Reviews by MathBrush

Blue Chairs is (literally) trippy. After an interesting transaction at a college party, you take a surreal journey through this world and variants of it. Something like an adaptation of Dante's Inferno by James Joyce.

The game contains drug references and strong profanity.

The puzzles are mostly reasonable, although I needed a walkthrough in the convenience store.

As a literary work, it is well written and well done. As a game, the puzzles are interesting and well-connected with the story.

However, I don't really recommend the game. I didn't like the atmosphere and feeling of the game. Everyone's tastes are different, and many people will enjoy this game, but I felt uncomfortable with parts of it.

In this one-room, complicated game that upends IF conventions, you must extinguish all of your many lightsources to let a grue eat the troll blocking your way.

Adventurers may recognize the lantern from Adventure and Infocom games, the elvish sword from the Zork games, and the amulet from Spellbreaker. There are several other lightsources to deal with. Other items from Infocom games include the stock certificate from Zork III (I think), the grue repellent from Zork II, Zork III, and Sorcerer; the screwdriver from Zork I; and many others.

This game is hard. Like many others, I played for over a half hour without extinguishing a single light source. But once you start to get a feel for the game, it gets better and better. Because of an early experiment, I got the wrong idea about one item and never solved one of the harder puzzles on my own.

I recommed trying to get half of the points before using a walkthrough.

Shrapnel messes with your head and with IF conventions in very creative ways. It starts out in typical Zorkian fashion (standing west of a white house) and quickly degenerates into bizarreness.

It has perhaps the most creative implementation I have ever seen. It is completely linear, and just pushes you through a story. It presents scenes out of sequence and you have to piece everything together, and it may take more than one playthrough to understand.

Unfortunately, it contains just about everything that could be considered as inappropriate content. Sexual abuse, violence, racism, and strong profanity. Not recommended for everyone. I felt uncomfortable playing it, but I think I am glad I tried it.

Spider and Web is one of the most famous interactive fiction games, appearing at or near the top of several lists of Best IF. While I personally have enjoyed some other games more, Spider and Web is still in my top 10. I believe that part of its fame is its ability to draw in every kind of gamer; the story is interesting, the puzzles are hard but get easier with each failure, and those that don't know what to do after the transition mentioned in the game's ABOUT text can still feel great about their accomplishments.

In this science fiction game, you encounter a wide variety of technological devices. You must learn how they work. It' shard to be more specific without giving away plot details.

The game has two brilliant innovations. One is the puzzle it is most famous for, which causes the big transition I mentioned above. Most walkthrough said refuse to give the solution to this puzzle, as a gift to first time players. It took me a day to get over the shock of solving it.

The second innovation is the narrative structure. It frames the game in a way that no one had done as successfully before, and provides an interesting mechanic for hints.

Everyone should play it at least once. I played it the first week I started IF five years ago, and I played it last month, and it was great both times.

I really enjoyed Madam Spider's Web. It is one of those games like Theatre where the writing is a bit more sparse and the game feels just slightly unfinished, but they both have an emotional appeal to them that keeps you playing and sticks in your mind. When I saw the title of this game, it brought up a very evocative picture I've always had of Madam Spider in her room.

This game is short to mid length, with a variety of puzzles. The game feels almost like a Grimm's fairy tale at first, until you start piecing everything together. I think this game was nominated for Best Puzzle not only because of the puzzles solution but because of its deeper meaning.

This is not a long game, and has some very interesting material, so I would recommend that everyone play through it. Good bang for your buck (or for your time, I suppose).

I found this game on Juhana's list of Mindbenders. It was very unusual; I don't think I've ever seen something like this done before.

The whole game is about trying to understand what is going on, similar to games like Legion in theory but very different in practice.

Once I understood what was going on, I simply used a walkthrough to complete the rest of the game. The rest of the puzzles are only mildly interesting. But the main puzzle is very, very good.

When this game existed, it was a short game where you are in a car and need to get out of it and try to repair it. You had to make sure the battery was turned off before opening the hood, etc. I do not know why the author took it down.

This game consists of a single sentence that changes the names in it every time you refresh. It also has backdrop images of paintings of Adam and Eve that change every time you refresh, as well.

It's not really a game; most of Soda51's games are like this. But they do attract a certain amount of attention, so you have to wonder if Soda51 has a good plan after all.


****
Note: I reviewed this game a month ago; it is just a random coincidence that Soda51 posted another game today.

This game is very short, but it's not bad while it lasts. You have a chance to purchase a variety of equipment, and then you must face a dragon. There isn't really that much here, but then again, randomized combat is hard to find in IF games. I can only think of 3-4 games off the top of my head that have any randomized combat, including Zork, Adventure, Kerkerkruip and RPG-ish (another twine game written using constraints).

So I have to give Tim Samoff credit for implementing this.

Moon-shaped is one of those odd games that is a little bit lacking in most categories but somehow pulls together to be more enjoyable than many more polished games. It has that elusive quality that makes you remember it and want to play it again.

Moon-shaped begins as a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, and branches out from there. Puzzles are enjoyable, with a nice flashback system. But the game is somewhat sparse. The world feels empty, with short descriptions.

Perhaps I enjoy this game most because of the great storytelling in the flashbacks. The multiple endings involving big moral choices are also good.

I recommend this game to everyone.