This is a creative horror game, focused on ghoulish/crypt horror and exploring some tombs/labs.
The game is creative, with various NPCs that are active. But the implementation is no good, with even the walkthrough's commands being unrecognized at times.
Still, it is interesting for fans of non-Lovecraftian horror.
This game had the code to crack some sort of copyright protection (maybe on DVDs?)
It was entered in IFComp to make some sort of message. It's not even intended to be IF.
This game is purposely wacky and silly. This would be fun, but it has numerous implementation errors, and a game-ending bug that prevents you from leaving a room as a scene fires over and over.
The author knew the game wasn't that well put together, so they threw in some funny stuff. The spirit guide that follows you everywhere is bizarre. The author has a lot of imagination; this game could be a lot of fun with more work.
In this game, you play Adoo, a college student come home who discovers it's going to be sold. So you decide to set up a stink bomb based on half-remembered ingredients your dad mentioned in a dungeons and dragons-esque tale.
This game has great ideas but is lacking in concept. It has many guess-the-verb problems, typos, and scenes mis-firing. But the writing is humorous and friendly.
This game is a reworking of Adventure, and was released commercially by Level 9.
It's generally similar to Adventure, with the dragon puzzle made easier, but it has a much bigger endgame where you have to save hundreds of elves (but your actions save about a hundred at a time).
It has graphics that add a lot to the game, even though they are nowhere near as good as Magnetic Scrolls.
Gargoyle plays level 9 games, so if you want to try this out, it may be a fun way to play the original Adventure game.
This was an Ectocomp 2016 speed game. This is set in a MLP-type world, similar to Owlor's other games.
You are a hardened and vicious magic-using pony out for revenge. You need to go an a quest to find the ingredients for your potion.
This was relatively straightforward, and fun, with good cluing, until I got stuck on one ingredient for a long time due to misunderstanding a description.
It is unpolished and didn't draw me in, but that is due to it being a speed-IF.
This is a shortish alt-game about bullying and abusive relationships. It is illustrated with various hand-drawn illustrations.
You play as a character who is in a sort of abusive relationship, and who doesn't fit in. You have to deal with this relationship and how it affects the rest of your life. It can get intense, with some strong profanity.
It gave me a good sense of the emotion involved in the game, but it felt like it could use more polish.
In this game, you are reading through diary entries of a young child going through several years of school. It's a twine-type game, and it has a large scope, going through several years at a fast space.
You have several friends you interact with, with mechanics keeping track of the relationships, but I found this fairly opaque; I wished I had more feedback on my choices. One nice feature was that choices you were not able to make due to past choices were crossed out, showing you 'what could have been'.
The game treats very serious subjects, including sexual assault. The biggest drawback to me was having trouble seeing how my choices relate to the pages you reach.
This game was really talked about a lot in the 2016 IFComp. It is unusual; it consists of many (< 500) short stories about apocalypses, many of them grim or with body horror, but with good writing. The player was invited to add to the total number of apocalypses.
I found a lot of the apocalypses very enjoyable. The format was hard for me to navigate, though; I couldn't find new stories at the pace that I wanted to. They are linked by keywords, sometimes, and sometimes not (i.e. there are dead-end links).
I enjoyed it.
This game reminds me in length and quality of a hosted Choice of Games commercial game. It has similar amounts of text per choice, and has 9 different relationships you can work on.
The main difference between this and choice of games is that there are frequently just 2 choices, while CoG tends to have 3 or more choices.
However, the author did a good job at making the game interesting by not making it clear which, if any, option is the 'right' option. I think this game provided a very clear picture of what a psych ward might be like. I chose to ally with a friend with borderline personality disorder.