Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

King of Bees is short, with a braided storyline (where choices temporarily affect the storyline before converging again.

This game reminds me a bit of Endless, Nameless in its visual design,with a combination of types.

You play a space knight, who is sent to kill the king of bees. The game has several layers of meaning, and it is hard to know what the ultimate message is ((Spoiler - click to show)for instance, is the heavy-handed environmental subtext meant as part of the ultimate message, or is it presented ironically?).

I recommend it.

This game was entered in Ludum Dare, a 24-hour game competition.

This game is classic Porpentine. Strong writing, extreme repetition, the game as a metaphor for a relationship, occasional profanity, and a variety of bodily fluids. This game has little violence or sexual references compared to her other games.

The main mechanic is climbing. You climb a wall. Then stuff happens.

Porpentine as an author is reminiscent of the 19th century authors who wrote extremely triply material. Samuel Coleridge and Edgar Allen Poe come to mind.

In this game, you play a witch who has been confined to a single room during a potion competition. You must brew a potion to win, however, you suffer a major disadvantage, because there is something wrong with your magic.

I was hesitant about this game at first, because I found the language annoying (imagine the writing by Anna from Frozen: "I am SO going to catch her!"). Also, the first few puzzles were almost trivial.

However, I realized as time went on that the writing produced a consistent and interesting worldview (as the backstory unfolded), and that the first puzzles were just an easy tutorial. The game got progressively more difficult, until I needed 3 hints to get through puzzles.

The hints are very mild, provided entirely by your cat's actions.

There's a few red herrings in this game, and a bit of 'guess the author's brain', but by the time I finished, I realized that I genuinely enjoyed this game.

In this game, written for the author's hot-spring loving wife, you explore an expansive wilderness region with a hot spring, wild animals, a friendly old NPC, and beautiful descriptions of nature.

One of my favorite games of all time is Suzanne Britton's novel-length Worlds Apart sci-fi. She specifically cites this game and Sunset over Savannah (a game focusing on a beach and nature) as being an inspiration to her. Having played the two games, I really see how Worlds Apart took inspiration from this game. Worlds Apart is set in a forest near a beach. The forest part of the game is extremely similar to She's Got A Thing for A Spring, with vivid nature descriptions, a guidebook where you can look up plants and animals, and a specific animal (the pika/pakal) that seems almost directly borrowed, with slightly similar puzzles.

This made me appreciate both games more, as it helped me see some of the creative process. She's got a thing for spring is rare as being a realistic game without horror or magical elements. The closest game to it I've seen is A Change in the Weather, which came out a year or two before it.

There are some negatives; the game makes the unfortunate mistake of combining a large, nonlinear map with independent NPCs and tightly timed puzzles. This is a bad combination, as Jim Aikin learned with his game Last Resort, which also featured a huge map and tightly-timed puzzles. He solved the problem by re-tuning the game so that time changes are triggered by events, resulting in the excellent Lydia's Heart game.

Other games, like old Infocom games, have tightly-timed puzzles, but generally they have small maps that make replay easy, or confine the puzzles to a specific time and place.

So I just used a walkthrough to see the fun. The walkthrough was wrong in several places, so I had to improvise, and that was fun.

I've recently replayed many of Jon Ingold's games, and I am very impressed with his writing. This game is probably his best story. There are some puzzles, but you are generally held by the hand and walked through them (except at the beginning, but the game basically gives up and lets you through if you don't get it).

The real puzzle in this game is trying to figure out what is really going on. Ingold knows exactly how much to say to make something cool and how little to say to keep your imagination interested.

This is a fantasy (and possibly sci-fi) game following an assassin who is trying to escape his hanging. Not only do you the player not know what is going on at first, your character doesn't either! Your mutual journey of discovery makes the game exciting.

If you get stuck on the first puzzle, don't sweat it. This is a story, and the puzzles are just side thoughts. If you prefer puzzles but enjoy his writing, Jon Ingold's Muldoon Legacy is a huge puzzle fest, much bigger than Curses! or MIT Zork.

For a Change is an interesting short fantasy game that plays around with the English language to make you feel like you probably know what's going on, even if you aren't sure.

The author intentionally uses unusual word choices and assigns personality traits to objects (for instance, you read that "A stone has been insinuated into your hand"; if you check you inventory, you see that the stone is "humble and true").

This was one of the first IF games I ever played (it was packaged with iPad Frotz), and I thought it was much better suited for beginners than other games in the bundle. It's just a small pick-up-item use-item game, but the way you use items is just bizarre.

Good for anyone interested in surreal or dreamlike games, or who enjoy experiments with the English language.

"Detective" was an early game (written before the first IFComp) written by a 12-year old, who actually did a pretty good job for their age. However, many people judged it in reference to games by older, more experienced authors, and the game pales in comparison.

The authors of the MST3K version decided to make a parody where they play through with their commentary during the game. Usually, I would feel that it is pretty mean-spirited, but the game includes an interview with the author where he says that he's fine with this version of the game, and that he's a fan of Mystery Science Theatre.

The game is mostly fun because of its unusual format. It only really needs one playthrough; after that, you just hear the same comments over and over again, so there's not much replay value.

I have never seen Being John Malkovich, but this game is loosely based on it. In this game, you gain access to Andrew Plotkin (a.k.a. Zarf), author of games such as Shade, So Far, Spider and Web, and a million others. You play several characters, including Zarf and a couple of young lovebirds.

The game is relatively short, taking less than an hour. The humor is mostly absurd humor, with numerous references to Zarf's fiction. I had only played a few games at the time; it is probably worth it to work through a lot of Plotkin's games (like So Far and A Change in the Weather) before playing this game, or afterwards. Unfortunately, these games are extremely hard, so if you're not a puzzle fiend, consider a walkthrough.

Great writing, mostly good puzzles, and a fun setting. I recommend it for everyone.

Coloratura is one of the greatest sci-fi IF of all time. In this game, you play as a being utterly different from us that encounters a situation it has never experienced before.

The game has all of the usual commands, plus some new commands, the most interesting of which are color-based commands. Different colors signify different moods or ideas.

The puzzles are extremely rewarding, and fit into the plot exactly. The NPC's are well-implemented, and the nature of the game makes you feel as if the parser is not limiting conversation at all, only the world itself is.

I didn't really need a map for this game. It took a couple of hours to play. The game's biggest strength is its ability to put you in the shoes of someone completely different from you, to make you really feel like you are them.

I only wish the game had lasted a bit longer. But this may have made the puzzles less cohesive.

Muse is a bit on the long side for an IFComp game. In this game, you play an English clergyman who becomes interested in a young woman.

The game is focused on conversation and a few keyed actions. This is a game with good writing, but underclued puzzles, and so I took my standard tack for such games of just using a walkthrough after muddling about for a bit. (As an example of an underclued puzzle, (Spoiler - click to show)It says your room is stuffy. If you don't open your window, you can go around and do things for hours, but you will never solve the puzzle.).

There were also other word issues. You have to say "daughter" instead of the daughters name sometimes when speaking to the father.

All in all, I think that everyone would enjoy this game more with a walkthrough than just playing through. The puzzles are not compelling.

But I strongly recommend the text.