Reviews by MathBrush

This PunyComp game has you, a person with extremely good hearing, wandering around town in an attempt to stop a witch later on.

The game has a compact map with relatively few items per location. It has the traditional parser pattern of 'find either a solution looking for a problem or a problem looking for a solution and bring them together'.

It has amusing parts. My early death at the hands of my eventual nemesis was funny, and the response to my first UNDO was very funny.

There are a bunch of side plotlines which are quickly introduced and then quickly resolved. The fog and the tree in the graveyard, the doghouse, Mrs Green. The fact that the (ending spoiler) (Spoiler - click to show)actual witch was exactly who we thought she should be. Every thing in the game is smoothly implemented and the little story bits work, I just wish it was more of a coherent whole. (Spoiler - click to show)What connection is there between the witch, the priest, and the graveyard?

I appreciated the customized responses to actions and the smoothness of many of the puzzles; the mechanics of the game were a pleasure to play.

There's a time limit which is clearly stated early on. It is very generous.

I had both a good and bad reaction to this game.

On one hand, it's well-polished and I found it a smooth and non-frustrating experience (I did peek into the source code for a hint at one point, but I realized I had ignored a major clue). I liked the puzzles that involved lateral-thinking, and they were the best part of the game.

On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed with the plot. I like Dark Star's past games (I gave the last two five stars) and thought they were creative and interesting. This, though, is a pretty standard fantasy plot and a lot of things just feel both generic and not commented on. We see something, we kill it, we keep going. We wear a loincloth, but I didn't discover any backstory; are we a barbarian? Two moments that would be emotional (the thing that happens to your friend at the beginning and the final battle at the end) pass by relatively unremarked-on. If it were an experiment in writing an emotionally-restrained protagonist, that would actually be pretty cool and it would fit (like there is an enchantment where they can't feel and have no problems with hurting animals or stealing). But I feel like I'm complaining too much; the puzzles work, the writing is descriptive and has some highlights (liked the ghosts). I just really like Dark Star's past work.

This game was entered in a PunyInform competition.

It's a compact game, with a couple of rooms containing animals. Due to your misdeeds against the animal kingdom, you've been sentenced to hanging out in a hotel and helping a frog sleep.

The writing shines best when describing nature, like the animals and the final scene.

The puzzles are a bit unfair; I was pretty bewildered about what to do for a while until running to hints, and then still having trouble. I got the main puzzle really easily (Spoiler - click to show)(even without hints, if you ask frog about scale, it gives you a puzzle that tells you word length corresponds to weight, and the archimedean principle is pretty clear, but figuring out how to get the items to carry it out is hard, and there are a lot of red herrings. One thing that would improve things significantly is if (Spoiler - click to show)the egg on the penguin's head was explicitly mentioned if you call them out at the right time).

Overall, it was interesting, and the nature imagery was memorable.

This game’s text would have fit well in Season 5 of the Magnus Archives, probably with the Stranger or the Spiral.

Someone is contacting an Ai support system, but they are in turmoil. The game repeatedly mentions a desire to hollow onself out, or the state of already being hollow. I mentioned social alienation in another game; this feels like self-alienation, like depression and other neurodivergence, where you feel barely attached to the flesh and to your own identity.

The game contrasts this with the multitudinous non-sentient existence of AI. The two are able to connect with each other and try to help each other.

The text is written in a intense way, and the physical display uses a variety of effects to augment that effect, including mimicking online help systems, using color, overlapping text, etc.

Overall this one was one of the strongest entrants in the comp, for my tastes.

This game is really ambitious for a Petite Mort game: many superhero characters, an expansive map, and actual game mechanics rather than individual parser rules. This is pretty hard to do!

And it manages to mostly pull it off. There are a few rough edges here and there (mostly with necessarily repeated text due to the short time frame and difficulty finding a path forward sometimes that several reviewers noted), so I would look forward to a post-comp release, because this already-good game deserves even more imo).

The game itself is about carrying concepts around as physical objects and gaining them and losing them in various situations. You have to carefully manipulate the order you get the concepts and learn the map to get it all to work. This reminded me of Delightful Wallpaper, a two part game where the second part involves taking concepts from people and placing them in others.

The writing is enthusiastic and creative, and the mechanic was enjoyable.

I said in my review of Dusk, Airy, Does Carry, I said that I would welcome more games in the same vein. Glad I asked! This game has similar puzzles and structure, and similar pixel art, including animals.

It's an Adventuron game with a central hub from which several other rooms branch, each room with 1-2 puzzles involving pairs word pairs that sound similar when spoken aloud.

This one shook things up a bit by focusing more on room connections that don't appear until later. But like I said with Chez Dark, I just like the fundamental design so was glad to play more.

In this game, you end up at a Farmer’s Market in Amish country (or equivalent) a little too late at night. You have enough time to buy something from each stall (which are all arranged in a circle you can traverse clockwise or counterclockwise).

But then, disaster strikes! A dramatic change happens, and you have to use your newfound inventory to find a way out.

I used to live in Philadelphia and we’d drive out towards Amish country every month or so. I have found memories of the pretzel cheeseburgers (a whole cheeseburger cooked into a big pretzel) and shoo-fly pie (basically pecan pie without pecans).

This craft fair is unfortunately not as fun, featuring things like head cheese and hairy squash. But those all come in useful at night!

I think there are multiple endings to the game, as I pursued a singular ‘defeat everyone’ strategy and the text sounded like I was committing to that and locking off other possibilities by doing so. Interestingly, I thought it’d be a complex game of strategy, but the winning method was exceedingly simple. More interesting was the commentary and backstory revealed about our character, making me wonder if that was the true point. I liked the twist at the end.

This was a pretty grim short story with a lot of room to explore and contemplate. In it, you play as someone estranged from an abusive father who has now died in hospice at your sister’s house.

The death of a close relative who as abusive is especially upsetting, as you have grief without anything to offset it. Or you have neither grief nor happiness at first. I had two grandfathers die within a few years of each other; one was beloved and surrounded by multiple generations that he had raised, even down to a great-grandson he had raised as his own. The other grandfather had been physically abusive to his children in their youth, and when he was older he smoked so much that none of the grandkids wanted to visit much due to the smell. His death felt so much less to me than the other grandfather. Years later, I thought about him more, and performed some rituals for the dead (part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and that helped me connect with his memory more.

Sexual abuse can dig even deeper; I’ve met several friends and extended family members whose most deeply held secret was sexual abuse by someone close to them, often someone they still saw on a regular basis and cared for as a relative while simultaneously being hurt. So many kids have a putative dad or presumed-absent dad in public and a ‘real’ dad that can’t be made public because they were an abusive uncle or grandparent.

This game captured all of those feelings really well; everything felt so authentic, down to one relative denying the abuse ever happened and kids having trouble talking about it as adults.

The end I found was fitting. It took me a second to realize it was the end; it might have helped me process it more quickly if there was a signifier of the ending, like a horizontal ruling or the words “the end” or “fin”, but those are stylistic choices up to the author.

Good writing, bad feeling.

I was bewildered by this game when I started it. Most moves result in instant death. A lot of words in the description are bolded, but typing them does nothing. I downloaded HTML tads on my work computer in case there were supposed to be hyperlinks.

Eventually, I typed random verbs, and shout took me to a new room! Trying to figure out the connection and dying a few more times, I pondered more on the name of the game and realized what was going on.

This game has numerous strange and surreal vignettes. My favorite was a car ride with someone who has strapped knives onto all the surfaces, that was an interesting image.

The writing and the initial mystery are the two main components of the game for evaluation. Like I said, a couple vignettes really called out to me. I didn’t grasp a larger pattern or see a common thread (however, that’s pretty common for me with poetic IF, and I’ve had discussions with a few poetry authors on how poetic IF should be evaluated. But this is a rated competition, so I’m comparing to other games, including by the same author! So for me the vivid imagery and the frustrating beginning are the parts I think of the most).

This is a short, atmospheric game about a ferry at night with surreal overtones. It reminds me a bit of the game Cactus Blue Motel, with a magical world of horror mingled with wonder. This game tones down the wonder and cranks up the horror and wistfulness.

You are on a ferry, and it’s mostly abandoned. A series of unattended but distubring cars is near you. You can wander around, but the only people you meet are also alone, and are uniformly described as a ‘stranger’, which I found effective at setting the tone.

I felt like I had a lot of choices. There were many places to navigate to and people to talk to; there were cycling choices letting you create your own backstory with real differences (like, you could want to be a shaved-head punk or a braided-hair linen-sewing person). And there were things you could learn about or do in one spot and have it referenced later. Finally, there were multiple ending choices. So this game is actually fantastic in the variety of interactivity it offers, in addition to the creepy atmosphere.