Reviews by MathBrush

This game was written for the Neo Twiny jam, in 500 words or less. It is part of a series of 3.

The interactivity at first appears intentionally minimal, with the option to enter two names at the beginning and the option to toggle between two variations in a cycling word.

But as I went to write this review, I realized that that cycling word changes much of the rest of the story. It's clever and subtle; the piece is still slight, and must be so to fit into the confines of the jam, but I enjoyed this large-scale choice.

This game is essentially a love poem about a couple, describing their sexual experiences.

It is written in less than 500 words, and interaction occurs in two ways: clicking arrows back and forth, and mousing over text which expands the legible text.

The wording is poetic, and the UI is well-done and artistic. The game had content warnings, which I should have heeded, as it was much more explicit than most games with similar content warnings.

This game is more the hint of a story than a full story. It's written in Gruescript, a relatively recent language that is a parser/choice hybrid, created by Robin Johnson.

This game blends physical objects with conversational topics. What you're holding, you can talk about. If you can talk about something (like a name), you can take it and drop it.

The setting is some kind of alternate mythology, a fantasy world that has echoes of Greek mythology (some kind of box that wasn't meant to be opening, blends of snakes and people).

There's just not much here; I reached an ending early on that I thought was a time limit. I restarted and found out it only comes from asking a certain topic. I avoided that topic but couldn't find much more; downloading the (helpfully provided source), I see that that was the full ending.

So this game is pretty short. The concepts are good, though I had some trouble with figuring out how to do what I wanted. In a fuller game, it could be very fun, but for now, I'll be content with this hint of a game.

This game was written using ADL, which was the engine Ken and Roberta Williams used for some early Hi-Res Adventures (from what I can gather, though I may be wrong).

The game itself is a downloadable windows executable. It consists of a moderate number of rooms (around 10-15), each with either one interesting item or one interesting NPC. Nothing can be interacted with outside of these singular items (no scenery, etc.). All play consists of fetching one item in one room to get a new item in another room (like a trading-up quest). There are occasional typos, and the storyline isn't really there.

The author has admitted to having run out of time. Having more time would certainly improve the game; the author has mentioned implementing the scenery, more puzzles, etc.

For now, though, the game is lacking in polish and descriptiveness, and due to its unfinished nature lacks emotional depth. I'm giving it one star for its current state, but if the author ever updates it I'll definitely increase the rating, as the ideas in it are good, it just looks like it needs more time.

This is a relatively brief Twine game with some silly/goofy humor in it. It seems like the main goal is just to get the reader to laugh, like when you can choose between wearing a suit or a cardboard box for your big debut.

'Aesthetics over plot' seems right, as there isn't much plot to talk about. You're out of work and are going to a networking event, and you just choose how to react to a few different things.

I'm not sure how to approach this review, so I'll use my five criteria scale:

-Polish: The game has some typos, and I think decapitalizes your name when you type it in.
+Descriptiveness: There are some clear textual images that are pretty funny, like your character shouting out their plans at the party.
+Emotional impact: There are definitely some funny parts.
+Interactivity: There are some significant differences on replay, even though it's a short game, and achievements are generously handed out.
-Would I play again? It was entertaining, but too slight to replay several times. I did replay once to see how much of a difference there was.

I enjoyed this brief respite while playing Spring Thing games.

You play as a mutant pig farmer dealing with bikers. Life is kind of unfair, because if you don't feed your pigs, shovel their poop, and deal with bikers, you're gonna lose your pigs! And there's not enough time to do all of that...

Fortunately you have other options as well. And trying some of them out can give you different fun endings in a short amount of time.

I reached a point where I could pick between two different endings, and I picked a deathmatch, which was pretty amusing.

I liked the game, finding it polished and descriptive, but I didn't feel like replaying it in the end.

For me, I tend to choose interactive fiction that has features of escapism, and feel like I'm taking a break from reality when I play the game. That's one reason games like Violet threw me off at first, since, despite their quality, they reminded me of my real-life PhD pressures.

This game is quite the opposite of escapist. It poses (from my perspective) a single question: if you knew you were going to die, what would you do to be remembered?

Bez talks in honest and self-reflective detail about his experiences with pseudo-dementia, which led to concern that they would soon perish. Now, though, e's in a better place, so now we can look back and see how things were going, and how the game A Single Oroubouros Scale was developed.

Like a few of Bez's other pieces, this is structured not as a game but as a narrative essay, which different chapters broken up by hyperlinks. For me, the hyperlinks brought a definite sense of interactivity to the piece, because it was like finding clues in a mystery game, except instead of solving a crime you're trying to understand a human being.

I thought I had finished the whole project, and felt it was missing just a bit more that could help communicate the author's intent, but when I came to review the game, I found a poem (by the poet that his recent game Hidden Gems, Hidden Secrets centered on) which beautifully complemented the overall experience.

It is clear that this game wasn't really finished. It even says so in the description, that it is a first game, rushed, etc.

The idea is that you are emperor Nero and that you are furious, because it is the day of your concert, but instead of paying attention to you, everyone is crying about their houses burning!

You have to investigate three different groups of people to find out what's going on, and then try to get your concert going.

The amount of typos and such increases as the game goes on, with errors in Twine popping up and at least one blank spot. However, I do think it's being updated during the comp, since it says only the Epaphroditus path is finished, while I was able to talk to a few people.

The text is descriptive, and the interactivity is actually a bit fun (should you sacrifice dignity and talk to the guards naked?), but this just needs more polish. Emotionally-wise, Nero is a bit too much of a single note--his arrogance just gets hammered over and over again without anything to contrast it with.

From what I've seen, I think this author could make great Twine games with just a little more preparation and time.

As of writing, this game has 54 reviews on IFDB, more than any other game on the database.

I had a review of this game years ago that was mildly spoiler-y, and it was my lowest-rated review on IFDB by far (like 0 out of 9 people found it helpful).

I thought I'd give it another go.

This game is short but memorable, and its main defining feature is the way that it sets expectations. Funnily enough, this helps it serve as a great introduction to IF for newbies, since each command is hinted so heavily without feeling like handholding.

For instance, in my games, on the first turn I'll say something like 'You can PICK UP the telephone', just holding the player's hand very heavily, while this game simply says 'the phone rings'.

The room prominently displays loose objects, encouraging the player to pick them up; mentions only a dresser, encouraging the player to try OPEN; clothing, encouraging the player to WEAR, which then triggers the need to shower, adding a little complexity.

Driving can be complex in other games, but hear any reasonable actions with the car will get you in and going. Even the (Spoiler - click to show)ID card, usually something people code in a weird way, is hinted nicely with saying the reader has a place for you to INSERT the card.

For most people, at least in the years when this came out, the events in the game are completely reasonable and logical ones that they've either experienced or seen on TV (younger players may be confused you can't take the telephone with you). For experienced IF players, the bare-bones house descriptions are par for the course. So in this way, the author manages expectations in a brilliant way.

In my last review, I dinged the game for its bland prose, but looking back, it manages to add a lot of character in small ways. Like, if you eat the pop-tart, it says 'It's not Sunday brunch at Le Trop Cher, but it'll do.' That's clever. So it's not that the game isn't well-written and punchy, it's more like an optical illusion where it takes good descriptions and interesting responses but puts them into the same overall 'shape' as a bad, first 'my apartment' game so you just gloss over them until you realize they had more depth than you thought.

Overall, an interesting game, and an influential one.

This was a nice little treat, but was over as quick as it began.

This is a seedcomp game based on the prompt that players do a closed door game without using verbs, just adjectives and nouns.

I spoiled myself a bit here by not clicking the links in order; because I went out of order, I skipped about 1/3 of the game, which was red herrings.

Overall, I like the cute ideas expressed in this. It was polished to me, and descriptive in its own enigmatic way (what does the paintbrush mean? interesting). The interactivity worked well for me, but I didn't have enough time to get really drawn in. I'm glad I played.