Reviews by MathBrush

This game manages to fit a lot into its 500 words, written for the Neo Twiny Jam.

You play as a goldfish in your little world, a 29 gallon tank. There isn't much to do, but even your small routines take up the whole day, and soon you're sleeping, ready for more.

I found some nice little surprises, the tone varying from amiable to disturbing to contemplative. Does our goldfish dream of a higher realm, or is it merely troubled by thoughts of other possibilities?

This game was written for Neo Twiny Jam, in 500 words or less.

In it, you play as a young captain, alienated from your father and crash landing on a planet. Your sarcastic droid gives you comfort in these last times.

This has some great setup but kind of felt unsatisfying at the two ends, for me. The narrative arc felt like it hadn't reached the climax and so hit the ending running. Maybe a paragraph or two of further narration could help, but that would run into the word limit. Overall these characters could work well in other works.

This is a short game in Twine written in less than 500 words. In it, you play as an alien who has, with other aliens, infiltrated earth, trying to impersonate humans but often failing.

In the author's notes, this story is framed as an analogy to autism, specifically the difficulty in determining what is normal for human behavior.

This is a good idea and has some authenticity in it that lends it strength, but it's a little messy the way it's been put together. The UI is garish, with clashing colors and random icons that don't do much but make a field of blinking eyes, making things confusing to navigate. It may be intentional to express the confusion of autism, but an accurate simulator of a frustrating experience is, itself frustrating. The story seems to be three or four different stories, as it's hard to tell if this is an omniscient narrator infodumping, a person thinking alone, or a party; it hops back and forth disconcertingly.

Some solid ideas here, but their current presentation is confusing for me.

This game is sadly somewhat realistic. It's a Neo Twiny Jam game written in 500 words or less.


The game is simple in concept. Audio indicates that a door is opening, then a conversation ensues.

This is essentially someone drunk who is tearing down their partner, trying to ruin everything they had together in a tirade.

It's hurtful, but brief. It could fit in to many relationships, not really bearing either a unique individuality or a universal applicability.

This game uses a simulation of texting. There is some delay between texts, but it is mild and the game is short (< 500 words).

In it you play as a classic example of a toxic person in a relationship. Silent treatment, blaming others, pushing others to invest in fantasies you never intend to complete, ignoring people until they're leaving and love bombing them.

It's kind of twisted to see things from the abusive person's viewpoint, but the game does a good job of being authentic to the style of thinking.

I haven't played Friends vs Friends, the shooter/deckbuilding game this is fanfic of, but I looked up some images of it and it seems pretty fun.

This game is in binksi, and is controlled by the arrow keys to select different text options.

There are some cool graphics and text, and you have a conversation between friends at a diner.

Everything seems set up pretty nice, but I feel like there's a slight lack of nuance. Facial expressions don't change much, conversations lack a lot of details and feel like they could fit in almost anywhere, etc. So everything's high quality, but I could have seen it having more uniqueness.

I tried this game in French at first but didn't know some words (like damier) so I switched to English.

This is a Neo Twiny Jam game, a game written in 500 words or less. It uses a parser-like functionality in that you give commands by clicking on links, with your list of commands expanding over time.

It took me just a few moments to figure out what was going on, but that grew into a mix of amusement and horror. Trying my options, I thought I had failed, but trying more and more my interest grew, especially as I had just been listening to season 3 of the Magnus Archives, episode 83, which is strongly relevant.

I got a bit annoyed by timed text on replay but it makes sense for the setup here. Very well done.

In this brief Twine game, written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less, you play as an inventor who is pitching their project, Sprinklepills!

The game is pretty short, with only an option or two, but presents a whole story from start to finish in a way many of the other jam entries fail to do.

I liked that the story could be read a few different ways; as stoic heroicism in the face of doubt (like The Pursuit of Happyness), as a goofball story of a whacky inventor, or as a deluded individual.

Overall, there's nothing wrong with this story, but I feel like it has a lot of features that could be dialed up. There's some good writing, but it has the potential for being great; the plot is interesting, but could be engaging, etc. So I look forward to future works from this author, but feel like this won't be their greatest work.

I've heard of the name Cressida St. Claire before although I'm not exactly sure where. I guess it makes sense, since this story is written well, but I think this is the first game of theirs that I've played.

It's a brief tale, written for the Neo Twiny Jam. It deals with a child who ponders the constellations they cannot see while waiting for a mother to visit who brings pain.

It's hard to read, because it represents a harsh reality for so many people. Especially the idea that no matter what you do, your abuser will consider something that you did as wrong, anything to justify the treatment. Overall descriptive writing.

This game seemed almost intimidating at first, like a puzzle box unfolding.

You are outside a palace on a gondola, intent on breaking in. As you explore links, more and more of the text unfolds, allowing additional links, additional interactions.

Once I solved the first big puzzle, the game ended. This, then, is just a prelude, cut short to fit into the Neo Twiny Jam.

This seems like it will be truly great, but for now is quite short.