Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

So, Hanon Ondricek has a long history of making very unusual and experimental games. I first came into contact with his work in the 2015 IFComp, which we both entered. He had a game called the Baker of Shireton, an unusual game which was a baking simulator with some MMORPG-style elements. One especially odd feature was that it modeled abstract objects as inventory items, like your name, job, and quest. It later turned out (spoilers for this game) (Spoiler - click to show)that you were an NPC in an MMORPG and could hack the game to get out and go on a short quest.

I found that idea fascinating, and I ended up using it in several of my games. So that made the Baker of Shireton get stuck in my brain.

This game is a successor to that one. In this game, you get to play an upgraded version of the fake MMO that the first game was set in. This is a choice-based system instead of parser, and it has great art by Marco Innocenti and music from a variety of sources. The music was catchy; I left it on for much of the day as I played, and my son liked it too.

The bulk of this game is getting and fulfilling quests from different NPCs. There is a complex combat system (I especially enjoyed the 'magic' mechanics which require you to quickly spell some words during combat. There is also an option to slow down combat significantly for people who have trouble with quick time events). While rich and actually pretty fun, combat isn't completely necessary. In a way, it reminds me quite a bit of Porpentine's various comabt systems, and various bee-related events in the game also bear some resemblance to her.

Speaking of bearing resemblance, there are references to a lot of games in here, including many of Hanon's older games as well as Cragne Manor, the SCP foundation and others.

Solving this game was challenging. I frequently had to think outside of the box. Hanon is one of the pioneers (along with people like Agniezska Trzaska) in choice-based puzzle mechanics and boy does this game have a lot of them. I definitely wouldn't feel bad asking for hints (and, in fact, I didn't feel bad; I asked for quite a few).

This is also a very large game. I spent around 5-6 hours beating it.

My overall evaluation:
+Polish: Absolutely polished. About the most polished a game can get. I don't mean bug-free, I mean that every aspect of the user experience has been accounted for and acted on.
+Interactivity: Loved the RPG events, the weird shortcuts you get later on, and the ease of use of the AXMA system.
+Descriptiveness: I especially appreciated the details in Luneybin.
+Emotional impact: The horror-lite sections near the end worked well for me.
+Would I play again?: Definitely plan to revisit this just for fun in the future.

Like most of B-minus's work, this is a shortish surreal Twine game with haunting descriptions and poetic use of choices.

In particular, this game features several choices in a row, on one page, where for each one you can pick RED, FAST, or BENT.

I originally was going to give this 3 stars, but the layout and format are so nice looking, especially for a game made in 4 hours or less.

I wasn't big on B-minus when I first read their work, but Chandler Groover has always expressed a lot of appreciation and interest in B-minus games, and it made me look at them with more appreciation. I wonder how much of my own reviewing is tangled up in my own experiences and history that I bring to the game. Earlier today I gave a higher rating to an Among Us-based IF game and rated it higher because I liked Among Us. It's weird to think about.

Anyway, I thought this was pretty good.

At first, I thought this game was just a link to BBC (which for some reason didn't work for me when I clicked on it but worked when I manually entered it into the search bar).

Then it turned out I could scroll down. It's a multimedia page and it has some interesting features (for instance, you can either scroll down to read more text or click links instead, with some interaction between the two).

The non-working initial link and the abrupt, buggy-looking ending put me off the game a little bit. The writing is vivid and imaginative, though, and the visuals are compelling.

I debated back and forth on what score to give this game, so I'm going to break it down by points.

This is a short choicescript game where you have to defeat an evil spirit in a test involving an ever-shortening candle.

It has a cool yellow bar representing the candle, and its structure allows for quick replay.

When I saw the timer, I felt nervous, so the game was able to impact me emotionally. I played through to two different endings.

Very impressive for four hours. I know its silly, but I think the yellow bar is what bumped it up from 3 stars to 4 for me, it's just cool to me as a Choicescript author.

I think it would be fair to describe this as an escape room game. You wake up in the dark and have to navigate from there until you exit the room.

This is exactly the kind of game that works well with La Petite Mort (the four hour competition): has a concept that wouldn't work as well in a longer game, has a constrained setting to allow for more detail.

I didn't encounter any implementation problems at all, which is pretty impressive. Definitely had a fun time with this little puzzler.

This game is surprisingly complex for a 4-hour game. There's conversation (although only ASK X ABOUT COMET works in general), many locations, a vehicle, rope.

There are a lot of grisly details. As a content warning, this game has frequent references to suicide. That part was a bit too dark for me.

I only found one ending, on a cliff. I'm sure there are other endings (I think other reviewers have found them).

This is a very short story about the game Among Us. I feel like I'm giving all the La Petite Mort games 3 stars (which, I figure is what you'd expect most speed-IF to be at most). This game is very short, but I love playing Among Us with my son, so it was fun.

And it surprised me twice. The first one I feel very dumb for not thinking of, given how obvious it is, but the second thing that surprised me is how customized the text is based on the order of your choices.

Short fun.

This game is directly modeled on Lime Ergot and Toby's Nose, where the main action is found by examining something over and over again, including things mentioned in the description.

It's more rough than those two, with some typos and less direction for the player, but the worldbuilding was intriguing to me and the descriptiveness well-done.

It's a brief game, but I played through it twice and feel there's still more for me to discover.

This is a short, styled twine game about having a party with monsters and you having to find some gourds.

It has a world-model, various characters that can interact with each other, and some items.

Everything's just small. There's very little of interest in the conversational options that don't advance the story, and only a few options do anything.

But this was made in 4 hours, and I'm honestly impressed at how much they packed in in that time. And some of the characters are described very well (especially Orlok and Lycan).

This is pretty good for a 4-hour-or-less game. You meet death in some sort of spiritual limbo, and you get the chance to redeem your soul through playing chess.

Instead of placing ships on a grid, your position is pre-selected and your guesses come from a menu. I won the first time I played, but I don't know if it was rigged to always win or if it was just random chance.

There are some interesting thoughts on the freedom of the soul, but I feel like the whole thing could use some more fresh takes. But that's hard to do in 4 hours, so I'm overall pretty happy with this game.