Reviews by MathBrush

I beta tested this game.

I've played a lot of the Wobbles games by the Marino Family (although apparently there's a Parrot the Pirate episode I never read?) and this one is definitely my favorite.

The Wobbles series are all written in Undum, a system that was like Twine before Twine and is very powerful but requires advanced technical knowledge to use.

Each game in the Wobbles series deals with a magical house full of foster kids where kids with various disabilities or uncomfortable real-life situations or other things that make them marginalized come to groups with themselves.

It's written at a kid or teen level, and written by younger people, too. I have a son with muscular dystrophy, so I'm glad to see representation in these games of various types of disability.

This particular game has the hero go into a world where everyone is transformed into paper on rails. The world is described with startling specificity that provides a lot of the enjoyment of this game. How would paper people eat? Sleep? Go to school? It's all laid out in excellent detail.

The other main feature I appreciate for this game is the overall. I have to say, I think this has some of the best choice structure in this competition. When I first played this game as a tester, I thought it was somewhat on rails (haha) but on my playthrough today I was able to take significantly different actions and still have it seem like the 'intended story'. That's really hard to pull off, and increases my admiration for this game.

For the detailed worldbuilding and intricate choice structure, this is my favorite of the Wobbles games. If you're going to play, make sure you realize that it is designed with specific morals (although you can go against them), a specific audience, and a distinct narrative voice (that of a talking book). Since most of the games ever entered in IFComp are either adult-targeted genre fiction or avant-garde exercises, this good-natured and marginalization-conscious series is definitely unique.

+Polish: These games are always smooth.
+Descriptiveness: Love the worldbuilding.
+Interactivity: Feels like choices matter
+Emotional impact: The parts with the King and the Queen struck home after my recent divorce.
+Would I play again? Yeah, would like to see different paths.

This is a parser game with several grand ideas but rusty implementation in creating them.

It’s a sequel to Two-Braids Girl, a game I had never tried before today but decided to check out. That game was a creepypasta game similar to No End House or The Holders series, but with poor grammar.

This game is a direct sequel to that by another author. It starts right where the last one ends off, then moves through, as others have said, a Shade homage, then wraps things up with a simple puzzle in the end.

There’s nothing wrong with a Shade homage. When I wrote my game Color the Truth, my original idea was to have 4 mini games during the police investigation with each mini-game borrowing from a famous IF game, and one of those mini-games was going to be a Shade homage.

But I took it out because I eventually came up with my own ideas after testing and playing.

And that’s what this game needs; testing and replaying. There are a lot of things to criticize, like linearity, but the truth is that random sequences of events in a linear fashion with only a thin plot to connect them can still do well as long as its really tested. Sorry for talking about my own games a lot, but that’s what I did with Swigian. It placed 22nd, but it was just a random string of linear events held together by one idea.

I think that this game could do at least that well if only it were tested. Tested early, tested often. The best way to test a parser game is to have someone try it and every time the game says ‘you can’t do that’, go back and make it so you can do that. And get rid of bugs. It takes a long time, but it’s worth it.

-Polish: Lots of bugs.
+Descriptiveness: This is probably its best trait.
-Interactivity: I struggled a lot, had to use other people's transcripts
-Emotional impact: Too distracted by the other issues.
-Would I play again? Not right now.

This is a short, mostly linear Twine game with some interesting text effects and, to me, an inscrutable story.

You seem to be some sort of supervisor in an authoritarian system. You are monitoring a woman named Orange who describes the different job placements she has had. She has a stutter.

The story seems almost dreamlike (I think another reviewer mentioned that?) and the very ending used simple twine macros to produce an unusual text effect that provides never-ending interaction.

+Polish: It seems completely polished.
-Descriptiveness: Everything was very vague.
+Interactivity: Although there weren't many real choices, I felt intrigued by the ending.
-Emotional impact: I wasn't able to reach any deeper meaning.
-Would I play again? I don't intend to at this time.

This is a truly lovely game. It’s written in Twine, and is basically a heartwarming short story told with interactivity, animation and sound.

You play as someone raised in Hong Kong now living in the UK. You are sick and wish more than anything you could have some congee.

The choices are more about roleplaying than about strategy, and that works well for me. Visually, the game is gorgeous, with animated line drawings, animated color scenes, and beautiful faux text messages.

I identified with the message of the game as well, even though I’ve never experienced it to that degree. I lived in Manhattan’s Chinatown and the Bronx in New York for 2 years after growing up in suburban Utah, and it was a real culture shock. Even now, I live in Texas without anyone nearby, as a single dad. And probably the thing I miss the most was our Sunday Roasts lol. I even cooked one for myself last week in the crockpot and ate the leftovers the whole week.

So, very lovely. It might not place in top 10 due to its short length,but I’d be happy to nominate it for an XYZZY or two next year.

+Polish: Incredibly well-polished.
+Descriptiveness: I could almost smell the food.
+Interactivity: It gives either choice or the illusion of choice, and both are good.
+Emotional impact: A lot, for me
+Would I play again: Definitely, if I ever get down.

**Last House on the Block by Jason Olson**

This game seems like a classic first-attempt at parser programming by a reasonably talented individual.

It has a house implemented in minute detail, including multiple bathrooms, several empty closets, a tackle box with many different kinds of tackle in it, etc.

The most complex part of the game is an NPC that follows you everywhere, interacting with you and doing independent actions, very much like Floyd the robot in the ways you interact with it.

The main puzzles require some very specific actions that I'm not sure are easy to discover on your own, and the language is fairly plain. While a solid game for a first-time author, I think the next game could use less extra objects and more of the fun NPCs, as well as a more vibrant setting.

-Polish: The game could use some more work, especially in talking with your friend.
-Descriptiveness: The setting and objects are plain and plainly described.
-Interactivity: There are so many objects that the state space of possible actions is just too big.
+Emotional impact: I liked the whole 'view of an older man's life' story.
-Would I play again? I don't think so.

Given the popularity of Flexible Survival together with the excellent production values of this game, I predict that this game will find a lot of success with certain communities after the comp, perhaps ending up as the most-played game form this comp. I also think, though, that it has some features that will end up hurting it in this comp’s voting.

This is a hardnosed combat and storytelling game with furry characters (well, animal/human hybrids, including reptiles). It has very nice-looking screens, including an action video later on when an SUV pulls up that’s certainly the best-produced thing I’ve ever seen in IFComp.

You play as a series of characters in a run-down and dark world where mob bosses rule. Characters can pick up a variety of very specific weapons and ammo.

Gameplay is stat-based, with an initial point buy system and later gains. Every part of the game is turned into a puzzle that either depends on stats or correct choices. Even ‘click-reveals’ (when you click on a link and it expands) are gamified: you have to click them in the right order to get bonus points.

This game is difficult. Without God mode, you have to make very specific point buys to get past even the second challenge (when the truck comes by, if you don’t have quick feet or health, then you get hit for 0 damage, but your 0 health gets checked and results in death.

With God mode, I made it very far until I made a bad choice and got an instant death. I think I could have restored but I had the following bug:

"I can’t find a save slot named ‘AnimaliaBookI4’!►
I tried to save or load the game, but I couldn’t do it."

Overall, I actually like the writing quite a bit. The intense difficulty of the game will likely be a plus for the target audience, as I think this is meant to be a game you replay a lot and have strategy guides about, something like Sunless Skies or 80 Days.

For the comp, though, it makes it hard to play through in a short time, even with God Mode.

-Polish: Great production values, but bugs need fixing.
+Descriptiveness: Nice writing
+Interactivity: For the comp, it's no good, but I like the extra challenge for more replay value.
+Emotional impact: Yeah, I was invested.
+Would I play again? Yes, especially the finished version.

This is a medium-length Twine game with one overarching, fairly difficult puzzle.

You are a spirit, and have been imprisoned in a mage's tower. Your goal is to possess one of two people and escape. But the tower you're in is protected in several ways, and your quest will be difficult.

The writer of this game is a freelance author, and I found the game as a story fairly satisfying. The characters were interesting and there were several subplots.

Mechanically, it's a little bit rougher. There are usually two choices at a time, and it's usually 'guess the right action', although thankfully you can usually back out of a wrong course the first time. There are clues to the right actions, so it's better in that regards than some of the other games, but I believe it could have been improved by going beyond binary choices more often.

The writing was interesting enough for me to look up his website and see some other work. He's done a lot of advertising copy, and it reads really well. Happy to see more work from this author.

+Polish: The game is smooth and bug free
+Descriptiveness: Lovely writing, great characters.
-Interactivity: The puzzle structure didn't appeal to me as much as it could.
+Emotional impact: I was shocked when one of the guards (Spoiler - click to show)ripped up my permission slip.
-Would I play again? The story was satisfying on its first run, but I wasn't invested enough to go through and try another round.

My only real experience with the Tarot deck is from the Deck of Many Things in AD&D and also Stardust Crusaders, so games featuring Tarot symbology significantly always mystify me somewhat.

In this game, you play as a deck of Tarot cards brought to life. You help design your own life story, then make several predictions for others.

There’s a lot of metafiction here about how we construct our own narratives. It reminds me of the 2015 game A Figure Met in a Shaded Wood as well as SCP-3939, both of which make the shape of the story an integral part of the narrative.

The graphics here look good. The writing is interesting. I felt it hard to either strategize with choices or roleplay as a character, which are my usual two ways of interacting with a game. This game definitely shows a lot of craft, though, and I respect the one who wrote it!

+Polish: It looks and plays great.
+Descriptiveness: The writing is vivid.
-Emotional impact: I wasn't invested in the character, perhaps due to my unfamiliarity with the tarot
+Interactivity: Despite my struggles, the self-referential nature of the game validated my actions.
-Would I play again? Not at this time.

I taught a summer camp in Twine a few months ago. We spent about a week going over adding multimedia, setting variables, beta testing, etc. They liked it and kept working on games even after the camp, some which were pretty cool and impressive.

This game reminds me of that, the game of someone who has recently learned twine and puts in 10-20 hours of work making a fairly complex game. It has a soundtrack, custom styling, and non-linear puzzles.

It reaches for a few things without quite making it. I vividly remember when I entered my first IFComp game, one of the most famous people in IF made a comment about my game:

"I found *Ether* least effective when it explicitly went for pathos in the writing, because it was asking me to empathize[...]and it hadn’t put in the time to build up that empathy."

I was hurt by that at the time, but it's true, and it's true about this game, too. The violence and the blood in the snow aren't as frightening because there wasn't enough buildup. The game is asking us to be afraid or to be disturbed by the death of others, but we know nothing about them.

It wouldn't take a lot to fix that. The difference between an okay story and an awesome story is usually just a few tweaks. In my experience, the best thing to do is just try something, see how people react, and change it if it doesn't work, then repeat. That's why I usually have 10+ beta testers, it lets me work out all the questionable parts of a story before I release it. In this case, if I had to suggest anything specific, I'd give our character some more personality: maybe this is their first cross-country road trip as an adult and they're a little lost and terrified of how dark it is. Maybe they run out of the room at the first sight of blood. If you say something is scary, the reader isn't usually scared. If you say the character is scared, though, then a lot of times the reader will empathize with them.

The puzzle parts of this game weren't too bad. There are a lot of unfair deaths you can't undo, but the game is short enough that you can try over and over again. I still would have liked a few more hints at what works and what doesn't, and maybe expand the story and game a little longer. Overall, I definitely think the author should keep writing; I'll keep an eye out for any future games.

+Polish: I didn't notice any bugs, and the multimedia aspects worked well.
-Descriptiveness: Like I mentioned above, I think the story could use some work.
-Emotional impact: Same as above.
+Interactivity: The puzzle structure wasn't too bad.
-Would I play again? Not at this time, but I would play another game by this author!

I was surprised to see this game has no relation to the classic Captain Verdeterre's Plunder, but it's a good name style so it makes sense it would come up more than once.

This is a short Twine game with one big idea and it does it well. You are a pirate captain who has been forced to retire to his library. You have only one plan left: (Spoiler - click to show)to reconstruct a pirate crew and ship from the texts of classic books.

It's a nice concept and the books involved are fun to learn about or to remember. The game is over very quickly, so it's worth playing through while the comp is running just to enjoy some of the fun. This review is brief because there's not much to say that doesn't spoil it.

+Polish: The game looks great and plays well.
+Descriptiveness: Yes; some from the source texts and some from the author.
+Interactivity: It's short but has several interesting options.
-Emotional impact: It was interesting but I didn't really feel invested.
-Would I play again? It's a good game, but I think I've seen enough of it.