Reviews by MathBrush

This reminds me of a John Evans game. John Evans used to write games that had these absolutely crazy mechanics, like teleporting anything in the game to you or being able to wish for anything.

This game revolves around the mechanic of comparing, where you find things that are similar and say COMPARE [THING] TO [THING], when the first becomes the second. Or something. Not a single time it appeared in the walkthrough did it make sense to me.

The story is kind of odd, too, a bunch of rabbits on a rampage. But it was overall descriptive and fairly fun.

The Xen games in general are well-described, with extensive backstory and compelling characters.

In this sequel, the powers you discovered in part 1 are out of control, and the police (and others) are hot on your trail.

The game includes chase sequences, extensive conversations, cutscenes, etc.

Unfortunately, the author didn't find a good way for people to discover this stuff on their own. It switches between extreme railroading and extreme lack of guidance. But I enjoyed it.

This is a big game that is (I think) written by a couple of kids and a parent. It's scope far exceeded the team's grasp, and what's left is a bizarre and difficult game that is clearly under-implemented and nonsensical.

Items require non-sequitur interactions, the setting leaps from place to place, and even the format for score increases changes from brackets to asterisks. The walkthrough is filled with moments where the author messed up and tried something else. The only saving grace this game has is the cheerful enthusiasm behind it and the sounds, colors, and images early on.

This game is set on the Titanic, and borrows a small bit from that show. There's no romance, but you play a thieving character who must hide from the law on the ship, including using an axe on metal and having a special painting.

The game is huge, but it comes with a very helpful map.

The main puzzles are fairly well clued, but there are a host of other puzzles. The fussy mechanic of opening and closing the suitcase, as well as the maze-like map, is fairly frustrating, though.

This is a game almost all of whose problems could have been fixed with beta testing. The author did much of the work for a great game, but it's that testing and polishing that makes or breaks games.

This game has mislabeled exits, strange computation problems that make it chug to a snail's speed at times, unimplemented scenery items, guess-the-verb problems, and a 'kill people and impress women' play style that was never my thing. I was frustrated with playing, and one of the last things I saw was 'a cloud of liquid gas'.

But the core of the game is extensive worldbuilding and intricate characters. This could have been a great game. The author of this, 14 years later, could likely produce something truly marvelous. But I don't think this is it.

This was the only IFComp 2018 game I had never finished. I finally finished it today. There was no walkthrough at the time of the comp, and the one in there now doesn't work for the last area.

But I finished it today, and that last area wasn't too bad!

The reason I had so much trouble is because Quest has synonym trouble, and the author didn't implement very many synonyms. Quest also has context-sensitive commands, which is great except when it makes commands seem wrong when you're just using them out of order. So for instance, "USE MATCH ON LUMP" gives an error unless you've done everything else completely right.

Other issues are unguessable puzzles, leaps of intuition, etc.

But the characters are fun, and it's all very imaginative. I remember Steph Cherrywell made the switch from Quest to Inform and ended up winning IFComp. I think almost all the issues here are with the Quest engine, and that the author has great ideas that may possibly be expressed in a different format.

This game took a lot of work, and will provide great enjoyment for many people.

It's a parser game that is (as far as I can tell) bug-free and has creative puzzles, lasting longer than pretty much all the other parser games in IFComp that aren't buggy.

So why am I only giving it 3 points? The interactivity and polish felt off to me.

The game is fairly generic, especially with the standard responses. X ME, JUMP, SING (even at a concert!), DANCE etc. either give the normal response or aren't implemented at all.

And many interactions seem purposelessly fussy, almost like imitating what they think old games were like. Possessing only one object capable of creating fires, the verb LIGHT asks 'with what'? Saying LIGHT WITH [FIRE THING] doesn't fix it; you need to turn on the fire thing. But TURN ON [FIRE THING] isn't implemented. You need to LIGHT [FIRE THING] then LIGHT [THE THING YOU WANT TO BURN].

Similarly, when there's one puzzle that requires you to listen to a loud ambient thing, just LISTEN isn't good enough, you have to say what to listen to. And so on.

It seems a definite stylistic choice, and one that didn't resonate with me. If you're looking for a bug-free game with a big map, creative puzzles, and extensive gameplay, this is your game.

I grade on a 5 point scale: polish, descriptiveness, interactivity, emotional impact, and if I would play it again.

This games passes all 5 points, but it just squeaks by on a few.

Polish: The graphics aid immensely in this area. A few things could be worded more graciously, like changing some more standard responses.

Descriptiveness: This is pretty easy to award. The game is lush in every way.

Interactivity: I struggled with verbs from time to time, and some puzzle solutions were obtuse, but some interactivity was so clever I just had to laugh. (a particular amusing example is (Spoiler - click to show)finding the silver key)

Emotional impact: Some of it was silly, but I felt a definite atmosphere throughout the game, and the villa portion was tense at times.

Play again: I see myself revisiting this in the future.

So that's my 5 star rating for you. It's a fairly simple game in structure, with some tricky puzzles. Best for fans of older style games, especially Scott Adams and Magnetic Scrolls.

This Fallen London exceptional story was well-put together but didn't appeal to me as much as the others.

In this story, you explore the names of the London streets. If you've played Fallen London, you'll know that the names are all different from real London, with jokes and allusions taking place of the actual names.

This story has you become a surveyor and a recruit of a group trying to discover the 'bones of London', the true names and map. And that's pretty much it.

For fans of London itself, map enthusiasts, and Fallen London fanatics, I recommend this game.

I highly recommend Gavin Inglis's other material, and his writing in this game. It was just the concept that didn't appeal as much to me.

Several others had recommended this exceptional story to me. And I found it really was as good as they say.

In this game, you encounter a band of children, just as much heroes as your character is, except in their own sphere.

You take part in their adventures, seeing Fallen London through a child's eyes, and encounter a bittersweet story of growth and loss.

Highly recommended.