Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

In this game, you play a Russian official investigating a death on the moon with the help of your trusty robot DUFFY. As you gather evidence and use DUFFY to analyze it, you come to discover who the true murderer was.

This is a shufflecomp game, and as such it was produced quickly, and it shows. Trying to reenter the shuttle you came in from is frustrating; you can't x shuttle, enter shuttle, up, down, go in any direction, open shuttle, etc. By consulting the walkthrough, I discovered that the correct response was "in".

There are numerous NPC's, but for most of them I found only a single topic that they respond to.

The base itself is well-designed; for some reason I enjoyed the wide use of diagonal directions, and the sickle-shape of the base.

Unfortunately, I was unable to complete the game, as the walkthrough does not work at one point (Spoiler - click to show)You cannot go down in the greenhouse, and no other command such as open grill or x shutters could get me into the air duct. However, I wish I could; the writing isn't perfect, the npcs aren't implemented very strongly, but somehow it all comes together to a game that is actually very fun.

Edit: Another user showed me how to finish the game, and the additional content made the game much better for me. It feels larger.

In my original review, I complained about parser problems, especially for a particular puzzle. Two people disagreed with my review, so I wondered if I was just being dumb and not understanding. I went back and tried again, and I found the correct solution, which was imaginative, so I have to give the author credit for that. The game is very short. Perhaps others may find the game more fun than I did; in the end, it seems a bit like the one-puzzle game "More", which similarly involves a relationship, crime, rooms with little interaction, and a single puzzle requiring a leap of intuition.

Original review: I'll begin by saying I haven't finished the game for reasons that will soon be apparent. This game starts out with a very graphic scene of violence, after which you are able to take a little more action. I found it hard to find anything to do at all, but once I discovered where to go and what to do, I started enjoying things more.

But then I was plagued by parser issues. It was just one guess-the-verb game after another, with no implementation of common synonyms and no suggestions for verbs that are close (something like, "the pen can't be clicked, but it can be opened" for that type of situation would be nice). There were other similar problems; repeatedly searching an area kept giving me the same message about discovering an item, and there was one item where it was clear what needed to be done with it, but the parser gave the same response every time with no hint of if I wasn't ready yet or if I hadn't guessed the verb. (Spoiler - click to show)Specifically, the lighter. I pushed in the nest and squeezed the bottle, but I cannot light, flick, open or burn the lighter, and cannot burn, ignite, or light the nest, pit or fluid. In fact, I cannot refer to the fluid in the pit at all. I know I may not have solved the puzzle, but it would make much more sense to say, "not yet", or, "we need to ... first" if that were the case.

Finally, the About command gave no help, and included a boilerplate intro to IF section that mentioned several things that were completely irrelevant in this game.

This Shufflecomp game follows the adventures of a boy who loves comics and meets his heroes. The writing style is goofy and casual. The first time I played, I reached an ending pretty quickly, and I wasn't very impressed with the game. However, as I explored more of the branches, I realized how much more text there was that I missed, and found 6 or more endings.

Each single play through is not that great, but exploring all the branches gives you the same unreal feeling that dreams have. Playing the game a few times is just like the sleepy morning time when you drift in and out of sleep and your dreams weave together.

This Shufflecomp Twine game feels like it's the first act of an enormous, sprawling game, but it takes less than half an hour with minimal puzzles.

The writing of the game is above average, with a feel similar to Spirited Away or Howl's moving castle (with more sci-fi than magic). It paints a picture of a fascinating, decaying world with bizarre customs.

The implementation is wonderful. The author uses Twine to simulate subway rides, blindness, etc.

The story has many loose ends, and stops abruptly. It would be interesting to see what a longer game with this theme would be.

I also appreciated the save game feature.

This Inform game was an entry for ShuffleComp:Disc 2, where games are based off songs. It is a brief piece, taking less than 15 minutes to play. As the game states at the beginning, this is an exploratory game, requiring only basic commands like "take", "enter", "look", and directional commands.

The game builds up an interesting picture of Atlantis, with an emphasis on its mythology and pantheon. I found this part of the game to be very clever.

The game is well-polished technically. The writing is in third person, and had a small number of errors.

For some reason, the author has asked that you only play the game through once before discussing and reviewing. I played through twice, but I won't incorporate the second playthrough in this review. Perhaps the author expects and hopes for players to disregard this restriction, as much of the game focuses on oppressed individuals who yearn for freedom.

This piece is inspired by John Cage's famous 4'33 composition, which consisted of three movements, each telling the orchestra to remain silent ("Tacet").

Essentially, the entire game consists of the author's statement (and perhaps the walkthrough).

This game contains excellent writing, but that is easy, because more than half of the text comes from the writings of Lord Dunsany, a fantasy writer predating Tolkien and Lovecraft. The writings chosen are about the world wars; it may have been picked as something "dry", but I was actually very interested in the text.

The material surrounding the text is somewhat less well written, relying on some stock ideas common in the 2010's. The visual format is very interesting, trying to mimic a folder of html files (well, I guess it really is a folder of html files; isn't everything?), and then incorporating more and more material.

There are some parts where it is difficult to read due to (Spoiler - click to show)every letter being turned around. It was a little frustrating.

The game incorporates twitter in a fun way; unfortunately, I did not want to use my twitter account (due to it being very public), and I did not want to start a new account, so I didn't get to try it out.

In this short Twine game, you take on the role of a young archaeologist a a dig site trying to get their big break. There are multiple endings depending on your actions.

The game is short and the writing doesn't hold up well in certain parts, but it was written in only 48 hours for a competition. If the author decided to revisit it in the future, it could be fleshed out and polished into a full and interesting story.

This Twine game centers on a woman with a special ability who visits a town. She has many choices regarding the use of this ability and the flow of her conversations, which results in a large number of endings.

The writing is well thought-out and supplemented by several graphics, but it never really drew me in. Therre is a content warning on the site about a graphic sex scene which is easy to avoid; there is a similar violent scene. I decided to check them out and regretted it immediately, skipping through quickly. Next time, I will listen to warnings.

I played through it twice to try some variations on the reputation system. As I said, I did not find the story compelling, but it was based on some song lyrics as part of a competition, and did well in bringing them to life.

The first part of the game is a completely technical puzzle. No moves can hurt you, and there are no characters or items. As a mathematician, I found this part of the game deeply enjoyable. Like a Rubik's cube, I realized that each element can be manipulated by a little "dance". These are the important "dances":

(Spoiler - click to show)Going n, e, s, w from the kitchen lowers the floor.

Going e, n, w, s, w from the kitchen raises the floor.

Going in a similar circle around the dining room changes the direction of the bridge. If the foyer is closed, go up twice through the kitchen first.

To go down or up, do a kitchen dance and approach the moving floor from w or e, respectively.


As for the second part, the idea was fun, and the implementation was fun, but the subject matter was not my cup of tea. I found it fun to explore everything, but used a walkthrough once I tried every item.