Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This game was entered in IFComp 2016, but disappeared shortly thereafter.

However, lglasser recorded multiple playthroughs, which completely shows the gameplay, as it is a disjoint collection of sequences/videos triggered by clicking on labelled items on a screen.

The game is graphics-heavy, with pure white silhouettes against hand-drawn backgrounds. It also comes with music.

After hearing good things about the game, I was surprised how angsty and profanity-laden the game was. There is a whole genre out there of shocking confessions, which isn't my style, but this story is well done in that genre.

This game is strongly (by the author's admission) influenced by porpentine.

It mimics Porpentine's uses of multi-colored links and cycling back to one location, and background music, as well as visceral/gooey scenes and identity horror.

However, it lacks a great deal of porpentine's pacing. Frequently, new text is delayed for several seconds before appearing. There are no consistent 'rules' for how scenes proceed; many threads are introduced that are not resolved.

I found that the game was stronger the longer it went.

In this game, you use a remote control to interact with various tv shows. These include a game show, a survivor-like show, and one I'll leave unmentioned for surprises.

The concept is fun, but the execution combines under-implementation, heavy-handedness, and lampshaded 4th wall breaking that is never resolved as to why it should occur.

This game was coded in 2.5 days by a first time author with one beta tester. It requires what is generally an annoying way of interacting with a game. By all standards, it should be a fairly horrible game.

But it placed 19th out of 35, and wasn't really that bad. I like fairly campy, psychological horror, and this game provides it. It had great descriptions, and spookily changing descriptions.

This is a very short game. I liked it, in the end.

This game casts you as a werewolf agent for a large group of werewolves. You have to travel to a snow-covered Chinese village to investigate its destruction.

The story and setting are actually pretty good, and I liked this game. Where it falls down is in presenting information to the player; nowhere, even in the extensive menu system, are you told how to transform between human and wolf. Conversation topics have to be guessed to proceed with little in-game explanation.

Fun mid-length game to take for a spin. Nice use of different senses in descriptions.

This game is big, and full of little easter eggs. It's one of those games that is created with love and creative, but seemingly based on things in the author's life and somewhat underclued.

Typical puzzles in this game include finding keys and operating semi-complicated machinery.

This game casts you as the vampire Martin Voigt, travelling through a hellish landscape to retrieve three talismans of power and find the three priestesses who can help him.

The setting is imaginative and well-defined. Generally, each room contains a challenge, which at first can be solved with a basic power, and later requires you to fetch items from the other parts of the (small) map.

It was a bit gorey and not for young children. Some of the interactivity was off, in the sense that actions were underclued. But the overall level of polish was high.

This game feels just like all of the 60's scifi stories I read growing up, in a good way.

You play as a young child on a lonely outpost in the sea during a war between Earth and Mars. Alone for the day, you get to use your imagination around the island, until events take a sudden turn.

The multiple viewpoints reminded me favorably of Rover's Day Out and Delphina's House.

There were a few parts where the interactivity just didn't do it for me, which is why I deducted one star.

This game has numerous issues, and is best played with a walkthrough.

With a walkthrough, it can be pretty fun. It does include steps like waiting 19 times in a row, with each Z producing a text dump.

The reason it can be fun is that its story, which has early hints about employees not being all the way there and oddly intelligent robotic devices, is compelling in the large scale.

Worth trying if you like to skim read and don't mind walkthroughs.

This game casts you as a demon in the bureaucracy of hell. You decide to make a break for it and get out.

This game has several NPCs, most of whom respond to just a few topics/activities. It has well-coded puzzles involving searching and manipulation.

But much of it just feels underclued, especially the second half of the game. This makes it somewhat difficult to finish.