Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

I enjoyed the story in this game quite a bit, more than just about any other game in the competition.

You play as a magical crow who is fleeing a destructive sentient firestorm. You have to hop from town to town, trying to warn everyone while fighting a bad reputation.

I enjoyed the characters and setting; it was generic fantasy, but not swords and sorcery generic fantasy, more of Diana Wynn Jones or fairy tales.

There were some noticeable typos, though, which detracted from the experience.

This is probably the slickest of all the games entered this year.

This is a short mystery tale set in a women's college in (I think) the northeast. You are replacing a professor who has mysteriously disappeared.

The main narrative is about time-hoppers (which feels more like a temporal Gulliver's Travels than H.G. Wells), but there is a sub-narrative about the place of adjunct/temporary/visiting faculty and the various roles of women in academia.

The game beautifully divides between 'asides'-links and 'moving forward'-links by having the first show up as notes in the margin and the latter extending the text.

It's well-illustrated and well-written. One of the best web games available.

This game is a worthy sequel to Toiletworld, by Chet Rocketfrak (presumably the same as Chad Rocketman).

This game centers around Bilbert/Bolbert, who has something wrong with them. You can talk to Bilbert, or enter Bilbert.

There's not much more than that. I found it amusing, but the author is clearly aiming for a 1-star rating, and who am I to refuse?

This game is centered around a language or collection of languages that the protagonist is trying to study.

The central mechanic is that you are presented with 3-syllable words that you can alter.

The discussion centers on the idea that language influences our thoughts and actions, and vice-versa.

I liked this game, but it didn't draw me in emotionally.

This is a very short little game where you are trying to get your crazy future-telling device to work.

It's a one-room game, but very little is implemented. I had to decompile the game to figure out how to get the device to work. I had further difficulties with basic commands like going in doors.

The idea isn't bad, but it could be better developed.

I beta tested this game.

This is an ambitious concept debuted here in a demo game. It is an rpg game with procedurally generated text and spinning wheels indicating combat.

I liked the system quite a bit; the styling was good, and the graphics nice. I felt a bit dissociated from the story; like real RPGs, the story was in service to the puzzles.

There is hidden material here; despite beta testing and playing again later, I didn't find the sword or defeat the giant monster. Worth checking it out to see the system.

This game is a mid-length Twine game (30,000 words in 214 passages).

It's about a rough, one-eyed monster hunter named Jacobi. He's carrying out various tasks for the king in return for help for his loved one.

The game has you face three challenges, each with a map and combat. They become darker as you progress, with the title referring to thematic darkness.

I actually liked this game's interactivity (moving, fighting, buying and selling), but there were several typos, and I was turned off by the 'grizzled unhappy war hero make dark choices' theme. I like those themes in general, but only lightened by a great deal of heart. This game has some (with Elias and Cassandra), but for my personal tastes, I would have liked more balance. This is definitely a personal thing, and others may wish it even darker.

This is a short Twine game where there are many branches (around 60 endings), but each play through is very short.

There is no distinctive CSS styling, but the game is written in a consistent voice.

I downloaded the file and opened it up in Twinery to see the code, and I think I know what happened with the development of this game. It seems to be a classic case of "What's fun for the author isn't what's fun for the player."

The Twine code is lovingly organized and garnished, with little extras here and there, either private jokes or Easter eggs for code-readers. The code branches all over, and has little Easter egg chunks like a map of the author's house, a little section on self-harm, asides, the chance to fight the narrator, etc.

The problem with this structure is that the player never sees it. As is common in this author-centered style, the cool content is hidden in branches the player is unlikely to take. The most normal branches are the shortest and the most straightforward. An author tends to think, 'Ah-ha! The player will try the first few branches, realize that something is off, and try the elaborate branches!'

But what tends to happen is, the player thinks, 'I've seen a lot of short, under implemented fantasy twine games. I've played through twice, and that's what this seems like, so I'm out of here', never seeing what lies beneath.

Another issue is that, because each play through is so short, most of the work is on content the player will never see. Cat Manning had the same issue with Crossroads in the 2015 IFComp, and later worked to retool her style with Invasion, which had longer playthroughs.

So, this is a lovingly-crafted, well-written game, but if you want to see all of it, you need to put in a lot of work.

I helped beta test this game.

This game meets my niche interests well. It is a combat random combat RPG in a fantasy setting, where it's mostly puzzle-based; most monsters are extremely difficult to defeat until you solve another puzzle, than become generally easy. It allows for some variability, though, as you can sequence break or die in an easy fight due to randomness.

I thought this was fun. A couple of times I felt thwarted by not knowing what to do, though.

I beta tested this game.

This is a story that only branches twice, but does so in an effective way. You are the wife of a puppet master who performs across the country, but you have to make a difficult choice when he turns to dark means to support his work.

It's fairly short, and it uses type-writer effect text on light backgrounds with music/sound effects.