Reviews by MathBrush

Coloratura is one of the greatest sci-fi IF of all time. In this game, you play as a being utterly different from us that encounters a situation it has never experienced before.

The game has all of the usual commands, plus some new commands, the most interesting of which are color-based commands. Different colors signify different moods or ideas.

The puzzles are extremely rewarding, and fit into the plot exactly. The NPC's are well-implemented, and the nature of the game makes you feel as if the parser is not limiting conversation at all, only the world itself is.

I didn't really need a map for this game. It took a couple of hours to play. The game's biggest strength is its ability to put you in the shoes of someone completely different from you, to make you really feel like you are them.

I only wish the game had lasted a bit longer. But this may have made the puzzles less cohesive.

Many people seem put off by the homey charm of this Christmas game, perhaps more interested in gore or adult content. But this ASCII-art using winter game is deep and well-polished, and on the longer end for an IFComp game. It won the comp for a good reason.

First, it is beautiful. Visually, the ASCII art and color scheme help the immersion (I loved the snowflakes in the status bar). And the descriptions and responses of the text are all well-crafted and contribute to the atmosphere significantly.

Second, the puzzles are ingenious, though some reasonable alternatives are not implemented. The majority of the game centers on magical creatures, and working with them. NPC interaction is present, though limited, as is usual in games of this time period.

The story starts out extraordinarily over sweetly, but I enjoyed it, and it soon became a magic-themed puzzle fest. This game drew me in, and I would love to see more games with a fun family atmosphere instead of gritty dystopias or gruesome underground labs.

Hunter, in Darkness has some of the best pacing of any IF game out there. You are hunting, in the darkness, and you must follow your prey through a cave. Things quickly go from bad to worse, and your injuries and fears come to the front.

In this game, you usually know exactly what you need to do, but may not know how to do it. The final big puzzle in particular took me a long time to get, but the writing was good enough that the game didn't feel stagnant while I was experimenting to solve it.

If you enjoyed Gun Mute or even Attack of the Robot Yeti Zombies, but wanted a more serious experience, this game is for you.

I enjoyed Scavenger, and will probably revisit it. You play a scavenger in a post-apocalyptic society who has a lead on a big find. You have to find and search a base. There are no big surprises here, but plenty of fun puzzles.

Some of the puzzles, though fun, were a bit under clued. At least four puzzles depend on you searching or moving objects that are not obviously searchable, or that are similar to earlier immobile/unsearchable objects, or which you are explicitly told have nothing in them. This draws back from the fun.

The games NPCs have a lot of character, especially in their descriptions and responses.

It may seem as if I didn't like this game, but it has that elusive 'it'-ness that makes a game enjoyable and with it. Perhaps this is the reason it was nominated for a Best Game XYZZY.

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.

Blue Chairs is (literally) trippy. After an interesting transaction at a college party, you take a surreal journey through this world and variants of it. Something like an adaptation of Dante's Inferno by James Joyce.

The game contains drug references and strong profanity.

The puzzles are mostly reasonable, although I needed a walkthrough in the convenience store.

As a literary work, it is well written and well done. As a game, the puzzles are interesting and well-connected with the story.

However, I don't really recommend the game. I didn't like the atmosphere and feeling of the game. Everyone's tastes are different, and many people will enjoy this game, but I felt uncomfortable with parts of it.

Photopia is often cited as the best interactive fiction of all time. It has won numerous awards, inspired a shift to story-centered Interactive Fiction, and so on.

It really is a great game. Despite all the hype, sitting down and playing through it is fun. The meta-puzzle of trying to understand what's going on keeps you going through different scenes. The different scenes give you the impression that you're playing a hard puzzle game while actually simplifying things without you knowing.

The colors are a good part of the game; if your interpreter doesn't support or if you are unable to distinguish between colors, you should use your imagination.

Is this really the best IF of all time? I honestly would have to say that nothing is really better than it. I don't replay it because it makes me sad. I like to stick to puzzle games or big crazy worlds. But this game has substance and meaning.

This game was one of the two winners of the very first IF Comp. It is well known for being one of Plotkin's most difficult games, and one of the most difficult well-known games in general.

You play a loner who leaves a picnic/party to look around a secluded woodland area. Puzzles are hard due to:

1. Not knowing what your goal is;

2. Being able to put the game in an unwinnable state without knowing it;

3. Fast-paced timing.

Despite, or possibly because of the difficulty, this has remained a very popular game. Perhaps this is because the game has an inspirational feel. It is easy to identify with the protagonist, and the games understated writing gives you a sense of wonder.

The game was intended to be completed in 2 hours. You will certainly reach an ending within two hours.

This is my favorite Short game. This game is set in the future, when a colony from earth has developed gene-altering technology. The setting is not really important, however. What is important is the negotiation and the recording features.

Negotiation: The main purpose of the game is to work out what will happen between earth and the planet. Your job is to communicate this, but you have to understand the symbolism of the settlers. The bulk of the game is focused on figuring out what to say and how to say it.

Recording: This is actually not even necessary to the completion of the game, so some players have missed it. There are several recordings in the game which can be 'processed' to one of several different modes, such as a cartoon mode, a scientific mode, etc. It was hilariously fun, and unique among games I have played.

One of the great sci-fi games.

Chlorophyll felt like a commercial game to me. If Infocom had lived longer, I could see this as being one of their "Beginner" games (which were never very easy, as far as I can tell). It's well-polished, with a strong background story and lots of extra details.

It's a mid-length game set on a distant world. You play a young plant-woman with her plant-woman mother. You must explore a base while also coming to grips with your own coming adulthood and independence.

At times, I stopped playing Chlorophyll for a few weeks because the game seemed too open without much direction, and I felt overwhelmed. As I pressed through, though, I found that you were guided pretty well, and I found the last three areas enjoyable.

The only other sticking point was the long intro where you can't do very much. It made it annoying to restart. Other than that, this is one of the best 'recent' games.