Reviews by MathBrush

In the Moonlit Tower, you explore a small 3-story tower to help remember who you are and your past. Like Dreamhold, the key to your memory seems to be masks, but much of the game, you don't know what to do with the mask.

The setting is dreamlike and very poetic. It is the game most likely to find its way into a book of poems or an art gallery. The author borrowed its imagery and story from several cultures, including Mongolia and China.

The puzzles are mostly the examine/pick-up-object type until you progress very far, and then they get a bit more difficult. There are multiple endings, some of which are hard to find.

The first scene(s) in Legion are truly ingenious, one of those "What on earth is going on?" type games. It took me quite a while to figure out what was even possible, but I had fun exploring. There is basically one important verb that you can try on everything, and then reading in-game clues should give you some ideas of what else to do.

Once the game transitions into it's second section (signified by changes in the in-game color), it becomes a bit more standard, similar to Babel and the many games inspired by it. It uses some profane language, which is mostly appropriate for the nature of the person and the situation. The puzzles are still very good, the writing is still good, but the opening is so great that the rest of the game pales in comparison.

This is one of the best murder mystery games; you interview a variety of very vocal NPC's with different personalities, you pick up clues, look through a house, then deduce a murderer and then arrest them.

The NPC's are vibrant and active, moving about the house, talking about each other and their actions. It must have been an enormous amount of effort to implement these NPC's.

The story itself is necessarily somewhat weak. As the murderer can change every time, everyone's backstory and alibi have to be flexible enough to account for the changes, and there is no sense of urgency in the game.

A must-play for murder mystery fans.

'Balances' is a short game based on Infocom's celebrated Enchanter series. In fact, the opening area is directly based on the sample walkthrough in the manual of the original Enchanter game.

This game demonstrates some of Inform's best abilities: indistinguishable objects, games involving large numbers, magical spells that interact with each other, a balance that weighs different objects, etc.

The game is relatively fun, but short and without a coherent plot. It can be a good introduction to the Enchanter series for those who aren't sure about Infocom games.

Graham Nelson wrote a longer game with similar elements: The meteor, the stone, and a long glass of sherbet. Those who like this game should definitely try the longer Meteor game.

Dual Transform, by Andrew Plotkin, is one game that I think would be great for beginners without being condescending or annoying; it is also great for experienced players.

In this game, you control a console that alters the environment. You stay in the same room with the same item, but the room and item change appearance.

Once you figure out the logic of the game, it is mostly one straightforward move after another, with a couple of little sticking points that provide more satisfaction.

The writing and setting are top-notch, making this a memorable game. Having recently played "So Far", it seems that the author took some ideas from that game and concentrated/refined them into this game.

I had heard of this game years before I played it. I didn't have a TADS interpreter, and I was only using mobile, so I just read the walkthrough and felt I understood the game.

So when I finally got an interpreter and played the game, I was in the odd position of having known the solution for years but not knowing the game.

The game is much more than its solution.

The variety in the game comes from two sources: the players choice of actions, and a surprising variety of random "reshuffling" of the environment with every restart.

The environmental cues make the games complicated parser much easier to understand. The NPC's will say "so and so said ....", which tells you things you can say, and so on. You discover new characters as you try different directions and options. There is a lot to discover, if you don't focus on just playing the game. There is also a large "amusing" list at the end.

If not for its recent creation and platform choice, this would probably be one of the most popular games on all of IFDB. It is part sim game and part thriller game. It reminds me of the best parts of "Attack of the Yeti Robot Zombies", "You will select a decision", "Jigsaw", and the hologram sequence in "Mulldoon Legacy".

You play a test subject under the supervision of the evil Dr. Sliss, a lizard-human. You begin in a mini-base that you explore non-linearly with no real puzzles to speak of, and continue on to a second half of the game that is completely linear and a real thrill ride.

I can't express how much I enjoyed this game. But everyone has a different sense of what they are looking for in a game. This game is for people who like memorable characters, heart-racing action scenes, romance, and over-the-top humor.

P.S. As Danielle noted, there is a completely unnecessary F-bomb.

Having recently downloaded a TADS interpreter for the first time, I decided to try out the most popular games. This was the highest on the list. In this game, you play as an amnesiac in a frozen underground base.

While this game had above-average plot, puzzles, and writing, it really shines in its pacing. From the very beginning, the game gave an impression of vast complexity (three bulkheads with three very different locks), but it always left you with a couple of new things to try. Every time, the couple of new things led to another part of the game, and so on. The game is, in fact, complex (look at the map!), but it's arranged so neatly that I never needed to use the map.

Very few games have the great feel that this gives you. I completed it in less than 2 hours.

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.

This is my first Quest game; as such, it includes a map that you fill out as you explore, and lists all important objects in a room as well as your inventory at all times.

Besides the usual inventory, the game has a great additional mechanic that gives you an additional way to solve puzzles. This was fantastic, and I wanted to keep playing just to explore the mechanic.

The story was fun, but not especially motivating. The parser was terrible; so many obvious synonyms were not implemented that the game became a frustrating guess-the-verb game too frequently. However, the new mechanic was so fun that I kept playing anyway.