Reviews by MathBrush

This brief Twine game has you exploring a forest after you accidentally (Spoiler - click to show)lose your gender. Lookin around, you try to understand and search for gender identity through metaphor.

There are only 4 or 5 choices in the game, but there is meaningful choice. The game invites you to understand what is meant by gender roles and identity.

In the end, the choice isn't all yours; regardless of your choices, the game will not (Spoiler - click to show)allow you to choose your old identity.

I found the game to be polished and descriptive, despite its brevity, and was in some ways emotionally moving, although I don't think I'll revisit it.

One trend in IFComp is that an unfinished game will place near the bottom of the comp, regardless of any other positive features it might have. There are some exceptions, but they are rare.

This game cuts off right after a big investigation. The idea is that humanity has moved on from reproduction, and everyone is now immortal, there are dozens of different pronoun options (the most meaningful choices in the game are centered around terms of address and pronouns), and everyone is smart and cool. The first biologically born person in millenia has been found murdered.

There are multiple typos (although literally as I was playing the game for 20 minutes near midnight on a Saturday, the author updated the game, which was a fun coincidence), such as 'TALKED WITH' instead of 'TALK WITH'. I also found the jumping between perspectives a little confusing as well.

Due to the confusing language and the errors and the unfinished aspect, I didn't find the game polished, descriptive, emotionally engaging, or something I'd like to revisit for now.

I do think the general idea is a good one. A game like this would probably do better in Introcomp, which was definitely underpopulated this year.

In this game you explore a small cave with different fantasy creatures and gems and such in it.

This game is part of a small genre of games best described as 'quirky twine game based in a cave/dungeon that riffs on the silly parts of fantasy games but also has feels and is generally a simple branching structure with little state tracking'.

Other entries in the genre include Just Get the Treasure v0.9.1, Girth Loinhammer and the Quest for the Unsee Elixir (a more complex example), TOMBs of Reschette, The Cave (a less humorous example), The Thing About Dungeons, etc.

This game is definitely on the zanier end. My son first got into Twine with games like this when he was 5, like Escape from the Crazy Place, because it's fun to do silly things like (in this cave) refusing to enter the cave from the get go. For me, as an adult, I still think it can be fun at times.

For some reason one of the passages didn't work at all for me on PC chrome, but it did when I loaded it up in the Twinery app (the one all in cyan that's on time delays).

Overall, I think that this game has some entertainment value, but I think it didn't offer very much new.

This game is a six-by-six grid of locations, each described in two words or less. Each location has something that needs resolving: a missing item, or a problem in a different square. You are the resolver, who will resolve the problems (including the word limit).

It's choice-based, but with mild quadratic complexity. You can choose between LOOKing and INTERACTing with each object in a room, and you gather an inventory of items.

I loved this game, with the only drawback for me being the 'lawnmowering' that felt natural for the mid-game, trying out different items in different rooms. This problem is both alleviated and exacerbated by the helpful text which tells you if you're in the right room. It makes lawnmowering both faster (less painful) but also more appealing.

Overall, I find this a very successful puzzle piece. It reminds me of Weird City Interloper, a bit.

I can also highly recommend Domestic Elementalism, another game by this author from the 2017 IFComp.

This game is one of two entered by Bez in this competition, the other being 'Weird Grief', and the two tie into each other.

In this one, presented in customized Twine, you are a moderator for an online community, and have been asked to begin closing accounts of dead customers.

Gameplay is divided into two components: reading through old messages, and entering a group chat with everyone involved.

The game has illustrated avatars for each important character, as well as a few other pieces of art.

The second section of the game is all on a timer. It's not too long, but I tend to multitask while playing IF (the format lends itself well to pick-up-and-put-down play), and I tabbed away to work on other things while waiting for the text to complete, only to come back and see it had wiped the screen and started new messages. I also had to leave in the middle of some text to use the restroom, and missed a couple of other parts because of that. So for future players, I'd recommend dedicating a set amount of time to read through the second portion.

The text includes frequent strong and mild profanities and depicts traumatizing events as well as reference to sexual activities.

Overall, I found the game polished and descriptive, with an emotional impact. The nonlinear interactivity in the first half worked for me, but the second half was a little rougher, so I'd give this a 3.5, which I'll round up to a 4 for IFDB.

This is a small but polished game, one that feels like an intentionally compact micro-game. The system would be appropriate for a longer game, but there's not much room to fit more in the game besides having multiple matches.

You are a cyborg gladiator in a political climate that seems to be modeled on current transgender discourse. You get to choose how you treat your fellow cyborgs, and you also choose your body type and weapon.

Combat has a kind of paper-rock-scissors format, with unusual combinations pleasing the crowd.

The game uses strong profanity every few screens and has elaborate violence and (spoilers for certain paths) (Spoiler - click to show)some vaguely described sexual scenes.

I don't feel like the game lasted long enough for me to get a good grip on it emotionally, but it's polished and descriptive, and the interactivity was interesting and responsive.

This is a short Ink game. You are a doctor in a clinic that is almost empty. You have encounters with people and have to decide whether to spend your supplies on them.

The game is pretty short, almost like a demo for a larger game. Each major choice is an ethical one, and at the end the game thanks you for taking an examination (and starts with a similar comment), so I think it's intended for you to reflect on your morals.

Overall, it's a solid idea, but wasn't long enough to draw me in emotionally or to invite replay.

This is a great game concept that's well-executed. It's an Inform parser game with custom CSS to look like text messages. I've been interested in this concept for a while and had even made a draft once of the necessary JS/CSS, but my version looked bad and was buggy and deleted it. So seeing someone who achieved a complete and great-looking version of that concept is very nice!

You play as a random person who is getting texts from a friend. Your friend has broken into their ex's dorm room in an effort to get back a photo and to experience closure.

Technically, the game is very impressive. Besides the nice appearance, it also does some fun text stuff (like (Spoiler - click to show)drawing out the last letter of the name you inputted(Spoiler - click to show)).

Puzzle-wise, it's fairly light, focused on exploration without requiring you to use a ton of logic or calculation. I had to use one hint, as I had thought I investigated everything but missed a subobject I had seen early on.

Story-wise, I could identify with the themes of loss, snoopiness, and the realization that you didn't really know the other person.

The one caveat I had about the CSS/JS is that I sometimes had hiccups where I expected the texts to be done and started typing, not realizing there were more. There is a visual indicator (the flashing line), but it might have been nice to either add another indicator that more was coming (perhaps replacing the standard 'more' with '...') or just printing all texts at once, especially when using 'LOOK', which is the only place I had trouble.

Overall, I found the game was polished, descriptive, had interesting interactivity, was emotional resonant, and I might play it again.

There is a long history of using surreal, abstract worlds to describe relationships in interactive fiction, with Plotkin's game So Far coming to mind as an early example.

This game pushes that trend to its logical extreme. You are with a woman, walking through an abstract maze that is navigated by identifying three-dimensional solids (except (Spoiler - click to show)they're aren't really any of the options, making it guess and check) or picking out numbers in a pattern. The maze has a negative effect on those who guess wrong, (Spoiler - click to show)turning them into geometric solids.

Pseudavid is an accomplished Twine writer with an extensive back catalogue (I particularly recommend Master of the Land and The Good People). This game contains hints of those earlier games, but has reached such a level of abstraction that I honestly had trouble piecing out what was going on or making connections or 'aha' moments. In other words, this game was over my head.

+Polish: The game was very smooth
-Descriptiveness: It was quite vague. The writing is good when zoomed in but when zoomed out seems to lack content:
(Spoiler - click to show)Oh, still salty about it, aren't we? Of course you wouldn't forget it. So, what's the final tally? Very, very good! But not perfect. How should I take it?'
-Interactivity. The game is meant to be played once, but has pass/fail mechanics and inscrutable choices. I suppose winning may not be the point, but as its set up it seems to be a frustration simulator.
-Emotional impact: I bounced off hard
+Would I play again? The game suggests not to, so I won't, but naturally I'd be interested in seeing other paths.

I recently played through a game that used pedophilia for its shock factor, to show you just how bad the villains were. I mentioned in a review there how I dislike playing games that heavily feature pedophilia, regardless of the overlying message.

This game is similar, in that it uses something morally wrong (in this case, flagrant racism) to tell a a story. There are effective stories you can tell about racism, but this game uses unchallenged racist terms and ideas, leaving the player to make their own conclusions at the end.

I do believe the author intends this piece to have an overall anti-racist message. (spoiler for ending) (Spoiler - click to show)Your character turns out to be the true monster, and what seemed hideous monsters attacking him, saying things he couldn't understand, were soldiers of the race he hated. But that's only after we spent the rest of the game with characters saying things like (Spoiler - click to show)'all Asian women are ugly', 'mongoloids', 'sub-human'. It's like when an acquaintance repeatedly insults you but says 'just joking!', or back-handed compliments like 'I completely disagree with all your friends who say that you look like a hideous pile of cow pies'. It felt over the line, for me.

Overall, the game was polished. The only interactivity is choosing which memories to remember, and you don't have time to remember them all. I did experience an emotional reaction to the game.

When I play games, I immerse myself in the protagonist. And this is a protagonist I do not wish to identify with.

My 3 stars represents my overall rubric: polish, descriptiveness, and emotional impact.