Reviews by MathBrush

This game is unusual in that is written in the Scots dialect, which is quite different from American English, my native language. However, the author has provided in game translations, and it's not too hard to see the meaning in Scots even without translation.

The game has two parts, a Scots part about a modern day person who is trying to resist a panic attafck, and a standard English part about a person on a Celtic quest for a magic staff.

The game was not too long, but the combination lock required some research and there are opportunities for losing in the middle. There is also a maze.

Overall, I liked this game, but the Celtic part seemed just added in; I wished it was integrated more fully. I did not play the commercial version, which may have resolved this issue, being twice as long.

I really enjoyed the concept and execution of this game, except for some slow points at the beginning and end.

This game is, in fact, an enigma. You start in an almost blank room, frozen in time, and must slowly recall and piece together what's going on.

The story that unfolds is gloomy and perhaps over dramatic, but I found it intriguing.

The main mechanic, which I won't describe here, is almost like a hunt the pixel game, but in text. The initial hiccup is finding out how the mechanic works. The final hiccup is trying to figure out which thing you have neglected to search.

As Emily short said in a review of Toby's Nose, that game has a similar mechanic that was also effective.

This game was well known a decade or two ago. This is a dark and moody, puzzleless game. You go to a funeral, meet with some NPCS, and experience some moody set pieces.

The interactivity is off; you have to guess a lot what to do, from beginning to end.

This game was ahead of its time in many ways. It doesn't use the compass it was puzzleless 2 years before photopia, and it restricted the parser. It is descriptive and polished.

This twine game was entered in the 2013 IFComp. It takes about 10-20 minutes to play.

In this game, you play someone confined to an apartment with a few furnishings like a futon, tv and game console, like Howling Dogs, you spend each day interacting with the same items in a confined space. However, each interaction brings on a strange sort of surreal narrative.

Some parts were done very well, while others felt less effective. I couldn't decide if it was genius or madness.

This game is full of empty locations and mazes, with a light sprinkling of items. Many items have one chance to use them correctly, which, if you miss, there is no way to fix it.

You are trying to get into a castle to rescue a princess. Or are you? It's hard to tell. I felt a good Scott Adams vibe from this at first, but the sheer number of mazes and empty rooms became frustrating.

This game uses a complicated custom interface to tell three stories at the same time. You play as three agent:, agent Alpha, agent Bravo, and agent Charlie, whose job is to prevent certain secrets from falling into the wrong hands.

You can push time forward or reverse it at any time, and hop between the three threads of the story. There are only a few decision points scattered between the different stories, so you have to hunt for them.

I felt that the interaction didn't quite work; it ended being a hunt-the-pixel game translated to text. It wasn't obvious what different elements in the interface did, or what consequences your effects had.

This choicescript game was entered in ifcomp 2010. It was one of the first choicescript games ever entered in ifcomp.

This game has the unusual setting if the American revolution. You play as a witch using one of any variety of kinds of witchcraft. You can tailor your character quite a bit.

The game isn't quite polished, with some heavy-handed choices (basically 'give up' or 'continue the story'). But I liked the overall result. It is shorter than most choicescript games.

This game is just a string of puzzles with a thin story set up around it. The first few puzzles are fairly fun, though occasionally underclued. The last puzzle is just brtual, involving a machine that transforms playing cards.

The game doesn't seem to be butgy, and it seems to be intended to be frustrating and difficult, so it succeeds at what it wants to be. But it is under described, and too hard for my taste.

This game has descriptive writing and a good story. You wake up on an exam table in a bare room.

This game is short, with 3 total points to earn. However, the sequence of actions necessary to get those points is arbitrary and difficult to come up with on one's one. This is further muddled by implementation bugs (especially the 'violence isn't the answer to this one' me tinned in other reviews).

I recommend playing this one with the walkthrough.

This game is inspired by a book written by the creator of Conan the Barbarian. You wander about a dark and grim city after reading the book in-game.

The atmosphere is creepy and the writing starts out descriptive, but the game sort of devolves into sparer writing later on.

The biggest trouble here is the very difficult set of puzzles, requiring you to carry out a large number of very unintuitive actions in order to progress.