Reviews by MathBrush

Here we have another python custom parser game, but this one is surprisingly smooth, once I read the ABOUT text. It understands abbreviations for directions, inventory, and LOOK, and it implements LOOK; it has hints, an INTRO page and a HELP page. While it does fall short in some areas of the parser (I think BREAK MANACLES should have a response, for instance), it is impressive overall, and the presentation was nice (although I had a lot of blank lines before my command prompt for some reason).

The game itself is just a preview, but it’s a perspective rarely seen in parser IF. You play as a (supposedly) evil power, imprisoned for centuries by the forces of good (maybe). You have the ability to SING TO (ST) things to interact with them.

I loved the descriptiveness and the imagery. While I do wish the whole thing were finished, it’s clear that a lot of work and talent went into this. In a good way, it reminded me of EAT ME, with its focus on one verbal phrase (SING TO) and its opening in a dungeon, manacled to a wall.

(would give 4 stars if finished or if polished more, 5 stars if both as the idea is awesome!)

This is a downloadable python executable. I was able to make 7 package deliveries, and then nothing else happened; I presume I won, unless there’s more hidden.

This looks to be a custom engine. It simultaneously looks like it took a ton of work and also is far from the level of other parser in the competition.

The best analogy I could give is that it’s like someone entering one of these realistic cake decorating competitions, but they bring sheafs of wheat, a live chicken, and sugarcane, and spend the first two hours grinding everything by hand and waiting for the chicken to lay an egg. Then, in the last remaining time, they whip together a homemade pancake.

Was it a lot of work? Was it impressive? Yes, and yes. Does it match what others are bringing to the competition, and does it provide what the audience is looking for? In this case, for this audience, I’d say no.

In this game, you are a parcel delivery person. You have a store room with boxes, you take them and look at them to see the label, and then you deliver them. Some of the deliveries are puzzles you have to solve, but these are fairly simple. There is well-done pixel art graphics that look hand made (the shrimp store sign was especially neat).

The parser doesn’t recognize abbreviations, so you need to type out INVENTORY for inventory and EAST for going east. It seems to slice words and only recognize part of the text because typing NORTHEAST is the same as NORTH in some spots, and when I was trying to examine the post office at the beginning it took me inside. The game doesn’t recognize LOOK or LOOK AROUND, so the only way I found to repeat room text was to leave and come back. There is no HINT or HELP, no UNDO, SAVE, or RESTORE. Synonyms and partial matches with nouns don’t work (so you must TAKE SQUARE BOX, not TAKE SQUARE, TAKE BOX, or TAKE PACKAGE). Pronouns aren’t recognized (so TAKE IT won’t work). GIVE PACKAGE or TALK won’t work, you have to DELIVER ____ BOX. Fortunately the game is designed to run fairly smoothly given these constraints.

This game was entered in Spring Thing 2024. It's a parser game that uses the Bisquixe interpreter, which I worked on, to do some color changes, so this review is biased. It is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see when I made it so I'm very happy.

The story is one of suspense. You arrive at a studio apartment, ready to sleep, but you have to prepare for the night first. While doing so, you, the reader, will discover that there is more to your life than first appeared.

Later on, the game enters a new phase. (Spoiler - click to show)A stranger starts opening the door, and you start planning on what you'll do, using the future tense, one of the few times I've seen someone use this Inform option.

The world is dense and richly implemented, with tons of items, electronics with menus and submenus and programs, etc. It can be overwhelming at times, but the gameplay isn't as complex as I was worried it would be. You can reach several different endings fairly easily, although there are a lot, some harder than others, if you're going for completionism.

The suspense was there for me, and there were several big moments, emotionally, including the fun color changes.

This game puts you in the roles of a corporate office jockey in a soulless dystopia where all art, including poetry, must be removed.

You sort things into 'facts' and 'poetry' and delete the poetry.

A strange messenger appears and lets you save some words of the poetry, which you can rearrange into your own poems. The deletion process proceeds in real time, so you have to click fast to save them.

The whole game lasts about 9 in-game days.

I found the setting interesting, and liked the poem making mechanic. The real-time event wasn't my favorite (I like IF precisely because it doesn't have real time events) but it was pretty forgiving and adjustable.

Overall, a fun concept, and I liked the Shakespeare quotes. I feel like a lot of the game was spoken in generalities, when I might have preferred more specifics, but perhaps a blank canvas was intended.


These are the poems I made (although I copped out on the last line of the last one):
(Spoiler - click to show)
their den in the light smells Like a gray shadow of the night

Assignment 646: Lanirian
cry lightning
Some Verses inspire,
Some Verses blind
may I become blind
may the day become knives.

Assignment 655: Mol'ztor'lorian
Hope is the sweetest thing heard on coldest wind.

Assignment 665: Olkuts-pons
first Swelling,
sweet and joy
it might be joy
what joy and sweet times

Assignment 671: Marvumheonackolin
Again
Every pulse
half awake blessed comfort
He thinks Every secret
When fairy numbers didn't pulse

This game is a Twine game with extensive use of images, audio, animations or video, etc. It couldn't be hosted by Spring Thing directly due to its large size.

It's a story about someone who has really messed up sleep patterns, due to waking up early for high school, using acid, and just enjoying the night, among other reasons. You constantly have the choice to sleep or to wake.

Does that choice make a difference? It's hard to tell. I tried all waking for a bit then all sleeping, and ended up spiraling out of control.

I like surreal imagery, and the images and music were evocative. But I didn't feel a need to revisit the game afterwards.

This is a brief parser game about a samurai preparing to commit seppuku. You are given food, alcohol, and writing implements to write your death poem.

However, events intervene, and the game goes on to several action sequences.

It was generally fairly easy to figure out what to do next. I found the events interesting, and enjoyed following along. I did figure out what was going on partway through, which was nice, but the ending was heavy-handed enough and out of tone with the rest that I took off a point. It's a good story as is; why not just leave the self-deprecation and message in an author's note?

The writing was a little nondescriptive but makes up for it with fun action scenes that are uncommon in parser games.

This was a pleasant game to try out. You play as an expy of Captain Kirk, although your ship is now called The Marigold and your enemies are the Glexx.

Like the games 4x4 Archipelago and 4x4 Galaxy, you are on a 4x4 grid with the contents of most of the grid randomly generated. You can encounter planets, asteroids, aliens, and enemies.

You have fuel, weapons, and crew, and you can make a wide variety of choices, like killing everything you see or being peaceful, taking time to study nature or exploring.

I had pretty different experiences on two playthroughs, although some events were of course the same. Overall, a fun game to while the time away. It did take me a while to notice that the star map showed me which ways I would be able to exit.

This is a potato-based game.

In it, you play as a detective who is ostracized for failing to discover the person who stole the Potato Peace statue years ago. But soon the thief contacts you, telling you to get credit for it. But what are his motives?

This is a mostly linear twine game with, I believe, AI potato art which can be very (intentionally) amusing, especially the smug potato mayor.

The story seems very inconsistent--even your own character, who seems to be a human woman in pictures, but is called a guy at one point and has a potato father in another picture. The plot is random and whacky and motivations seem to change all over the place.

There are a few options in the middle of the game but most come at the end.

My local representative is Beth van Dyne. She came to my school and talked to the students about passing bills.

She mentioned how thousands of bills were put forth in the last year, but only some really small number (like 50 or 15 or something) actually made it to a vote. Everyone was too deadlocked and there were a lot of committees to go through. It was disheartening.

This game takes a look at passing a bill and it is similarly disheartening, although it goes in a more hyperbolic direction. In this game everyone is directly corrupt, adding wildly inappropriate measures to your bill or literally threatening your life.

Parts of it were funny, one puzzle was clever, and overall I see a lot of good parts in the game. But I feel like it ended a bit abruptly, and could have included some committees, and overall I just don't agree with the vision (although that doesn't directly affect my rating).

This Spring Thing 2024 game features colorful background with sprites of different animals along with the main NPC, a long-eared elf who others mock for being fat.

The elf goes through the forest and meets different animals. Each one gives you the choice to do a good deed or a bad deed. At the end of the game, it tells you how good or bad you were.

There are several puzzles in the middle where you have to pick the right object to help someone, sometimes with a bit more complexity (like making a map).

There is background music that is pretty repetitive, there are some typos, and the text is pretty slow to be displayed.

All in all, it's clear the author put a lot of effort into making this; I think with the feedback from the other reviews and with some time their next game could be something truly special. This one had some fun moments (like seeing a normal hedgehog dressed like Sonic) but I think could have used some more pizzazz in either story or choices.