Reviews by MathBrush

This is a game originally written Spanish and translated for the competition.

You play as a kind of rebel against an all-powerful corporation called Faro.

Gameplay proceeds through several puzzles, including interrogation, reasoning puzzles, and at least one that I've never seen before (entering Hack's house, a puzzle that required me to (Spoiler - click to show)adjust my computer settings).

The puzzles are pretty tricky; I frequently looked at the answers in the code. One puzzle require clicking on a moving link; I ended up (Spoiler - click to show) highlighting with tab and then hitting enter.

The translation is not idiomatic. In addition, some words are not translated at all (Continuar for continue, for instanc, or the 3 meters for the Mind scan). The story has interesting characters, but I don't believe it has the backstory and/or continuity for us to care a lot about them. All of these are normal problems for writers that usually get easier with more and more practice, so I look forward to any future games.

Programming-wise the game is very sophisticated.

-Polish: The game text could be polished more.
+Descriptiveness: The writing is very descriptive
-Interactivity: I felt like some of the puzzles were unfair.
-Emotional Impact: I think if some of the other problems were fixed I would have a better connection with the game emotionally.
+Would I play it again? Yes, if it was updated!

This is a pretty hefty Choicescript game that consists of two parts: a young person browsing Tumblr that's part of a fandom for a fictional series of novels (a science fiction analogue of Harry Potter with its own house-type system), and a story-within-the-story consisting of your character's fan fiction.

Fanfiction gameplay includes things like customizing your character and reacting emotionally to things, as well as choosing ships (as in relationships).

Tumblr gameplay consists of choosing from 8 or so different blogs to look at. Choosing a blog to look at brings up a post you can like, reblog, sometimes comment on, or skip to go to the next one (or back). Each blog has about 4 posts in each section of gameplay.

There are several chapters, each one giving more fanfiction and more events in the blogosphere.

Midgame spoilers:
(Spoiler - click to show)The author of the series makes posts in the middle of the game calling out one of your friends and saying that transgender people are degenerates. Most of the people you follow are trans, and so it puts a big damper on things and chaos ensues.

The game has a main story thread, but it also has a 'score' aspect in terms of your followers. Reblogging gets you more followers.

I had a ton of emotions reading this. I like to put myself in the headspace of the people I play as but doing so made me really uncomfortable this time, and I made choices in-game that I thought the protagonist would do that are things I really wouldn't do in real life.

The discomfort I experience playing this game is because it encourages you to have empathy for people and then puts them in hard situations that there aren't easy answers for. It also reminds me of real life confusions and conversations I've had.

So I definitely had a stronger reaction emotionally to this game than to others.

Mechanically, a lot of content is dumped at once in each of the tumblr sections. That's the way real social media is, but I've been trying to clear my head of social media 'noise' recently (who isn't?) and playing this reminded me why.

With its world-within-the-world and focus on the nature of human experience, art, and their interactions, and with the Choicescript format, I was strongly reminded of Creatures Such as We, a game by Lynnea Glasser in my top 10 games of all time. That game leaves me thoughtful and hopeful, while this one left me thoughtful and distressed. Both are useful. Of the two, though, this game had an interaction mechanic that didn't work quite as well for me, with the nonlinear asynchronous tumblr text dumps. But that isn't to say it didn't work at all; I think it's one of the better games of the competition and a masterpiece of technical work, doing things I didn't know were capable in Choicescript. And the characterization is excellent, with a lot of the characters coming alive for me personalitywise (although I lost track of some of the handles).

This, like Retrocon 2021, another entry in this year's IFComp, is a collection of puzzles thrown into one big story.

However, this game has much more story, including a large overarching mystery in the 'wrapper' story around this game.

The puzzles are mostly traditional ones (like having 3 different-sized measuring cups and trying to get a specific value, or a slightly faster than usual Rings of Hanoi, a crossword, a wordsearch, etc.).

Each puzzle has a story associated to it. If you die by making wrong choices or running out of time (in Normal mode, there is sometimes a timer, while in Easy mode there is not), then you get the same puzzle but with a different story.

The very first puzzle is a bit weird (it is logical, but not a 'classic puzzle') like the others. Once you get past it the rest should be more familiar.

I thought that was pretty cool. I never became super invested in the ever-changing characters and the puzzles were mostly ones where the solutions are known, but I had fun doing it.

+Polish: Very polished.
+Descriptive: Yes, especially the changing settings
+Interactivity: At least there were no cryptograms or (at least for me) real Towers of Hanoi. What was there was frequently fun.
-Emotional Impact: Didn't get invested.
-Would I play again? It was fun, but I'm not sure how much replay value there is.

I really think this game is a 3.5, and would round up to 4 to be nice, but E. Joyce has already made many incredible games, so I'll point to those instead. Check out "Lady Thalia and the Seraskier Sapphires" (also co-written by N. Cormier) or "Social Lycanthropy Disorder", especially, because those are really fun!

This is a game with solid writing and design but shaky implementation, what one would expect from someone with a good writing background that is just now breaking into Inform 7. On Twitter I see that the author is an MFA student in game design, and the game's ABOUT text says it's a demonstration game, so that would all check out.

You play as a young would-be fortune teller in the house of a professional fortune teller. They dare you to tell the fortune of everyone in the house correctly.

There are 7 people in the house, and you can assign each of them 3 different fortunes.

Once you've done so, after a certain amount of time, they start interacting with each other, and after a certain time limit is reached, the game automatically ends and you are evaluated on how accurate your fortunes are.

Conversation works well in this game. But the complex scene-changing machinery is problematic. At one point I was in the closet and saw dramatic happenings in the room, with somebody storming out. Then I left the closet and the room, and saw the exact same scene, this time from outside the room.

More egregiously, on multiple playthroughs, after the first cutscene, I tried talking to Lux and then became stuck in the kitchen, with no way to leave. Any attempt to exit resulted in no text at all.

I wasn't able to determine if any actions you take besides fortune telling matter. It seems like it might; there are a few random objects scattered about. But with the bugs it's kind of hard to tell.

This game is far better than most projects made for MFA or BA degrees in game design (although there was a really nice Choicescript one recently). No testers are credited, and I think that having several more testers would have really pushed this to 'excellent' territory.

Andrew Schultz recently release Fivebyfiveia Delenda Est, a fun small game with chess puzzles that was one of his higher-rated games.

This is a larger game with chess puzzles that have a bit more complexity. There are a bunch of mini-kingdoms to invade and each has two 'tiers' to conquer. The game itself has 2 difficulty settings. I beat it on the first, and started the second, only to realize that it was very similar.

The puzzles involve setting up 2-3 pieces on the chessboard to trap the enemy king. Interestingly, sometimes you have to set up enemy pieces as well.

The storyline is fairly thin but understandable. The game sometimes holds your hand a bit more than I would have wanted. Specifically, beating one area sometimes automatically beats neighboring areas, even before you know what they do. If I had more idea before I left what each area was like, or was given the option to grey out such areas, I'd prefer that.

This was a genuinely fun game. You are part of a heavy metal band whose set is being taken over by a glamrock band. You have to assemble your band together, but each is distracted and can't come help you.

After some initial exploration, you gain the power to JAM with the other members of your band, which lets you cause interesting effects. Jamming with 2 people at a time provides more effects, leading to about 10 jam powers all together.

The writing is snappy and fun, the colors are cool, and the mechanics are interesting.

The only real downsides are (for me), a lot of profanity (in line with metal fans, though) and a lot of missing synonyms and alternate solutions. I kept trying things like RIP SHIRT or SURF CROWD or UNPLUG SWITCH or TAKE SWITCH and getting error messages, when it seems like these things ought to have been implemented. The game is very smooth in other areas and had testers, so I guess I'd just recommend in the future piling on even more testers and implementing everything they try in a transcript. I think this game is already great, but I think it could be pushed to 'completely awesome' territory by such efforts. I definitely hope to see more games by this author in the future, because they have a real talent for writing and mechanics.

This game is unapologetically just a bunch of mini games wrapped up in Twine with an ultrathin story applied.

The minigames include:

-A slot machine with fruit graphics and some animation
-A poker draw game
-Keno
-Horse Racing
-A football game
-A zombie-shooting card game
-A short custom-parser text adventure.

Each of the games worked pretty well, and some of them were pretty fun. All are based on RNG except the text adventure. The text adventure has a pretty basic parser (which has a tendency to insult you) and is of the classic 'my dead male relative's house' style, with each room lovingly recreated.

+Polish: Very smooth. The parser isn't awesome compared to dedicated parser languages but impressive for Twine
+Descriptiveness: It was easy to see what was going on usually
+Interactiviy: Most games worked well for me.
-Emotional impact: I felt distanced emotionally from my character and the games
-Would I play again? It was interesting, but I don't think I'll be revisiting.

This is a fantasy parser game where you play as a human/fox creature that can switch between forms at will. You are a guardian to a young human who has been captured and you have to rescue him.

Gameplay is centered on switching between forms to your advantage. This is done very well: your animal form can speak with other animals, has heightened senses and can fit into tight places, while your human form is stronger and can use tools.

The parser could use some work, and the opening scene is where it struggles the most. Going up or down gives a blank message, and trying to apply the bandages is really rough when it comes to guessing synonyms (things like PUT BANDAGES ON ____ don't work).

The cast of characters is described well, although the raiders stick out as weird (they use strong profanity, where the rest of the game is more at a YA level, and they seem fairly dumb). The animal characters are great.

This game features a hungry young protagonist in a wheelchair that explores a large world in Twine.

This game is very location-and-inventory based, with a large map (including an actual in-game map at one point) and several lock and key puzzles.

Gameplay consists of exploration, with special optional memories unlocked while a larger main storyline plays out.

Stylistically, it leaves many words uncapitalized and switches to different colors to signify different themes.

The story is a surreal religious horror where it's difficult to know what is real and what isn't. There is a large amount of imagery taken directly from the book of Revelations, and much of gameplay revolves around the fact that you are someone in a cult.

Overall, I found the surreal religious imagery to be effective. Many of the parts about wheelchair use seemed realistic based off of my experience with living with a wheelchair user for almost a decade (except getting through farmland!).

I appreciate the author leaving a lot up to imagination, using nuance and hiding behind symbolic imagery.

-Polish: There were noticeable typos. Everything else was great.
+Interactivity: The world map and the puzzles felt good.
+Descriptiveness: Very vivid writing, some of the most descriptive I've seen this comp.
+Emotional impact: I'm really into this stuff. It doesn't represent my worldview (I have a more hopeful interpretation of Revelations) but it lies in the intersection of my interests.
-Would I play again? It was pretty dark and I felt like I understood the message I was going to get, so I'm not sure I'll revisit.

This game feels like it would fit well in the early era of Twine. It's standard white text on black with blue hyperlinks, uses a couple text animations and has a standard branch and bottleneck structure with a sci fi or fantasy genre.

I like a lot of games like that (like Hunting Unicorn, for instance). This one turned out pretty well.

You play as a participant in creating sentient robots. You undergo questioning similar to a Turing test with your answers fed into the programming for a field of robots.

Later on, you encounter those robots, and must at a crucial moment conduct a Turing test.

I felt engaged with the story, and thought that the characters were vividly described. I felt like my choices mattered. I do think the game could use a little more polish, like a title screen or custom CSS or even some more callbacks to earlier choices. And while I liked it I don't think I'd replay it.