Reviews by MathBrush

This Twine game is longer than most Twine games running from 30 to 60 minutes.

It is an adaptation of an old short story about a Griffin and a church official that had a good grasp of location to begin with. Groover has assembled all the locations in the story into a coherent world.

The story itself is poignant and meaningful, which has led to its enduring popularity as a short story.

Overall, the writing is descriptive, and I enjoyed the interactivity. At the time that I played the game, there was more timed delays than I preferred, but the author was contemplating shortening them.

This game placed near the middle of IFCOMP 2002. In this game, you play a spy who must infiltrate a building, steal information, but leave no trace.

The leaving no trace bit is interesting, similar to Sub Rosa and the orange room in The Recruit. However, all of the puzzles are difficult, as they only admit one solution, even if other reasonable solutions are avilable. Also, the game is inconsistent in what it considers as leaving a trace or not.

The writing was descriptive and the game would be thrilling if not for the frequent interruptions due to odd puzzles.

This game is a shortish parser game about a trial run of an automatic typo corrector. The majority of the game is spent trying to fix a bizarre machine.

This game had several implementation issues, including fatally crashing the game when looking up various topics in the manual.

The puzzles in this game are fiddly. I have a distaste for machinery puzzles, but those who enjoy them will like this game.

The writing is descriptive, and though the first part was bland, I loved the ending, so I'm giving this 2 stars.

This is a short game with multiple paths to getting through each puzzle. You are trying to get coffee to stay buzzed at work.

Many of the puzzles are unintuitive, like (Spoiler - click to show)looking in a book to get an apron for a different store. However, at least there are multiple routes for each puzzle. The implementation is spotty (TAKE ALL let's you take a door). Overall, I recommend it only for fans of the office genre.

John Evans is know for large, complex games that are often unfinished or broken. This game is the most polished of his that I have played. It is complete, and free of typos.

However, the plot and puzzles are confusing. You are wandering around a cave with colored crystals and rooms corresponding to elements. There are tons of interactions that just make no sense, and some guess the verb

Recommended, with hints, only for fans of big puzzles games.

This longish game is a text port of the graphical game Return to Zork. This text port was entered in IFCOMP.

Porting this game was a big task, and many parts of it were rushed. Typos abound, and some implementation is spotty.

Overall, though, I enjoyed playing this as an alternative to downloading the graphical game. I've played most Infocom games so this was a nice way to continue onward.

In the game you have to return to the areas of Zork I and Zork II to investigate disappearances.

In this game, you visit a small village and learn a terrible secret.

This game begins with a very unrealistic but mercifully short sex scene. As others have noted, the game accepts only one command in each scene to advance the plot.

The writing is vivid and descriptive, but the plot zigzags. The main path is implemented well. Overall, an interesting storyline with some potholes and weaker implementation.

I've always enjoyed Lovecraftian interactive fiction games. This one hits up a lot of the good elements: a cult, unspeakable horrors, creative monsters.

You explore a mansion, trying to rescue the father of a little girl from an untrustable friend.

Unfortunately, the game is marred by both bugs (like room text appearing in incorrect rooms) and questionable puzzle design (like having 20 hiding places to search to find 2 or 3 items).

Also, there is a lot of goofy humor interspersed throughout the game, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

This game placed in the middle of ifcomp the year it came out.

You play an office workers who is excited for a date after work, but has been asked to stay late to finish some stuff up.

You go around a small, 5-room office, negotiating, searching, etc.

Some of the puzzles are clever, but others are pretty opaque. I felt like I had to really lean on the walkthrough.

The setting was portrayed fairly accurately. There was one unfortunate part with a pin-up calendar, but the game is completely tame otherwise.

This game started off with some guess-the-verb puzzles and some rough edges in room descriptions, but once the game started picking up, the storyline became very enjoyable.

You play a pizza delivery boy who has to run a pizza to a courthouse. As the game progresses, you experience ruins with the mafia, natural disasters, and essentially the collapse of society in your town. The last scene in the game is truly awesome.

Hard without the walkthrough due to a lack of synonyms