Reviews by MathBrush

I recently heard a theater teacher give advice on how to play drunk people. She told students not to act drunk, but to act like a drunk person trying to act sober; otherwise, it will come off as over the top.

This game is written as a romance pretending to be a supernatural police procedural. Almost all interactions, plot points, choices, and scenes are designed to progress your romances with a variety of options.

The base story isn't bad; it's mostly unresolved by the end, as the game is part 1 of 7 intended games in a series, with 3 completed so far. Still, the 'substory' is fairly resolved.

The idea is that you are a recently-promoted detective who discovers a series of grisly murders by persons unknown. Simultaneously, a team of four vampires move into town (not a spoiler, as the game uses dramatic irony; while our protagonist doesn't know what's going on, we generally do). The four vampires happen to all be described as extremely attractive (and customizable as to gender), from the intense and brooding captain A (except names depend on gender selection) to the gregarious N or aggressive M.

I was pondering Choicescript games recently and realized how much better the system is at romance than almost anything else, the way parser games are better at object manipulation puzzles than most other things. Romance naturally lends itself to choices both on who to spend time with and on how to roleplay your interactions with them. This game has much less of an emphasis on powers and win/loss scenarios than most choice-based games (though some of both exists). Instead, the vast majority of options are role-play that affects your stats, and instead of those stats determining what you're capable of, they determine the way people react to you. If you are positive and happy about the supernatural, people comment about how relieved it was easy for you to accept; if tense and fearful, they are worried too.

The game is a romance power fantasy, where multiple beautiful people care about you, are impressed by you, and are excited about you, while you are simultaneously very important and powerful but also very fragile and needing protecting.

Outside of the romantic options, the game is not quite as exciting as, say, Night Road, another vampire game with investigations, but with them it's a solid game option. It makes sense that this would be one of the most popular Hosted Games of all time. I look forward to part II.

This was the highest-rated non-commercial game on IFDB that I hadn't played (outside of Superstition Season 2), so I definitely wanted to try it out, especially after trying this author's game Eikas in IFComp.

Like Eikas, this is a daily life simulator in a small community with an opportunity to befriend NPCs, search for items, go wandering, and grow food. Both game are well-implemented and provide a variety of activities for the player to experience each day so that they don't become tedious.

Unlike Eikas, there is more of an edge to this game. Even from the beginning, you can find sadness or heartache in many places. Many deaths are discussed in the game, and blood and violence can occur. Some forest scenes are notably dark, and there is an overarching mystery that can be intense. Overall, it reminds me of things like Princess Mononoke, which can be both cozy and violent.

There are four different people to get to know, and whom you can romance (but only one per game!). I found the character storylines well-written. A gender option for characters could have been fun, as I found the storylines for the men more appealing than the stories for the woman; it would have been fun to romance a forest witch-like woman Jonah.

The writing in the game was excellent, and I enjoyed the various mysteries. The ending has parts that are very solid but overall some things feel up in the air, since the game doesn't truly end. Very fun overall.

I beta tested this game.

I have to say right now that I played this game twice, once in Chrome and once in Firefox, which I downloaded just for this purpose.

It is MUCH better in Firefox, where every character is voice-acted. I would really strongly suggest only playing it that way.

This is a long choice-based game with full voice acting about a character who takes up photography as a 'bucket list' item while the apocalypse happens due to a zombie virus.

Your camera purchase serendipitously leads you to find your former childhood friend nekoni online, who you reconnect with, ending up in a discord of former childhood friends.

Playtime is split up into 4 seasons, with an intro, 3 days per the first three seasons, and one day for the final season.

In each day, you'll hang out with your dog, have the opportunity to go to one of several, then hang out in discord, choosing which friend to chat with, then chatting with your friend Neko in a voice call. Your mom also might call.

If you choose the same place to visit each day, it unlocks someone to help you during a crisis later. If you chat with the same friend each day, you unlock a special ending centered around them.

Playing twice gave me really different experiences; in my first one, I hung out with a snail guy at the park; in my second, I hung out with a heterochromia guy in a coffee shop. In my first, I chatted with Artemis the most; in the second, Rainer.

I'm glad I tried multiple paths. One of them (the [spoiler]Rainer[/spoiler] path) unlocks author commentary on the game.

In it, the author mentions that part of the game is about something e visualized for a long time, and this is a chance to experiment with it to see what it would be like.

I think that explains a lot about the plot and setting. Some say dreams are a way of the brain coming up with 'what if' scenarios and testing them out. That's what this game (at least partially) is!

So there is a zombie virus, but much of the game is about the past and discord drama. The virus can be seen as a stand-in for both Covid and for neurodivergence or coming out. The vast majority of characters are LGBTQ+ or allies and respect pronouns. Bad things still happen (at least two really dramatic events occur) but they aren't the norm. The protagonist can positively affect the lives of others.

Thinking about it, the game can be therapeutic. Both of the worst things that happen to you personally are the kind of scenario you can think of in the shower and stress out about, so writing or playing a game like this can be a nice way to work through it.

I liked the voice acting; on this playthrough, the mother's voice and neko's contributed the most. The pictures were great; I especially liked the papercraft.

Not everything is perfect about the game; it feels really long, and it's not apparent at first just how much freedom there is. Due to the personal nature of the game, some choices don't feel authentic to who I imagined myself to be. But it helped when I realized something; I read the Great Gatsby earlier this year. I used to really dislike it, but once I realized that the narrator wasn't intended to be perfect or for us to always agree with him, I liked it much more. It's the same here; I don't think Yancy is meant to be perfect. I think part of the idea is to see what happens to someone who is doing their best but sometimes messes up.

Overall, this game gave me a lot of food for thought. It made me a lot more sympathetic to aroace people, as, while I don't identify as such in the longterm sense, I realized that I have a lot of those feelings right now in my life. And the game helped me imagine different scenariosin my life as well. So a lot of food for thought!

Now, this is another game I tested, but, sad to say, I didn’t finish testing it at the time, because it’s actually pretty hard! I have finished it now, though.

This is a long, difficult Dialog parser game that uses Dialog’s hyperlink system to turn itself into a parser-choice hybrid.

In it, you play as a sidekick to a cowboy hero who is famous for saving people from villains. The secret is, though, that you are the one who is actually saving everyone!

The game is expansive, and largely revolves around getting Buck out of trouble, defeating henchmen, and investigating the outskirts of town.

Gameplay is very hard. You can lock yourself out of victory; to avoid that, you can set ‘winnable on’. If it’s in ‘easy’ mode, you’ll know right away that you messed up. If it’s in ‘hard’ mode, you’ll only find out a few turns later.

The solutions to all puzzles revolve around objects that are far away and that usually aren’t labelled or associated in any way with the area you need them in. Given that this is a big game, that means that the best way to progress is likely carefully mapping out the world and taking every object you can find, looking at what verbs it’s capable of, then trying out obstacles one at a time.

Alas, there is an inventory limit that comes into play fairly often. I think you might be able to carry some things in the knapsack, but I forgot to try that this playthrough.

As a side note, multiple puzzles require you to throw an object into an adjoining room, which isn’t standard in most Inform/Dialog games, so keep an eye out for that!

Overall, I think this game deserves a long, careful playtime that will likely exceed the two hour IFComp limit. So I recommend trying it out, and coming back to it after the comp if you like it!

This XYZZY-award-winning TADS game shows off a lot of the power of the engine, like tracking what the sense can detect and from how far away.

You play as an officer in an Empire of planets, sent to check on a small backwater. Your goal is to talk with the local technophobic elders and leave. While there, though, you meet a strange, disingenuous but beautiful woman.

I like quite a few of Eric Eve's games, which tend to be very polished, have highly interactive characters, and fun puzzles. All of his games tend to have attractive women who either already know you and are attracted to you or just met you and are attracted. This game leans kind of heavily on the latter; in fact, if you ignore the girl and just complete your mission, you can only score 10% of the points!

This game is both easy and hard. It has many objectives, but you can end the game at any time. Winning at all is super easy; getting the maximum score is incredibly hard.

Smells and sounds matter in this game, as does physics. Objects can be pushed around, etc.

I do think it's a bit too hard to complete fully, and somehow I found the open-ended nature of the game a little less personally satisfying than his other games, including my favorite, Nightfall, which has stronger pacing. However, it's clear why this game was a candidate for (and winner of) the XYZZY Best Game award: it is impeccably polished, responsive, and clever.

This is a long, worldbuilding-heavy, sincere fantasy Twine game about a world where dark magical creatures are born from mirrors. You play as a tired mother who is desperate and starving, looking for some kind of money for your family. You descend into the monster's caves to win wealth, learn about the monsters, or die.

The game is polished, and I didn't find any bugs. There are occasional illustrations and it makes use of different background colors.

I thought it was well-written. The creation myths were some of my favorite parts, as was interacting with the gods. Overall, this seems like a setting that would do well in fantasy book.

I had ups and downs with the plot. Up until the end of Act II, I felt like there was a definite progression, and could feel the tension rising. I reach what felt like the apex of the plot, but then...there was Act III, which felt like it let the wind out of the sails. (Spoiler - click to show)We get a new protagonist and repeat many of the same plot points. It's interesting too because with Act I and Act II I thought, 'This could be a great fantasy novel if it was expanded with more interactions with the characters, more door history, but the author probably didn't have enough time', and yet Act III itself is quite large. I would have preferred to have just Act I and Act II, fully fleshed out, and maybe Act III as a later sequel book.

But this is just quibbling and it's not like I can dictate that kind of thing. I liked the overall story and thought it was well done, I'm just recording the thoughts that passed through my head.

The choices were both good and bad. A large chunk of them fell into two categories:
1) Be nice vs Be mean
2) Injure yourself to discover something vs Be safe and learn nothing

I found little motivation to be mean early on, so usually just stuck with being nice. Later on, I found that there was more subtlety to some of those choices, but it would have been nice to have more options that weren't on the good/bad axis. The choices I liked most involved the gods, who had some great variety. The choices did provide the chance to feel like a hero, though, and were meaningful, often having significant-feeling effects. The game doesn't seem to branch too much but it does adjust itself based on your actions.

It was a long game. I played over two different evenings, and it took up a couple hours in each.

Overall, I can recommend it to players in generally, but most heartily to avid fantasy fans.

This was a long game! It took me around 3 to 4 hours to finish, possibly because clicking links wasn't quite as fast as typing, but it went well.

Two of the most enjoyable murder mysteries of the last ten years are Erstwhile, a twine game where a ghost has to try to solve his own murder, and Toby's Nose, a parser game where a dog has to aid Sherlock Holmes.

This game combines the two! It's a parser-choice hybrid where you are a ghost that has to influence your dog to solve your own crime.

The setup is a classic murder mystery: you have died in the middle of the night, and four people stand to inherit from you. Each suspect has to be cleared or convicted before the day is through.

The game relies heavily on physics and on the five senses, as well as interactions with the neighboring humans.

Overall I found it very fun. I'd like to describe some nitpicks with the puzzles but those should come with the caveat that I had a good time!

The thing with some of the puzzles is that I could conceive of many possible solutions to problems but couldn't tell what the game was looking for or what effect things would have. How much do lights illuminate things? How far does sound travel? How does a dog communicate with a human?

I grew a bit frustrated, but a light bulb went off when I realized how few red herrings the game has (although they're there!). I changed from *deductive* reasoning to *inductive* reasoning. Instead of making a plan and trying to figure out how to achieve it, I looked at the items, actions and locations I hadn't used yet and thought, 'How can I do something with this?'

Occasionally there were plotlines that stretched my disbelief (especially the amount of things the dog got away with) but not so much more so than a normal mystery book.

Overall, I enjoyed the high level of polish. I realized later on that the 'find ____' options were actually really good at zipping you through the map quickly; if you remember where something is, you can just type it in and click on the 'find such and such' link and go there immediately. I also liked the characters of Watson and Davis.

The hint system works very well. The game has some automatic hints at the beginning which were a bit too spoilery for me, but fortunately the author has added a way to turn those off; the normal hints, on the other hand, can be accessed at any time.

Playing this game was a whirlwind of associations, expectations, references, and laughs.

You play as the valet to Bruce Wyatt, billionaire playboy, who is undergoing a crisis of sorts at the worst possible time. He's acting, well, like a bat, fleeing bright light sources, screeching, and crawling around. All this is happening right when a fudnraiser party/gala is about to start!

The story is divided into an act/scene structure. And my expectations swirled around. Spoiler-heavy discussion:


(Spoiler - click to show)
At first, I thought the game would be a Verdeterre-style optimization game as we struggle to make enough money, a game that would be heavily replayable but relatively brief. I thought the story was a reference to Der Fledermaus, a comic opera I've seen a few times but have mixed up with Der Rosenkavalier at times.

Then I started thinking that the money changes weren't related to optimization, but rather a way to inject additional humor into a scenario. Having someone get injured or annoyed or amused can be mildly funny in and of itself but attaching a specific dollar amount to it is especially amusing.

Similarly, I realized that this was a Batman parody when I saw the names of Bryce Wyatt's parents, Thomas and Martha (or something similar). Soon guests arrived, and I saw versions of Two-face, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman.

But others eluded me. Then the game itself mentioned Der Fledermaus, and I looked up the wiki description to refresh my mind, and saw that it included other characters that were in this game! So it was referencing two bat stories at once (and I saw later, in the credits, another one referenced).


Pacing was shockingly smooth. On several occasions I began thinking that I would run out of things to do, when subtle nudges pushed me in the right direction or major events (like the doorbell ringing) took place. Conversely, at times I'd have so many tasks piling up I thought I'd have to miss some and replay the game to see them. I kept thinking, "Surely this can't hold up, the pacing's going to go all wrong at some point and I'll be stuck twiddling my thumbs or getting too frustrated," but it never happens.

Compass directions have an in-game explanation, which I found fun given that Chandler Groover has expressed his own struggles with the compass in other parser games and his decision to keep it out of most of his own games; so having its presence so carefully justified here makes sense both outside of the game as well as in the game as a kind of tutorial for new players. Perhaps the later parts of the game where (Spoiler - click to show)the compass serves as a tool for control and destruction serves as an unconscious metaphor for the community's over-emphasis and use of the compass and the pressure it puts on authors to do the same.

Overall, this game was well-made and enjoyable. It includes some sensual material and some puerile material with bodily fluids, but both are framed in such a way that they are not really objectionable and leave more to the imagination.

Given that a few characters resemble people from different sources, I wonder about those I couldn't place, like (Spoiler - click to show)the twins. Are they from another source, or new creations?

I think this game will join Eat Me and Toby's Nose among Chandler Groover's best-regarded games, and serve as both a good introduction to new players and a fun treat for the experienced. Great work!

This is a long exploration game involving picking up and using various tools and ammunition in a surreal technomagical future.

Many Pacian games are in such an environment; Gun Mute and Weird City Interloper come to mind. This game, though, seems to be directly set in the same universe as the game he released last year, Killing Machine Loves Slime Prince. Both involve solar royalty (the Third Prince in the previous game and the Second Princess in this one) and many of the other characters and concepts pop up in both games.

In this game specifically, the princess (your girlfriend) has defaulted on a big debt, and the debtors have come to collect. Golden roots have invaded the city and are sucking the life out of all the office workers while Mad Max-style Junkers (I've never seen Mad Max, just going off vibes here) roam the city attacking anyone they see. Your goal is to save and/or chastise the princess while rescuing the citizens.

A variety of survivors can be found throughout the city, each unique, with widely varying personalities and amounts of helpfulness. Conversation is menu-based, and can change depending on your progression.

The gameplay features simple randomized combat using rolls for attack and defence, both of which can be modified by equipping special clothing. Your only weapon is a gun which comes unloaded. You have three inventory slots (including the gun) and this is filled over time with items like lockpicks and money.

I had a bad experience at first. Combat is random, you can't UNDO, and I didn't find any ammo in the first area. There is an enemy at a bridge right away, and to use the bridge you need several actions, so I was just getting hurt with no way to fight back and the monster wouldn't go away. It felt frustrating, like the game had set up a complex system and wasn't letting me interact with any of it. I had to use all my healing items and didn't find any more for a long time, and I was resigned to not really enjoying the game.

Fortunately, past the ammo-less opening (I hope I'm wrong and someone points out that I missed some really helpful early ammo so others don't suffer my same fate--Edit: someone did find early ammo, so it's just my fault!), the game is a lot more fun. Combat can either take place through violence or through escape and patience, and I chose the latter the most often. It got really intense in one late area with tons of monsters, but I was satisfied when I was able to (Spoiler - click to show)summon an assassin to kill 3 monsters in one turn.

I was invested in the story, and the exploration was smooth and satisfying. I found no bugs. Like many of C.E.J. Pacian's games, there is a great romance element between the leads that is much rarer in parser games than in choice-based games. He's able to turn combat and parser look/take/drop gameplay and make them into acts of love, which is nice.

Great game, lots of fun!

This game occupied all of my play time today. It's really quite large, which is fitting for a game with 34 contributors. Most entries are puzzleless, so it's not so never-ending as Cragne Manor, but it has a similar variety of experiences.

This game feels like a text version of MeowWolf. MeowWolf is an unusual art exhibit that exists in at least two locations (New Mexico and Texas). I visited one with a group of students and happened to live next to the second one that was built. It's a kind of art museum that has a central theme (a family's two-story home, recreated inside of the museum, has been affected by twistings in space and time, leaving clues behind as to the family's fate) with a variety of unusual and bizarre art rooms connected by creative things like tunnels behind refrigerators or cast iron spiral stairways. Each of the art rooms is just (as I understand it) given to a local artist who decorates it in any way they like, from sculptures of meat robots to videos of beaches to a secret club venue for bands to play in. The whole thing is an elaborate maze.

This game has the same feel. You play as someone stuck in The Maze Gallery, which is a bizarre exhibit. You pass through rooms filled with moving inkblots, eggs painted like clowns, vicious fashion designers, tiny paintings etched on rice, and more.

Some of the 'exhibits' are actually encounters spread throughout the game written by single authors, like a series of diary entries or a loving couple that shows up time and time again.

Parts I especially liked include some of the (Spoiler - click to show)presidents, the four humors, the de(void), the clown alley, the talking paintings, the wing of bad art, and Jo's cafe.

The only time I really encountered friction was in a maze-like part where you need to pick the right path from three options. I didn't distinguish that it had a separate ruleset from the rest of the park and couldn't figure out it's mechanism, so my experience was mostly a voice getting more and more frustrated and annoyed at me until I got kicked out.

The consistent css and art style and placard images managed to keep the tone remarkably consistent. A game like this usually feels very distinct in voice, but this one could almost conceivably have been written by one very creative author. The poetry segments and Zizi!!! are perhaps the most distinct.

I was hesitant at first that this game would be impossibly large, but it's in a fairly compact 4 act structure and not all content is visible on first play. I got lost once, but looking at a directory showed me the path forward.

I felt satisfaction at reaching the ending and enjoyed feeling more oriented in life, in a way; like the game presented a wide variety of viewpoints and feelings and gave me more of a sense of where I am mentally in relation to a sea of others. That was even a theme of one of the rooms, where (Spoiler - click to show)a mirror shatters representing you and you can only grab for some of the pieces, holding onto what is most essential and hoping that you grabbed what was important.

There were several other wonderful parts of the maze that I wasn't able to fit into this review (like the Hungry room and the ladder and so on) so thanks to everyone that participated!