Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

Andrew Schultz is known for taking a word puzzle idea (like anagrams or reversible compound nouns) and running with it. Most of his games encourage you to explore the world first to figure out what the theme is, so I won't give away the theme in this game.

The world is spare and empty, but this helps identify key items. The game is also highly polished, with no bugs or typos that I am aware of.

The mechanic in this game is harder to do by hand than his other games, resulting in either frustration or grinding, unless you're in the mood for it.

Overall, this game works, but his other games (especially shuffling around, threediopolis or their sequels) worked better for me.

This game starts out as an illustrated twine implementation of Hugo's House of Horrors, an old game similar to Maniac Mansion.

The author has added vivid descriptions of the graphics. Not all the original game is implemented. The game has not been implemented in exactly the same way as the original as there is, for instance, new dialogue, including strong profanity.

The game begins to glitch out, as in the classic glitch creepypasta.

I felt like the horror never really took hold, although it was better at times.

It took me 20 minutes to finish the game.

This game was entered in IFCOMP 2014. Like Robin Johnsons draculaland, this game implements a hyperlink based parser system. Unlike Johnsons game, this game doesn't have scrollbars capability.

You have about a dozen verbs you can click at any time, which then gives you a menu of choices, or just guesses what you want to do.

The storyline is interesting but not gripping. You are in prison, and can bend through bars. You want to get out and bring your friends.

The interactivity in this game had some issues; actions often bring results quite different than what you would expect, making it very difficult to know how to proceed

Zest combines the talent of Richard Goodness (who later made the amusing and thoughtful Tombs of Reschette), lectroniae (a musical artist), and PaperBlurt (a frequent author of well-illustrated twine games).

In this rather long Twine game, you play as someone who works at some sort of fast food place, and can go to church or the tobacco shop to buy tobacco to 'zest'.

The game has a mix of the absurd, the mundane, and the thoughtful. You have 3 meters, including grossness, and you have to repeat the same options/tasks each day.

The game is at its most absurd in the store, or in dreams; its at its most thoughtful in its depiction of the poor, and of Christian prayers and sermons. And frequently it is both.

This game contains frequent use of the f-word.

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.