Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This was a controversial IFComp game. Chandler Groover, known for writing well-received games with dense, descriptive writing, released a short and cryptic game for IFComp.

After listening to the author talk, and playing it myself, I now think I know what it's all about.

The clear part is that there is a fortune telling machine. People are 'added', which summons them to the machine. There, they are either equalized or multiplied.

After finding the easter egg, I realized on my most recent playthrough:

(Spoiler - click to show)The fortune telling machine is the engine for a spaceship/planet. Each person who is 'multiplied' is erased from existence. The energy from erasing them is used to rewrite the timeline to one where the planet is in another space. Movement by not moving, just changing the timestream.

Figuring this out made me like it more, otherwise I'd give it a 3. Nice presentation and good use of the Texture format.

I still don't know what being Equalized means.

This is a fairly lengthy game (including bonus material) that uses the limited parser format. The majority of the game involves compass movement and TAKE-ing and PUT-ing.

The overarching theme of the game is that you are in a temple filled with stories, each of the stories relating to a puzzle. The puzzles are all based of a single simple mechanic, probably simpler than anything DiBianca has used before. However, it quickly becomes more complicated.

It's almost like a testament to the power of binary. TAKE/PUT, like 0 and 1, can become anything in combination, including language, numbers, etc.

The only thing keeping it from being a perfect game to me is the way that the game is so divorced from emotional investment. This is a game for philosophical and logical contemplation.

This game has some beautiful styling and good mechanics.

You play as a Polynesian woman on a quest or rite of passage. You meet a strange group of islanders hiding secrets of their own. You have to investigate, with gamebook-style gameplay (finding inventory items, exploring with some time-progress elements).

The biggest obstruction to full enjoyment for me was the huge chunks of text, especially near the beginning. But, if you have time for the reading, and are a fan of gamebooks or Polynesian culture, this is a good read.

Has several well-done illustrations.

This game is one of the most complex Twine games I've seen.

Rather than focusing on conversation and emotional choices as many Twine games do, this game focuses on inventory management and movement around an extensive map, similar to typical parser gameplay.

This allows for some truly clever puzzles, including a major twist that only occurs in some playthroughs.

Strongly recommended for people looking for old-school puzzles and fans of sci-fi stories about artificial intelligence.

This is an interesting game; I had a ton of fun, but felt a bit deflated by my own ending (in hindsight, I should have saved!)

It's a homey game. You are on the run, but taken in by a sweet couple who run a tavern. They have odd chores for you...this game primarily consists of beating animate vegetables to death with a hammer. I found this very satisfying, and it even had an RPG-like element.

I got the ending faster than I thought I would, and I was specifically told I had picked the dullest ending, so I wish I had saved right before that or had an undo button.

Overall, it was an innovative concept and a game I enjoyed playing.

This is a fairly hefty Quest game in Bitter Karella's characteristic style: goofy characters, classic TAKE/DROP/LOOK gameplay, vivid settings.

You play as a "level 2 succubus" from the pits of tartarus, trying to find your mother who has been kidnapped by nuns.

The twist to this game is that you can possess all of the characters, each granting you different abilities and sometimes even changing the appearance of the game itself.

Quest always has some problems that make it not quite as responsive as inform, but Bitter Karella handles it well. I strongly recommend downloading for offline play, as the servers can get tied up.

This game is essentially unique among interactive fiction. In a Zork-like setting, you are a math wizard (or arithmancer) taking an exam.

Your job is to use spells to create sequences of decimals coming from famous mathematical constants. The further you can get in any one sequence, the more spells you get.

You begin with basics like addition or subtraction, but soon you gain spells that modify other spells and it all becomes complex and tangled up.

In the midst of this mathematical quest, the committee viewing you gossips about academic drama, discussing department conflicts and upcoming changes. As an academic myself, it is spot on.

I work with the author and beta-tested this game, but I wouldn't feel bad giving it a lower score if it deserved one. This is a fun game, and I recommend it.

It's rare when an IF game is presented exactly right, every portion designed perfectly well to give a uniform presentation. Liza Daly's Harmonia is sort of the standard for this type of presentation.

I think Bogeyman has achieved that level of quality. The layout, fonts, sound, and color scheme give gravitas and a haunting sense of dread to the story.

And the storyline fits the presentation, with interactions that lead you to believe that you can identify with your character, followed up with choices that pit your beliefs against themselves.

An effect, but disturbing, game. One of my go-to games when introducing IF to people.

This is a shortish replayable twine game where you assemble a team for a heist. You choose people for different roles, such as getaway driver, then see what happens.

It seems like a very branchy game, but a big chunk of branches are eliminated early on by one choice, making it smaller than it seems. The styling is non-existent, using the standard Twine design and formatting.

The characters are memorable, though. It's pretty intense for a humor game, and I played it several times.

This is a great comedy based on misunderstandings and physical humor.

You are a thief, sent to steal a priceless object from a British manor. But to do so, you must assum a variety of costumes and identities.

Along the way, you discover the secrets of the household and the neighborhood, including lies, deceit, regret, and gorillas.

There were a few sticky points in puzzles that were fussier than they needed to be, but otherwise this is a prime example of what a polished parser puzzler can look like. One of the best games of the 2010’s.