Reviews by MathBrush

Rybread Celsius is an infamous author from the late 90s. His games were characterized by bad plotlines, poor spelling, and lame implementation. There is evidence that it was at least partially tongue in cheek.


This game tells you you are in the dark before you turn off the lamp. You Ellettsville in bed, and it tells you you are in bed, then you get in bed. The puzzles solution is a huge guess the verb problem. The story is disjointed; you read a letter, and face a mirror being.

This is a Rybread Celsius game, which means a bunch of poorly written nonsense that may or may not be intentional.

This one was actually fun, though it it impossible without the walkthrough and still challenging with it.

You go through a pastiche of every horror movie ever: Saw, Alien, Psycho, Are You Afraid of the Dark, etc. You do traditional adventure things. Here is a quote:

>i

You are carrying: your tummy

>feel tummy

You feel your stomach. The flesh seems to eat your fingers as they dive in. Can something be happening already?

[Your score has just gone up by five points.]

IF you like one Rybread game, you will like them all.

This game can be best described with a quote: "As the water attempts its cruel defication of your body, it meats its enemy." Rybread Celsius is infamous for games with bad grammar, bad implementation, and small, confusing maps.

But some of it seems to be intentional. This game is about a magical town where everyone can glow. But you don't know this unless you read the walkthrough, which contains a lot of necessary background information. The game has randok, unnecessary items like a mirror that shows your bones.

If you like purposely bad games, here you go.

This game was the earliest big horror hit after the Lurking Horror. It was made by Adventions, who were the most influential group between the end of Infocom and the rise of Inform.

Rylvania is one of their better games, with The Legend Lives!, because it eschews the horrible puns and bad humor of earlier games (except for one item which is an ad for Unnkulia 0). However, it is still all over the map with tone.

It has some of the feel of Bram Smoker's original Dracula, with a trip through Europe, wolves, a fearful village, an abandoned castle, the torment of a loved one.

Like all Adventions games, it is a bit unfair or tedious at times, but overall not bad for fans of old school games.

It has some gratuitous violence at some points which made the PCs characterization hard to figure out.

This game is a Twine review of all the 2014 IFComp games, portrayed as a conversation with the author's 2004 self. The old self is surprised to hear about Twine, Inform 7, Dr Who, etc.

It's all fairly amusing, but it also has great value as a snapshot of a changing IF landscape.

There is some strong profanity, but the reviews are generally benign, with some real moments of pathos as they discuss their response to games that touched them.

Life on Mars? was an experimental IFCOMP game that included an email system with simulated typing and so on.

This review goes into depth about things good and bad in the game. It presents some criticism of the typing system and shows a proposed alternative. Overall it leaves a favorable impression of both itself and the game it reviews.

This game can be overwhelming at first, with a large map (including a building with almost 300 rooms), an extensive time span (measured in days and hours), and a lack of strong direction. However, approached correctly, this is an enjoyable detective game.

You are paid to exonerate Jessica Kincaid from the charge of running over her husband. You take to the streets, examining items, talking to people, and generally investigating.

There are only about 4 or 5 things you have to do, and each of them are in obvious locations. However, it's hard to know what actions to take. Going to the movie theatre gives you a hint without telling you how to do it.

Even thrn, some things are hard. I thought the way to deal with the cop was disingeneous.

Overall, a solid game, and one of the better mystery games.

Note that part of the game takes place in a strip club.

This game is the best-developed inkle writer game I've seen. I tried it because it won the venerable Grand Prix competition.

This game is centered around a tightly-developed world model. You wake up in a strange white room and have to figure out where you are and what's going on.

This of course is the premise of dozens of IF games (including, most famously, Babel), but where Tag Der Toten shines is in its strong narrative voice. It's full of goofy humor, but it's clever goofy humor, essentially a conversation between the PC and theirself/the narrator through the use of the links.

I found the game very descriptive. Also, inkle writer can be easy to lawnmower in a parser-like world model, but the author has provided several surprises to keep you on your toes.

I give three caveats to my 5-star rating:
1. I love amnesia games.
2. I love German stories.
3. This game is not complete, in that the author plans on extra chapters being added later. That said, it took me about 2 hours to finish. However, I am not a native speaker.

Rybread Celsius has been called the worst author in IF (as stated in this game). His games, such as Symetry, are poorly coded and misspelled and often laughably bad.

This game is more polished in programming, but with the same style of writing and gameplay. You go through a series of disconnected scenes, which include numerous pieces of a hilarious interview with Celsius.

The game contains some profanity, some lewdness. If you like absurd games or learning more about the IF community, you may enjoy this game. It references all of his previous games, Graham Nelson and his games, Unnkulia, Spider and Web, and many more.

Edit: Since I wrote this article, Johanna De Niro has written a very interesting article on Rybread Celsius that has made me appreciate their work much more. It is available at Sub-Q magazine.

I've rarely been as confused playing a game as I was starting this one. You wander through a house, gathering traditional adventure items (a light source, a key, etc.), but also hidden letters of the alphabet. When you find eachone, you read a letter from around WWII that has no real plot or connection to other letters. I felt frustrated.

Eventually, I began to understood. Each letter is hidden in a weird way. For instance, you might find a railroad crossing sign and take the X in it, or find a line of people and take the queue (Q). There is no real rhyme or reason to the puzzles.

There is also a cryptic crossword, which I love, although it was a little weaker than some cryptic crosswords I've seen.

Overall, a well done but flawed game.