Reviews by MathBrush

The Gostak is one of those games that everyone hears about eventually. Some play it, some stay far away. I didn't get past the first room when I first played it, felt scared, and put it off for five years.

I finally completed it with the in-game hints and some of David Wellbourns dictionary.

So what is this game? It is based off of an old sentence a professor came up with, showing that you can guess a lot about words and their relationships just by their position in a sentence. That sentence was "The Gostak distims the doshes".

In this game, you are the Gostak, and you do have to distim the doshes. You have to learn how to navigate, to examine, to take and drop, and so forth. The help menu, also written in nonsense, is vital in understanding the language.

The hints were actually very helpful, although it might be possible to beat the game without them. The last hint is purposely vague.

The game has two npcs, one who is quite helpful, and one who is not. There are a variety of other objects, though.

After finally beating it, I love this game, but it sure was hard, even with all hints and a dictionary.

This is one of my favorites. You play as one of four characters who stole a gem from a dragon, and then lost it. You want to get it back. You can also be the dragon.

There is the adventurer, who plays as a Zork-type PC, gathering items and chatting with guards; the thief, who remains hidden and has special tools; the wizard, who can use spells; and the royal, who can command everyone and has an entourage. The dragon does, you know, dragon things.

The game is hard, but you can switch between characters at any time, and one character can see things that will help another.

Location and object descriptions are different with each character, giving the game a really varied feel.

By far, this game is the closest to a straight-up D&D type setting, which I love.

This is an entertaining ADRIFT game which I played on Gargoyle on Windows. You play as the grim reaper, getting your daily list of souls to reap. You can complete your tasks in any order, and every puzzle has multiple solutions.

As you complete your tasks, you get page-long textdumps of truly entertaining material about your targets. There is a timer, but it is very generous. I usually use walkthroughs extensively, but I only required one hint in this game.

The humor is similar to Terry Pratchett or even Douglas Adams, just dry situational comedy more than slapstick. Some unusual settings for English-language IF (Himalayas, France, etc.).

This is a hidden gem. This game was nominated for 4 xyzzy awards, including Best Game. The author also wrote two other Best Game nominees, Distress and Tales of the Travelling Swordsman.

This game is not played often because it is a homebrew parser game, written in QBasic, only playable in a DOS emulator. It was not hard for me at all to get this, though, as described below.

(The following discussion describes how to play the game. It is under spoilers to save space):(Spoiler - click to show)

Lunatix can only be played on a DOS emulator, as far as I can tell. Several people recommended I use DOSbox, which is a well-known, easy to use emulator. The game played great! I followed instructions by Juhana

type the following commands once DOSbox is started:
"mount c path/to/" (where path/to/ is the directory on your computer where you unzipped the game. For instance, I had it in a folder called temporary, so I typed "mount c C:\temporary")

"c:" (this changes the current folder to the one you defined as c: earlier)

"lunatix" (this runs the game. I recommend doing "lunatix /t /m" to play in pure text mode without it locking your mouse. The game has great graphics, but I'm used to just text. I loved the picture of the squid, though)

The game is about exploring a large asylum as the director, one who has lost control of the asylum to the insane, who force you to take a drug trip.

The game is pretty humorous, like a less-profane version of Blue Chairs with slightly more reality. The building is like the hospital in One Eye Open without any gore.

The puzzles include a mix of searching (the hidden locations follow patterns, so once you get used to hit, you can find everything), and passwords/codes, which also aren't too hard. It's definitely a 90's game, with some puzzles just for the sake of puzzles. I really enjoy games from this era.

The setting is great; the inmates have their own language, money, economy, etc.

The parser is not as bad as I was led to believe; however, I had a walkthrough, so I knew when to guess the verb and when not to. I would rate it above Infocom and below a customized set of Inform responses.

The game is mid-length.

Tapestry is a game that came up quite a bit in early IF discussions due to its unusual storytelling strategy. It remains fairly well-known.

Tapestry is a story about the afterlife, where a man is confronted with his 3 most despicable moments in life, and a chance to revisit each. You can deny each memory and fight against it, you can accept the memory and your shame, or you can accept the memory and deny your shame.

It is well-known for its moral choices, and for having several distinct paths, one of which is almost puzzle-free (the one where nothing changes), while one is puzzle-intensive (fighting your fate).

The first time I played it, months ago, I didn't really like it, and I stopped after the second panel. But this time, I used the walkthrough, and I read the story more, and I really liked it, and even found it emotionally satisfying.

The game gives an entire recap story at the end (about 2 pages), showing what life you really led.

An interesting, fascinating game. I recommend it (and don't feel bad about using a walkthrough, as many of the puzzles are just busywork). I do regret using the walkthrough at the very end in the 'accepting your fate' lines.

This excellent IFComp 2015 game is a bizarre, surreal journey. You choose one of several 'origin stories' in a sense; for instance, once my father carved miniature cathedrals that played music, and once I lived in the swamp and sold frog skin.

The game consists of a journey towards a distant summit. You reach many places in between, in almost a surreal(er) Gulliver's Travels.

As you travel, you deal with an odd thing called a fishstomach, whose details I leave to the game.

Overall, I found the game emotionally satisfying, especially near the end. Well-chosen graphics help the game.

Occasional profanity and some body horror, but milder than Porpentine's games in general.

This game was my predicted winner of IFComp 2015. This game is well-written, has great pacing (especially in the first half), a strong narrative voice, and excellent graphics. It is easy enough for people to get into with little IF experience, but provides enough of a challenge later on to be interesting.

You play a teenage girl whose town is overrun by the eponymous Brain Guzzlers. You have a cast of creatively-described friends and acquaintances who help you out. Conversation is menu-based, which allows Cherrywell to express the real flavor of the PC's world (with a lot of 'Jeepers!').

The game has some very creative puzzles, and some more straightforward. Each character of the game (besides yourself) comes with one or more high-quality graphics that show up when talking to them.

Game play is 2-3 hours long, I estimate. I recommend this to everyone; I feel like it will be played for years to come.

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.

This is my favorite Eric Eve game. It has all the things he does so well: gripping storyline, interesting but not-too-hard puzzles, incredible help system and 'go to' commands, massive map, huge inventory, and good gameplay flow.

It also has less of my least favorite aspect of his games, a focus on a male protagonist that has his pick of women. The woman definitely has the upper hand in this game.

You play a character in a city that is being evacuated due to a threat by an unknown Enemy. You stay behind to search for a woman you care for. An enormous relationship with this woman unfolds through flashbacks, which you can "REMEMBER" at any time.

I loved this game. Five stars. Some may not like it as much, and it's not in my top ten favorite,but it was a good show.

I've often pondered on my reasons for reading novels, playing IF, reading stories online, etc. I've talked to my family about it, and my answers to why we escape and whether it is good changes fairly often. I also was oncea professional video game developer.

This game, then, drew me in completely. This is a choice-based game about someone who is trying to understand escapism, its role in life, its benefits and drawbacks, the meaning of art, etc.

It was fun to play the character as myself, giving the answers and reactions I would. I was happy with my ending.

It was funny to play this game after Ultra Business Tycoon III,and reading online debates over whether that game is winnable, and what it would mean if it is not winnable. I don't necessarily recommend playing that game first (Porpentine has better games, like Howling Dogs), but it was interesting.

Lynnea Glasser tends to make very good games. I didn't like Tenth Plague on philosophical grounds, but Coloratura was fantastic.

This game contains several instances of strong profanity near the beginning.