Reviews by MathBrush

This speed IF came from a competition where participants where given 'blurbs' about their game, which they had to incorporate.

The game contains a few yes/no questions, and then the ending, where you can take various actions. This determines one of many endings.

The game has plenty of blood, some arrogant characters, and some crazy fantasy sections. As a real game, it's not much. As speed IF, it is well written and complex.

Tonight Dies the Moon has two games, one you play from the earth, and one from the moon.

The moon game is a purposely unfair farming simulator, where you try to grow crops and struggle in the mud. I don't know if I've reached an ending in Moon mode.

The earth game is an interesting mix of office work with satire about television and an arcade game with real implications.

I had mixed feelings about the game. It is technically exquisite, but I didn't really feel caught up in it. The writing isn't bad; I enjoyed the bits about TV. I just felt like I was looking at another world through a window, instead of really being there. Those who like Frog Fractions would like this game.

One eye open was an IFComp game much longer than two hours. In it, you play someone being tested for psychics powers.

Without giving away too much, this is a search-the-lab game similar to Babel, but with gruesome gore in the vein of the SCP foundation (like SCP-610, for instance). The horror has also been compared to the Poltergeist.

Somehow Vespers and Varicella disturbed me more than this game. In a way, the horror are not as scary because of the way that they are described, but they provide a coherent atmosphere. There are many endings, many Easter eggs.

There was no profanity, no sexual material. Not recommended for most people, due to the gore. I probably won't play it again because of it.

2026 edit: I replayed this game while reworking my list of favorite games of all time. I had a great time with it. I did have to resort to reading the clubfloyd transcript and decompiling a bit, but overall I loved the writing, setting, and tone. 'Hospital with teeth'. The exploring a living being that is also a building reminded me of Down the Serpent and the Sun.

Suveh Nux is a great game. It is a mid-length one-room fantasy game where you have to learn a magical language to escape a vault. You have to learn the grammer, the vocabulary, and some numbers.

One things that makes this game fun that I didn't appreciate when I first played IF is that EVERYTHING is implemented. Anything you think you could do with the spells, you can do. You can destroy everything in the room. There are 5 or more subpuzzles that you can completely miss without the author's note at the end.

I haven't gone back to revisit the game in years, because learning the language is much of the attraction, and it wouldn't be as hard this time. But I definitely recommend the game to everyone.

Galatea is set in an artificial intelligence exhibit. Galatea, a stone woman brought to life, has mistakenly (or purposefully) been placed here.

You are a journalist, interviewing her to determine how good her "artificial intelligence" is. The answers can lead to anger, romance, supernatural effects, and a host of other possibilities.

It is a fun game to play through a few times. The conversation system is just asking her about more and more things, but the variety is endless.

This game was groundbreaking when it was first released, although later innovations have improved on it (such as the major NPC in Blue Lacuna). This game remains an enjoyable classic, because it isn't just technically impressive, it's enjoyable.

Aotearoa won first place both in the 2010 IFComp and later the XYZZY Awards, where it swept Best Game, Best Setting, Best Puzzles, Best NPCs, Best Individual Puzzle, Best Implementation, Best Use of Innovation.

Given all the awards, to me, it was just a very well-thought out mid-length scenario. It was a fun diversion, that gives the feel of a massive world but really being a ride-on-the-rails for the most part. It gives you the feel of having solved a very difficult puzzle on your own.

As you are immediately told, the game is set in an alternate world where dinosaurs survived in New Zealand and were instrumental in New Zealand resisting the British conquest. You are a young visitor to the island, and must explore it while working with and against others. There are numerous NPCs.

To me, the game is excellent, and would make a good introduction for someone new to IF or a good , well-crafted diversion for an experienced player.

But it doesn't have lasting power, in my opinion. For instance, it was voted in the 2012 Best IF of all Time, but not in the 2015. To me, the most memorable part is the exposure to Maori language and culture (although I don't know how much is real and how much is story, but it's beautiful in any case).

Solarium gives Twine a good name. This well-crafted game is adult ficion, not as in sexuality, but as in dealing with thoughtful and meaningful concepts. It involves alchemy and an alternative ending to the cold war, decades ago.

The narrative has a branching structure, with each branch requiring a key in the form of an alchemical substance. By obtaining more substances, you unlock more areas.

The game includes several striking images, including scans of real government documents.

I strongly recommend this game.

This game is interesting; I recently read Porpentine saying that they made parser games at first, and people didn't like them, so she moved to Twine.

I think that Twine is a better format for these stories; this story is fun, but I love the complete refreshing of the screen, the colored text and background, and the pacing of Twine as elements of Porpentine's stories. This story is good, and it works, but I think that Twine was a smart move.

In this game, you have a shovel, and you have to dig. The game can be won in 15 moves or less. In its implementation and feel, it felt like Pick up the Phone Booth and Die.

This Shufflecomp game has essentially one real puzzle but has another meta puzzle.

You explore a junkyard, thinking about your significant other. You are looking for something; this is the 'real' puzzle. But you, the reader, are trying to understand the relationship of the narrator with their significant other, and that, I feel, is a better puzzle.

Very short, but very good. Like all shufflecomp games, it was inspired by a song or songs randomly selected from a list, in this case, eight different songs! Finding out how each song is incorporated (in the author's notes) is as fun as the rest of the game.

This game is essentially just a way to cram the names of a lot of people from a certain Twine forum into a game. If you aren't one of those people, there is not any real reason to play the game, because the names are distracting.

Perhaps the author could include a version in the future that allows you to toggle back and forth between the usernames and more ordinary names.