Reviews by MathBrush

Missive is clever and fun, but is a bit of a mismatch. It has a gripping and interesting story about a man who just went through a breakup interacting with both his ex girlfriend and a mysterious present.

These form two fairly distinct stories that are both good. The true relationship between you and your ex slowly comes out in a very clever way. The present story involves sifting through old letters and deciphering puzzles. If you get the puzzles right, you pick the correct next letter to read. It doesn't tell you if you were right till the end, making lawnmowering hard. You can have a great experience without solving all the puzzles.

The game has some scattered profanity and frequent alcohol use. These usually turn me off of a game, but the PC was painted as a (to me) lovable guy going through a hard time, so I had sympathy for him. Good game.

This mid-length game is a story-focused Zorkian type game, where you explore the Beast's castle, trying to understand his history and take action.

The game features a magical system focused on (Spoiler - click to show)bells. Different bells have different properties, which you must decipher by experimentation and by searching records.

The game is a more cynical version of the fairy tale (or more world-weary).

This game is intended to be accesible to beginners, with a tutorial mode and ways to access hints. I found the game frustrating when I tried to treat it as an open, nonlinear game. When I did what the game told me to do, it was much more enjoyable.

I've often pondered on my reasons for reading novels, playing IF, reading stories online, etc. I've talked to my family about it, and my answers to why we escape and whether it is good changes fairly often. I also was oncea professional video game developer.

This game, then, drew me in completely. This is a choice-based game about someone who is trying to understand escapism, its role in life, its benefits and drawbacks, the meaning of art, etc.

It was fun to play the character as myself, giving the answers and reactions I would. I was happy with my ending.

It was funny to play this game after Ultra Business Tycoon III,and reading online debates over whether that game is winnable, and what it would mean if it is not winnable. I don't necessarily recommend playing that game first (Porpentine has better games, like Howling Dogs), but it was interesting.

Lynnea Glasser tends to make very good games. I didn't like Tenth Plague on philosophical grounds, but Coloratura was fantastic.

This game contains several instances of strong profanity near the beginning.

This game exemplifies the original feel of Star Trek. To explore the universe, to travel through the worlds, to understand the un-understandable.

The game is much shorter than I expected, given the other reviews. This is not really a drawback; the game has a fast pace and feels like an adventure. You explore various planets and stellar objects, with almost all motion achieved by manipulating "sails".

The gameplay diverges from Plotkin's usual games in that it is not very hard, and the focus is on fun over puzzles. The most similar game of his that I can think of is Dual Transform, which I also really enjoyed.

I recommend this game to absolutely everyone, as the enjoyment-to-time-requirement ratio is so very high.

This game is highly rated, which is why I tried it. It is fairly short, and has two difficult puzzles, as well as some trouble at first until you realize that you have to examine every object in the room (okay, maybe it' s just me).

The first puzzle (involving a sequence of numbers) was very ingenious. I thought at first the answer would involve some experimentation, but it was all very logical in the end, though I didn't solve it myself.

The second puzzle is a bit more obscure, but fun.

Altogether, it is not very long, and I would recommend it only to puzzle fiends. Those who are into intrigue may find it worthwhile to skip the two puzzles via walkthrough.

This game was part of an experiment in IF inspired by a challenge to create a work of art with the title "The space under the window". In this game, you see a window, but you can't do anything to it directly. Instead, you type nouns or adjectives you see, and it changes the world to something different, related to that noun or adjective.

I found this game to be pretty short; altogether I think there were less than 40 keywords I could type. Many obvious words were not implemented, but this makes sense for an experimental game.

This kind of concept, whether inspired by this game or not, was further developed by Aisle and then Galatea, both games where the gameplay focuses on typing keywords in a room or a conversation, and text adapts around the words you type. I distinguish this from games like Blue Lacuna, where typing keywords just has you interact with the object.

I had mixed reactions to Bee by Emily Short, most of which were favorable. I compared this game in my mind to Bigger Than You Think by Plotkin, which is another choice game by a famous parser author.

The game is in a completely real-life setting. You play a homeschooled child over three years or more as they prepare for the national spelling bee. Time is organized in months. Each month, you can choose from a variety of activities usually three), and within each activity, you can control your reactions to events and sometimes some big choices.

The game allows quite a variety of choices; the first time I played, I practiced my butt off for the finals. The second time I played, I goofed off as much as possible.

The game was enjoyable; as someone who entered competitions like this as a kid, it was fun to study for the test and get competitive. The interactions with neighbors were fun, too.

But the game got pretty monotonous, perhaps because I tried to be so focused each time. 36 months, with multiple actions a month, makes for a long game, and there was not enough material to fill it all up. Instead, many scenarios were repeated five times or more.

This fantasy game was a lot of fun. You are washed up on an island after a big storm, and you slowly have to piece what happened together. The game purposely leads you to thinking one thing, then gives you a bit of a fakeout (or doesn't, depending on your point of view).

There are a dozen or more NPCs, and there are a great deal of sidequests. Most of the game can be skipped on a good walkthrough (or at least a good chunk of it).

The weird part was the fact that all single woman in the game are written as gorgeous and interested in your character, with you getting the pick of them. Now, dating simulation in general isn't a horrible idea, but one when character's description is that "The word 'buxom' was invented for her', it gets pretty lame. Fortunately, you can avoid anything you don't like.

This is a big, rich world, with a very large map. I only needed hints 2 or 3 times. On one puzzle, though, the whole puzzle revolved around examining an item only mentioned once in the middle of a room description that was one of dozens of room descriptions of no importance, so I don't think I would ever have solved it on my own, because I was skimming the descriptions by then.

I discovered Once and Future when looking at old XYZZY awards. The author of this game worked on it for 5 years in the 90's, frequently posting on forums about it, building everyone up to a huge excitement. It was released as the first big commercial game in years, and a whole issue of SPAG magazine was dedicated to it.

How does it fare? It is a fun, well-polished Arthurian game. An American soldier dies in Vietnam, and is taken to Avalon, being charged with a mission by Arthur to stop a terrible event in America's history.

Many reviewers noted that the writing is uneven, with the author having written it over 5 years and improving it in that time. Parts of it, like those with the (Spoiler - click to show)Straw King, are stirring and powerful. Others just seem like the author gave up; for instance, at one point your character openly complains about the endless scavenger hunts, and it is just laughed off.

This is a puzzle-heavy game, with two exceptionally hard puzzles. Fans of Mulldoon Legacy will get a kick out of this.

It is very long; following the walkthrough, I beat it in 1338 turns.

I believe I actually prefer Eric Eve's Arthurian epic, Blighted Isle, to this game. Eric Eve has more and better NPC's, more optional quests, lighter puzzles, and a better (though similar) backstory. My only quibble with Blighted Isle was its treatment of women, but Once and Future suffers from similar issues at times. However, Once and Future is more poetic/trippy than the prosaic Blighted Isle.

This all sounds negative, but I recommend this game to everyone. There is scattered strong profanity (mostly by soldiers in life-or-death situations), as well as a few mild sexual references.

Edit:I found the reason the game felt weaker to me in another review:

The room descriptions are in the feelies!

This explains why the game felt so lame. Random objects seemed to appear out of nowhere, and major rooms seemed to have no description at all. But the feelies seemed rich and interesting. I didn't realize that you were supposed to constantly refer to the feelies as you go.

I wonder if this was a way to make the game fit on a smaller disk with four variants.

This makes the game SO much better. Thanks for the tip, Victor!

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For those who have access to the feelies (such as in the iPad Lost Treasures of Infocom app), the backstories in the manual for this game were very enjoyable, much more than the game itself. I thought I should throw that out there.

This game is similar to An Act of Murder, where there are numerous possible suspects, multiple clues, and a variety of possible variations determined at the beginning of the game.

Both games were weaker, I feel, because they had to be adapted to work with multiple endings. For instance, in Moonmist, you find 'clues' that are just called 'clues'. Not scraps of paper, shreds of fabric, cards, etc. Just 'clues'. I assume they are different in each of the variations when you examine them (I only felt like playing through the 'green' version).

Moonmist is a kids game. This makes the game a bit harder at time; for instance, the room descriptions and directions get annoying at times.

The game is on a tight schedule, so you may have to restart before some characters leave.

The game has a cute idea where it calls you by your first name, and also by your title and last name when appropriate.

You play in a large castle with seven guests, investigating a supposed ghost that haunts the castle. Several mysterious deaths have occurred recently, and your friend is marrying the new Lord of the castle.

I don't recommend this game. I do recommend the manual.