Reviews by MathBrush

I like surreal creepy games set in modern times (like creepypastas or the game Cannery Vale). This game is in the same kind of vein, and it was fun.

It's a fairly brief choice-based game. In it, you're headed home for the day when you hear a ringing coming from a phone booth.

There're a lot of customization options at the beginning and several branches later on. I first did the 'go along with everything' ending and then tried various non-compliance endings.

Due to the surreal nature I couldn't tell if the 'ignore everything and go straight home ending' had a bug in it or was doing a creepy memory thing. I like the second interpretation more.

A fun game overall.

This long puzzler is an entrant in the 2024 Puny Comp, written in PunyInform and using the comp theme of the years around 1980.

It's basically like 4 games wrapped in one, increasing its length. The idea (which is complex so I may have it wrong) is that you're part of a series of spies who've taken the name Gromov as a way to be anonymous, and you and several other organizations are trying to change the history of the world. There are either 2 or 3 histories at play: one drone-filled world you start in, the normal world we live in, and a future where the US has been largely obliterated by nuclear weapons.

Most of the game is in the latter world. You explore three regions, each with their own themes, like clocks, music, and machinery. Then there is a final endgame.

The puzzles are quite difficult, and I was often stuck and reached out for help multiple times. You have to use intuition and experimentation, and it's not always clear what you should do. So this is great if you like carefully detailing notes and chewing on things for a long time, and less fun for casual players who just want to experience the story.

There were a lot of testers and implementation and writing were mostly smooth. I found a few small typos I passed onto the author, who has taken care of them. Outside of that, it's significantly polished.

Like it warns at the beginning, this game follows traditional viewpoints on WWII and the cold war, with the British as heroes and Nazi Germany (and later Soviet Russia) as the bad guys.

Jacic is a well-known (to me) choicescript author that has done some cool mythological games in the past.

This pair of games has a similar high concept and some complex, interesting writing, but fails to due either of those justice in its short time frame. Each half-game is just a few choices; the second one is actually just a single choice.

The concept is fun, though. You are an unnatural being, and you don't know if you'll live to see the next day. Walking the streets of a city, you have a dangerous encounter that makes your powers known.

Fun idea, nice writing, but it felt like it could be more.

This game was entered as part of the short games showcase for games under a half hour, but it is quite a bit longer than that. It's part of a larger, projected Choicescript game.

The setting for this game is a magical fantasy world where women can be born as powerful sorceresses associated to different elements and men can become Guardians who have anti-magic powers and can defend sorceress or fight them.

You play as a fire sorceress, but can choose your specialty within fire. There is an extensive amount of early customization, not just for your character, but also for the game itself. I found this a bit overwhelming as I was expecting a small chunk of game for the competition, but it makes sense as part of a larger work.

The game has an extended intro section where you meet characters and explore. There doesn't seem to be much long-term effect of your choices here, besides setting a couple of romantic options. It's more flavor, but it's well-written flavor.

Later on the game hops into an investigation mode which I think has close to twenty subsections (which again shows how large this game is, as to fit under thirty minutes each subsection would have to take less than a minute to read). In this section, you can investigate three suspects' rooms with a time limit, and also different areas of the castle. In between investigation segments, you must attend a party, with choices of who to dance or flirt with.

Some investigation options let you use magic to solve them. This consumes the magic.

I was able to solve the puzzle the first try, although I wasn't sure until later on, and I thought the game did a good job of steadily building clues.

This PunyJam game shows a lot of skill at different programming tasks but feels like it was incomplete. I'd be happy to bump up the score if it were expanded.

You wake up in your room on a day that feels like it will be long. There are no instructions besides telling you that you should wake up.

So I wandered through the building, picking things up as I went. On my way out I grabbed some coffee, and then I went to a new building, solved a simple puzzle, and the game ended.

The game does enough that I can tell the author has some pretty good programming and the writing was interesting (like with the three objects in the box at the beginning of the game). It just felt like a lot was missing, like overall guidance or more material.

It's possible I missed some secret that hides the 'true' gameplay so feel free to let me know if that's true!

In this game, you are a teenager who was so focused on playing arcade games in the mall that you ended up locked in after hours.

It seems set in the 80s, with the arcade having Galaga and the character not having any cell phone (looking back, the game description actually says this explicitly). It includes other 80s signs like a poster of Madonna.

Gameplay is mostly classic adventure gameplay, moving objects, searching, codes, etc. The game is coded well, and the abandoned mall vibe has some great moments, especially with encountering things that frighten you.

It kind of felt like the protagonist was getting more and more into trouble, starting with just being in an area they shouldn't be and ending up being a kind of teenage vandal, in a funny way. It would make for a pretty good TV episode.

I did feel a bit frustrated with the lock, as it's intended that you brute force it (once you get some more info), but other than that the puzzles were fair.

This game was written by one of the co-developers of PunyInform, and it shows off a lot of programming complexity.

You wake up in the aftermath of a party, and need to make sure that the evidence is taken care of. I found this the most difficult part of the game, requiring multiple attempts and close inspection.

The rest of the game is a timed series of events. You are required to act in certain roles throughout the day, and you have to be in the right place at roughly the right time. You have a variety of choices in how to act using menu-based conversation.

I was deeply impressed by the tricky programming. The NPCs all have their own agenda, their conversation topics change throughout the day, you can give orders to NPCs, and so on.

This complexity was also a bit overwhelming. Even though the solution turned out to be simple, I felt intimidated by the timer and had trouble engaging emotionally with the game because of that.

Overall, though, the game was impressive and I've added it to my TV and Film list.

This is a large and complex game with several independent NPCs spread out through a large hospital. Someone has died, and you (a teen volunteer) want to both find out who and also get enough recommendations to be able to move on from the place.

I was impressed and overwhelmed with the size of the game. The hospital has four floors, each with a hallway with 3-5 spaces, with each space having doors to the north and south. In addition to that, there are a dozen or so NPCs and complex devices like elevators, safes and a walkman.

Gameplay mostly revolves around going into every area possible, identifying issues and collecting objects, then finding which objects solve which issues. There were two puzzles I couldn't figure out involving NPCs, and I ended up using invisiclues with them.

Overall, the story didn't land for me emotionally. The NPCs were varied, had interesting comments about each other, and had realistic relationships and plots, and the locations were varied, and there are some active events that are creepy or threatening, so all of those things are good. So I'm not actually sure what I felt was missing.

On the other hand, there was something about the mechanics that really appealed to me, which is hard to put into words. It was really satisfying unlocking different areas and using ideas, and there are multiple solutions.

There were a few times I was frustrated by synonyms or getting default responses (like (Spoiler - click to show)trying to push or pull the tile without the ladder). Overall, though, I think people who enjoy exploration and note-taking in parser games should like this.

This PunyComp game had a nice concept and was pretty fun, with a few caveats. It looks to be the first game by this author, which is pretty impressive if true and I would definitely play more games if they choose to write more.

You play as a paranormal investigator who comes up on the scene of a crime. Your goal is to figure out who died, how, and what to do about it.

You're equipped with two helpful sidekicks (who are later contactable by radio) and a protective amulet and an EMF reader. You explore a big mansion, solving a variety of puzzles and interacting with a few 'unusual' characters.

I was impressed by the implementation of things like the characters and a lot of the default messages. There were two big sticking points for me, though:

1-The game has an extremely small inventory limit. I was trying to carry around the 'default' gear the game gave me (radio, EMF reader, and amulet), and I could only pick up 3 items. I know some people go for realism, but these items are things like a lighter, sage, cigarettes, a pocketknife--I could easily carry all these things in real life, especially with pockets! I'd give a full point higher score if the inventory limit were removed or doubled or if a backpack were provided, or even if the amulet and/or meter were 'wearable'.

2-The game is missing a lot of scenery objects and synonyms. One really noticeable example is that the beginning of the game (so not really a spoiler) tells you that you see a lot of blood. But "X BLOOD" has no response. This is a frequent issue throughout the game, where the text prominently mentions an object but doesn't implement it.

Outside of these two factors, I enjoyed the game a lot, as I like supernatural things and mysteries. I especially liked the ambient messages about the radio and the overall thematic unity of the house.

I found the beginning of this game to be somewhat unusual for a Jim Aikin game, but it later turned more into what I expected. I associate this author with complex puzzles in elaborately detailed worlds that contain fantastical elements.

The beginning of this game is a mostly exploration-based segment set in the real world with 4 friends exploring an island in Greece. You can chat about luggage, visit the seashore, and explore a town.

Later on, that changes, in a way that becomes apparent early on.

I enjoyed messing around for a while on my own, then peeked at hints before going on. I found that there were several actions I had missed which were things I don't think I would have guessed at. Things like looking in, searching, looking under, and looking behind various objects. I had tried such things early on, but found nothing, so assumed it wasn't that kind of game, but alas, it is the kind of game where you have to try every action in every room.

Later on, I found that game had quite a few other actions which were hard to guess. That was compounded by the game not understanding some synonyms which would have been useful (Spoiler - click to show)like 'furrows' for 'furrow' or 'knock door' for 'knock on door'.

Story-wise, I thought the game had great atmosphere and that the opening had a lot of character as well. As time went on, the puzzles seemed to lead the story and the plot became pretty muddled.

Overall, though, this is a long, polished puzzle parser mythology game for those interested.