Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This game is short with some interesting branching. You play as a variety of characters, all of which are tied up with a sort of Spider God manifested in webs and small spiders.

The writing is uneven, varying between creepy and jokey, which causes some disruption when reading. I enjoy this type of story a lot, but it doesn't really distinguish itself from other creepypasta.

Recommended for fans like me of surreal, amnesiatic type games.

According to my rating system, this is a 4 star game. It is not polished, but it is descriptive, it made me feel intrigued, the often frustrating mechanics somehow had their own logic that worked, and I could see myself playing it again one day.

However, my personality enjoyment was around 3 stars. In particular, I disliked the macho attitude, especially towards women, the overblown metaphors, and the unnecessary fiddly interactions.

The basic story, which is very solid, is based on preexisting content from Lovecraft, filtered through a paper RPG along the way. You are asked to investigate a young man who has gone insane and is robbing graves. You have to travel to a variety of locations to unravel the story.

You are a stereotypical detective with fedora, trench coat and revolver. The game is lengthy, and many of the programming seems to be simple hacks. For instance, all important conversation occurs on a timer, where NPCS come in, talk, and walk away over several turns. The command 'dig' returns a command that only pertains to one area as the author assumed no one would type that command elsewhere. Rooms are occasionally left empty, many synonyms are left unimplemented, etc. I encountered a bug early on where a character told me to leave, and I didnt, and they just repeated their command over and over, but I was not allowed to leave. Commands were sometimes purposely obtuse, like telling me to push doorbell instead of ring doorbell.

But somehow all of it makes a pattern; if you know a game wants to be unfair, you keep your eyes out. The author has a good grasp of pacing, and of world building. But the sexualization of women and the crazy metaphors are a real drawback.

This game is a short-to-mid-length parser game about trying to send a check to the bank. As you try to do so, things go terribly wrong.

This game felt a little bland and under implemented, but then great moments were sprinkled throughout that would make me want to play it again. A cockroach and a young child provide some memorable interactions, and unexpected events at the bank add to the story as well. But it overall feels a bit unpolished or unfinished, as if the author ran out of time.

It has a timer puzzle early on, and a couple of sticky points verb-wise later on.

This game has one big innovation, where it has a personality test at the beginning and you end up playing one of four characters. Each of the 4 characters has a special section of the game that only they play. Then you work together with one friend, and then with all 4 to solve the game.

The plot is jumbled, and the writing is spare and choppy. The game is under implemented, and very short. However, the key concept makes it interesting.

This game is brief, and is based on (I believe) on the Masque of the Red Death.

The game is sub-q style, short and straightforward, but Bruno manages to make it interesting. The writing is heavy, like Devil's Food Cake. The game is an adaptation, but with enough early changes that I was intrigued to see where it would go storywise.

The game has good replay value due to a sequence of end actions wandering about a party and choosing what rooms to visit. I found at least two different interesting sequences.

I recommend this game as a short literary bite.

This game is a short Twine game with two main branches that mirror each other. You play through the love story of a boy and a girl struggling to discuss their feelings with each other.

The game uses Twine effects well, with color changing links, hover-over links, real-time cycling links, etc. making the game a dynamic and enjoyable experience, although brief.

The writing is a bit spare, but fresh. I was pleased with the overall experience.

This game was written as an independent study project for a student as part of their graduation. For a small project, it's not bad; the 1 star doesn't mean that the author did a bad job, just that it didn't match my criteria.

You play through a short fantasy sequence leading into a castle, where you have to answer a series of questions about what you love most, and power, and so on. Depending on your answers, you are awarded a magical Arcanum and a distinct ending.

The styling is standard CSS and the game doesn't allow much flexibility in actions until the highly branching finale.

In this Twine game, you play an IFComp author who has to throw together a game in the last minute.

You look around your room for inspiration for a good guy, a bad guy, and a evil plan. Then, you combine them into an action-packed story which you can play and replay.

The game is goofy and fun, and well-put together. It uses out-of-the-box Twine with no special styling (I think the later game Machine of Death by this author did more with styling).

Overall, though, the game felt slight, and not as comedically compelling as it could be.

This game won 3rd place in the IFComp the year it was entered, and is one of the shortest games to ever make the top 3. It has quite a few illustrations in it in a comics style.

As a content warning, this game has 3 parts, and the first part is full of large amounts of strong profanity and a general sort of vague nastiness. It made me put of this game for a long time, and I don't intend to play again.

Besides that, the game is very well written, with strong characterization and clever interaction. You play as 3 distinct PCs whose fates revolve around a small store called Cost Cutters. Each character gets 1 or 2 short scenarios where you are given strong guidance, until the final scenario where you have a tight time schedule (with infinite chances to retry) and a more difficult puzzle.

This game was a CYOA-experiment in 1999's IFComp. You simply choose whether to advance the story or end the game.

You can only advance the story 4-5 times before it ends.

The writing is well-done, although (probably purposely) overblown. The interactivity comes from the fact that each advancing paragraph has a number of variations. If you wish, you can cycle through these variations by typing 'No'.

This was an interesting experiment by Ian Finley, author of many experiments, such as Exhibition, where you just examine paintings.