Reviews by MathBrush

This game was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words for less.

It uses some creative styling with black and white geometric figures (although it did overlap the text a bit on my laptop screen).

It presents three visions of anxiety: worry about the future, worry that the present is slipping by, and ruminations on the past.

Each is countered by a cat, though, which is sweet. There wasn't any wrapping-up at the end that I found, just three separate paths. Maybe there was one additional passage before looping, but it was hard to tell.

This poem was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less.

It is written using a variety of visual techniques, including spacing the poem very carefully using columns, lines, tabs, and spaces, and changing colors for both links and backgrounds, as well as hover.

The poem muses on the author's perception of the self; trying to understand why they look so different than others, which features that don't match the standard of beauty. They look to a distant parent, an 'other', unknown, who gave them these features, and contemplate what seeing their similarities would be like.

I definitely know how this feels! I too have been startled when looking in the mirror, realizing that I don't really look like people in the shows I've been watching or (now that college is a distant memory) realizing I don't look like the 18 yr old I imagine myself to be.

But like the author (except I don't need to imagine), connecting with family really helps. I have a big, bulbous nose that is very distinct. But in family pictures, you can trace the exact nose back to my dad, his mom, and her mom, passed on from generation to generation. When I see that, I'm proud, and I'm glad of this game for reminding me.

This game has an amazing concept with a few snags here or there.

It was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less.

You are a witch facing execution for the death of a boy. Your throat has been cut, but you are able to piece together words from those spoken by others in a form of mimicry.

These words are shown as golden, shinging letters floating in a void. Selecting them is simple, and it looks very nice.

The difficulty is the interaction; you can form sentences from words (and later words from letters) but there are so many possible orders and combinations (I think 1000 or so combos are available on one page) that it can be hard to figure out what works and what doesn't.

Definitely one of the most visually nice games I've seen in a while, would love to make my games look this nice (especially for a title screen or something).

This game was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less.

However, it contains a great deal of graphics and sound, making it a longer experience than its word count might as first suggest.

It's exactly what it states; you play as a character who keeps visiting a website called evisceratethisgirl.com where you make an avatar of yourself and then stab it.

The idea is to communicate self-hatred, loathing and despair. The graphics continually get more glitchy and dark.

For me, the narrative emotion arc was a bit off. It starts off grotesquely and with distorted visuals right off the bat. There's not much chance to identify with the protagonist because they're immediately displayed as an unusually messed up person. So when things progress, it doesn't feel like it's happening to me. Similarly, the graphics start out shocking and weird, so there's not much room for it to grow. But this is subjective and another person might have the opposite reaction.

This game is a Binksi game, which uses minimal pixel art and animations to create an environment for narrative storytelling.

The story told here is about a shut-in whose depression is keeping them from finding enjoyment in any of their previous activities.

But then checking the mail reveals numerous messages from an anonymous penpal. The sustained communication from a stranger provides some solace.

I've seen this effect before in real life; I've definitely benefited from regular contact with people I don't even know that well. So I liked that part. Some of the story really stretched suspension of disbelief though; I wonder if simulating a longer time period might have worked better, even without additional words (like having it get dark and light again each time you get a letter).

This game, written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less, is a bunch of short rhyming stories interconnected by having names of heroes that rhyme with 'Spartacus'. Like 'Farticus' or 'Articus'.

It's a branching story, where you pick one of the heroes then select an option or two in their path, usually getting a poem out of it.

Each page of the poem/story/game has some ai-generated art in it to serve as a backdrop.

The rhyming is entertaining, but there are so many different directions here it doesn't really feel cohesive, either in design, storyline, or emotion.

This short game, written for the Neo Twiny Jam was written in 500 words or less.

In it, you have to choose how your chosen baseball team progresses through the different parts of the baseball year.

It ends up having a little math puzzle in it, which is always fun, and it doesn't take too long to play. I mostly like it for the combinatorics.

This game was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less. It's a linear narrative that is taken from an RPG setting or campaign that the author participates in.

The writing is very complex. I had to stop and reread it multiple times to understand what is going on. Even the number of people in the scene was unclear until the second or third playthrough. Allusions are made to many things that are not explained or are unclear. All of this combines to make a rich text that rewards patient exploration. The most interesting part to me was the idea of the time of birth in the day influencing expectations for or names of children.

This is a story about a celebrity encounter, written in the Neo Twiny Jam in under 500 words.

In it, you play as a participant in a conversation with a friend who just met a celebrity that knew them in a store and was given an expensive, fancy present.

The main appeal here (to me) is the friend dynamic, the combination of disinterest, jealousy, and support shown by the main character.

There is a feature that crosses off links if they go to a page you've been before (I thought it was just if you've clicked on the link before, but Manon pointed out it's for if you visited a page before). This is a bit weird for the final choice, but otherwise works well. Nice work overall.

This is a brief game written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less featuring some cute images of anthropomorphic animals.

In it your character must get milk, but there are obstacles to this, like dealing with rain, multiple choices at the store, and interacting with the cashier. A lot of the PCs reactions reminded me of an autistic student I once had, so I wonder if there are autistic themes here.

Overall, the game is well put together, but the stakes never felt very high for a game prominently featuring stress, and some delayed text made replay a little bit harder.