Reviews by MathBrush

This game's imagery reminded me a bit of Tron. You are enclosed in a cube with a grid of lines as a virtual fence around you. Only your mind is imprisoned, in a VR environment. Someone is trying to get you out, and you must follow their directions.

The game requires many unusual leaps of logic, as well as a few difficult guessing problems. The story was fun, the map was easy to navigate, and the puzzle solutions often make sense after the fact.

Having played many of the old school games, I feel like the story of this one is better than most (I preferred it over Uncle Zebulons Will), but it's difficult puzzles combined with its strict linearity is a problem. A more open puzzle plan would have helped.

This game came in 2nd in the TADS division of the very first IFComp. Unlike today, when works based on copyrighted material are rare, this game was based on Looney Tunes, with a few name changes.

The game relies on classic cartoon tropes. This isn't actually in the game, but an example would be finding a hole in the ground, and picking up the hole and putting it in your pocket.

It only has about ten points, and is pretty short. With most games from the 90's, I just use a walkthrough, as there were typically fewer synonyms implemented then and puzzles often require more guessing.

I actually really enjoyed this game. Very unusual.

Tapestry is a game that came up quite a bit in early IF discussions due to its unusual storytelling strategy. It remains fairly well-known.

Tapestry is a story about the afterlife, where a man is confronted with his 3 most despicable moments in life, and a chance to revisit each. You can deny each memory and fight against it, you can accept the memory and your shame, or you can accept the memory and deny your shame.

It is well-known for its moral choices, and for having several distinct paths, one of which is almost puzzle-free (the one where nothing changes), while one is puzzle-intensive (fighting your fate).

The first time I played it, months ago, I didn't really like it, and I stopped after the second panel. But this time, I used the walkthrough, and I read the story more, and I really liked it, and even found it emotionally satisfying.

The game gives an entire recap story at the end (about 2 pages), showing what life you really led.

An interesting, fascinating game. I recommend it (and don't feel bad about using a walkthrough, as many of the puzzles are just busywork). I do regret using the walkthrough at the very end in the 'accepting your fate' lines.

This game was one of my favorite types of IF: fast, action-packed thriller games. It is a string of conversations mixed with intermittent, simple puzzles.

The plot is just references to old IF groups. The idea is that there is a cabal of authors that all support each other and hang out and act as gatekeepers. To some extent, I think this is true. IF is a small group, all the big authors and many others know each other well, and they organize stuff with each other. But this is normal; everyone craves companionship and wants to be part of a group. Cabals and cliques form in the academic world for the same reason. And the IF cabal seems to have open membership. If anything, I think the cabal(s) wish that everyone would join them.

I wasn't around during the events of this game, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the game. The game parodies right wing sexist men, which I think anyone can enjoy. It mentions Graham Nelson and Andrew Plotkin, which are still fairly familiar names. And everyone is characterized in such a silly way that it really doesn't matter who they are. There were two or three characters I never heard of, but it doesn't matter.

Overall, a fun game. It really does spoil Infidel by Mike Berlin a lot, so watch out for that.

This excellent IFComp 2015 game is a bizarre, surreal journey. You choose one of several 'origin stories' in a sense; for instance, once my father carved miniature cathedrals that played music, and once I lived in the swamp and sold frog skin.

The game consists of a journey towards a distant summit. You reach many places in between, in almost a surreal(er) Gulliver's Travels.

As you travel, you deal with an odd thing called a fishstomach, whose details I leave to the game.

Overall, I found the game emotionally satisfying, especially near the end. Well-chosen graphics help the game.

Occasional profanity and some body horror, but milder than Porpentine's games in general.

Switcheroo is part of a family-friendly series of stories about a witch who runs a foster home. All parts of the story involve a certain writing style, where the narrator is a magic book that coughs up 'pageballs' from time to time.

In this tale, the focus is on Derik, who goes to sleep as a boy in a wheelchair and wakes up as a girl.

Later, some good things start happening in their life due to the switch. And they have to decide whether to keep their new body and identity, or go back to their old.

This game has affected a lot of different people in different ways. There is an obvious interest from the transgender community to see how this story is represented, and those who have experience adoption have responded to it as well. My family includes some who are permanently disable and use wheelchairs, so it was very interesting for me to think about this game.

Overall, I had fun playing through the first time, but I didn't look forward to replaying this game for the review. I would recommend this game to those looking for a family-friendly game or for a game that examines social issues in detail.

This is an interesting pirate world, where magic is prevalent and women have a much stronger place in the world.

This is a choice-of-games style game, which means that it's a CYOA, with choices affecting different 'stats' you have (like magic ability, gun ability, drunkenness, sneakiness, etc.) You have to build up different stats for different challenges.

Overall, a very fun game. I really enjoyed it, first as a beta tester, then playing it in the comp. The story is fast-paced and exciting.

This game focuses on a career involving mood-altering or mood-activated equipment; however, the real story here is a slice-of-stressed-out-life story of a woman, her career, and her love interests.

This game responds with story text no matter what you do, and it's purposely written in a style that can jump back and forth between different topics. This allows the transcript of the game to read as a short story.

It also presents a novel challenge: decipher if your text comes from real commands or the 'floater text' (the name for the text from wrong commands). It helped me a lot to just type important keywords. You'd think UNDO would help you figure out what's real and what's not, but it's cleverly been disabled.

Worth checking out.

(note: I beta tested this game.)

I enjoyed Sub Rosa, and rank it in the top 5 of IFComp. It's world-building is marvellous; you explore a strange house in a strange world consisting of different 'planes' (in the Dungeons and Dragon's sense, and in the mathematical sense, and in the geographical sense).

The house and the backstory are weird and interesting, like a 1001 Arabian Nights written by Steven Moffat and David Eddings.

As your find out very early on, your goal is to find 7 secrets to destroy someone. Your secondary goal is not to get caught or noticed.

The game is enjoyable, and the puzzles are great, but it suffers from a bit of hunt-for-clues, like Where's Waldo. There is a library with 101 books, some of which are obviously important, and others which are necessary for winning but not clearly marked out.

As another example of the hunt-for-clues issue, there is one puzzle you solve by examining a background item not usually implemented, interacting with it in an unusual way, using that to interact with another important thing in an unusual way, and then examining two things in succession.

Thus, this game is best-suited for the meticulous. Fortunately, its rich backstory makes such meticulousness very rewarding.

Spy Intrigue is not my type of game. But it is an incredible game, which I have played through twice, and is excellently crafted.

It is a game of layers. It literally has two layers of text, interwoven within each other.

It also has two levels of meaning. The top level is just crazy and silly (you very quickly learn that most spies have died of "spy-mumps"). But there is a much deeper subtext in the game, much like another 2015 IFComp entry TOMBS of Reschette. Both games encourage you to look under the standard shoot-kill-loot structure of normal games and see what existence would really be like for protagonist and enemy.

That's probably the deepest contribution of this game: to show the protagonists humanity. The author has succeeded in a very well-crafted game, which I feel should be nominated for several XYZZY awards. She has done an excellent work here.

As I said, this isn't really my type of game; I'm not into profanity or sex, of which the game has it's fair share. But it's certainly never exploitative, and it all makes sense in the context of the game. I will also always fondly remember (early spoiler)(Spoiler - click to show)"OATMEAL TIME."