Reviews by MathBrush

This game was entered in the 1996 IFComp, where it took 9th place. In this game, you play a backwoods fellow who is convinced that aliens have been messing with his brain, just like they messed with his father.

You are abducted, and forced to pass a sequence of tests. They start abstract, and then become immersive. Some reviewers and I had to use hints frequently, but the story and setting are quite interesting.

The scenery is often unimplemented, which may be frustrating for those used to more recent games.

Interesting for those who'd like to see an alien abduction game.

In this game, you play a reviewer for the Adventurer Consumers Guide. You are asked to review such things as a helmet that makes you a hero and an orb that traps anyone you hit it with. You are trying everything out on a treasure run; your goal is to get one very large treasure.

The game is not set in the Zorkian universe, but the humor and level of fantasy will be familiar to fans of those games. Goblins, monsters with huge teeth, and armadillo-headed people are among the NPCs you will meet. The game has a bit of gallows humor, with quite a bit of comic violence to yourself and those around you.

This game also reminded me a bit of Augmented Fourth, a comedy fantasy about a bad court musician.

This game is recommended for fans of Zorkian worlds and of puzzlefests.

This game is actually quite long, but the provided walkthrough skips most of the material. This makes two different game experiences.

The walkthru steps you through a story of a young space cadet who is alone on a ship that is under attack by pirates. You have to solve a sequence of occasionally timed puzzles to avoid your capture.

The other part of the game involves a mystical religion discovered on an abandoned planet. The more you investigate, the deeper it goes. Bizarre space creatures and strange energies abound.

I've never completed this game with full points, but it really intrigues me. I'd love to finish it someday.

This game was entered in the first IFComp ever, taking 4th place in the TADS division. This was the first year that Stephen Granade had ever written a game, and he is one of my favorite authors.

This game doesn't show the polish of his later games, but it is relatively sturdy. You are on a yacht, and a large variety of time events happen around you, like Deadline. You find locked compartments and safes, you see people walking around, a murder happens (!), you are given a series of commands to fulfill, and then you must discover and stop the murderer before even worse can happen.

The NPCs are the focus of the game, yet they are sparsely implemented. They have one-line responses to most comments, and don't react as much to items that they should react to (although this can be a hint).

Overall, good for fans of murder mysteries. Granada's technical ability and panache for storyline are already evident, but the puzzles and NPC interaction are not yet up to his later standard.

I love this game. Travel through the city of Khare using a beautiful 3d map and posable figurine. This city is a den of thieves, traps, liars, sorcerors, the undead, and worse. A stew pot of evil where the weak are mercilessly worn down, you must find a way to leave the city, or to save it.

By far the longest CYOA I have played. Allows unlimited rewinds to undo any number of actions. Innovative combat and gambling systems. Spells that you cast with 3 letter combinations with available letters changing at different locations. God's to serve, people to kill or save.

High fantasy at its best. Very strongly recommended.

Baluthar is an interesting mix of a game. The opening makes it feel like an alt-game for depression, which is pretty well done. But then it takes a short detour through epic fantasy into a horror game similar to the Ravenwood setting of DnD. You search a well for your son, and encounter some frankly disturbing material down here. The gore level here is roughly equal to that of One Eye Open or the Walking Dead.

The puzzles are fairly simple at first, with generous nudges in the game. I used one line of one hint near the beginning, then another hint right at the end. The end is a bit harder, as the final puzzle abuses the IF setting a little bit.

The middle of the game is the strongest, while the finale is pretty weak.

Overall, a recommended game. The imagery in the middle is truly excellent.

In this horror game, you play a woman who recently underwent radical surgery to improve their body image. In order to pay for the surgery, you must assist the doctor in other radical surgeries.

This game has a high amount of gore, and deals indirectly with issues such as anorexia and cutting.

There are multiple endings and you are essentially free to act as you wish in the game. You are given instructions throughout the game, and following them gives you the easiest ending.

Overall, it was a bit too gruesome for my tastes, but the writing was good. There were a few implementation errors, such as messages persisting after you left a room or two rules printing contradictory text at the same time.

In this game, you pay a young worker who has to go through their daily life. You wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, work, and that's more than half the game.

The fun is what happens along the way; your character has a unique perspective on life, interspersing the conversation with famous quotations, generally trying to find consistency in their life.

Overarching the game's sense of routine and mundanity is a more sinister plot. Someone is making large changes in your life and in your routine.

This game won an XYZZY award for best individual PC without being nominated for any other awards, which is rare in the XYZZY's.

This game is a short 3-act play of sorts. You have to live through a single evening through the eyes of three people. I found this story to be compelling because it asked me to identify with people I usually would not have identified with.

In each subgame, the actions are relatively basic; I did not have to use hints or a walkthrough, which is unusual for me. Eventually, the game will hint at what you want to do.

Stephen Granade is one of my favorite authors, with the ultra-hard Losing Your Grip, the comedy Child's Play, and the mid-length escape game Fragile Shells.

This game is almost like westernized Haiku, with short, clipped, uncapitalized sentences, usually of two or three words.

It is minimalistic, with perhaps less than 50 words in the entire game, two rooms, etc.

It is essentially puzzleless, but I was stuck a bit at the very end. But with so many objects, it's easy to try.

The game attempts to be one of deep/shocking/horrifying at random, and somewhat succeeds.