Reviews by MathBrush

This long sci-fi game was nominated for the very first XYZZY award for Best Game in 1996. It is a sequel to former games, as far as I can tell.

This game seems to have been forgotten, with only 3 ratings and no reviews on IFDB. It is a very large game, about as long as Spellbreaker.

The plot concerns a young apprentice scientist who isn't doing as good as they should working on scientific research working in a slightly different universe (with a sort of C. E. J. Pacian feel). Many things show up here before other games; you explore a complicated set of labs the year before Babel came out, and you explore a creepy lighthouse two years before Anchorhead.

The tone is mildly dark and mildly humorous. Some parts of the game near the end are pretty silly. I still don't understand (Spoiler - click to show)the transvestite squid and the yellow submarine full of blue rodents. I have no idea why the tone changed so much there.

This is an old-school game, where they were still incorporating Infocom tricks like search-everywhere puzzles and hidden timers that were only designed to increase the length of small-size games. In a large game like this, it is frankly unfair. Many of the puzzles have difficult solutions, and many items are under-implemented.

I loved the story, as much as I understood it. I just took a walkthrough and ran with it.

This game is set in old London. The first act is amazing; you play a magician in the middle of an act. The level of detail in the opening is astonishing, and is a must-play for every IF fan.

Sadly, the game goes downhill from there. It is still a very good game, but nothing can compare to the opening. You spend the rest of the game trying to understand more of your background and visiting various mundane or mysterious locales.

The game takes less than an hour to play. Some of the puzzles are very hard, and getting the 'best' solution requires that you bring some objects with you from one area to another, with no chance to backtrack if you missed them.

Rover's Day Out is centered on a brilliant idea, which you discover the instant you start playing. Ostensibly, this game is about a morning routine and a cute dog called Rover. However, you soon learn more about what is really going on.

I finished playing this game on parchment, which caused problems with the status bar (which adds a lot of information). Also on parchment, I had a bug where an essential item (Spoiler - click to show)(dog food) disappeared, rendering the game unwinnable. The bug did not appear again when I played through the second time, some months later.

It can be a little hard at times to figure out what is going on, but that is part of the appeal of the game. The game gets progressively more intense, with the later game being especially intense. Plenty of surprises occur as the game progresses.

This game has been ranked in the Top 50 IF of all time, and it deserves its place.

A Bear's Night Out was nominated for an XYZZY award for Best Game in its second year. You play as a teddy bear exploring the house of your owner.

This is a classic 90's game. Tight puzzles, jokey references to other games, a real sense of atmosphere, many unexaminable objects. If you enjoyed Plotkin's or Nelson's early games, you will enjoy this game.

By the game's own count, it has 32 references to previous games, including letting you (Spoiler - click to show)play Curses!, Dungeon, and Adventureland.

This game is about two women, one staying in another' s home. The story of how they got there and who they are is slowly unraveled throughout the game.

As I played the first 3/4 of the game, I thought it was one of the best horror games I had ever played, with good implementation. The little hints to the real nature of the situation came out so well.

But I didn't care for the endings. I felt it didn't mesh well with the earlier setup. But this is common to most horror games.

There are a few annoying search-everywhere puzzles, so don't feel bad getting help.

This is one of my favorite Cadre games, best known for Photopia and 9:05 (and my other favorite, Endless, Nameless).

In this fantasy game, you play a dungeon maker charged with building an inescapable dungeon. Unfortunately, your first test subject is extremely resourceful, producing items out of nowhere and charming all opponents.

You have to place traps on a path through a 4x4 grid. You have to get the right traps and in the right order. It is tedious, but each playthrough (besides a few cutscenes) is different, as the adventurer reacts to your challenges with new resources.

Buying each trap is also funny.

It got a little tedious after 3-4 times; I had the basic idea, but I knew it would take a lot more to get it down right, so I used the walkthroughs.

Wonderful game.

In this game, you play as Sherlock Holmes' dog as you investigate a murder. The game features an innovative movement system based on Pacian's Castle of the Red Prince.

You explore a huge variety of locales with what seems like a hundred or more objects, but due to the system, it can be done quickly.

The one aspect of the game that initially turned me off is that it requires exhaustive search of all such objects. You have a single command to search them, but you have to repeat it over, and over, and over. It becomes like Where's Waldo.

However, as the story unfolded (using hints occasionally because I hurried through it in an hour), I became enthralled. This is a good mystery. As the author states, it is intended to be solved in your head, and not through gameplay mechanics (contrast this with the wonderful Infocom mystery Ballyhoo, where the focus is on solving puzzles to obtain more evidence, but a psychological element is still present).

I found the solution to be very logical and satisfying. I had two false accusations I was convinced of in the middle of the game before I realized I had missed crucial evidence.

Strongly recommended.

P.S. I was stuck at the very beginning because I did not understand the mechanic. You need to (Spoiler - click to show)smell nouns that appear in the descriptions of people, even if they are not present. So if someone smells like they went to a party, type SMELL PARTY, etc..

Bell Park is one of the four games put out by the author in 2013, and is one of the best.

You play a youth detective like Nancy Drew or the Hardy boys, but get in way over your head. Most of the game is a parody of these books, showing what would happen if someone really tried to solve crimes as a youth.

I enjoyed the game. The ending was strange, but fits the story. I recommend this game.

Beautiful Dreamer is one of the best Twine games to come out so far this year. In this fantasy game, you try to sleep at night during a windstorm.

You slowly realize that the game's world is not the same as your own. The world has a strong internal consistency, and you begin to learn more of its rules and nature.

The game is quite large. I was quite thrilled to discover (Spoiler - click to show)a classic CYOA gamebook near the beginning of the game. I thought the game was quite big already, but when I finished it and read the credits, I discovered that I had missed thousands of words' worth of text, which I went back and read.

The tone is a lot like Howl's Moving Castle (both the book and the movie), with archetypal characters, much talk of dreams, surreal magic, etc.

I also felt there were many similarities with Eidolon: (Spoiler - click to show)exploring a dark and shadowy bedroom, dream-type worlds, and a moth motif.

I strongly recommend this game.

This short choice game has lavish and beautiful drawings for each room/scenario, but the navigation system is classic CYOA style, plus a compass rose.

The story is a version of Cinderella as a secret spy. Cinderella is an action-hungry operative who clashes with the advice of the more level-headed Godmother, providing for some of the best moments in the game.

Overall, I enjoyed it. It felt like an interactive webcomic. Because classic comic strips were some of my favorite reading material as a kid, I enjoy the idea of interactive web-comic as a form of IF, and would like to see more of this in the future.