Reviews by MathBrush

It's interesting playing two criminal Choicescript games in a row, one from years ago and the other recent (The Martian Job).

This game comes from a time before Choice of Games' had firmly established their game philosophy, it seems, because it breaks it in many ways. There are a lot of binary options. There are a lot of choices where there is an obvious 'right answer' (like an early choice where there is only one escape pod and either you can save a little girl or yourself. Knowing that you're in chapter 1 and the chance of you dying is low, and the chance of a future reward is high, there's really no reason for you not to save her).

Perhaps most unusually, every relationship is an 'opposed stat', which in Choicescript is a pair of stats that sum up to 100%, so raising one lowers the other.

This puts some of the odder choices of the game in perspective. There are many, many options which are just 'be a jerk'. But in this opposed system, being a jerk to one crew member is the very best way to befriend their 'opposite'.

I found this bizarre. Another early facet really put me off. Your first encounter with the crew is with a blue-skinned alien from a 'race of slaves'. When meeting him, he asks you about slavery and three options are how you think it's fine and only one is against it. It's really odd.

As a representative for house-style Choice of Games stories, this is pretty poor. But if I had randomly found this game (such as in IFComp), I would have rated it fairly well. I can compare it the recent '4x4 Galaxy', with which it shares some similarities. This game has a fairly robust money and inventory system. It invites numerous strategies on replay, and despite its small word count, manages to feel pretty large.

I think I'd give this a 4. In a way, though, I'd be more likely to recommend this to people who don't like the Choice of Games housestyle and less likely to recommend it to fans of their other games.

I received a review copy of this game.

I'll discuss this game on my five point scale. For an overview, you are a former safecracker who's running out of money and is looking for a new job. This one's a casino, on Mars. You have to work with a team and pull of the heist; but things go wrong.

Polish: This game is thoroughly polished. Even the stats screen looks nice, and the names of stats are a clever treat (you have three stats about your interactions with Mars, named 'Curiosity', 'Sojourner', and 'Spirit').

Descriptiveness: This is where the game shines. This feels like the kind of writing you'd expect picking up a crime or mystery novel from the bestseller table at a bookstore. It's a higher caliber than most the IF I've played, for sure.

Interactivity: This is where it differs a lot from other Choicescript games, and the area I have the most to say about. Most Choicescript games are power fantasies where you max/min or strategize and get to do all sorts of great things, but at the same time sacrificing other goals. This game felt less powerful and more by-the-skin-of-your-teeth. There are very few opportunities to raise your stats. Many choices were more about reaction than action, and I could see that be why another reviewer gave it less stars. I'm a fan of games that invite reflection (ironically, one of my favorite such games is Polish the Glass, which has a similar writing style and features the same day job as this game's protagonist). There are still power fantasy elements; you can fall in love with many people, change the whole world, become rich. I became rich, but it felt hollow. Maybe I should try again?

Emotional Impact: I felt it. The game had an intense blackjack simulation that I liked. I don't gamble in real life, but in the game it was fun (lost everything, of course). I felt tense at times, laughed at the portrait in the crime lord's office. A strong area for the game.

Would I play again? Absolutely. If I time traveled to tell my past self about which Choicescript games I should play, I'd definitely include this one, and I want to see if I can save Mars this time.

I was provided a review copy of this game.

This game is one of the older Choice of Games entries, and one of the shortest.

It's a comedy about you, a parole officer for all of the aliens that live on earth (which is now a galactic penal colony). There's a single romantic option (that I found, at least).

I found quite a bit of it funny, and there was quite a bit of local idioms from different cultures I learned, but this game suffers by comparison. In the six years since it came out, the standard for these games has generally crept higher and it shows.

The text feels sparse, often just a couple of paragraphs per choice. Many of the choices feel very on-the-nose and in-the-moment instead of the slow build-up of small choices leading to big consequences that marks newer games.

Some though, may find these characteristics refreshing, giving a quicker game with less labored choices and less weighty subject matter. In any case, it was polished, descriptive, and funny, and I might play again.

I received a review copy of this game.

This game has been at the top of the bestseller charts for Choice of Games since it came out last November. I've been interested in it for quite some time, and it exceeds my expectations.

The best Choice of Games stories are those which allow your decisions to matter with meaningful branches (like Choice of Robots), which have a strong narrative arc (like Slammed!), have a lot of customization (like Hollywood Visionary) or which invite strategy (like Choice of Robots again).

This game excels at all of these features. Set in a fictional, more open version of Europe some decades past, this game features you as the scion of a disgraced family, sent to a finishing school to redeem their failures. At school, you can attend to any number of activities, including academic studies, meddling with teacher romances, witchcraft, leadership, and quite a bit of romance (with 9 possible romances and 10 possibles marriages, including marriage of convenience and a royal).

The last few chapters can really throw some gears into your plans. I planned on restoring my family's honor and marrying the headmistress's child, and achieved both of my goals.

It really captures the essence of the boarding school story, like Jane Eyre's early chapters or an ethically-sourced version of Harry Potter. This game allows quite a bit of customization with regards to genders of romanceable characters, and your own appearance and personality.

It's also very long. While it has a smaller wordcount than the enormous Tally Ho, my playthrough length was longer than any Choicescript game I have played, lasting several hours (although I read everything carefully).

In a way, it was a lot like epic fantasy. Not the Hero's Journey (it's not rigidly in any tradition like that). Instead of a hero from a destroyed village, you're a student from a destroyed family. Instead of gaining experience through battles and sages, you engage with rivals and teachers. And instead of facing Mt. Doom, you face the truth behind the school, which is just as destructive.

I was provided a review copy of this game.

This is the one of the darker Choicescript games I have played. In a world where virtual reality can hijack another's senses, people use the technology to live through others: cliff diving, gorging on food, and darker things.

This game includes references to drug use, self-harm, suicide, and more. I didn't experience sexual content on my run-throughs. Each chapter has optional content warnings.

As a detective story, this is top-notch. It was nominated for a Nebula award, and its easy to see why. I've replayed it a few times and it's always fresh.

I'm a big fan of the Sorcery series, with part 3 being my favorite.

This one is an appropriate ending for the series. It's huge, absolutely huge compared especially to part 1, and the magic you can gain here is powerful and mysterious.

The ending sequences can be nervewracking and difficult. The art is great, and the music good.

While I like this episode, I still prefer part 3, as part 4 is a bit one-note with its feel of a final confrontation.

This game reminds me a bit of Old Jim's Convenience store from IFComp 2019. Both feature an old, abandoned structure underneath which is a large mining area.

This game is the author's first game, and the lack of beta testing shows. The interesting layout and rooms are negatively impacted by under-cluing and by exits which stop working once you use them and runtime errors.

My 5-point scale:
-Polish: This game is not polished.
+Descriptiveness: It is relatively descriptive
-Interactivity: Bugs cause quite a few problems
+Emotional impact: I found parts of it quite fun (like the result of using dynamite)
-Would I play again?

I played this game on this Apple II emulator: https://www.scullinsteel.com/apple2/

It's a parser game with one or more custom images per location. The parser isn't super responsive by modern standards but is reasonably understandable.

Beyond normal puzzles (like capturing a lizard or shooting an allosaurus with an improvised slingshot), each time you meet a dinosaur you have to type in its name. If you get it wrong, it zooms in and gives you a hint. Getting it wrong again makes it tell you to look at the Dinosaur Handbook which, unfortunately, does not seem to be archived along with this game. I got stuck on a horny-beaked dinosaur I could not identify.

The game was interesting but didn't move me emotionally, and I wasn't invested in completing it.

This Scott Adams game was designed with the retro format in mind. The download includes source code with design notes, and it's fascinating to see the discussion of how many lines of text will fit where and what needs to be removed.

This game is a shortish text adventure using the Scott Adams format (short in the sense of 7 treasures and about 16 rooms; it takes a good hour or more to finish without hints, longer if you get stuck like I did). It's based off of Hamlet and contains many joking references to it.

This is a hard game. Much of the ease of modern parser games comes from adaptive hints or helpful responses to incorrect actions. This game has some of that, but only so much can fit into the constrained format. I had to request help and then discovered the (well-commented and organized) source code provided in the download.

While I appreciate the craftsmanship in the game, it definitely is the type to be solved by careful exploration of the state space and deliberative thinking, as opposed to my general play style of 'charge ahead recklessly and see where the story takes me'.

I will say that I think this is much more successful as a game than Graham Nelson's adaptation of The Tempest or my own Sherlock Holmes adaptations.

Andromeda Apocalypse is one of the best-crafted games I have seen. In this mid-length sci-fi game, you explore an abandoned station that is part Sphere, part 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a little part Alien.

The game features a compelling main NPC, a map that flows well in your mind, and puzzles that lead the player on from piece to piece in a natural way.

Instead of traditional scoring, the game includes achievements. At first, I thought this would make the game worse, but the achievements became a puzzle themselves. ('How do I get the 'Ellen Ripley' achievement?', I found myself asking.)

I would recommend playing Andromeda Awakening first, because this game is a sequel. Awakening is a good game, in and of itself, but Apocalpyse is the better of the two.

I recommend this game for everyone.