Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

FIrst and foremost, this story is (in my opinion) in the top tier of all interaction fiction stories. The author has done an excellent job of painting a world, people, and a mystical system that draws you in.

Some of the fun in the game is figuring out what is going on, so I won't go into too many details. Suffice it to say that this game uses a setting that is rare in interactive fiction, and seems to be based off of extensive research.

I played without a walkthrough through the opening section, which most reviewers agree is an incredible part of any game. Then the game opens up and dumps you in the middle of nowhere. I had fun exploring for a while, and picked up a few tricks. I tried over the course of a couple days to see how far I could get, then turned to the walkthrough.

I'm glad I tried on my own first. The walkthrough works, but is confusing if you haven't tried the game on your own first (some actions get hinted later on).

The NPCs are amazing. Those taken from the author's research are vibrant and rich, with striking imagery. I will probably play this game again just for fun. Recommended, with a walkthrough, after an attempt.

Deadline Enchanter was one of the first IF games I played, 5 years ago. I remember that it's bizarre atmosphere and self-awareness really attracted me to IF in general because it showed me what was possible.

You play someone in a magical city that has appeared in Detroit. You've been given a message from the Folk, a magical race, and the message is a parser game. This game has a walkthrough. So you walkthrough.

The beauty of this game is seeing the story unfold and seeing the guts and edges of the parser. The world it paints is beautiful. When it came out, it was very controversial, but since the Twine revolution, I believe this game can be better appreciated. In facta, the author has moved on to Twine, making great games like Solarium.

Like I said, this is one of the games that drew me into IF and established my perceptions of the whole genre, together with Curses! and Not Just An Ordinary Ballerina.

This is an entertaining ADRIFT game which I played on Gargoyle on Windows. You play as the grim reaper, getting your daily list of souls to reap. You can complete your tasks in any order, and every puzzle has multiple solutions.

As you complete your tasks, you get page-long textdumps of truly entertaining material about your targets. There is a timer, but it is very generous. I usually use walkthroughs extensively, but I only required one hint in this game.

The humor is similar to Terry Pratchett or even Douglas Adams, just dry situational comedy more than slapstick. Some unusual settings for English-language IF (Himalayas, France, etc.).

I came to this game after playing the sequel, and I loved learning more about the protagonist. This series is about a young girl who has deep secrets, and the men she is involved with.

The links in this game are cleverly colored, with one color for cycling text, another for branches, etc. This makes the game much more enjoyable than standard Twine.

The story is about a date with a boy after ditching school. Both of you have secrets. The game is pretty complicated, with many options to branch out on.

The one thing I didn't like as much was the styling. It looks like an aquarium, which really fits the story, but I found it mildly irritating. I loved the CSS of Thanksgiving, the sequel. However, this is a minor complaint.

Choice of Robots is a game that has received high accolades, such as an XYZZY nomination for Best Game, and very favorable reviews from the general video game community.

I loved it. A very long game, perhaps of novella or screenplay length, and that is just in one playthrough. You can take wildly different paths, from prison to riches to love to all sorts of things. You keep track of 10 relationships, 4 robot stats, personal stats and political stats.

You are a young robot researcher, developing robot technology, and you have the chance to guide the development of robots toward autonomy, acting like humans, giant tank missiles, or advanced surgeons.

The gameplay can either be free-flowing, answering each question as it comes, or you can develop intricate plans to minimax your characters stats.

Well worth the money; this was the first commercial game that I bought since I purchased the complete Infocom collection.

This is just as good as Creatures Such As We and Choice of the Dragon, but longer. The only hiccups I found were inconsistent branches; when someone I married quit my company, the game said I wouldn't see them for a long time, for instance, without mentioning our relationship.

Thanksgiving was my first Hannah Powell-Smith game, but I'm going to play her other games now. Before I talk about the story, I have to mention my favorite part of this game: the use of color on links. I think everyone should copy this: cycling text is one color, expanding text is another, and branching text is a third. This makes it so much easier to know how to explore. I really support this.

As for the story, it was one I haven't seen done before. As you go to Thanksgiving with your boyfriend, you come under pressure due to your hidden past. It's hard to say more without spoilers, but this game made me nervous in a good way.

I've recently discovered Kathleen Fischer's games, after playing Masquerade and trying Cove a bit, and I love her writing. This is a short game about a prisoner confessing to a friar. The game is primarily conversation-based, although some non-conversation actions are required to win.

The game is a conversational maze. Most conversation options lead to bad endings. The good ending requires some very specific and perhaps non-intuitive choices (being a good boy and a yes-man don't help).

The story was a bit hard to piece together, but it really looked good overall. Recommended for fans of conversation games.

This is a shortish parser game that has a main game and three subgames. You are the help system for several interactive fiction games, but something keeps malfunctioning.

I tried this game with and without the walkthrough, and it was honestly bewildering. You can spend a long time on things that turn out to be completely unimportant. You frequently have to repeat commands multiple times without feedback that you are on the right track. Several areas require you to wait and wait and wait and wait.

The three minigames are interesting; I believe they represent games that you could give help for.

One is a Geisha simulator, where you don't have the regular verbs, and you can only schedule clients and reserve rooms while training for your Geisha exam. This is randomized and hard.

Another is a Lovecraftian western. This one was confusing, but fun.

The last game was really very creative and fun. You are playing Dungeons and Dragons one-on-one with a Dungeon Master, and he becomes the parser. You have a character sheet, and quests, and so on. It was really fun, especially because the Dungeon Master is purposely bad.

Overall, a mixed bag. I feel like others would be less confused than me, but I found this game very confusing. The minigames were fun, though.

Augustine was nominated for an XYZZY for best story and best setting. It shows; the story is really intriguing, about two figures who battle each other in different guises throughout the ages.

You and a warlock from the 1300s are doomed to live until one defeats the other. You pass back and forth between modern times and ancient times through flashbacks, learning much about St. Augustine's history (I don't know how much was real, and how much made up for this game).

The writing is iffy and the implementation is definitely buggy, playing cutscenes in the wrong rooms or order. I didn't really like this game at first, but two things made me end up liking it: the story really is compelling, going in unexpected directions; and the combat system is really fun (although I had to UNDO a lot the first time). The final fight in particular was very exciting.

Recommended for those who can excuse spotty implementation/writing for the sake of a good tale.

This was a short-to-mid-length enjoyable parser game. You awake from your slumber, buried in the egyptian way, and must progress into the afterlife.

The games takes the form of an escape game. You are given a spellbook of sorts, which you must use, but then you must solve a sequence of puzzles. Many of the puzzles seemed unintuitive to me, but because the game is short, it may be possible to just keep plugging away until you get it.

The atmosphere is very good. This game was recommended to me based on its characterization of Egyptian mythology, and this was the most entertaining aspect of the game.

Recommended for fans of mythology or escape games.