Reviews by MathBrush

Garry Francis has a longstanding series of polished, relatively 'meaty' parser games with traditional puzzles and a variety of settings.

This outing isn't up to his usual standard of excellence. It has a very small map, with no 'special' room descriptions for items, so most rooms end up with default listings like 'there is a lamp post here' or 'In the fountain you can see water' (not taken directly from the game, but similar). I found myself fighting the parser for basic interactions. For example, with the monkey, (Spoiler - click to show)it suggested giving a donation. I tried GIVE DONATION. That wasn't understood. I looked in my inventory and found cash. I tried PAY CASH. It needed a second noun. I tried PAY CASH TO MAN and PAY MONKEY. Both weren't undrestood. I tried TAKE CASH. I was unable to do so. I tried PUT CASH IN CUP. It said, 'But you are not holding the contents.' I later realized that there was a separate source of cash I needed to find. There weren't really any puzzles beyond (Spoiler - click to show)finding the coin, which is okay, but that's usually a highlight of Garry's games.

I'd usually say at this point that at least the setting was charming, but each room is given a minimal description, as are the vendors, and there is little emotional exchange between us and our three-year old child. My character felt detached, irritated.

I can say though that this out of the norm for Garry, who usually has very solid games, like The Mystery of Winchester High or Search for the Lost Ark.

This game was entered in PunyComp.

It has a lot of interesting elements that I would love to see more of or more polished.

You're on a boat drifting in an ocean. The setting and tone, which were my favorite parts, is dark and distressing, like a survival game like raft or subnautica where you are in danger of your life at all times.

There's a mysterious voice that comments on things you did. I was interested in seeing this expanded on, but the game ends before I could discover more. It reported a score, but no score was used in the game (so it was 0 out of 0). I found directions difficult to understand; the game used non-standard directions, and while the correct word to use was in the text, it might have been nice to have it bolded. Later, while I could leave the boat with (Spoiler - click to show)swim to debris, (Spoiler - click to show)SWIM TO BOAT or SWIM TO DINGHY to try to get back did nothing; some kind of response might be nice.. There were some whitespace issues, with missing line breaks before the command prompt most of the time.

If this game were polished more or expanded on, I'd definitely be happy to rate it higher. The concept is great and the author(s) did a good job of establishing tension and mystery, I think it just needs a little polish.

This is the last game I'm playing/reviewing in Ectocomp, and is the most-rated one in the comp so far. Having played it, it's easy to see why.

You play as an employee in a firm that seems to specialize in educational software. For some reason, you constantly get emails intended for people that aren't you.

The game was trickier than I expected, and I wasn't paying attention at first, so I didn't know who to forward emails to for a while (which is part of the gameplay). This enhanced the experience, as it got several people mildly annoyed at me and made me feel like we were all playing the same game in multiplayer.

Then, things begin to change. The workload gets harder in ways that shouldn't be possible, and a greater burden has to be shouldered. The ending is ambiguous, which I liked.

Unlike most petite mort games (which tend to be quick sketches of games due to the time constraints), it seemed to completely polished and fully fleshed-out, which makes sense as it seems to be scoped well (with a system that doesn't require much branching, if any, but still rewards interaction by having you guess who to forward an email to).

A great game to end the competition on!

This is a polished-looking Ink game with a great story arc, solid writing and interesting characters. It has frequent strong profanity that seems natural to the characters.

You play as someone who is currently presenting as a man during a date. Your best friend Tom is coaching you, Cyrano de Bergerac style, on how best to romance your date. As things go on, facts come out. Gender identity is a central component of the story.

There are a variety of ways it can end, some shorter than others. It took me a few replays to see how the author cleverly handled the scope of the game without letting it get out of hand (by funneling several types of choices to the same results).

The horror here is the horror of self-hatred (in my interpretation). Pretty much every path leads to some kind of self-loathing. The other narrative thread I identified is toxic friendship.

I think that most people on the forum will find something rewarding in playing this game.

This was a compact but complex puzzle game, impressive for being written in 4 hours.

You are a ghost, only able to interact with the world once each year. The house you are in is being used for a vacation by guests. Your goal is to interact with them to guide them to the truth.

Unfortunately, you are very weak, and time is short. I found myself struggling (in character) to do almost anything, like opening windows and doors. But after replaying several times and exploring, I discovered the pattern needed to win.

Dialog and presentation were good and the puzzles were engaging and not too hard or too easy. Great work.

This game is a speed-IF parser game. Like many parser authors have done before, this author has chosen to write a 'my apartment' game, spending a lot of time on a familiar setting. Appliances are the most common item to be implemented, each with at least something to do. It's hard to implement a whole apartment in 4 hours, but the scope has been narrowed to just two rooms.

Other than that, there's not much to talk about.

Besides, of course, the corpse on the couch. But that's another story for another day.

I’ve always liked self-referential media, like the opera Capriccio about writing opera. That extends to interactive fiction; Creatures Such as We is in my top 10 favorite IF of all time, and it’s full of discussions about game writing.

This short ectocomp game is about writing a short ectocomp game. I had to laugh at the end when I read that it was ‘based on a true story’. The author goes through a very similar process to me when needing to write: procrastinating, researching, hanging out online, and then having inspiration strike.

It’s fun to see ‘the process’ from someone else’s viewpoint, like reading someone’s written remembrances of your deceased grandfather and realizing that they knew the same person as you but in a different way.

This also made me think of how the process must work as this author (with her co-author) has 2 of the top 100 most-rated games of the 2020s and 3 of the highest-rated games of the 2020s on IFDB, so there’s a good chance anyone who’s been around the last five years has experienced and enjoyed the team’s work.

This was a choice-based mostly linear game that was longer than most of the Petite Mort games. It builds up background and has one choice at the end. I didn’t encounter any bugs and the style/polish looked good.

The story is about a girl in your college class with eyes like black pools. She unsettles you, and seems to be aware of that fact. Soon, you end up meeting with her, and learning more about her.

To avoid spoiling the game’s twists, I’ll put the rest of my impressions in spoilers:

Overall, pretty thought-provoking. I even sketched a doodle of the main NPC. The prose was the highlight.

This is the last of the Slovakian student games, I believe, and a good one to end on, with a larger structure than many of the others.

You are a player in a cruel game run by a wizard, and you have to pass through three mini-games. You have a couple of options each time, some of which lead to death, but you can always retry each world.

There are some typos and I feel like the narrative plot arc could be structured better (with more rising action and a little bit longer denouement) but otherwise this seems pretty good.

This is a tiny game, written by a Slovakian student. It describes itself well, as it's one room in a Twine game where all exits lead either to the same room or an identical place. The only choice is when to stop.

It's a funny idea, but the title kind of gives away the big twist, and the game itself is small, so I would have hoped for something a bit more. That doesn't mean it's bad, though; it feels similar to games like Uninteractive Fiction 1 and 2, made by a skilled author who wanted to convey a specific message/feeling etc. through a tiny or unfulfilling work. Experimentation like this is a great sign (to me) in a young author.