Ratings and Reviews by Stian

This choice IF seems to be unfinished. It has clearly been translated, as there still are words in Spanish throughout the game, and it’s rather riddled with typos. From what I could gather, the battles with demons are the central element here, but those felt like playing Amazing Quest again: it doesn’t really matter what you choose because it’s all random. Perhaps it’s actually not the case here, but I was unable to find any logic in them. Designwise, At Night focusses a lot on using sounds for navigating in the darkness. This is a neat feature, but I’m afraid it didn’t help me much with the demons either. According to the author, it is not random, but I was still unable to make sense of it.

The purpose of this short choice IF seems to be simple moral education. Following anything other than the most virtuous path will quickly end the game and encourage you to try again. Although I’m not strictly opposed to this – it was, after all, a groundbreaking element of Ultima IV in its day – it feels here too simplistic, which undermines its educational value. There is also some polish lacking in Equal-librium: for one, the blurb contains several typos, and at some point I even got an error message

The story in this choice IF is mostly linear, with only minor details determining which of the endings you eventually receive. As such, it’s not terribly exciting in terms of interactivity. On the other hand, it is really well written; the main character and the world described are both quite unique and soundly developed. The abilities and operations of the protagonist are particularly interesting and could actually be an excellent starting point for developing great and fun puzzles. I would certainly love to play a five hour parser game based on Doppeljobs.

Quite humorous and really well polished, Tavern Crawler is a choice based role playing story that works remarkably well. The author has managed to craft a work that is equally parts story and game, and where the RPG elements play to the strengths of choice IF and vice versa. The storylines are intricately and reasonably structured, and your early character choices allow for different methods of overcoming your obstacles. Especially good were the variety of choices. There is never really any choice that feels wrong or right in terms of story progression, and everything brings you forward, at least somewhere. To experience a fun story with Tavern Crawler, you can’t go wrong whatever you do.

Fumbling rather randomly around in the dark, you will experience a lot of repetition in The Cave, but not much in the way of self-discovery. Your goal is to get out, and underway you get some spells, abilities, and improved stats. I’m not sure how these affect your chances, but they probably somehow do. I’m also not sure how I managed to get out of the cave in the end, but somehow I did.

The Pinecone is a very quick piece of IF with a few branches, all of which are related to goatlore. It does not seem to carry any deeper meaning, but is somewhat imaginative and slightly entertaining.

Essentially an expression of activism, Stand Up / Stay Silent is a sci-fi parable for Black Lives Matter. While I certainly agree with the message, I did not find it notably interesting or effective as IF. The parallel of the story and the choices was too obvious to offer any deeper meaning.

I actually had to consult the other reviews before writing this to see if I had missed out on anything substantial. I turns out I probably had not. In essence, it’s a cutely made RPG parody that you may or may not understand is a parody. I did not get it, but I did find some of the dialogue funny.

This story, for it is a story much more than a game, utilises choice in a way I have not seen before in IF, allowing the reader to reflect on real life agency in difficult situations. I found this surprising and remarkably well done, but also emotionally challenging.

An extremely short action thriller choice game, Move On demands you figure out its rather neat trick if you want to survive. The little writing there is is good. Apart from that, it doesn’t offer much.