Reviews by MathBrush

This game seems like the result of a talented programmer discovering Inform 7 for the first time and exploring what they can make with it. They take their apartment (or just a generic apartment), implement some fun stuff in it, make an NPC, and share it with others.

As a game, it leaves a lot wanting. The text is descriptive, but there are very few hints at what to do next. Because parser games have so many possible actions to type in, it's really important to suggest actions that might work in the text, and implement any verbs or nouns that do appear in the text.

The author has demonstrated her ability to program IF well. I'd love to see another game that incorporates the feedback from this IFComp.

This game consists of a randomized layout of areas, each containing random pieces of decor, some of which benefits you, and randomized deadly encounters.

As a straight-up game, it has flaws. The text has many grammatical errors, the scenery can become repetitive, and it's hard to know how to strategize.

But an an experiment, I like it. Like many people, I've thought of writing a randomized game, but I've never really gotten around to it. This game shows how it could be done, and I think it would be worthwhile to tinker with the code here. I appreciate the author letting us see the code!

This is a fun little game. You're dead, and you essentially have the option to pick your own punishment.

It draws heavily on Greek mythology with a little swerve into mathematical history. I laughed. I cried. It was fun.


The implementation could be a bit better. (Spoiler - click to show)X LIST or X CHECKLIST didn't work, but X CLIPBOARD did (which I know was highlighted, but LIST is a reasonable synonym). When I did X NOTE as Tantalus, it said 'Do you mean the nothingred post-it note or the blue post-it note?'. POUR WATER INTO BASIN didn't work as Danaid (although again, it was a different command than the note suggested).

Katie Benson has a specific style to her games. They are always kind of low-key and chill, focused on a specific aspect of life, with a 'main' path and one or more side paths, and a lot of little exploration choices in the middle for flavor.

I'm always happy to see one, and I find it pleasant. This one isn't quite as developed as her others, but still gives the same enjoyable vibe. 'Flygskam' (or shame of flying) refers to the movement that tries to avoid the use of airplanes to avoid pollution and energy wastage.

This game adds a new feature where at times you restart the whole game. It would have been tedious, but the game is short enough that clicking quickly takes care of it.

This game has some of the most devilish puzzles I've seen in quite some time-and it's in Twine! Twine puzzlers have been getting far better in recent years, and this author has already been one to push the envelope with last year's game Lux.

In this game, you play as an intrepid (but tiny) alien, who must fight against 3 opponents. I thought this would just sort of be a combat game, but very little of the game is actual combat. Almost all of the game is exploring and using inventory objects.

Most of the early puzzles can be solved by changing your color. This strategy is used in man interesting ways throughout the game (although it would have been cool to have a call-back to it at the very end!). Later on, you gather a good deal of inventory items, each of which can be used on any scenery object and on each other, for a quadratic set of possibilities similar to Robin Johnson's games.

This game isn't perfect. I thought the opening was really long and non-interactive, but then once I realized the true scope of the game it made sense. Conversation is just lawn-mowering, which can get tedious. Guessing the exactly correct combination can be hard at times.

But I think this will do very well overall.

This game attempts to pull off something big: to take an extremely serious topic (pedophilia) and to say something deep about it.

This is hard. People that try to deal with heavy topics often veer into extreme heavyhandedness ("Do you suppress freedom, or give people liberty?") or into almost celebrating the issue at hand (as sometimes happens with self-harm).

This game manages to have strong writing and good pacing. While pedophilia is constantly portrayed as bad (good!) It doesn't make it super clear how we're supposed to feel and act when someone we once knew is accused. The choice here isn't between 'support pedophilia or not', it's between 'seeking punishment vs seeking truth', and 'retreating within oneself vs exposing yourself to harm).

Still, it can get very heavy, but the music is a definite bonus here. There is a credits section, and I tried watching it a few times (it slowly fades in), but I kept missing the music section, so I don't know who did it.

There's a lot of slow text here but it's manageable. Give yourself a good 30-40 minutes to play it, though.

I'm not planning on playing again. The game is good, but it's not enjoyable in the literal sense.

This game is fantasy game where you, Lord of a torture dungeon that is not serving its original purpose, must go on a quest to unsee terrible things.

There are many branches, and many variables. Instead of the game tracking the variables, you need to write down on a personal Adventure Sheet. It's possible to cheat, but the game does a good job of checking!

This is a funny game. It has some raunchy humor, but more in a 'nudge nudge wink wink' way than anything explicit. I found it enjoyable, if a bit silly and short.

This game showcase a new parser, which usually makes me skeptical.

But I was very impressed with this IntFicPy game.

Pros of the engine: Smoothness! It looked fabulous, typing in and scrolling up and down felt natural and very nice, saving and loading was easy. Different text colors worked well, timers, changing room descriptions, conversation was implemented. Many of the hard problems were dealt with well.

Cons of the engine: Could do with some better synonym handling, and especially pronouns (IT, SHE, HER, etc.) It felt sometimes like it was just reading a part of my command and not all of it.

Game wise, I love the worldbuilding here. Not such a huge fan of timers, but it seems forgiving until the endgame. I did well in the first part and then hit a big bump sending me straight to the walkthrough for the rest of the game (finding money was the bump, I think, and I could have solved that, but then the commands I saw seemed intimidating).

You play as a newcomer to a dangerous magical island where the Storm kills all who dare approach, except for you. You go about the island seeking to repair your boat and discovering a village with a large religion.

A good showcase for the new engine. Online play would be a huge boon, though.

I played this game through to a death after about 30 minutes.

You play a man who has recently moved to a small town with wells, town doctors, taverns, etc.

The interface is wild. On the left is an illustrated book, with lines in slow typewriter text appearing as you make choices. You have three categories of 'inventory': thoughts, places, and things. These appear in the lower right.

The upper right contains the contents of your current location.

Actions are done by dragging inventory onto each other.

It's a good mechanic. It's slow, though, as is the typewriter text. And the game is long. And I couldn't find any way to save, and there are insta-deaths.

So I'm going to keep my rating and review as it is and maybe one day revisit this game. A save feature would help a lot!

I rated this game on the following criteria, one star for each:

Descriptiveness: This game is descriptive. You play a man mourning his brothers death. A bizarre occurrence happens, and you must recover your five chess pieces from a forest full of wizards, dwarves, beasts, and magic.

Polish: This game is not polished. Many synonyms are not implemented and the game doesn't recognize reasonable solutions. I even received the extremely rare 'something dramatic has happened' inform library message (not necessarily a bug, but requires a bizarre combination of circumstances).

Emotional impact: The frequent praying was interesting, but praying for points seems kind of hypocritical. The dwarf seemed kind of like a bad caricature of a dumb Scottish person. Big, emotional moments were compressed over too short a time span (a problem I had in my first published game).

Interactivity: So many commands just didn't work. There were multiple devices that 'revealed' things, and it was very frustrating trying to figure out if, when one failed, it was a bug or intentional. I didn't even know I could reenter my cabin until I read a transcript. Very buggy.

Would I play again?: I would not. Parts of this game were charming, but I believe it's too buggy right now.

(Thanks to stian on intfiction for posting a transcript! Extremely helpful!)