Reviews by MathBrush

This is story-focused twine game that uses dithered graphics (I recently learned this word) and is set in a diner at the end of all worlds.

You survived an apocalypse that destroyed everyone in your world. You were able to leave, and your travels eventually brought you here. Now other versions of you from other abandoned worlds have built a community.

The story focuses on your perceptions of and interactions with the other copies of yourself. Some you embrace, some you despise, some you have hopes for. Of course it can be read as a metaphor for our perception of self and our self-worth. And it works well as both allegory and story, as most good sci-fi does.

The story progresses in one direction, but you can pick what order to encounter some things and in some cases you can choose which branch you'll interact with. I didn't feel a need to replay (as it felt complete) so I didn't see all branches.

Overall, good for someone wanting a polished, self-reflective sci-fi fix.

I almost completely misunderstood this game.

It's navigated via a clock-like interface where you click on squares to advance the story.

It's about two people who tell each other stories each night. One makes up stories with CYOA-style "A or B" choices (like, 'was the villain the WITCH or the PARASITE?'). The other tells the story of a girl who turns into a sparrow when troubled.

There's a question mark button in the middle that I didn't notice. So after the first pair of stories and 'The End' I figured that was the whole game. I reset a couple of times to try out different stories. I couldn't figure out why the sparrow one seemed so incomplete.

That's when I realized that there are actually like 12 (or maybe 8?) sparrow stories all spread out, and you make your own stories in between. That made the game way more satisfying than I had originally supposed.

The individual small stories are interesting. They feel kind of allegorical in many ways, and the choices you make, while they matter, weren't always obvious in the effect they'd have. Especially when you choose who the villain is, the narrative often made them out to be sympathetic or not really more villainous than the other path, so I feel like there's some overall message I'm missing.

The sparrow story was also symbolic, but as it took place over a longer time I had time to see more repeated themes and feelings, and I liked what it was expressing. It includes a lot of scenes that I've seen frequently in LGBTQ story games (like a desire for transformation, parents who disown you, friends that captivate you and help you change), and it executed them very well.

Neat visually and well-done with the overall storyline.

This game was part of Shufflecomp and was based on three different songs.

In it, you go through a sequence of surreal worlds with strange and evocative imagery, like diamonds in places diamonds shouldn't be and hallucinations in an antique film viewer.

The three scenes feel mostly unrelated, except each ends with a 'hook' for the next one, linking into a loop at the end.

The game uses a variety of colors to distinguish the different scenes.

I liked the surreal feel and the variety. I felt like I wished for a little more elaboration in both the story and the code, as sometimes things felt a little rushed or underimplemented. I'm glad I played it though.

I loved the worldbuilding in this Vorple game. (side note: I'm not sure why it's Vorple; I didn't notice any graphics, sound or text effects in the version I played).

You play as a kind of shepherd for lost souls in an afterlife filled with ritual and restriction. This view of the afterworld reminds of things like Spirited Away or the Royal Guards in Bleach, with a variety of ritualized systems with specialized individuals running them in order to process the deceased.

Parts of this setting are reminiscent of the author's room in Cragne Manor (one of the earliest reachable parts of the game), which is nice because I liked that as well.

This game felt overwhelming at first, but the map doesn't branch much and most objects have one well-hinted use. I had the most trouble with the cake, but was happy when I figured it out.

A couple of things felt a bit underimplemented (like some text that fires every time you approach the statue) but I didn't have any bugs or typos that negatively impacted gameplay.

In this game, you meet a group of new friends and decide to hang out with them. Unfortunately, you end up trapped by one friend in their own treehouse which has a collection of bizarre puzzles to keep you inside.

I liked the balance of this game; it's complex enough that it gave me pause but forgiving enough that I could complete it without ever feeling really stuck. It has a lot of charming parts but also manages to be really creepy without ever insisting that you be afraid.

Gameplay revolves around exploration, information gathering, and object collection. The coding looks like it must be complex at parts, like with the random comments from your host as the play games or with the way the rope is handled.

The game isn't perfect; at times the layout can be confusing and its not clear which clues connect to which puzzles. But it satisfied all my criteria for a 5 star game: polished, descriptive, emotional impact (creepy mixed with pity), would replay, and interactive).

I remember hearing stuff about this game from other people who were judging the Short Games Showcase. Even though that's over, I wanted to try it out.

It's a multimedia-enhanced, well-written visual novel that is (I think) entirely linear, but which has good pacing and has the amount of text per click and screen tuned well enough that it never felt like a chore to click through (also because the writing is compelling).

The protagonist is cool (a writer who is passionate about visual novels and indie games with plenty of experience and education who gets a shot at working on a popular franchise), and its fun to see things from their perspective.

But they're also problematic. At first, it felt like we were meant to sympathize with her 100%, but as it went on I could see the issues coming up, things very similar to ones I had in my first job(s). Amy, the hero, focuses her workplace happiness on romantic relationship with coworkers rather than the job. She zones out in meetings, feels like everyone is fake and not real LGBTQ allies, and doesn't bother to try the games of the company she's working for before getting hired. She makes radical suggestions to gameplay to the experienced team and gets mad when they won't make them, and when the team comes up with a project suited exactly for her skill set, she is upset because it's designed to be catered to the audience rather than her own ideals.

I know exactly how she feels, especially with having to write what others want than what you want. One thing that helped me so much with that was someone's advice about writing (looking up, it was an author named ferkung):
"It's just very "I know what works, I am a professional, if you do not want what I think is 100% right, then I can offer 80% right and meet your goals."" And as for hating that the team poo-poos her ideas, I remember a lot of early teams I was part of where I jumped in and criticized what they were doing, only to find out later that they had tried my ideas before and found failure (as I did) and just didn't want to rehash it.

So I expect the fictional Amy will be a lot happier if she survives in the industry and finds a team she loves (or grows to love the team she has). It's like a coming-of-age story for a working professional, and a great representation of one at that.

I was struck when starting this game by how lovely the visuals were. The colors were rich and vibrant and the style was kind of impressionistic, allowing some flexibility in how to interpret things.

Most of the game is a series of conversations with 'Elias'. I don't want to give spoilers, but I don't think that would even be possible, since the game is not definite about what's going on.

'Elias' looks like a kind of plant monster. The real Elias was your boyfriend, but this thing can talk like him and seems to have some of his memories and feelings.

You are someone living out of their car, where everything is, and no other person is visible anywhere in the deserted areas you drive through. It's just you and 'Elias', whom you've trained or asked to re-enact your past memories with.

The art, music and lyrics are haunting. I thought at first it would be a shorter, poetic piece, and thought it was coming to a close, so I was surprised when it went on for quite a while. The ending was transcendent in the literal sense, as it passed from clearly understandable phenomena to something more. I didn't fully understand.

The game is mostly linear, with some choices along the way that may have had story impact but felt more like (good) flavor. I felt like the goal here was to write a game that gave a certain strong impression or feeling of combined nostalgia and alienation, and I think it achieved its goal.

One thing that could have been nice would have been a way in-game to know how much of the game I had completed or a way to save (maybe there was one; I didn't know any UI) to ensure that I could plan to experience the whole thing at once. But it was a charming experience and I found it really beautiful visually, one of the nicest-drawn games I've played in a long time.

Binksi is an engine combining the minimalistic graphics engine bitsy (which allows sprites with few pixels, 2-frame animations, 1 or 2 color palettes, and text interactions when you run into things) with Ink.

This is not a game with a set ending, as far as I can tell. Instead, you explore Manon's desktop while putting off making a game.

There are funny things and serious things. There are communities that are slow and become uninteresting and others that are outright cruel and hostile. There are fun times and fun friends and the ability to help others.

It was fun to explore. Some places have multiple interactions, but I only did 1 interaction for most objects.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief as I opened this game. I had been playing a lot of short games as part of a competition and there is, of course, a lot of variety, some amazing, some that feel like work to get through.

I opened this and saw nice styling, compelling writing, some interactivity I really had to think and strategize with, and well-written characters. It was great to see!

Here's an example of the kind of stuff that I liked in this game:

"You start slicing the eggplant, but you hear ominous noises from the living room. Clanking noises, like something metal is being batted around on a hardwood floor. It sounds like one of the cats (probably Natasha; it's usually Natasha) might be playing with something that is not a cat toy.

Maybe you should go intervene? Whatever she's doing is probably not good for your security deposit. But losing focus when cooking isn't always a good idea either."

A lot of short games introduce characters but don't really 'introduce' them. We just get snippets, like a page from the middle of a larger story. This shows Natasha's character through both a single incident (being noisy) and a general statement ("it's usually Natasha"). It uses concrete details ('clanking noises') as well as emotions connected to it ('ominous').

The second paragraph sets up the choices that follow (going to check on her or not) and lets us know both that it's possible to strategize and that our choices matter.

And, while short, the game still manages to have a real start, build up, climax, and denouement.

While I enjoyed the game and found only one ending, I felt satisfied with that and didn't have an urge to play again. But I appreciate the thought that went into this and think that I can learn from it when it comes to writing choice-based games.

In this Ren'py game, you play as an author who is trying to write a story about a human child and a dragon whelp.

You make choices on how to write the story, but eventually you get stuck, so you go back and write something different.

This ends up mostly being a binary tree, which you can view on a map, although there are some convergences. It turns out though that you can get ideas in one branch that unlock new options in another.

There is a lot of sameness in trying to lawnmower every branch, and having both story text and commentary on the bottom meant I often forgot to read the commentary. But the main story was cute and I liked the overall concept.