like the robot, you're constrained and forced to submit your own opinions and expressions in order to proceed. This was particularly well-done. It's a staple of good interactive fiction, but is easy to do poorly. I was impressed at how well it was handled.


This is a strong story, with solid writing, authentic dialogue, and some genuinely creepy/tense moments where I was worried for my character. In addition, it cleverly uses the limitations and strengths of Twine to build a strong thematic work that resonates well after finishing. While I have a few minor quibbles, I strongly recommend this game 'as is' and appreciate the subtle ways it handles a number of complex themes and ideas.

I've spent a lot of time on this game and barely scratched the surface, so my review may be a bit premature; after 2 hours of play, I've gone through 2 or 3 objectives out of (I assume) a great many, and I'm finding the game play and mimesis engrossing and believable.

The writing occasionally falters; there are more than a few cliches and overly used turns of phrase, but the experience on the whole has been fun and incredibly deep.

This game is a Spring Thing entrant for 2014; while I haven't played all of the entries for this year yet, I suspect this will be among the deepest games in the entry list.

This is a game that invites lengthy and slow exploration. There are dozens of layers, and I believe, deeper and more sophisticated problems than the initial setup of losing the phone number of your love interest.

I don't know how the game will end; I don't know if it is capable of delivering on the exceptional early promise it has shown. I expect it will; the intuitive and player-friendly 'ui' (including objectives list and excellent feedback when you're on the right track) make this one of the most easily navigated parser games I've played in a while.

I was a little put off by the initial barrage of text, but am happy I stuck with it through that; the sheer complexity and depth of this game is reminiscent of classic infocom titles, but without the convoluted verb guesses and noun mismatches that ruin many classic games. This game has a believable and well-implemented world, and I'm happy to spend hours exploring it in a leisurely fashion.

Through Time is a dating/romance/slice of life CYOA with a number of endings and potential romantic paths.

It includes some 'puzzles' of the date sim genre (which activity do you do first on your date? how do you respond when a person you are interested in asks about your feelings?) and the puzzles are clued well, so you can get a satisfactory result an make choices that feel in-character with the role as you see it.

The writing could use some polish, but after a first play-through, you'll be doing more skimming than in-depth reading; the writing isn't bad. It just would be stronger with some editing and paring down of some sections and a few over-wrought passages.

Overall, this is a strong entry from (I believe) a first-time IF author, and I'd love to see more of their work. I'd recommend this game to new players as well; it provides minor but non-frustrating challenges.

The story-telling, mapping, and overall design is very good. The writing is very strong, and the use of Twine is beautiful; the maps in the background add a lot to the experience.

I really enjoyed the creative way-finding; it wasn't your standard (N, S, W, E) coordinates, but I didn't find it distracting or confusing. Other noticeable improvements on the standard Twine experience included the hand-drawn maps and elegant inventory system. This game recreates some of the feeling of a parser game, while stripping away the learning curve and 'guess the verb/noun' confusion that can occur in a parser.

The writing was strong, and the hinted at domestic problems were an engrossing mystery, as was the identity of the character you play. The narrative has a strong punch, and includes the use of red herrings that give you further insight into the character and the story. I recommend playing this game like an exploration on your first go, and 'in character' on the second--as you imagine your character to be, based on the first play through.

(My original review of this game referred to a puzzling early maze-like puzzle; it has since been reworked and improved dramatically.)