Reviews by MathBrush

It's possible that I'm getting older or have a carbon monoxide leak in my house, but I frequently play games recently where I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Everything is in evocative prose but I don't know what it's evoking.

So I appreciate Bez's clear and straightforward stories with interesting characters where it's easy to follow along and see the story progress. This is a story about going to an event to meet people while a little guy in your pocket gives you dating advice through an airpod. You reveal some facts about yourself and become aware of others.

Like many of Bez's recent games, this is voice acted with a few different actors participating, and was styled nicely. Out of Bez's three games in this competition, this is the one that I most liked.

This is a game with at least three different endings and which has a pretty neat mechanic.

Everybody is dead at your party (well, it's not exactly your party, but since you're the only one alive, you might as well be). You can examine many of the dead as well as a lot of the scenery around you.

There is a hidden thread running through things which I found fascinating. At the moment of your hostess's death, (Spoiler - click to show)your pink pearl necklace is snapped and the pearls go flying. You can find these pearls as pink 'o's in the words of the different areas</spoiler.

I thought this was a neat mechanic and its symbolic meaning became more apparent in the different endings. Really neat idea here.

This game is themed around the story of a Polish revolutionary anthem from the 1800s that was repurposed by Russia.

Its a short poem with a few branches, talking about the importance of revolution and how it supersedes love.

One of the branches I played had some raw code in it that wasn't working (like UI.restart, I think), and overall this was pretty minimal. I definitely enjoyed hearing about the story behind this though!

This game was entered into Shufflecomp.

The author projects finishing it or adding more at a future date.

Basically, there is some beautiful poetry filled with nature imagery and her falling or transforming. I'd be more specific but the story itself is pretty vague, I got more 'vibes' from it than plot, and the vibes were nice. There is a branch early on and the two paths are wildly different. In one, the words become more sparse naturally.

In the other, you pare down the text by removing words. These removed words are placed into a kind of gallery where eventually they form a larger poem, but the game can end under certain criteria before you get to see the finished one some times. You also have the option to go forward and back, but there are also word links that move you forward, and I'm not sure what the difference between those two options is.

Fun concept.

This short game toys with the notion of the holographic principle, which is that it's possible that the universe is encoded on a two-dimensional surface and that the 3d effects we see are just a weird side effect of string theory.

In this future, companies have taken advantage of this by having quantum computer read and write directly to that surface as if it were magnetic tape, deleting people and moving them elsewhere.

The game follows either two groups of people or one (it's hard to tell). In one story, a man is sent in a long real-life journey through space to deliver a package for a company. In another, a couple is reunited after one is 'rewritten' (I think). The man might be the same in both iterations.

The atmosphere was nice. I had to play twice to understand a little better; one ending is very abrupt, while the other has an animation and some more explanation. Reading the wiki article on Holographic Principle helped as well.

There were a lot of typos. I understand, because I make a lot as well; in a future release, the author could use the 'proofing file' option in Twine to get something that can be run through a spellchecker.

I like the atmosphere in this short Shufflecomp game a lot. There is a bunch of mysterious worldbuilding which is purposely vague, but it seems like some disaster has driven humanity (or a part of humanity) to flee to the depths of the ocean in order to survive.

You are one of these people, although you have experienced the surface. And you are in danger as the cables that connect you to your data sources begin to fail, and you have to explore.

I actually love the writing here and the neat use of variation in text placement. I also felt like the game had some significant choices early on. I was a little bummed to replay and realize it didn't matter, but for the first playthrough it felt really cool.

It kind of ends on a cliffhanger, but it also feels complete as an episode in the life of a unique being. Fun overall.

This game started off with some timed, animated text which I had no control over. It was on a beautiful starfield and the text was nice, but I was worried that I'd miss something and have to restart since I couldn't go back. So I was expecting that the game would be frustrating or hard to play.

It ended up being really lovely. Only the opening and the ending had missable text like that. The rest of the game was so thoughtful.

In it, you a post-mortal human, your consciousness uploaded into a planet-sized database that preserves your 'self'. The love of your life is also uploaded nearby, and together the two of you count down to the end of the universe.

Most of the game is about reminiscing over your past with your love. At times the choices changed in a way I couldn't understand; it seemed like maybe I could only choose 2 out of 3 memories, which is a nice touch, but I may have just misunderstood how it worked.

Overall, I thought this was sweet, and had fun trying out some of the songs it was based on after.

You've spent the night at a man's house, only to find out he's suspected of horrific crimes. While he's in the bathroom, you have only a short time to discover the truth about him.

This is my favorite of the RGB cycle by Charm cochran, a collection of small games revolving around Bluebeard-like themes (secrets, murder, forbidden rooms). This one includes some really nice US design, with a text message-like interface contrasted with room exploration and dialogue that use different colors.

It includes a lot of exploration and a fairly complex puzzle. I played to one ending, which I enjoyed, but didn't feel compelled to try more. Really neat just how much love and detail went into a small game.

This game starts with you finding yourself suspended in the air so that all of your weight is concentrated on a single point halfway down your spine. Things do not improve for you after that.

The idea is that you are skewered on a hook and have the opportunity to flail about in different ways. Your different choices are pleasingly displayed for you in blood-like red. While you're doing that, in differently colored text, you hear your wife and her mother moving around.

This game isn't long, but provides significant variety in interactions for its length and tells a story with a real plot arc (intro, buildup, climax/denouement) in just a few words. Pretty impressive. And violent but it doesn't lean into it, which in many ways increases the horror.

This game was written for the Bluebeard Jam and Neo-Twiny Jam. It's short, and recounts the events that happen right after the climax of most Bluebeard retellings.

I like the presentation style with differently-colored and -justified text on black background and with multiple options even for a short game.

Its voice is distinctive in that it uses thee/thou while also using modern profanity. I generally avoid games with strong profanity in them and that's the main reason I've avoided playing this series for the last half of a year, despite seeing extensive praise from others and despite loving this author's game. And I do admit, it is grating here, like a spicy hotdog with just too many jalapenos on it.

I know this sounds really strange but I actually love the opening title screen that explains how to play and understand the game and gives a brief preview. I'd love for that to become common in more games, and it looks really good.