Reviews by MathBrush

View this member's profile

Show ratings only | both reviews and ratings
View this member's reviews by tag: 15-30 minutes 2-10 hours about 1 hour about 2 hours IF Comp 2015 Infocom less than 15 minutes more than 10 hours Spring Thing 2016
Previous | 3021–3030 of 3687 | Next | Show All


Spider, by Andrew Schultz
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A mid-length combinatorics/geometry game, June 1, 2016

In this game, you are taken to a secret government lab where you must destroy some spiders and a gun. The spiders are destroyed in conventional IF ways, but the guns require you to position mirrors, considering angle of incidence and so on, and must be destroyed in a certain order.

I played to an okay ending, getting 83 out of 100. I couldn't figure out what I did wrong; then I tried again, and got 100.

The writing is classic Schultz, with a kind of easy-going chatter with self-consciousness about intelligence.

The puzzle was fun; recommended for geometry fans.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

Cattus Atrox, by David Cornelson
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Get chased by a psycho with a family of lions, May 31, 2016

In this mid length if comp game, you play as someone who just met a cute girl at a party. As you walk home, a strange man lets out a bunch of lions to have them attack you, and then follows you, reciting poetry.

The game was free of typos and grammar mistakes, as far as I can tell, and was written fairly well sentence by sentence, although the overall effect was way over the top, especially the sex-and-violence filled finale.

The interactivity left a lot to be desired. And many have commented on the difficulty of figuring out the final sequence.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

Mammal, by Joey Jones
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A collect-themed-items game, like Dinner Bell, May 31, 2016

This game is similar to Dinner Bell, and appear in the same collection. You have to gather 14 kinds of mammal dna (like Dinner Bell, the list comes from a They Might Be Giants song).

You have to do this because your lizard-people overlords are forcing you to. So there is a genocidal aspect to the game.

I found this game to be somewhat difficult near the end because I didn't realize how many items had additional uses.

I used the Club Floyd transcript for the last two puzzles.

I found it enjoyable, but sometimes wonky (hidden items aren't listed in the room description even after you discover them, you can wind things you really oughtn't be able to wind, and so on).

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

My Evil Twin, by Carl Muckenhoupt
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
An effective short mirror world game about an evil twin, May 31, 2016
Related reviews: about 1 hour

This my second Muckenhoupt game after Gostak, and I found it compelling. You have an evil twin who is always out to get you, and you him. You go out to try and stop him from hurting others.

There is another world out there, his world, a mirror world of evil. The main mechanic of the game is travelling between the worlds and using their transformative properties.

The plot has a few surprises to pull out, and their are some tricky (but no too tricky) puzzles.

I love this game, but I'm a big fan of dual-world games.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

She's Actual Size, by Jake Eakle
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A two part game with a mysterious mechanic, May 30, 2016

In this game, you play a young man with a huge crush on a girl. You clean up your room to make it ready for when she comes over. You frequently try think about a dream you had about her.

Then you play the girl, who is mysteriously huge. Somehow, your actions in the first half affect what happens to you in the second, and you have to figure out how.

The pattern took me a while, but then the game tries to point it out to you in multiple ways.

I found the story amusing. There was strong profanity on the first page, but not after.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

Dig My Grave, by Ryan Veeder
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A very Veederesque afterlife. A short game, May 30, 2016

This game reminds me of Taco Fiction, if the protagonist passed away. You are with a corpse and have to bury it, but the corpse has something to say.

This game plays around with the format and packaging of IF games, especially standard Inform library messages.

It is quite short, but funny. I had trouble figuring out what to do for 30 seconds in Part ii, but figured it out soon enough.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

I Palindrome I, by Nick Montfort
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A game about understanding the game and wordplay, May 29, 2016

From the Apollo 18 tribute album, this is a brief web-based game by Nick Montfort.

The game is all in palindromic sentences, so the words themselves aren't palindromes, but the sentences remain the same if you reverse the word order.

I tried several ideas, and got stuck, lost interest, and looked up the solution online. If you work at it, you can figure it out. I tried (Spoiler - click to show)VIEW CANYON VIEW, X ME X,<\spoiler> and stuff like that. It turns out I was close.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

If I Wasn't Shy, by Joey Jones
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A teenager store clerk makes a big decision, May 29, 2016

In the Apollo 18 Album, this game has you play as a teenage boy working as a store clerk. A lot happens around you, and you can look and examine, but you can't do much.

Or can you? On my second play through, armed with knowledge from the mini-sequel Fingertips: All Alone, I tried something else. And this is where the game shines; your attempts to do something unlock a lot of your real feelings.

I felt like this game captured a lot of the feeling of a teenager. Although it is short, it managed to meet my criteria of being polished, descriptive, having interactivity that draws you in, and affecting me emotionally.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

Chicken and Egg, by Adam Thornton
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A chicken-themed parody of Spider and Web, May 28, 2016

This game was entered in chicken comp, where all chickens had to cross the road.

It is just a parody of Spider and Web, with some spoilers. You have a menu of topics to say, displayed in the status line, and you pick them.

Overall, it was mildly amusing, but seemed to have been put together in a hurry.

There's not that much more to say about the game.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.

Save Princeton, by Jacob Weinstein and Karine Schaefer
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A large, very early TADS game with in-jokes set in Princeton, May 28, 2016

I mainly played this game for historical interest, so I just played it straight through with the walkthrough.

It is a classic 'my crappy university' game, which probably started with The Lurking Horror and has been perpetuated over the years (Christminster was probably the most successful university game, along with Return to Ditch Day). This game resembles the original Ditch Day Drifter, but larger, and with a large number of insufferable in jokes (the game is full of the authors' friends, and talks about how they feel about appearing in the game). Everything is based off of real Princeton locations, and follows the real map fairly accurately.

This game made a relatively large splash in the community at the time (thought not as big as the Unnkulia games), as there were not that many games at all, and this one was large and polished.

And it is polished. I used the walkthrough, but the game seems fair. I can only recommend it to fans of big old school games without much plot.

You can log in to rate this review, mute this user, or add a comment.


Previous | 3021–3030 of 3687 | Next | Show All