Reviews by MathBrush

This is one of the more unusual interactive fiction games out there. The story at first is generally Lovecraftian; horrors from beyond, a dark, mostly deserted old town, madness, etc.

You play a newspaper reporter who lives in a town on the edge of civilization. You are investigating a number of disappearances. Things get weird.

I had some trouble even getting out of the first room, but after that, things sped up. You spend a lot of time wandering around the smallish map, trying to see what happens next.

The game is definitely unpolished. For instance, opening a certain box said that "you see Filled_Right". There are typos and other issues.

Overall, the story is fun. There is a mind-blowing twist in the middle of the game that really took me by surprise, making this game worthwhile to play for that reason alone.

In this game, you go through a series of 7 rooms, each of which require you to complete a classic IF puzzle style. Rooms include a light source puzzle, a puzzleless puzzle, an NPC, and so on.

I found it to be hit or miss. I enjoyed the puzzles overall, though. I did use all of the hints, but the walkthrough was disabled, and so it was fun to try and make the intuitive leaps.

And the leaps are fun. I really recommend this for puzzle fans.

Above and Beyond is a pretty large and well-polished game. You play a programmer on their first day of work; the first third consists of getting into work after losing your card, the second third consists of getting a form signed by jumping through exhausting hoops, and the third is an endgame dealing with a conspiracy.

The feel is a mixture of spy stuff and extreme tedium of work. The walkthrough is 600 moves or so.

I was pretty impressed with this game. It's linear and hard, but it's fun walking through a dozen rooms with 2-4 offices each and meet all of the workers.

In this game, you awake a genie who can tell you about chess, its history and rules. You then play chess, with a graphic display.

That's pretty much it. I didn't finish a game; the computer seems to use some kind of machine learning algorithm (with a bunch of nodes mentioned).

I'd like to come back to this at some point. It belongs to the same class as Textfire Golf and Lists and Lists, a category separate from most IF, but still interesting.

This game is very long and puzzly. You play a spy who has a flashback to a scene taken from Ingold's earlier Mulldoon Legacy. Then you have to break into a house, then are transported to a fantasy land.

The game has a lot of spotty implementation issues, so if you don't type the right thing, you might get stuck (just try opening the crackers!)

The hints leaves huge gaps as well, but perhaps that is for the better, as it makes you think.

Only for hardcore puzzle fans.

This game heavily references early interactive fiction and the usenet groups. I was not involved in the community in the 90's or even the aught's, but the ifwiki page for this game has a little bit of background. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this game in the same way one enjoys Gulliver's Travels or Don Quijote without familiarity with the things they are parodying.

You have a mimesis plant (a joke explained in the game), and you have to commmit the seven deadly sins with it. Once you do, you progress to two more areas, encountering foes and friends.

The game heavily references the following:

-John's Fire Witch. An early puzzle game where you have to collect seven sins to get by a devil.
-Curses! The game contains three of the most important objects in Curses! and spoils the game a bit.
-So Far. The game mimics the ending of So Far, spoiling that ending.
-Jigsaw. The game is framed in terms of the main NPC from Jigsaw having abandoned you. It references some activities in Jigsaw.

In addition, it names 7 games to represent the seven sins, and contains one room each from games such as Adventure, So Far, Zork I, and so on.

I like works about the genre they are part of (like The Book with No Pictures for children's books). If you like self-referential work, I recommend this game.

Fear is one of those games I tried a long time ago, tried to play without hints, got stuck, tried again, and quit. So I walked through it just now with the hints, and it was interesting to see what the game was like.

You navigate a small house, but your fears don't let you do anything you want to do. Three objects in the game will give you flashbacks, like the game Photograph. Each of these flashbacks contains a difficult puzzle, all of which require lateral thinking.

Overall, an interesting game, but much too hard in my opinion, and not entirely compelling outside of the puzzles. However, if you do like puzzles a lot, this game is pretty fun.

This game is cute, and intricate, and illustrated with whimsically primitive but talented drawings. It is the story of two friends in a magical world who go on a quest to save the world.

Like the PDF game Trapped in Time or the Twine game You Will Select a Decision, Witch's Girl uses page numbers and 'Turn to page ...'. About a fourth or a fifth of pages have an illustration.

The game is quite intricate; it has an inventory system and a time travel system, and much of the game consists of using time travel to obtain various items and revisit different areas. I would budget a significant amount of time to play it (1-3 hours).

Excellent game.

This game is short and absurd. It appears at first to be a difficult logic puzzle, where you have to decide who sits where at dinner. It then becomes increasingly absurd.

This is from the Apollo 18 Tribute Album, which apparently was a collection of games which were based on the lyrics of songs on the so-named album by They Might Be Giants, and which included other great games like Dinner Bell.

All in all, it's just a fun descent into madness. No drugs involved, as far as I can see.

As a believer in Christ, it's nice to see a game based on the Bible that isn't satire, isn't preachy, and is very well done. In this game, you are a guest at the famous wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine.

The author has made a good slice-of-life game here that is enjoyable. The focus is on what people are really like.

The game has numerous NPCs, tight implementation, and a good progressiev hint menu.

Basically, the wine is gone and you have to find it. You encounter a variety of characters, including Jesus, multiple Marys, Martha, Lazarus, John, Zechariah, etc. The story also incorporates the parable of the ten virgins, as well as an epilogue from another part of the scriptures.

The author has done a great job here. Recommended for everyone.