Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

So this is an interesting game. Basically, it’s a time travel plot involving two of the great physicists in history.

The implementation generally worked well, although it seemed to kind of push me around a lot, especially when entering or leaving the cottage, almost like no direction I went mattered, the game would send me where it wanted.

The writing goes back and forth between very plain and more elaborate. The story is full of grand ideas, but I think it could have used a little more spacing between big reveals.

Overall, though, it was a quick and simple parser game with an interesting concept. At first, I was skeptical that things would have played out the way suggested in the game, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that we don’t really know how great discoveries and scientific innovation are pushed forward, and it’s difficult to understand why there has been such an acceleration in technical innovation in the last few hundred years.

+Polish: I didn't find any real bugs.
-Descriptivenss: The game was plain in some parts, especially the library.
+Interactivity: While I felt like I was being pushed around, it ended up working out smoothly.
-Emotional impact: I don't think the big reveals 'landed' for me.
+Would I play again? Maybe; it's interesting to see the past tense and third person, and to consider the way it pushes you forward.

Like many have said, this is quite similar to The Turnip. It's by the same author, they're both the same length, have the same styling, have the same setup. They also feature large and puzzling agricultural specimens and kindness to animals.

Is there some kind of meta puzzle here? I don't think so, judging by opening up the code and peeking at a few of the boxes. In any case, this is fun writing, and slightly more interactive than the other piece. It reminds me of Sub-Q Magazine's pieces before they stopped printing, albeit a little shorter. I'm glad to have it in the comp; it's not the kind of thing that I'd seek out normally, but it's so short and well-done that I happy to see it.

+Polish: Very polished.
+Descriptiveness: I think the writing is very well-done here.
+Interactivity: There's not much, but it's interesting and a little puzzle.
+Emotional impact: I liked it.
-Would I play it again? I think once is enough.

I beta tested this game.

What can I say? I love this game. DiBianca is well known for making themed games with constrained commands and one type of puzzle.

This is the first one not to include movement (at least since Grandma Bethlinda’s Variety Box), and instead we have a series of dozens of word puzzles.

This is a big game, and, as many many reviewers have found, it sucks up hours of your life if you’re into wordplay puzzles. I spent easily more than 4 hours as well as thinking about the puzzles quite a bit, and this is with emailing the author for hints.

I haven’t played all the way through the newest version (just the first few puzzles again, and I already see some improvements). I’d love to wait a few years to forget most of this and do it over again, maybe with my son when he’s older.

There is an overall story that, for me, became more coherent as the game went on, but it’s still very abstract. But I definitely think this game ranks up there with Counterfeit Monkey, Ad Verbum and the Andrew Schultz canon as one of the great wordplay games out there.

+++++Polish, Descriptiveness, Interactivity, Emotional Impact, Would I play again? This is exactly the kind of think I like. Love it!

Custom parser games only available as windows executables are always a mixed bag, but this is one is better than most.

You play as Prince Charming (or Cinderella) and you have to get yourself and Rumpelstiltskin back to a wedding. Along the way, you have to complete several fairy tales such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Jack and the Beanstalk.

The map is expansive, with a lot of diagonal directions and several little colleges.

The parser is definitely better than most custom-made parsers but has a lot of work it still needs. Conversation especially is very picky; I had to use the walkthrough a lot. I don’t think TALK TO or SAY _________ TO ________ or similar constructions work, and you have to use quotations in a way I’m not used to. There is a provided manual, though it is very long.

The puzzles are logical, and the included art looks nice, although it started bouncing up as soon as it came down later.

Rumpelstilstkin got a little annoying as he says ‘Let’s hurry’ pretty much every 3-5 lines.

Creating a parser from scratch is very difficult, so this game is a technical feat. But unless the author is planning on making several games with this engine and refining it over and over (like Linus Åkesson with his game engine Dialog), it might be worth using previously-refined engines instead.

+Polish: Despite the problems with the parser, the setup here is clean and looks great for a Windows executable.
+Descriptiveness: The characters and locales are described in detail.
-Interactivity: I was frustrated by the specificity of required commands.
+Emotional impact: I was fairly amused by a few parts.
-Would I play again? I think I've found everything I wanted to.

I suppose this game achieves exactly what it wanted to achieve. It took a fairly funny story (in the way that Kafka would write a comedy if the mood ever struck him), added some interactivity and a lot of polish, and turned it into a short game.

The writing is good, the game is short, and there’s not much to do but read it and contemplate. What does it mean? Besides my Kafka comparison, it also reminds me of Regina Spektor’s song lyrics.

+Polish: Impeccably polished.
+Descriptiveness: Some of the better writing of the last few years.
-Interactivity: It wasn't trying to achieve it, and it failed successfully.
+Emotional impact: It was thoughtful.
-Would I play again? Not unless I forget it.

So this one has a lot of good features and some that didn’t mesh with me. I’m not sure I’m the target audience.

This is a long Twine game with a mechanic that I’ve not really seen in IFComp before. There’s a long, mostly linear prologue where you meet all the main characters, then you’re given a bunch of journal entries/case files to go through. As you go through them, you can type them into a database to learn more, kind of like Her Story.

This is a game about a serial rapist/murderer. In fact, it’s the third game I’ve played in this comp that prominently features a kidnapper/sexual assaulter. This game specifically seems heavily influenced by stories like those featured in true crime podcasts and documentaries, and by the Golden State Killer specifically.

+Polish: A lot of work went into this game.
+Descriptiveness: Has a level of detail similar to true crime podcasts.
-Interactivity: The main mechanic was overly difficult to me. Typing in things that I knew were important (like 'bulger') didn't always work.
+Emotional impact: It was an emotion I didn't like, but it did it.
-Would I play again? Not my cup of tea, content-wise.
The graphic depictions in one of the assaults and the extensive profanity/abuse definitely set me on edge, and I don’t think I’m the target audience for it. Writing-wise, this game is good on the individual level, but some of the twists didn’t make much sense to me, especially the ending sequence which changed the genre of the game completely.

The mechanics are interesting, but I think they could use more testing for robustness. I will say if you haven’t played it yet that it keeps a running notebook for you at the very bottom, which I didn’t notice until near the end.

Overall, the author seems very talented. This game was beta tested by several people, but I think the next game in the series could use a couple of more people, especially Twine authors who have done well in the comp before. I’m assuming there will be more in the series, and I’d be happy to see that, especially ones with less sexual violence (for my personal taste, may not reflect all readers).

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.