Reviews by MathBrush

This game was inspired by early Infocom games. Your uncle puts you in a robot's body and sends you home with a secretly subversive employee.

It's fairly short, with about a half dozen puzzles, usually where you are presented with an obstacle and have to find an object to defeat it.

Somehow, it reminded me of the newer game Nine Lives by Merlin Fisher. Both are fun little old school games set in a house with similar aesthetics.

This game, one of the later entrants to the tiny utopia jam, has several unusual features. Fist, it uses neutral pronouns (ze, zir,..). I found that this helped with establishing the tone of the game and the allowing the player to identify with the protagonist.

The second unusual feature is in its branching structure. The game has an unusual structure in its branching that had me playing again and again. This is a strongly branching games but is short enough that replay is easy, similar to Porpentine's Myriad.

Unlike most strongly branching games this game's branches build on each other and create a unified story. Also, the author left little surprises and added variety in the branches.

Helado has written one of the more homey and comforting Tiny Utopia games. It is short, only a few choices long, but manages to evoke a feel of comfort and home.

There are 8 endings which I wasn't aware of at first. The smallness of this game works for it; it feels like the author has challenged themselves to make their 'utopia' as 'tiny' as possible. I feel like context matters for many games, and this game is well-suited to the requirements of the jam.

Overall, I didn't identify strongly with the characters, and I wished for my choices to draw me more into the game world but this is completely subjective, and may not reflect others' experiences. Recommended for those looking for a quick, feel-good game.

In this game, you are stuck in the rain when your car breaks down and come into a strange household where everyone is carrying a secret.

You explore the house while trying to patch together the truth on your own. Some puzzles are much easier if you remember what everyone is doing.

The gimmick of this game is that you can select past or present tense x and first, second, or third person. It didn't make much of a difference to me.

Overall, a nice game. Recommended.

In this game from the second IFcomp, you play a sword wielding Britainer in the time of Cromwell, investigating a haunted house.

The house is haunted by the maiden of the moonlight, daughter of a witchcraft using Baron.

You have to discover their story and put her to rest. The focus on the puzzles is sources of moonlight, which you must deal with in increasingly complicated ways.

The game has a timer.

This game is similar to the plot of Star Trek insurrection. You are part of a galactic league which monitors non-spacefaring worlds. A monitoring station has failed, so you must visit it in disguise in a cloaked shuttle to see what is going on.

The first part of the game has some tedious bureaucracy similar to that of stationfall. You then explore an alien village, learning their religion, and so on. The finale of the game is action packed.

Strongly recommended.

In this game, you are an angel bored to death with heaven you can move through three different rooms, which are well described, waiting for something to happen.

When something does happen, you don't have long to act. You only have a couple of turns before losing your chance forever.

I found this game to be less substantial than the other entries in the Jay is games casual gameplay competition, but with excellent writing and a good setting.

Well, I don't know if the sheep is happy, but I was. In the tradition of Lost Pig and baby tree (2 very different games), we have sheep here, a terse, uncapitalized game consisting of brief sentences.

The aesthetic works for the game. A large chunk of the game consists of randomized text, with many clever results.

The game accounts for many, but not all, standard responses. A couple of these responses made me laugh out loud.

The subtitle about non-procedurally generated grass probably refers to a discussion in intfiction and euphoria chat about how randomness is not the same as procedural generation.

This game was entered in the Tiny Utopia jam, providing a fascinating concept of "utopia".

There were a few issues (like the moon being listed after it left), and even more commands could have been implemented. But these are minor quibbles.

This game by Ade McT is an interesting entry in the Tiny Utopias jam. More than any other entry, this game had a haunting, desolate, stoic feel.

You play a character sat at a table who is sorting through pieces of glass in the evening light. Each piece has a story to it.

The game felt almost like a ritualistic cleansing of the soul after a deep wound. I felt like the Utopia in this game could be the healing and strengthening feeling you have after surviving a terrible period in your life. However, it is open to many interpretations.

I had some trouble at the beginning of the game, because I did not notice everything in the room description. Due to the speedy nature of the Tiny Utopias jam, there were many things left unimplemented. However, those who read closely will probably experience no hiccups.

This is one of the entries in the Tiny Utopia jam. Johanna has picked perhaps the most 'utopian' of all the utopias, as this game provides a direct and detailed vision of a better society.

The writing is fervent, and it is easy to feel the authors conviction and the heart put into the game.

Stylistically, the game has an interesting division of links into different types that works well. While I usually don't include cover art in reviews, I feel that the cover art really suggests a certain interpretation of the game that is hard to put into words.

I did feel a certain lack of options in the game, both of reflective options and of more meaningful choices. This is not always necessary in a Twine game, but I felt like the subject and tone of the game could do with more interaction with the games or your emotional responses. Like usual, this is just my opinion.