Reviews by MathBrush

This is one of two clear fan-fiction games this comp (the other being one set at Hogwarts).

This game is based on the Zelda game Majora's Mask. You and your buds are NPCs in that game, and since the moon is going to kill everyone, you sit on a hill drinking beer, shouting at the moon and waiting for the world to end.

It has some good animations, and some interesting text effects (such as giving you a five minutes time limit). It has some strong profanity. I found it descriptive and enjoyable.

This is a mid-length story, kind of between a creepypasta and fable in tone, presented as a completely linear story with a single link on each Twine page.

It has a few typos: wading instead of fading, for instance.

So the interactivity, polish, and replay value are low here.

But I liked the descriptions. Not everyone will like this story, but I have a very specific niche that I like, which is games/stories where you are transported to a dark shadow world and must conquer it with the power of light. (Eidolon, Kingdom Hearts, Zelda: A Link to the Past, Twilight Princess).

This seems like it's drawn from some game design, though. It mentions stuff like 'a ladder 30' above you', 'a 10' monster', 'a 10' globe of light'. The character (in this completely static story) collects globes of light to upgrade their weapon.

So, it's interesting, and weird, but I enjoyed the story.

There are some things that definitely need trigger warnings, and the warning for this game is self-harm.

(Spoiler - click to show)This game uses bare styling in Twine, but it's text layout, pacing and link structure are very polished. The writing is descriptive, with some profanity appropriate to the situation you're in. I felt strong emotions during this, first feelings that drew me in and helped me identify with the character, and then feelings of horror as I chose the 'bad' choices later involving self-harm. I didn't know it would be that bad, which perhaps is how the protagonist feels.

A powerful game.

This game is fairly straightforward design-wise and writing-wise. You are a kid that witnesses a modern-day Rip van Winkle fall asleep.

Instead of focusing on the dramatic event, the game talks about the repercussions over the years, the effect it has on the community.

It's a little too short to become involved with the characters, but I found the whole idea charming and a good reminder of the effects we can have on each other.

One star may seem harsh for a game, but here are my five criteria:

Polish: This game has visible error messages every few screens. This is probably all the same error, but it could have been caught. Links to images are everywhere, but are deleted because of copyright. If the author is reading this, try Pexels! Plenty of free images in their public domain section.

Descriptiveness: Everything in this game is bare-bones, functional writing.

Emotion: I didn't really feel a connection to the chieftain or the tribe

Interactivity: The game is very slow in its accretion of resources, and bugs made my choices not work

Play again: Without more bug testing, I wouldn't play it again.

Is this Healy's first full-length game? I know Healy best for the many years of starting IFComp prediction threads, so it's fun to see them in action.

This game is in stark contrast to Turandot, the last IFComp game I played. That game was very self-aware, while this game just oozes sincerity. Turandot overturned tropes and cliches, while this game leans on them somewhat.

This game uses RPG maker, so it's very graphic heavy, but that doesn't take away the 'interactive fiction' aspect for me. RPG maker is fairly generic, so the grpahics melt into the background and let the choices and text take front stage.

Basically, you're trying to be bad. So you do bad things. If you get enough bad things, hopefully you can impress your boss. There is one strong profanity in the game (fitting for a bad, bad witch). There are nice little knowledge puzzles.

And there are choices. This game is short (which is the biggest reason for 3 stars out of 5, I don't think it explored its themes enough), but even in that short time, you have true agency. You can have two walkthroughs to two different endings that share almost no text between the two of them and which represent diametrically opposed choices. And that's pretty rare in a text game!

I like this kind of game. Papillon made a game like this decades ago, but it was buggier. If only RPG maker had been there back then! Hopefully, Healy will continue to write. I look forward to more!

Reviews serve many purposes. Helping authors feel noticed; providing feedback for future games; monologuing; and helping players decide what to play and not.

In the interest of the latter, this game is overtly sexual in a crass way. I abandoned it once, and only persevered when told that the large middle portion contains very little of that nature.

Aside from that, Gijsbers has used all of his excellent storytelling powers in crafting this game.

It takes Puccini's Turandot, a story that is very problematic in and of itself. I'm in the camp that believes that Puccini had built up something he couldn't finish: there was no reasonable way to finish the story or the music that could mesh well with what went before. There's no realistic resolution whatsoever.

This game takes that on head-first. The player traverses death and destruction in pursuit of the princess, but there's a sort of in-game fourth-wall-breaking (third-wall breaking?) where everyone comments on the ridiculousness of it. It's all just a joke.

But is it? (Spoiler - click to show)The player's obsession is never really explained. And the neat wrapping up of 'none of the people' actually died ignores the friend. The murder of the guard is glossed over. These huge plot holes are explained away by the overall self-critical nature of the game.

I've noticed that every writing community has it's own views on what is 'great'. I made a chart once displaying where each community lies on the scale of 'earnestness' vs and 'originality' vs 'canon' in their judging. Creepypasta and Battle for Wesnoth both have extreme earnestness in their writing, while IFComp tends to value self-awareness. This game is far in the self-awareness area, almost a parody of self-awareness.

The choice structure is essentially all fake choices. There may be some actual state tracked, but I don't think it necessarily improves the game if that's true. For instance, I chose to (Spoiler - click to show)let the crocodile kill me and the game explained it away, again, in a very self-aware manner.

This game achieves everything it set out to do. I would say it was one of my favorites except that the feelings of shame I get reading erotic works doesn't go well with the pure enjoyment I have from text games. I believe it will do very well in the competition, possibly the top three, unless other voters have concerns about the content as well.

All in all, Victor Gijsbers started out as a good author, and its clear he's only improving with time. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

You play as a doll who was once brought to life by a child's magic, but awakes now when the child is long gone.

You explore a dark two-story house filled with death, decay, and dark magic.

I loved the cast of characters, and found many of the puzzles satisfying. I think I had more fun with this game than I did with anything else in the comp so far.

Quest is just not as powerful as Inform or Tads or Dialog, though. Quest's worst feature is synonym handling. Synonyms apparently must be typed in for each verb combination.

For instance, if something is called ADJECTIVE NOUN, then one puzzle might be solvable by typing VERB1 NOUN, but another puzzle might only except VERB2 ADJECTIVE NOUN. And due to Quest's weaker engine, it won't tell you you're close or detect if you've almost typed the right thing.

Bitter Karella usually does much better than other Quest authors in this regard, but some slipped through this time. For instance, (Spoiler - click to show)TAKE CLAWS or GET CLAWS produced no text, incorrect text, or just baffling text at different points in the game.

Overall though, I love this game. Fun!

This game is currently broken. I don't think it will always be that way, and I'd be happy to change my review if that changes.

You play as a character who experiences a life-changing event that results in the implantation of an alien presence. You shift back and forth between a real world and an alien, and between linear parts and puzzle parts.

There is some strong language. I'm loving the storyline here and would love to see this fixed.


Edit:

The author has made several improvements, although it's not perfect. I completed all three chapters this time, and I really felt a connection with the author. The feeling of impending doom that cannot be escape is truly a relatable feeling after I faced a difficult job search this year.

I love dark, psychological/surreal settings, and this story called to me. Some small things still need tweaking, however.

This is an interesting game. It has custom art and animations in the Godot engine. You play as three characters (well, four characters, but two are at the same time) as you go through the story.

It is very short, with just a few screens and one choice per screen.

It's a philosophical game. In the beginning (which I now realize presaged the end), you are asked to abandon the characters as soon as the game is over (hence the name).

I realize now as I write this that (in regards to that ending) (Spoiler - click to show)I was surprised and annoyed that the game just stops in the middle. I wanted to know more. But isn't that the whole point? That I had promised to not care?

So it is clever, but it left me feeling frustrated. Also, I feel like it could do better in its choices; for a few options, none of them were things I'd like to do.