Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

I usually write reviews for both the author and the players, but I don’t think Jim reads the reviews, so I’ll write for the players.

Jim Macbrayne is an author with a polished self-made writing system that he has used to make several parser games, usually 1-2 a year for the last several years (as well as some TADS games in the past). These games are windows executables and feature a command-line style interface with some color use. The Function keys are used as shortcuts in-game. An unusual feature of his games is that objects in containers cannot be referenced, so if there is a fish in a bucket, you can’t type GET FISH or X FISH. Instead you have to type GET FISH FROM BUCKET or GET ALL FROM BUCKET. He has reserved the F1 key to always print out GET ALL FROM IT as this occurs very frequently in the games.

The games have a standard format and this is no exception. You generally are in a world that is fantasy with some mundane/modern objects (for instance, this game has a Gymnasium with a climbing rope in it) and different devices. There are usually potions of some kind and often a teleporter device that can be calibrated to different settings (in this game, a coin-operated dial). Puzzles often revolve around entering combinations using colors, numbers, keypads, etc. with the solution to one combination found on a card or piece of paper in another area. There is usually a book of spells that you can memorize a certain number of times, each time you casting them having one copy of the spell disappear from memory.

This game has all those things. The framing device is that you have been asked to find Excalibur, King Arthur’s sword. In the meantime, you’ll pass through caves, castles, and more.

I generally find these games pretty chill and soothing. I like to play for a bit till I get stuck, get some hints, play more, and then when I’m really not sure to use the walkthrough. I got around 60 points out of 230 before using the walkthrough. I feel like playing without help would take a week or two, with a lot of time waiting for ‘aha’ moments.

I did miss some of the more exciting parts of earlier games; for instance, this game didn’t have much NPC interaction.

I expect to see more similar games in the future, and they’re nice to look forward to, and I like to play them early on in the competitions, as they don’t get many reviews (mostly due to being a Windows executable). The nice thing is if you play one and like it, there are many more to enjoy.

This game was entered in Spring Thing 2024. It's a parser game that uses the Bisquixe interpreter, which I worked on, to do some color changes, so this review is biased. It is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see when I made it so I'm very happy.

The story is one of suspense. You arrive at a studio apartment, ready to sleep, but you have to prepare for the night first. While doing so, you, the reader, will discover that there is more to your life than first appeared.

Later on, the game enters a new phase. (Spoiler - click to show)A stranger starts opening the door, and you start planning on what you'll do, using the future tense, one of the few times I've seen someone use this Inform option.

The world is dense and richly implemented, with tons of items, electronics with menus and submenus and programs, etc. It can be overwhelming at times, but the gameplay isn't as complex as I was worried it would be. You can reach several different endings fairly easily, although there are a lot, some harder than others, if you're going for completionism.

The suspense was there for me, and there were several big moments, emotionally, including the fun color changes.

This game puts you in the roles of a corporate office jockey in a soulless dystopia where all art, including poetry, must be removed.

You sort things into 'facts' and 'poetry' and delete the poetry.

A strange messenger appears and lets you save some words of the poetry, which you can rearrange into your own poems. The deletion process proceeds in real time, so you have to click fast to save them.

The whole game lasts about 9 in-game days.

I found the setting interesting, and liked the poem making mechanic. The real-time event wasn't my favorite (I like IF precisely because it doesn't have real time events) but it was pretty forgiving and adjustable.

Overall, a fun concept, and I liked the Shakespeare quotes. I feel like a lot of the game was spoken in generalities, when I might have preferred more specifics, but perhaps a blank canvas was intended.


These are the poems I made (although I copped out on the last line of the last one):
(Spoiler - click to show)
their den in the light smells Like a gray shadow of the night

Assignment 646: Lanirian
cry lightning
Some Verses inspire,
Some Verses blind
may I become blind
may the day become knives.

Assignment 655: Mol'ztor'lorian
Hope is the sweetest thing heard on coldest wind.

Assignment 665: Olkuts-pons
first Swelling,
sweet and joy
it might be joy
what joy and sweet times

Assignment 671: Marvumheonackolin
Again
Every pulse
half awake blessed comfort
He thinks Every secret
When fairy numbers didn't pulse

This Twine game is intended to simulate a forensics-focused whodunnit.

You play as a detective investigating a woman who has been found dead in her apartment after several days. You have the opportunity to take hair, blood, and print samples, analyse medication, interview others, retrieve info from a smartphone, etc.

You yourself are nobody, a cipher, while the suspects are primarily interesting in the information they give rather than their unique characteristics.

There is a lot of technical info in this game, and a ton of links to methodically click through. It has the same kind of puzzle structure as in Toby's Nose, where you read all the info, come to the conclusion, and guess the suspect off a list.

I guessed the suspect wrong but had the cause of death right. It was a fun cerebral exercise, and I would play another game like this. If there were any room for improvement, it might be in making the characters have more unique and interesting features and personalities.

This game is a Twine game with extensive use of images, audio, animations or video, etc. It couldn't be hosted by Spring Thing directly due to its large size.

It's a story about someone who has really messed up sleep patterns, due to waking up early for high school, using acid, and just enjoying the night, among other reasons. You constantly have the choice to sleep or to wake.

Does that choice make a difference? It's hard to tell. I tried all waking for a bit then all sleeping, and ended up spiraling out of control.

I like surreal imagery, and the images and music were evocative. But I didn't feel a need to revisit the game afterwards.

This is a game that was put on hold for several years before being finished.

In it, you play as an octopus in an aquarium who's owner is out for the day. Bored, you're trying to find a way to make your owner move.

In the process, you discover that the man of the house has been sleeping around! Pointing that out might have some effect on your owner...

This is a fairly brief and sparse but well-implemented puzzle game with one or two major puzzles. I did consult the hints once or twice.

Overall, everything that's here is pretty good, but I think I would have liked either the storyline, the environment, or the puzzles to be developed on a bit more. The octopus character was really cool, and I was impressed at not finding any bugs or typos.

This game is about Pride (and given the rainbow flag, I assume with LGBT pride and pride month). However, it doesn't really talk about that in the game at all.

Instead, there are six paths, each corresponding to one letter in 'pride' (and an exclamation mark). Each of the letter paths has part of a hidden message that unlocks a final message.

On the letter paths, there are copies of the letter that you are currently learning about, each corresponding to a positive word, like Respect or determination.

However, all of the connections are really tenuous. The words don't have anything to do with Pride specifically; they're just describing positive traits in generic terms. It could equally as well be Pride in your local grocery store, patriotic pride, religious pride, pride in rehab, etc.

I think it might have been neat to tailor the message more to the theme.

This is a brief parser game about a samurai preparing to commit seppuku. You are given food, alcohol, and writing implements to write your death poem.

However, events intervene, and the game goes on to several action sequences.

It was generally fairly easy to figure out what to do next. I found the events interesting, and enjoyed following along. I did figure out what was going on partway through, which was nice, but the ending was heavy-handed enough and out of tone with the rest that I took off a point. It's a good story as is; why not just leave the self-deprecation and message in an author's note?

The writing was a little nondescriptive but makes up for it with fun action scenes that are uncommon in parser games.

I've really enjoyed fairy-based stories in recent years, probably starting from reading SCP-4000.

This is a cute and well-written adventure about two swashbucklers who have been separated by the law. An execution is at hand, but faeries have gotten involved, and that throws everything into the mix.

This story works well in that it leans into the swashbuckling and fairy aspects with full sincerity, allowing their natural humor and adventure to show out. I could see Errol Flynn playing one of the characters (depending on your choices).

There's not a huge amount of branching, but there are enough places where it feels like you can really mess up or do great that I was pleased with the interactivity. There is an inventory system and some text-entry riddles.

Very fun overall.

I knew before I played this game that it was fairly old-school, with the possibility of getting in non-winnable positions and a strict inventory limit.

I assumed that meant it would also be buggy or sparse. But I was pleasantly surprised to see I was wrong on both counts!

This is an amusing and puzzle-dense and polished game about zombies and other undead. You meet quite a few supernatural beings, many of which are pretty goofy and others which are frightening.

This is a hard game, and I used a walkthrough for the majority. I was able to get about 60 points on my own out of 300. I was glad to see that there was a 'winnable' setting you could activate to know if you had done something dumb or not.

The inventory was a major sticking point, though, and I'd probably raise the score by a point if it were removed. It is very tight, and I locked myself out of victory by bringing a shovel into the mansion, since I couldn't carry everything I needed out of it. And it doesn't contribute anything to the game; no puzzles are improved by the inventory limit. And you can take things out of the backpack but not put things in when it is being worn, which exacerbates things.

Overall this author shows great talent, and I would be happy to play more games from him (without inventory limits if possible!)