Reviews by MathBrush

In this game, you play the leader of a platoon of Marines during WWII. In the pacific theatre, you are commanded to attack the island of Espirtu Santu, and you must decide how to do so.

The game focuses on both strategy and tactics. What weapon do you pick? Do you ambush or charge in? When do you stop? When do you go?

I played through to one ending, trying to play conservatively to reduce losses.

I felt this was an effective Choicescript game. It seems to be well-researched.

Recommended for Choicescript fans and military history buffs.

Star City has a nice, evocative beginning. It's no wonder it was nominated for an XYZZY for Best Setting. You end up exploring a vast, cylindrical space station, like a simplified version of the Starcross spaceship. Its origins and your means of getting there are highly, intensely original and fun.

The gameplay is a bit uneven, and the scoring as well. Some events are worth 5 points; one is worth 50; and you reach 100 before the hardest part of the game!

That hard part is a flight simulator. It requires some guesswork, some examination, and some knowledge of how airplanes work. Surprisingly difficult, given the rest of the game,

It might be worth it more to play just up until the simulator, then use the walkthrough.

This game was part of the Apollo 18 Tribute album, which featured a lot of Fingertip games, one-move games inspired by the short tracks of the They Might Be Giants album.

You are a lounge singer who secretly works for an eldritch horror in the bowels of the earth.

I played about 10 times, until I killed the game (not with a bug, but by different means). It was a fun, quick game.

This is a pretty minimalist game. A cube appears with writing on it. Deciphering the writing gives you a command to use. This gives you new writing.

There are about 6 commands to puzzle out. Then the game is over. Every puzzle is based off of (Spoiler - click to show)taking one letter from each word.

Not much of a game, but interesting to word puzzle fans.

Dutch Dapper IV is a false sequel; it's the first (and only, I think) Dutch Dapper game. It also has a nice walkthrough by David Welbourn.

This game is a lot like Star Wars or saturday morning cartoons. You have an intro in space which sets up your character and motivations.

After the intro, the game has two main parts and an epilogue. The first main part is in your house, which has a lot of red herrings (including a literal one). The second part is in a Mos Eisly-like alien town, with a casino, bar, pawn shop, etc. You can travel back and forth between these two parts.

The epilogue is exciting, like the prologue. The game promises a sequel, but in a way that seems to mimic the false prequels.

Overall, I recommend it.

I played this game because Adam Cadre cited it as one of his favorite games ever. You play as a time traveller who is investigating an old house.

Due to time travel limitations, you can only bring a limited amount of items with you. However, you need pretty much all of the items at one time or another to see the whole story. Thus, you have to replay it over and over to see more and more.

There's no real one big goal. It's a lot of fun to slowly unravel the story, though.

This game used some fancy window techniques, which didn't work for my game. So I just played without them.

I was discovering big, shocking things even on the fourth or fifth play through.

Excellent game.

This game is a peaceful, calm exploration of nature, the way She's Got A Thing For A Spring or A Change In The Weather would have been without puzzles.

This game was a Landscape entry in the IF Art Show, so the emphasis here is on detail, setting, the five senses, and so on. I loved the nature feeling here.

There are multiple paths you can take, but I just played through once. There are some exciting random events, and some philosophy.

Recommended for everyone.

In this game, you play a young woman who has constantly been babied her whole life, and who is sick of it.

Your boyfriend leaves you a note in the morning with a job to take care of, but first you have to get dressed and out the door after some obstacles, including a hungry dog. Then you have to go to work, etc.

I liked the message of this game about standing up and not letting people keep you down. The puzzles weren't bad, with multiple solutions, but sometimes relied on extensively searching. Also, if people are visible from far away, then the description can change depending on where you are when you examine them.

Recommended.

Varkana is a mid-length fantasy game that was entered in IFComp. It relies heavily on both conversation and searching for items.

Varkana is the name of a small, almost technophobic city-state in a world with both fantastical creatures and advanced technology. One of the advanced civilizations has sent ambassadors to Varkana, and your job is to investigate them.

The setting is quite good, but the implementation is a bit patchy. Apparently the readme text notes that there is a bug where conversation won't work unless you ask about a nonsense topic first.

Conversation plays a large role in this game. Much of the game depends on guessing the right keyword(s) to ASK someone about.

Overall, the setting was fun, but progression was frustrating. I ended up reading it like a novel as I walked through. I'd like to see more original fantasy worlds in IF.

In this game, you play a Russian upper or middle class individual who is scheduled for a duel in the snow.

The game is in two or three parts; your house, the duel, and interludes (including the opening).

The interludes were entertaining and imaginative, but it was often hard to know what to do.

The house segment was the most fun to me, as you recall your history, explore, etc.

The duel segment was also a bit confusing, but the ending(s) were well-written, especially the losing ending.

Overall, not bad. I enjoy 19th century Russian literature, so this was a fun treat.