Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

Taco Fiction is fun. It is a bit shorter than I would like; I paused the game partway through, expecting that half of the game was left, and when I came back, there was only about 30 turns left in the game.

You play a petty criminal who needs cash. The game gives you explicit directions on what to do at first. I love ignoring directions in parser games; in some games, like Bronze, the game just doesn't move forward at all if you ignore the directions. In this game, ignoring the directions gives you a lot of different, fun results.

I admit, I enjoyed the first part of the game, before the reveal, because it wasn't like anything else I had seen before. In this sense, it was a lot like Afflicted, although the actual reveal was wildly different in the two games.

The conversation system seemed at first incredible, and then very annoying, especially with the main favorable NPC. You have a lot to say, but 95% of it is completely irrelevant.

A good, short game. Is it one of the best games of all time? It certainly has one of the best openings of all time. So play it for ten minutes, and then decide if you want to keep going or not.

This enjoyable game is more story than puzzle, although it uses a parser. You play a teenager with access to an online community. Actions are strongly limited, mostly TAKE, LOOK, and SHOW. You investigate an abandoned house, and have to entice others to come with you.

What made this game work for me was the contrast between your friends online personas and their real-life selves, including yourself. Chris and Maximus gave especially funny contrasts.

The game in the end works as a slice-of-life story. There is one significant choice, and unfortunately it comes at the very end of the game, with no opportunity to save, which prevents lawn-mowering (i.e. trying every branch).

I played Lost Pig five years ago when I started playing interactive fiction. I remember thinking that it was a wonderful, wonderful game. I loved the humor of the PC, the silly idea of chasing the pig, the contrast of me with the gnome, and the interesting color puzzles.

However, whenever I go to revisit it, I quickly lose interest. The puzzles were fun the first time, but I find little replay value in the game. If you strip away the narrative voice, the puzzles are only slightly above average.

I recommend this game for everyone to play through once, though. The gnome NPC is brilliant. The color puzzle is fun.

Overall, I found To Hell in a Hamper funnier, and the Rogue of the Multiverse. I think this is a great game, but I wouldn't call it the best of all time, as some have.

This game is essentially just a way to cram the names of a lot of people from a certain Twine forum into a game. If you aren't one of those people, there is not any real reason to play the game, because the names are distracting.

Perhaps the author could include a version in the future that allows you to toggle back and forth between the usernames and more ordinary names.

This Shufflecomp game has essentially one real puzzle but has another meta puzzle.

You explore a junkyard, thinking about your significant other. You are looking for something; this is the 'real' puzzle. But you, the reader, are trying to understand the relationship of the narrator with their significant other, and that, I feel, is a better puzzle.

Very short, but very good. Like all shufflecomp games, it was inspired by a song or songs randomly selected from a list, in this case, eight different songs! Finding out how each song is incorporated (in the author's notes) is as fun as the rest of the game.

This game is interesting; I recently read Porpentine saying that they made parser games at first, and people didn't like them, so she moved to Twine.

I think that Twine is a better format for these stories; this story is fun, but I love the complete refreshing of the screen, the colored text and background, and the pacing of Twine as elements of Porpentine's stories. This story is good, and it works, but I think that Twine was a smart move.

In this game, you have a shovel, and you have to dig. The game can be won in 15 moves or less. In its implementation and feel, it felt like Pick up the Phone Booth and Die.

Solarium gives Twine a good name. This well-crafted game is adult ficion, not as in sexuality, but as in dealing with thoughtful and meaningful concepts. It involves alchemy and an alternative ending to the cold war, decades ago.

The narrative has a branching structure, with each branch requiring a key in the form of an alchemical substance. By obtaining more substances, you unlock more areas.

The game includes several striking images, including scans of real government documents.

I strongly recommend this game.

Aotearoa won first place both in the 2010 IFComp and later the XYZZY Awards, where it swept Best Game, Best Setting, Best Puzzles, Best NPCs, Best Individual Puzzle, Best Implementation, Best Use of Innovation.

Given all the awards, to me, it was just a very well-thought out mid-length scenario. It was a fun diversion, that gives the feel of a massive world but really being a ride-on-the-rails for the most part. It gives you the feel of having solved a very difficult puzzle on your own.

As you are immediately told, the game is set in an alternate world where dinosaurs survived in New Zealand and were instrumental in New Zealand resisting the British conquest. You are a young visitor to the island, and must explore it while working with and against others. There are numerous NPCs.

To me, the game is excellent, and would make a good introduction for someone new to IF or a good , well-crafted diversion for an experienced player.

But it doesn't have lasting power, in my opinion. For instance, it was voted in the 2012 Best IF of all Time, but not in the 2015. To me, the most memorable part is the exposure to Maori language and culture (although I don't know how much is real and how much is story, but it's beautiful in any case).

Galatea is set in an artificial intelligence exhibit. Galatea, a stone woman brought to life, has mistakenly (or purposefully) been placed here.

You are a journalist, interviewing her to determine how good her "artificial intelligence" is. The answers can lead to anger, romance, supernatural effects, and a host of other possibilities.

It is a fun game to play through a few times. The conversation system is just asking her about more and more things, but the variety is endless.

This game was groundbreaking when it was first released, although later innovations have improved on it (such as the major NPC in Blue Lacuna). This game remains an enjoyable classic, because it isn't just technically impressive, it's enjoyable.

Suveh Nux is a great game. It is a mid-length one-room fantasy game where you have to learn a magical language to escape a vault. You have to learn the grammer, the vocabulary, and some numbers.

One things that makes this game fun that I didn't appreciate when I first played IF is that EVERYTHING is implemented. Anything you think you could do with the spells, you can do. You can destroy everything in the room. There are 5 or more subpuzzles that you can completely miss without the author's note at the end.

I haven't gone back to revisit the game in years, because learning the language is much of the attraction, and it wouldn't be as hard this time. But I definitely recommend the game to everyone.