Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

Voices is a strong, story-driven parser game told from the perspective of a mysterious invisible figure, whom we learn more about throughout the game. The narrator is the figure, while the PC is a young girl they speak to.

This is a strong story, and most of the game is designed to funnel you through the story. This would easily make a good Twine game; this is in fact the kind of game Twine was designed for. However, the author has done a great job of changing default messages and adding extra surprises, making it worthwhile to have it in a parser.

Much of the game progresses by repeatedly using "TALK TO", and by making a few decisions.

A great choice for fans of story telling. No puzzles to speak of. I had a lot of fun with this.

Vicious Cycles is a complex game. It contains two interwoven narratives; it deals with complex issues in real life; it has puzzles requiring many replays to solve.

The game has a few early surprise which I won't mention here, but I can say that the atmosphere is a sort of dogged determination to overcome despite discouraging odds. The gritty feel reminded me of Cape by Bruno Dias, although the stories themselves are very different.

Overall, I highly recommend this game. It is fairly short, about 100-400 moves for a typical playthrough, although a perfect playthrough is probably 50 or less.

This game was nominated for an xyzzy award for Best Story when it came out, and I agree that the story is excellent.

You are an independent young woman trying to run a business but running into trouble due to the male-dominated society. You encounter a few suitors while trying to save your business.

The puzzles are fairly light, until the ending. Then it branches into a lot of endings. I found 6 endings and it was hard to tell what made me get them.

Also, the game is pretty short, about 20 to 30 minutes.

Overall, a pleasant game, especially for those interested in romance games.

Like the more recent experimental work Laid Off from the Synesthesia Factory, My Angel strives to make a transcript of the game read like a book. Error messages are turned off, diddling around too long makes the story progress by itself, room descriptions are varied so they don't repeat enough, and it is written in first person present tense.

When I first played this game a year or more ago, I lost interest and stopped because I couldn't tell how well I was doing or know what to do next. This time, I just went with instinct and tried obvious commands and I beat the game without hints. The author's notes are very interesting, as much or more than the game itself.

The story is about a couple with unusual abilities running away from a group, and then later exploring ruins.

Jon Ingold is really a master of innovation. Looking over his career, it seems he was really trying over and over to find something that could draw in people outside of traditional IF, and he finally succeeded with the wildly popular 80 Days. This game is interesting in light of that history as well.

Krypteia is a richly textured hyperlink game, making extensive use of graphics, text styling, and music.

It's something of an rpg, with two stats (wolf and stealth) and a variety of items and battles that affect the stats. However, the system is very simple, so you don't have to grind and battles are finished in one click.

The two stats represent two ways of dealing with your feelings, most likely about transgenderism. Wolf stats make you fierce, and you wear stilettos. Shadow let's you hide from the world.

Overall, a well done game, if a bit heavy-handed at times. It has a very annoying habit of putting stealth related text as black on black text.

Mercy is an interesting game from a couple of decades past. Not entered in IFComp, it nevertheless managed to earn recognition, including a nomination for Best Story Xyzzy.

You play a euthanized at a hospital. The game is a linear thriller type game and has a branch and bottleneck structure which became the characteristic of Twine games many years later.

You wander around a relatively small map with a gloomy, moody atmosphere strongly reminiscent of Vespers, but less disgusting. Your goals begin to change around the halfway point, which is also where the game becomes more ambiguous and confusing.

I recommend this game for fans of a great story and/or atmosphere.

Seastalker was Oneida my least favorite Infocom games, but part of that is my own fault. The game is fairly simple, and I didn't need a walkthrough, until about halfway through the game I started some kind of timer and would die after 40 or 50 turns. It turned out that (Spoiler - click to show)there was some sort of black box I didn't fix that lead a monster to the base. So that made me lose interest, until I went through with a walkthrough.

The game comes with some hint cards that are missing some information. When the time comes in the game, the game itself will fill in the blanks in the hint cards.

There are some tricky parts to the game like using sonar to pilot a sub, and the endgame, but over all it was pretty fun.

Note: The GO TO command makes this game MUCH more enjoyable.

Trapped in Time is a classic "Turn to page 20"-style CYOA work. You are a Chrononaut experimenting with a time machine. Things start to go wrong. The game invites many replays, being a 'replay'-style game where you just try to get it write.

The real innovation here is something that is beyond Twine's basic capabilities (although it could be implemented if someone worked hard at it). The game starts giving you mathematical formulas so that you can use a limited set of commands (something like, "To examine a room, add 50 to the first page that you enter the room in.") this makes the game both fun and challenging, because you can't easily reverse engineer the game, and you have to keep track of all the formulas.

The game includes a variety of bonus material and is fun. The story is not quite as exciting as most good Twine games, but the novelty of the presentation really made this game enjoyable for me.

Recommended due to fun factor.

This game is set in a military school after an attack that has left you, a teacher, weak and helpless. You have to give orders to six children, each of which has their own problems. Together, you have to get out.

I played with this game for about a half hour to get a feel for it before going to the walkthrough. For puzzle fans, it's worth trying much longer, teasing out the next step, etc.

For those using David W's walkthrough, note that the walkthrough itself contains major spoilers at the very end (which makes sense), so it is perhaps best to go through it in order. However, I still enjoyed the game as I was spoiled.

The writing and setting are excellent, as in the other IFComp game by VanEseltine I tried, One Eye Open. If you like a sense of urgency, of hope fighting against darkness, of slick implementation, then both these games are for you.

Myriad is classic Porpentine, though overshadowed by her later work. Bizarre, surreal scenes filled with bodily fluids, strong profanity, gender references, and insectoids.

The game is clever and daring. However, playing it right after IFComp 2015 gave me a new perspective on Porpentine. I had thought that the emotional effectiveness of many of her pieces DEPENDED on the disgusting, gritty, profaneness of it all.

But I feel like Summit achieved a similar effect with a more subdued approach. Birdland gives a compelling portrait of LGBTQ life. I feel like the Twine world is developing in new directions now.

(Note that Howling Dogs, while it's a few years old now, also manages to be incredibly compelling while differing strongly from her ealier work).