Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This game was interesting, and I think it shows a lot of promise for the future.

In this game, you wake up in an office building that seems fairly destroyed and embark on a search and rescue mission. It was quite a surprise when I discovered that (Spoiler - click to show) someone had taken all my fingers!

The map consists of two floors (for most of the game) with several rooms, each room containing various objects. As you explore the map, you find more of your (Spoiler - click to show)fingers, which gives you greater access to other things.

The UI was smooth and the writing was good. The puzzle structure was a little constrained, though. At most points in the game, it seemed like there was only one course of action possible at a time, so I spent most of the game 'lawnmowering' through choices (trying every possible action over and over). I think that allowing a bit more nonlinearity would make this an awesome puzzle game, and so I'd definitely look forward to anything else the author puts out.

+Polish: Smooth and perfect.
+Descriptiveness: The writing had some pretty clever moments for me.
-Interactivity: The linearity of the puzzles felt constrained to me.
-Emotional impact: Because I was repeating options so often, they lost a bit of their impact.
+Would I play again? I think I would, yeah.

This game is related to or part of a school project, which kind of setup hasn't made super successful games in the past (I've run some game camps, and long games take a ton of time; a polished IFComp game is about the same work as a Master's thesis and less like a semester project).

This one manages to be better than most, although it still has some rough edges.

Each of the people who worked on the game had successes. The art for the cover is done well; the writing has very funny moments; and the programming handles some pretty tricky material and multiple solutions to most puzzles.

In this game you play as a young member of a cult who has a very funny reaction to being a parser game PC. Your cult leader wants you to summon a demon, who turns out to be a real mild fellow. Shenanigans ensue.

The weak spots are evident in the game, too. The only file available in the download is a compiled executable for 3 platforms with no t3 file. Some of the conversation feels off (in general, reading your dialogue out loud can help make it stronger). You can't leave your leader's room early on until you ask him certain topics, but there is no TOPICS command or other way I found to remember what you need to do.

All of this can be fixed by general experience and maybe getting a few more beta testers that have experience testing comp games. But I think this is the best school-related IFComp game that I can remember playing, and I'd be pleased to see more from these authors.

-Polish: Could use more polish.
-Descriptiveness: Pretty good, but overall could use some more variety and colorful details.
+Emotional Impact: I found this funny
+Would I play again? Has plenty of replay value.
+Interactivity: Outside of the polish issues, the stuff you had to do made sense. The summoning ritual was very good.

This was an Ink game, longer for me than suggested (listed as 15 minutes, I took around 30 to get through), but I think the greater length worked for it.

In this game, you play a woman kidnapped and thrown in a cage by a cruel, murderous man. Gameplay is linear at parts but others felt like it could make a major difference; I'd have to replay to find out.

The game is somewhat visceral. Its content warnings are completely appropriate: " Gore, sexual harassment, physical assault, graphic violence, blood" (not that sexual assault itself isn't in there). It also contains frequent strong profanity.

It lacks polish in parts. There are frequent spelling/grammar errors, mostly capitalization. I thought it might just be an author technique, but a typo in the final line of the game (for my playthrough) made me think that perhaps the game wasn't completely checked for bugs ahead of time.

The action sequences of this game were intense and descriptive and the main NPC has a well-thought out personality and set of actions.

-Polish: Some typos and grammatical errors.
+Descriptiveness: It was easy to picture what was going on.
+Emotional impact: I definitely felt more on edge.
+Interactivity: It worked pretty for me. Options were logical and I could strategize, whether it affected the game or not.
-Would I play again? I think once was enough.

Okay, so there's a certain kind of game that pops up in IF from time to time. It's a kind of game that's part poetic and part heartfelt exposition. The words are abstract, the situation obfuscated or abstracted to a level where the core narrative is hard to discern and the game becomes a kind of blank slate or Rorschach test, where scenes and phrases give deeper meaning but not always what the author's original meaning was.

B-minus makes a lot of games like that, which are usually short. Longer examples are a lot of Porpentine's work, the work of Phantom Williams, and the games Spy Intrigue and Dr. Sourpuss Is Not A Choice-Based Game.

This game has that kind of style, but it also has 'really good animations and music' style, too. The music in this game perfectly complements the writing.

This is a long and complicated game. I played it over two periods of time, as I had to take a 3 hour break. When I first played it, it all seemed a mystery, but when I came back later, somehow it all clicked in my head and I understood exactly what was going on in the story and exactly who everyone was (not the deeper meaning, just the outer meaning).

The game has 21 chapters with some surprises in the middle. Here is a general outline of the complex, non-linear plot as I understand it:

(Spoiler - click to show)The player is (or more precisely, was) a young man named Hank, born in the 23rd century, who had a traumatic incident where they were held up at gunpoint by a black man, and then called the police. The event haunts them, and is one of a giant group of negative events that pile on the protagonist. The hero is also addicted strongly to drugs (one called metafentanyl in my playthrough).

(Spoiler - click to show)To get their fix, they go to the TAV institute, a pre-war group that somehow survived the worldwide conflict (giving them the name antediluvians). A Scientology-like group, they read your body with a strange meter device, and prescribe you your drugs.

(Spoiler - click to show)The leaders, Mother and Father, give you surgery and a new name to make you a woman, Hannah. Mother uses you to further her goals, having you assassinate, steal, and kidnap. Your ultimate goal is to end the bitter cycle of reincarnation and repeated horrible experiences by murdering fate, represented by an Archon. And that's exactly what you do.

There are references everywhere in the game, so many that I can't even be sure if they're references. Is it a Galatea reference when you awake as an art exhibit on a pedestal in a gallery with the name Galene (or is Galene an exhibit near you)? Are some of the Institutes beliefs and practices reminiscent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's beliefs and rituals? When the author refers to living in a holographic reality re-experiencing traumatic moments, is it referring to Howling Dogs? Is the end of Chapter 20 a visual representation of the scripture that says 'No man shall see the face of God and live'? Some maybe yes, some maybe no.

Other references are far more direct, like when you take on a role directly imitating the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 during 9/11. Timothy Mcveigh is referenced, Trayvon Martin is referenced, and absolutely everything ties in with trans identity (one reading is of Mother and Father as representing dual natures of Man and Woman inside each of us, with the protagonist's transition corresponding to their love of Mother, and Archon representing the idea of fixed gender identity). But that's only one interpretation.

I frequently compared it to musical albums as I listened. It reminded me of Joni Mitchell's Blue, where she used all of her most tender and/or heartfelt memories and thoughts to make a very public album. After my second session, I thought it was like the Who's Rock Opera Tommy with it's semi-religious overtones and a central narrative mixed up with symbolism. Or The Wall.

A game like this isn't really a game to be 'enjoyed'. This seems like the game you write when you have so many thoughts and feelings in your head you have to put them somewhere. You can either do that directly (I wrote a game called In the Service of Mrs. Claus which is 100% about my divorce, and in a fairly direct way) or you can do it indirectly and jumbledy-complex like this game. When you put out a game like this, probably the worst possible result is that a few people say "wow I loved it" and no one else comments. If you push this hard, you want someone to push back, and so I think it would be 'successful' if many people reacted to it strongly in both positive and negative ways. So 'enjoy' is definitely not the word here.

Despite that, the ending sequence with its visuals and music all came together and it was actually pretty epic, just as a story. Chapters 20 and 21 are just plain awesome, and like I said, I don't know if the author wanted to be awesome. I think a more appropriate response I had is early on in Chapter 6 or 7 where I said, "Well, that's disturbing" out loud.

The credits bring things back to a more somber tone. It's a vast list, including me (!), Sonic Youth, and 'the haters', without which the game would not be possible.

I'll have to revisit this game some time.

Rating this game defeats the purpose, but I'll do it anyway.
+Polish: Very polished. Extremely so.
+Descriptiveness: Equally so.
+Emotional Impact: High for me.
+Would I play again? Plan on it.
+Interactivity: I liked my choices.

This unity game is more of a reimagining of a tarot deck than anything else, like the text describes.

It’s a 3d game with responsive physics. You can pick up a card, place it in the correct spot (or just slop it around), flip it over, flip it over part way.

Cards can be placed in four different positions, and then the game will register the full reading for you.

It’s an impressive use of the 3d engine and the art is great. As a purely narrative game, I didn’t feel a strong emotional connection to the cards or the readings. But this will almost certainly be the most technically impressive game I play in this comp

+Polish: Immensely polished.
-Descriptive: I found the card meanings and descriptions fairly vague.
+Interactivity: Smooth and nice 3d interactions.
-Emotional Impact: I felt distanced from the messages of the cards.
-Would I play again? I'm not sure what I could find in it more than I have. Although to be fair I was always leery of Tarot, which this resembles.

**Tombs and Mummies by Matthew Warner**

People named Matt W have been doing good work in the math world for a while, including Matt Weiner (mod for this website) and Matt Wigdahl (author of IFComp-winning Aotearoa); so I was looking forward to this game.

This is a quest game and is online-only (you might be able to download an offline copy from textadventures.co.uk, but the download button on the ifcomp page just links to the website). It does not allow undo, has timed events, and if you leave it alone for 5 minutes, it will kick you out and lose your progress.

Fortunately, the game map is compact and the actual solution requires about 20 moves (mostly directions), so if you lose everything you're not set too far behind.

About half of the things you see in the games are traps, and unhelpful, and the rest are useful. Some are both (like the hint machine that hurts you while hinting).

The images, taken from ancient Egyptian art, were lovely, and the puzzles weren't unfairly difficult. I'm glad I'm played it.

+Polish: Nice images, well-thought out design and item placement and responses
+Descriptiveness: The game was very vivid to me.
-Interactivity: The above mentioned troubles with timing out and active events weren't too bad but enough that it impacted my enjoyablity
+Emotional impact: I felt a sense of adventure
+Would I play again: Maybe I would.

When I clicked on Neil Aitken’s website, I saw that he is an accomplished poet, with testimonials by other poets including some state Poet Laureates.

So I was interested to see how the game panned out. Games by static fiction authors are often different from games by programmers-turned authors. (Edit: apparently he was also a programmer before too, which explains the smoothness of the game!)

So this game is a cyclical kind of twine game where you wander around a maze of rooms (different on both of my playthroughs, with about half the rooms the same and the other half different). It’s a cave and it’s influenced by standard fatnasy tropes (treasure, magic runes, lizard people, magic pools, etc.) and you can gather various items and use them as well as gathering things like ‘incomprehensible wisdom’ which I thought was a nice touch.

Visually, the game uses neon-style text for important nouns, kind of like the neon in Cactus Blue Motel. I found it visually appealing.

This game was polished: no bugs, no typos that I found. Usually first-time game creators tend to have a few unfinished ends here and there (blank passages, macros typed incorrectly), so that was pleasing.

Overall, I would say that the line by line writing was excellent. I’ve found over time in the comp that a lot of people who try to create poetry in IF fail to inspire me, but I was genuinely into the writing here. As an overall story and as a series of interactions, it didn’t excel to me; it was competent, but I feel it could have been more ambitious. The same could absolutely be said about my own game in this competition. I would definitely consider this a game for the author to be proud of.

+Polish: The color highlighting around important words is nice, and this game had no bugs or typos that I found.
+Descriptiveness: Lovely writing, very nice.
+Interactivity: The overall structure didn't stand out to me, but the variation and the many ways the inventory can be used was fun.
+Would I play again? Definitely.
+Emotional impact: Yes, a kind of meditative, chill emotion.

This is a Windows executable game that I gave two attempts for. The first one I died against the brother, but on reloading (through 2 different saves) the lever puzzle stopped working, so I suppose I should start from the beginning, but I might have to save that for later.

This game reminds me a lot of Eye of the Beholder but without graphics. It’s menu based; in each room, you can look at each of the four directions. When you look at a direction, you might see something like a mural, or you might find items, which you equip. Items can be upgraded through prayer, which gives them special abilities. Combat is turn-based.

Most of the puzzles involve decoding passwords through hints scattered around the map. It’s a fairly compact game, so replay won’t take too long.

The goals of this game seem different from most parser games. Instead of focusing on mimesis or smooth gameplay flow, it focuses on combat and inventory. Worth checking out if you are into TTRPGs with miniatures.

-Polish: I had one crash and a weird bug with the levers. The system had words wrap around lines, being split in the middle instead of moved in discrete chunks.
+Descriptiveness: The scratchings on the walls and the knights you fight were interesting.
-Interactivity: Looking at each room separately and having to use different commands for each menu was kind of a pain.
-Emotional impact: I didn't really get a strong feeling from this game. It seemed more of a system than a compelling story, and that's okay; it just didn't move me.
+Would I play again? I'd like to see the ending sometime!

I beta tested this game a while before the competition.

I found this game charming. Time travel and dual worlds always fascinated me, and in this game you explore a town before being sent 40 years into the past.

The goals in this game are simple, and I found the parser responding smoothly to pretty much everything I tried. There are many solutions to the puzzles (I ended up with about 30 points out of 50, happy with my result).

There is a timer in the game, and your watch tracks what happens. Events happen naturally in the city. People respond logically to actions you take, and everybody has a few conversation topics.

I feel like the very first puzzle with Tom can be a bit unintuitive (what exactly are we looking for?) but the state space is so small that it's solvable just by trying everything available.

+Polish: Felt smooth.
+Descriptive: The language of the game is simple, but the town was memorable.
+Emotional impact: the game felt homey. For me, this game had the je ne sais quoi that ties everything together. YMMV.
+Would I play again? Yeah, I think I might revisit this in the future.

This was an odd game for me to play. Jim Aikin was an early favorite for me, as Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina was one of the first IF games I ever played, and I thoroughly enjoyed. I later tried other games like Lydia's Heart and found them complex and polished.

This game has a lot of excellent coding and and overall clever design, but I feel it didn't quite rise to the level of the earlier games (which makes sense, as they were designed for a grander experience than can fit into the comp).

You play as a young woman who is captured in a tower, and where your kidnapper is planning on raping you. The game heavily emphasizes this in the opening scene and content warnings, giving the player a sense that perhaps the seriousness of this crime will be justified in the story. But in the actual game, nothing at all depends on the duke planning to rape you. The story could just have easily had you kidnapped for any reason whatsoever and it would have made no difference at all. So I'm not sure why the rape is dwelt on so heavily.

Many puzzles require nonstandard actions, usually involving examining scenery items that are in the middle of room descriptions and discovering extra parts to them, using special verbs (in at least two puzzles, EXAMINE doesn't work but closely related verbs work).

The characters are well-differentiated and have interesting conversation, but for me at least they had all conversation topics available at the same time; so, for instance, I was able to ask the cook about things that I had never heard of, and which I later heard of from another character, and which were involved in puzzles I was very far away from, providing a sort of spoiler.

Here's my final score breakdown:
+Polish: The game was very polished. Most of my issues were with interactivity, not with overall polish.
+Descriptiveness: Characters were well-differentiated and there were a lot of little details.
+Would I play it again? Yes, especially since I feel it has more secrets than I discovered.
-Interactivity: I found myself fighting the parser a lot, and I feel that several of the puzzles were designed in a way that didn't click with my brain.
+Emotional impact: I wavered back and forth on this, but in the end, the game made me feel a lot of things. I wouldn't have played through this slowly and analyzed it the way it did if it didn't have an overall effect on me.