Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This IFComp 2015 game places you in a preset underground map that is vaguely maze-like, and sets a monster chasing after you.

Although the map is preset, there are many doors that are locked, and the keys randomly distributed. Also randomly distributed are items to set traps with to kill a monster that is chasing you.

It is a fun game, with good atmosphere, but over pretty quickly. It would be fun to see the author add a version with multiple monsters, where you have to work harder to evade them and need to set multiple traps.

This game was written both for IFComp 2015 and for an undergraduate research project at Hope.

It is just a choice between three linear sequences. After each choice has been picked at least once, two more open up. There are scattered photographs.

Interactivity-wise, this game doesn't make any groundbreaking changes. But the story is great. It is based on real-life journalist Marie Colvin, a war correspondent with an eye patch who died in an explosion.

I played this game twice, 3 weeks apart. The first time, I was rushing through IFComp, and dismissed it. But the second time, it struck a real emotional cord with me, and I really enjoyed it.

Onaar is different than most games out there. It is an RPG with heavy amounts of grinding, but can still be completed relatively quickly.

You are a young person who crashes on an island with a community on it. You become an alchemist's apprentice. The game has a real economy with things you need to buy and sell, a variety of stats, a mild hunger daemon (with plenty of free food items regenerating all over), and many potions you make by gathering alchemical ingredients.

It was fun. It is not like other parser games; if you are looking for a traditional puzzler, you should go somewhere else. Traditional puzzles are here, but the RPG/alchemy system is the real star. You can make yourself incorporeal, stronger, a teleporter, etc.

Great for fans of classic RPGS.

Life on Mars? is an IFComp 2015 entry that is a translation of the winner of the French IF competition of the same year. It was one of my favorites of IFComp.

This game centers around a woman stranded in a lone base after a terrible event. Her main access to the world is a computer terminal with e-mail. The game has implemented a marvelous e-mail system, with dozens of e-mails to read, with each sender having a different personality. The thoughts and replies of the woman are typed out in real time. The speed of the typing is adjustable; the default is too slow for most people, and the fastest is too fast, so make sure to play around with it before diving in.

The atmosphere of this game worked well for me. Outside of the e-mails, there are a few puzzles and a good amount of exploration. Overall, I would highly recommend this game, especially to fans of puzzle-light games such as Photopia.

Midnight, Swordfight was an IFComp 2015 game. This game is a one-move game like Aisle or Rematch, where you are in a duel with a countess and have only limited actions available. Innovatively, these actions are listed in a playscript in your inventory.

Another innovation is that you can enter an alternate reality, where you can travel through and around time to change the setup of the duel.

The world is mysterious and bizarre, with some of the darker parts of Lewis Carroll mixed with David Eddings mixed with all sorts of things. The game is dark, and contains explicit descriptions of sex and intense violence (although the violence is not to the level of, say, One Eye Open). The worksmanship is impeccable.

I'm from Utah and I love the desert, so this IFComp 2015 Twine game intrigued me.

It's a long-form Twine game about surviving after an accident in the desert. In real life, the Utah desert is very dangerous to be lost in, and that's reflected in the game.

The main idea is that you have water supplies, food supplies, and tools. You constantly make decisions about where to look for water, where to sleep for the night, whether to risk a boat trip, etc. Each option carries an associated cost in terms of water and stamina, which you don't know ahead of time.

Overall, it ends up being a bit like Oregon Trail. There are two main ways of surviving. I came close to finishing both trails, but I died at the very end each time, which, as I said, isn't too far off from reality.

This game is well-written. I wasn't a huge fan of the visual layout, but overall, it was pretty good. I have to admit, I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't died right at the end a few times, but I've heard the authors are thinking of making the ending a bit easier.

This game was the longest game entered in IFComp 2015, and I enjoyed it. It is complex and long, and well-detailed.

The game is centered around the tedium of immortality. You find yourself a brand new immortal, in a sort of retirement home or country club for immortals. Each has immersed themselves into some sort of activity, whether artistic endeavors, sports, art, or insanity.

The game has a very ancient and purposely static feeling. It implements a 'zz' command that lets you wait for a very long time. It has a few puzzles requiring long patience, and repetitive actions.

This all meshes very well with the story, and when things finally start changing, it makes it more exciting.

Overall, the feeling of this game was similar to the Myst series, but with more people. I recommend it.

Suspect is an Infocom mystery game. It resembles Deadline more than Witness or Ballyhoo. You are at a party with a large crowd of people, and you are set up for the murder of the hostess.

This game features a large number of NPCs with independent actions. You have to figure out who committed the murder, and we, and who helped them.

Overall, it seemed difficult, but I just used a walkthrough after playing around a bit. I don't enjoy replaying long games over and over, (except for Adventure and Zork I, where you really just need to optimize your lantern use). The story was fun, and I enjoyed the feelies.

The game does give you clues on the actions you need to perform, usually by seeing something happen and saying to yourself "Oh! If I had done such and such EARLIER, I would have been fine!"

This game is a murder mystery with a twist. The game is written in third person, with the protagonist being Madame L'Estrange, spiritualist detective.

The focus here is the story, and it's what got the game nominated for a '97 XYZZY Best Story award. You travel to various locations and get big text dumps spinning a marvelous tale of murder, Australian animals, and the occult.

The rest of the game is a bit spotty. There are numerous typos and spotty implementation. Sometimes you talk to people automatically when you see them; you almost always have to 'ask about' something even if you want to tell, except for one spot in the game where you have to 'tell' several things. A lot of guess-the-verb, but you can do most of the game on your own before using the walkthrough (you don't get any points at all until you're about 3/4 of the way through the game). Even the inventory has a typo with a misplaced colon.

Overall, a great game if you're into a good story, which I am.

In the Friend Zone is an allegory like Gulliver's Travels or Alice in Wonderland, but centered around the plight of the Nice Guys who get stuck in the Friend Zone by women.

Although the love interest and PC can have their gender chosen, it seems to be centered around men; after all, the entire world seems to be (Spoiler - click to show)a woman, where you explore her arm, eye, mouth, anus, and vagina, getting progressively more disturbing.

Gameplay is linear at first, turning into exploration later on. The game directs towards different 'questions', which you hunt through to find. I enjoyed this part of the game, as well as parts of the openings.

The overall theme is something I don't quite identify with, and as a prudish person, there are more sexual references than I would like. The general feel seems to be that women are torturing men by placing them in the Friend Zone, but the subtext is that the men are torturing themselves. Nowhere, though, does it suggest open dialogue or communication as ways of developing relationships.

So I had mixed feelings about it. I loved the execution and writing, and I'd be very happy to see more from this author.