Reviews by MathBrush

This is a game that very acvurately portrays a horrible situation, and thus left me feeling uncomfortable. Its not the kind of game I enjoy playing.

You play the abbot of a monastery that has been afflicted with plague, and you have to take control of the situation while everyone goes crazier and crazier.

The game features many npcs and strong moral choices. You can choose to do truly horrible things, including (Spoiler - click to show)rape, murder, eating corpses,etc., and egen if you choose the best paths, people around you (Spoiler - click to show)crucify others, violently commit suicide, etc.

I'm not proud that I completed this game. I came back to it years later, like scratching a scab you know you shouldn't.

I avoided this game for some time, as I knew it had some disturbing content, but I was curious, so I went in and played through it. I feel, looking back, that I didn't really need to do so.

The gameplay is intricate, with six or more NPCs taking actions every turn. You play one of many possible regents to a young prince who must battle for supremacy. The game is mostly set in a blend of medieval, modern, and slightly futuristic technology.

Each enemy is deeply flawed. Some are motivated by greed, others by lust. The game deals with pedophilia, repeated rape, murder, alcoholism, misogyny, etc. These topics don't make a game bad, if they are handled well; but the game has a worldview that makes you squirm, where you are implicit in violence and death, and where human happiness is impossible.


Other people may not have the same reaction. Heck, I played it for quitea bit, before usinv a walkthrough to the end, making me hypocritical. But I can't recommend it in general.

I knew what De Baron was like before I tried it, so its my own fault, but this game made me feel bad and uncomfortable. Many people equate this with greatness, which explains why books like The Kiterunner are so popular. But in both this game and the Kiterunner, I feel the author is simply going for shock value.

This game centers around a man in search of his daughter, who is held captive by an evil Baron. In travelling to the baron, you meet a linear succession of creatures and characters, with some exploration required. Everything is vastly symbolic, and includes long, philosophical conversations.

The baron has dark intentions for your daughter, and you yourself have some issues to work out.

I played this game, so I can't tell others not to; but I can say that I think that you can get your fix of philosophy and deepness in better ways.

Note that the author and others have provided an alternative viewpoint in the comments.

Conan Kill Everything was intended to be dumb humor. The author chose the name from a competition for dumbest IF games. In this game, you must kill everything. When you do, you win.

The puzzles are actually pretty fun, but the game feels a bit underimplemented at times. Descriptions of objects and characters are sparse. It fits in with the game's setting, though.

Honestly, the game plays like a combination of Pick Up the Phonebooth and Die with Suveh Nux. If you liked those two games, you'll like this. If you liked just one, you might or might not like this.

Shade is a surreal game. It is an almost one-room game, where you are trying to leave your apartment, but encounter more and more difficulties.

Shade is one of the most well-written short horror games available on IFDB, and has been sold as an iOS game.

There were two points in the game that I wasn't expecting and deeply unsettled me. I won't list them here. Unfortunately, this whole review is a bit pointless, as nothing is scary if you are told it is scary. The scariest story I ever read was NES Godzilla, and it was only scary because it was such a ridiculously stupid story that when it actually got scary, it surprised me. On the other hand, I was told The Lurking Horror was one of the scariest games of all time, so when I actually played it, I was pretty disappointed.

So your best bet is to forget this and the other few reviews, wait a few months, think, "Oh, what game is this?" and then play it.

Most of the game, including the ending, was not that scary. Just a few moments stuck out for me, but they were big moments.

Pick up the phone booth and die has one idea: try picking up the phone booth. Then die. Exactly one related action will win the game instead.

I had always heard of this game, and played it once or twice. After deciding to write this review, I investigated its history. It seems it was nominated for an XYZZY award for Best Puzzle in 1997. It was simultaneously released with a demo for Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die, part 2, which is still available as a demo on ifdb.

Most of the praise the game receives is due to its minimalism.You might as well try it because it is so short.

It inspired the much better game, Pick Up The Phone Booth and Aisle, which parodies both this game and Aisle (where every action ends the game in a different ending).

I played Dreamhold years ago, one of the first games I've played, and it's never been quite my favorite. It is intended as being accessible for beginners but still fun for older players. It is a mid-length fantasy game, where you play as a wizard trying to reconstruct his memories in a tower.

The puzzles are of course top-notch, especially with the berries and the stars. However, the plot was never really compelling to me. The protagonist is not an underdog, and everyone likes to root for the under dog.

Actually, I know exactly how to describe this game. This is Citizen Kane for interactive fiction. Reviewing the life of an old, powerful man and seeing how he got there. If you liked Citizen Kane, you will like Dreamhold. If you don't really go for those kinds of characters, you still might like the puzzles quite a bit. For me, it's the kind of game that I love while playing, then forget when I'm done.

I had heard about this game for a year before playing it. Because of the hyper, I was mildly disappointed when playing it. The writing and concept of the game are similar to a variety of horror/surreal games out there, such as Porpentine's games, Ecdysis, parts of Frog Fractions. Who came first, I don't know. The idea seems to be to present something that is vaguely sketched out, with all details being slightly incompatible with each other and reality, borrowing ideas from deep-sea creatures and insects/parasites.

Beyond that specific genre, this game is part of a larger genre of text where the author experiences gut-wrenching, horrible things, turning the readers stomach in fear or revulsion. This includes books like The Kite Runner, Mudbound, A Separate Peace. A lot of these stories have been highly praised, and I even joy some of them (including Horsemaster), but in the end, I feel like true substance is more difficult to find.

The main pull of the game is your connection with your horse. A lot of things can happen between the two of you. You almost have the relationship of manipulative mother and her daughter.

The gameplay is perfectly tuned to contribute to the atmosphere.

Overall, most people will enjoy the game. I am glad that I played it. But it didn't change my life (not that anyone said it would, of course).

Ad Verbum was one of the first IF games I played, and still a favorite. In this mid-length, story-lite game, you must collect and throw away various items by using constrained commands (commands that don't use certain letters, commands that only use the top row of the keyboard, repetitive commands, etc.)

The most enjoyable rooms are the rooms where you must use only words starting with a certain letter. The hardest part is trying to leave! How do you exit a room to the north if you have to start all of your commands with s?

The top few levels and the backyard are not quite as fun. And there are some puzzles that are just weird "guess which random object has the random property you need" puzzles.

Possibly inspired by the Wizard of Frobozz in Zork II,and originally intended to be Zork IV, Enchanter was my favorite Infocom game up to this point. You play an apprentice enchanter who is chosen to defeat the Warlock Krill, due to your not being a big enough threat for him to notice (like Lord of the Rings).

The main idea of Enchanter, and the entire focus of the game, is the spells. Unlike the wand in Zork II (which is described as unreliable and old-fashioned here), scrolls are copied into your spell book, and then can be cast over and over again.

There are well over a dozen spells. It was designed to give you a feel of more power than in Zork. The things you can do feel amazing.

I got up to about 150 points before consulting a walkthrough. I couldn't solve two key puzzles. One I knew what to do, but wasn't clever enough to figure it how. The other came out of left field, although I later realized that your dreams are a clue to the puzzle.

Which brings me to the one point that may be most divisive: your player's bodily needs. You constantly have to satisfy hunger, thirst, and sleep! You have a replenishable water supply, but you're toast when your food is gone.

I recommend reading the manual on NPC conversations, or one puzzle will be far too difficult.

I played this game on the iOS Lost Treasures of Infocom App.