Reviews by MathBrush

This is a big game. You have a long, opening sequence (very long!) that is entirely linear, then you begin the actual game, which is one of the best RPGs I've seen in text (Kerkerkruip is the other, and they're roughly equal in quality).

You are on a sort of elevator-like platform, and you ascend from level to level. To ascend requires 3 keys; each level has 8 doors with a variety of challenges. These challenges include trap-filled pathways, combat, mini-games of cards/fantasy chess, and occasionally some bizarre extra paths.

Everything is hyperlinks, making combat much more enjoyable than usual. Magic is simple. There is a complex money system, and most levels let you pick between seeing an armorer or an apothecary.

More than anything, it reminded me of Final Fantasy VII and Conan the Barbarian. The enemies start out as zombies and humanoid fungus, but you eventually find Guards of the Tower, Captains of the Tower, and Swordsmen of the Tower, much like Shinra Tower in FFVII.

I got to the 7th stage, but was unable to defeat the end guardian.

The story and writing is exactly the sort of thing TSR was putting out in the 90's. You're in a sort of dreamworld that is stable, and are hired out as an assassin, with the king as your target. The monsters are generally right out of a D&D handbook. There seems to be some mild racy parts, but my French vocabulary doesn't include that sort of thing, so it's easy to self-censor.

Like all other John Evans games, this is a really big game that promises some cool stuff (being able to cast all sorts of spells and having a portable house), but is not able to deliver on its promises.

The walkthrough is interesting, though, and worth checking out.

This was David Whyld's first IFcomp game.

This game is just really, really big, with tons of conversations and features.

It's just too big; page after page of text dumps make it difficult to pay attention to what you're trying to do.

It involves a fantasy land where everyone references american pop culture and you learn DnD spells.

This game has you wandering around a space ship with slowly evolving goals. You begin as a tourist and end up as much more.

The game was competently programmed, but dry. I found it difficult to be invested in the game.

One of the biggest sticking points is a maze with randomized directions (so every turn the game spins you around). There is an item that helps, but it's a bit tedious, especially since there are 4 locations leading off of it that you need to get to.

This is one of several different executable games entered into the 2001 IFComp where you wander around a very large area and engage in random RPG combat.

I only played a few minutes of the game. The music and images were interesting, but I just had a hard time getting into the interaction; also, I could see from the walkthrough that this is a very very long game.

When I saw this had the same opening as You Were Doomed From the Start, my heart sank.

This is a two-part ms-dos game, but I know of noone who has passed the first few rooms, as every step has you fight a monster called Double J, an in-joke about one of the author's friends, I believe.

By examining the code in Notepad++, I could read a lot of the text; there's a giant shape to the map, and a bomb of some sorts. Apparently there is a cheat, and a new game++. But noone's ever reached it.

This is a long and well-polished game, but it has a number of difficult features, like items you have to take at the right time or you'll be closed off forever, a maze, etc.

It felt somewhat tedious to play through. It had a teenage girl that loves swearing; in fact, it's one of her main characteristics.

Interesting, but ultimately not one I'd replay.

This is a big, old-school game with tons of pictures. Expect quicksand, killer mosquitoes, a big maze, a light puzzle, a hunger puzzle, searching many random objects, etc.

I played with the walkthrough, but this would be a big, big game without it.

Story was pretty good, but navigating the swamp was tedious. The puzzles weren't too bad. Randomly has a troll.

The Unnkulia games filled the gap between the end of Infocom/Magnetic Scrolls and the beginning of Inform. They were juvenile, focused on 'bro' type humor, misogyny, and underclued puzzles.

This game manages to ampmlify all of that. It suffers from several problems, including an overly large scope. Every location has several paragraphs of text, frequently a whole page. The puzzles use moon-logic where it's very hard to know what will happen next.

This game seems strongly influenced by the previous year's massive Mulldoon Legacy. You are investigating your uncle's museum/hotel, and you discover a crackling energy portal leading to ancient times.

The game has some tricky puzzles, and the published version is in fact not completable. However, the source code provided does compile correctly.

I found the game to be fun but to have way too many 'guess the author's brain'-type puzzles.