Reviews by MathBrush

This is an interesting puzzlebox of a game with some cute 'characters'.

You play as a wizard that has lost all ability to use verbs. However, some of your words have possessed nearby objects, creating automatons!

You can use nouns instead of verbs. Unfortunately, this causes all loose verbs to converge on the given noun! This can cause a lot of problems.

This was a fun game, but also hard. It was hard to know how to start; it was hard figuring out if I had locked myself out of victory or not (spoiler: (Spoiler - click to show)it seems like there are multiple ways of doing this), and it was hard to win, so be aware of that coming in ahead of time! Although it was reasonably short. I think it's just fine being difficult (I think it made me like the game more) but I do think it could be useful to indicate the fact that you may need to restart/undo to win (unless I missed an ending that lets you do that!)

A very clever concept and a fun game.

I played two versions of this game; an Introcomp version a few years back, and this Spring Thing one.

They feel like two different games; the part of the Introcomp version I remembered most was branching paths and a butterfly, while this one is focused on divination symbols. Replaying the introcomp one, though, I found they share a setting.

In this game, you are a day early for a visit with a magic professor, and so you have time to think and contemplate your father's death (?). Gameplay consists of examining descriptions, finding symbols that translate into phrases, and DIVINE-ing a full sentence from these symbols.

The descriptions are lush and complex, giving a richness to the setting but also rendering it difficult to find important clues.

There are some bugs; the biggest one I found was The game saying 'There is a carving here' and X CARVING not working (you need to (Spoiler - click to show)X INITIAL).

I was unable to complete this without significant help from discord. Since discord isn't not publicly available or permanently stored, I want to record what helped:
-The number of symbols you need is (Spoiler - click to show)three
-The specific symbols you need to have found are (Spoiler - click to show)waves, piercing, concealment
-You find that first symbol by examining (Spoiler - click to show)the ocean specifically, not just water
-The final sentence you must type is (Spoiler - click to show)arrows planted in flesh are shrouded by an unaware mind

This game was part of the Back Garden in Spring Thing. In it, you wake up inside a sarcophagus in a tomb, and have to find your way out.

Here's my breakdown:

-Polish: The game could use more synonyms for things. Sometimes to use an item on another item you have to VERB SECOND THING and sometimes USE NOUN, which was a bit confusing.

-Interactivity: The lack of synonyms as above also caused some difficulties with the interactivity. There were mazes, but those weren't too bad and were easy to map mentally.

+Descriptiveness: I felt like some parts of the game had some pretty neat descriptions. I liked the opening in the box, and the ending sequence, and overall I could imagine the whole place (it reminded me of an NES Zelda dungeon).

+Emotional impact: I liked the atmosphere and enjoyed the feel of the game.

-Would I play again? The game was pretty slight and felt like it didn't tell a whole story, but I would play a fuller version.

For a first game, this is good, and I think that with more practice the author could make a truly exceptional game.

This review is for the newer version of the game. I'll mostly be focusing on changes between the versions. The original review can be found below.

The biggest thing that struck me on initial play was the addition of AI-generated graphics and helpful windows on the side. But after completing, the biggest thing that struck me was the overall increase in code smoothness and good programming.

AI art has been controversial recently due to its being trained on artist's content against their will. I've seen it in a lot of games recently, and I find it tends not to contribute much as the art is often inconsistent. However, I definitely think it adds something here. Maybe it's because the well-known nature of the story it's based on has produced a lot of art over the years, or maybe because the writing itself is more utility-focused and so is complimented by art.

I did struggle with the side windows; the inventory one shows up just fine, but on both gargoyle and lectrote, I couldn't get the topics window to show up. Thankfully, typing TOPICS works just fine.

I liked the timing aspect in the new ending and the whole 'future' area in general much more this time around. I definitely feel like this is an overall improvement to the game.

Original review:

I beta tested this game.

This game is an adaptation of a static fiction story. This is something very hard to do well in a parser game; I've tried it myself and more or less failed, and so have many others. This game runs into a lot of the same problems: a faithful adaptation assumes a linear plot, while a parser game is centered around freedom of expression.

This game implements a house with many mentioned details but few which are usable. There are bugs, such as when one attempts to break a window (not needed in the game).

Plot wise, it doesn't follow the book directly, but instead starts after the action of the first one, allowing you to prove to the world that the time machine is real. The whole setup makes it seem like it will be very complex, but in reality there are only 2-3 puzzles and the whole game can be completed in very few steps.

This game was written in Adventuron for the Text Adventure Literacy Jam.

The idea is that you've stolen or smuggled some gems that have a mysterious glow and power. You find someone to report this to, a woman in the woods, but instead of listening to you she requires you to carry out some basic tasks for her first.

The game is both easy and hard. It is easy because the room description constantly updates to tell you what to do next. There are only two puzzle sequences.

It is hard because of three reasons:
1-The game only allows two word input, but has many puzzles involving combining two items. So while you might think 'tie rope to wood' would make sense, you have to find a way to do that in two words. Tie rope? Tie wood? Combine rope? You'll have to guess. But there are also at least two points where the solution requires 3 words, which are the only points in the game its available.
2-Implementation is spotty, so many objects are mentioned but can't be examined (like a sack of fluff), or can be taken but not examined, or can be examined but don't show up if taken.
3-The game has aggressive or insulting messages for all of its messages, along the lines of 'What are you doing, you fool?' or swearing at the player.

Combined, this means that you spend most of the game guessing the right word combination while the game yells at you in bright red text over and over.

On the plus side, the game's worldbuilding and plot are interesting. I think that relaxing the two-word parser and allowing more complex inputs, together with implementing more synonyms, would make the game pretty fun!

This game was entered in the Text Adventure Literacy Jam, designed to introduce newcomers to the genre.

It was co-written with a kid, who has provided the art for it, which gives the game a pretty awesome feel. I especially enjoyed the lettering on the parachute.

The game is well-fit for an introductory game, with good programming, a generally easy but dramatic set of puzzles, and a lot of humor.

The plot is a bit silly so some things didn't make much sense, but I don't think 'makese sense' was high on the list of priorities here; it seems like 'have fun' and 'be cool' were higher priorities, and it succeeds at both of those.

This is an Adventuron game entered in the Text Adventure Literacy Jam.

It uses some pixel art which looks very detailed. I found out later that it was AI-generated, which would explain the lack of recurring characters.

The story is interesting and fun; a dragon has helped you, a princess, throughout your life, so when a prince asks you to marry him, the dragon helps you flee away. Now, you need to help your dragon while making friends with local fairies.

The map is not tiny but is easy to navigate, and it's easy to picture the room descriptions. The main NPCs have strong personalities, so that was fun.

There were definitely several bugs, as the author stated (due to lack of time). The weirdest to me was that there are supposed to be large crystals in the mine but instead they're listed at the pool, but you can't reference them with 'large' or 'crystals', instead you call them 'pool' and the game offers a disambiguation prompt between them and the real pool.

Similarly, there are several puzzles where you have to type things just right, like using 'jump on' instead of 'enter' or 'climb' or 'get on' or 'stand on'. This definitely could have used a longer testing period!

This game is part of the Text Adventure Literacy Jam. The competition requires games to have a tutorial and to be gentle for beginners, but to have substantial puzzles.

The game casts you as the Big Bad Wolf, in prison, and you have to account for your actions from your own perspective. It reminds me of classic takes on this subject like the movie Hoodwinked or the children's book The Stinky Cheese Man. The writing is humorous and fun to read.

The map is small and simple to follow, mostly shaped like a cross with a branch on one of the sides. The game draws on Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs, Peter and the Wolf, and others.

I found many of the puzzles enjoyable and engaging. The game is relatively brief, just right for beginners. I would give 4 stars, but I had some parser wrangling issues. I frequently found that the limited parser felt like it made the game more complicated rather than less; for instance, TAKE is blocked, but many puzzles revolve around using items that are present. So a puzzle that would be very simple with TAKE becomes a complex guessing game of what the correct verb is. Similarly, some of the puzzle logic felt out of whack; actions that I thought would be reasonable are handwaved away, but later turn out to be the right solution, it just wasn't the right time (I'm specifically thinking of the (Spoiler - click to show)sheep disguise).

These issues were not severe and were overcome in the end, but gave me enough friction that it was irritating. The writing, however, was very funny to me, and provided me strong motivation to go on. I also didn't find any bugs or typos at all, and the game overall felt highly polished. I was planning on giving it 3 stars and saying I'd give 4 if the issues above were resolved, but I can't really think of any way to fix them myself, so why not just give the higher score for this fun and well-written game?

This was an intricate and surprising game. It uses a seed for color palettes and another for ‘one click=one change in perspective’.

So the way it’s structured is that it has a setting and a list of dramatis personae. All of the people’s names are linked, and clicking on them gives you a view of the soiree from their perspective, as well as links to the three others.

So, I thought, ‘Ah, I get it. There are just four story passages, and you can pick what order to read them in.’ But, it was actually a lot more complex than that. Each link that you click takes you to another person’s perspective, like I thought, but it also advances the time. So there’s actually quite a bit of complexity in play here.

At first, I thought there were 8 or so people, until I realized that every person had a first name and a last name and that which one was used in the text depended on the familiarity of the person who was speaking. This introduced an almost puzzle element for me, as I had to go back and forth between the dramatis personae list and try to fit together the different perspectives into a unified whole. It made me feel like this was a lot of worldbuilding for one game, so I checked the ‘about’, and saw that this tied in with the author’s earlier game Structural Integrity.

Overall, the writing felt natural and the scenario was interesting enough that I played through 4 or 5 times (unlocking the ‘faster read’ mode). The basic concept is that you’re at a work party and two male/male couples that have beef with each other bump into each other with a combo of flirting and veiled insults.

I felt like the ending didn’t really end on a satisfying, conclusive note; it felt like there was either something missing left to be told or that room was being left for a sequel hook.

I also think that the extensive worldbuilding and the ‘one click = one viewpoint change’ concepts had tension with each other, because with such fleshed-out characters I would have liked to have more time with one character to learn names from their point of view and get a feel for them and their worldview before hopping over to the next character.

Finally, the styling looked nice, with well-chosen colors and backgrounds, and a fancy dramatis personae list. I thought early on ‘I wish I could just bring up the list of people more easily’, and then I realized there was a button that does exactly that, which was good design.

This game has a genuinely funny title, which I like.

In ATGIWHMFSIIHTTWIDNOWTANN, you are provided a list of game seeds the author was interested in. You can click each one to see the seed itself, either visual or text, which honestly was great; in the actual seedcomp planting round, you have to download the text prompts individually which can get really annoying, so copying the structure of this game to make a ‘hub game’ could be really nice.

Anyway, once you select a subset of these, you can push a mysterious-looking ‘alchemize!’ button. Now, there are a lot of seeds here, so there would be hundreds of combinations. But the game automatically culls things to combos the author thought of, so clicking one box deletes most others.

I was delighted to see that the function of ‘alchemize!’ was to make a fake ifdb page for the game! It comes complete with summary, reviews, and votes on those reviews.

It was really fun seeing what someone’s perception of IFDB was as expressed through the various voices they invented. It was pretty funny seeing things like two-word negative reviews that got a single 0/1 helpfulness vote.

I found it interesting that the fake reviews quoted or summarized large portions of the game explicitly. I know the reason for that was to communicate to us, the people reading this, what the games would have actually been like. But actual reviews tend not to include so much stuff (like a ranking of characters in a game), probably because people read reviews before playing and don’t want to get spoiled. It made me wonder, what if we did include more stuff like that? In spoilers, of course.

The one thing I didn’t really like was the color choices. The fake IFDB page had black text on a dark grey background (I tried two browsers just to check). I could read it but only barely, so I went into the console and edited the text to be easier to see. Might just be a me-getting-old thing, though.

Very fun to see IFDB represented this way.