Reviews by MathBrush

This game needs to be downloaded from dropbox before being played, and won't let you save. However, saving is not necessary for this game, because it's a relatively short demo of a Twine game, with many endings, all reachable in 2-5 choices.

The story is set in an alternate world, where the biggest change from our world is a kind of fire-knife thing carried by the protagonist. The main story is only a bit sketched in, but it's a kind of dystopian world like the beginning of Cape.

The author has done extensive styling of the game. There is a textured grayish-black background, as well as light gray text. When you run the cursor over a letter, it gets bright white, then slowly dims.

For me, the gray-on-gray was a bit difficult to read. It might work better to brighten up the text while preserving the hover-over-makes-a-halo effect.

I'm sure this review will drive some people to see if the game is as bad as I say it is; these people will then post, too and say "He was right! Don't play this game, it's awful!"

This game just tries to describe rape, murder, body horror, butchery, etc in as explicit terms as possible, with no capitalization and rushed spelling. It ends up not being frightening because it is so over the top, but it is gross. Perhaps I am feeding into the author's wishes too much by doing a review, but I think it's useful to record what the game is about.

1893 is a game set entirely in the real world. The map is based on the actual layout of the 1893 world's fair, and has hundreds of locations. The game includes 500 historical photographs used to illustrate these locations. Your enemies are counterfeiters, thieves and murderers. There is no magic or advanced technology (except in a hidden easter egg).

But at it's heart, this is a fantasy game. If the game said at the beginning 'You are at a bustling magical metropolis on the world called blah blah blah' and assigned random names to the buildings, this game would make an excellent fantasy game.

Explore bizarre cultures and exotic locations. Walk on an enormous cheese, witness arcane rituals, use devilishly complicated machines, and, most importantly, deal with a madman leaving a trail of dead bodies and missing diamonds.

The game asks you to find 2 persons of interest and 8 diamonds. These quests are almost entirely independent of each other, which is good, because this game is so huge and non-linear that it would be a great challenge to complete a linear sequence of events. After finding the 2 people of interest, you have the opportunity to complete a final quest.

I could not complete the final quest, because the event that triggers to find one of the people (Greenback Bob) never happened for me, even though I was following the walkthrough. However, I completed the rest of the game, and found it enjoyable.

There are many, many NPC's, some implemented well and others just sketched in.

The game includes in-game hints; the person who stole the diamonds WANTS to be found, and will give you hints if you call him.

Overall, an under-appreciated game. Few will be able to complete it on their own, but it is worthwhile to try. Try exploring the fair, picking up everything you can, and investigating everything. The 7 days that you have are very, very long, so you can afford to look around a while first.

This is a mid-length creepy Twine game about someone returning to the scene of a childhood tragedy. The mild horror which slowly builds up is one of my favorite genres, and the writing was well-paced.

I reached two bad endings by reversing all significant choices. I wonder if the good ending (if any) is hidden in some way. Also, there were some changes between versions that I didn't quite understand, specifically in the occupation of the main NPC.

Fun for fans of creepy stories.

This is a Twiny Jam game, requiring that the game be 300 words or less.

It uses the limited space effectively to comment on social injustice and the blindness of public media.

It' shard to discuss the game more without spoilers:

(Spoiler - click to show)You watch a show about water struggles in faraway places, but you have troubles of your own. With a child at home, you have no water, but you can get a small trickle whenever your neighbor uses their shower. I ended up collecting it in a bucket and dumping it over me, fully clothed.

It made me think about the problems that still exist in developed countries due to income inequality.

This Infocom game nails the pacing. The game always felt exciting. You play a young woman searching for her father who is abducted by pirates. You carry out increasingly bold tasks throughout the game, and, as a player, I felt excited at my ability to be part of the action instead of being helpless on the side.

The game has two main areas: a ship, and a house. Events are tightly scripted and well-thought-out to keep the action flowing. The tight pacing may require frequent saving.

I found the game slightly easier than usual for Infocom; however, I was stumped twice in the middle (around points 16-19). It took about a week or a bit less of playing on and off to finish it (total time around 4-5 hours).

Be warned that this game uses Infocom's piracy protection, so you need access to the 'feelies' to solve key puzzles in the game. I used the Lost Treasures of Infocom app, which has the feelies included as images.

The romance novel aspects were infrequent, mostly resorting to ardent glasses, although right around the 16-19 point range where I got stuck, things got a bit heated as I was losing, but the game avoids anything explicit.

Overall, one of my favorite Infocom games, probably due to the great writing and simpler (but rewarding) puzzles.

Hollywood Hijinx is long and complex, more so than Zork. You play the nephew of a famous movie producing couple who have died and left you their fortune, on the condition that you are smart enough to find all ten of their movie treasures.

The premise didn't really excite me, but as I read the feelies, I began to be more interested. Also, I had heard many people mention this as a favorite Infocom game. Later, during the game, I began to really get into it, especially with the (Spoiler - click to show)remote controlled model of the Atomic Chihuahua set in Tokyo.

The game is hard. I literally couldn't solve the first problem: getting into the house. I had to look up the invisiclues. The game in general was complex, and I honestly just explored the house once, then relied on the walkthrough to see the rest of the game.

Only a few puzzles seemed really unfair, especially the 'last' big puzzle. But the creativity of this game is outstanding. If I had been looking for a long game to play over a month, this would have been it.

This game is like a Verdi opera stuck in Act III. Verdi once wrote that he wanted to show the impossibility of human happiness, and this game is similar.

You generally only have two options at any time, and more often, just one: beg. You beg, and beg, and beg, and then leave or beg more. You try to get enough money for food and shelter, but you don't always succeed.

The game uses the same scenes over and over again; I think there are only two or three real screens, and each is like a mad-lib filled with different information every time.

Some people found this powerful, and I've really enjoyed the effect of depressing repetition with other Twine games, but I didn't really enjoy this game. With Those We Love Alive was much better, one of my favorite games of all time, and it was released in the same competition.

I love Snyder's games. TotTS is an excellent linear mid-length game with not-too-hard puzzles that has a fantasy feel not found in many places, kind of like the story The Fool of The World or the beginning of Princess Mononoke.

You play a swordsman who travels the land searching for a village under oppression, righting wrongs along the way. You use several items in rather creative ways, and puzzles have multiple solutions.

I found the ending unusual, and extremely satisfying. It made a few points in the game much more understandable, and tied everything together very well. I wanted to go through and play again with my new understanding.

Strongly recommended.

Monk-fish is a mid-length puzzle-y game in which you must deal with the after-effects of a failed scientific experiment. You explore an underwater base, encounter monk-fish, and generally have to puzzle out a very enjoyable story with vague similarities to Ingold's All Roads game.

The game is vaguely futuristic, somewhat like Walker and Silhouette. It gave me several laugh-out-loud moments.

This game was nominated for Best Game, Best Writing, Best Story, and Best Individual Puzzle. The puzzle it was nominated for was discovering a password, and is one of those 'to get A, you need B. So you get B, but first you have to do C, which you must have D to make sense of'. It is very, very fun, although I couldn't do step 'D' (whichever step that was).

The plot reminded me of a lot of TV shows going on right now where the protagonists is partly dead or partly alive.