Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This game was part of the Back Garden in Spring Thing. In it, you wake up inside a sarcophagus in a tomb, and have to find your way out.

Here's my breakdown:

-Polish: The game could use more synonyms for things. Sometimes to use an item on another item you have to VERB SECOND THING and sometimes USE NOUN, which was a bit confusing.

-Interactivity: The lack of synonyms as above also caused some difficulties with the interactivity. There were mazes, but those weren't too bad and were easy to map mentally.

+Descriptiveness: I felt like some parts of the game had some pretty neat descriptions. I liked the opening in the box, and the ending sequence, and overall I could imagine the whole place (it reminded me of an NES Zelda dungeon).

+Emotional impact: I liked the atmosphere and enjoyed the feel of the game.

-Would I play again? The game was pretty slight and felt like it didn't tell a whole story, but I would play a fuller version.

For a first game, this is good, and I think that with more practice the author could make a truly exceptional game.

Review for Twine version:

In this updated review, I'll mainly focus on the differences between the two versions, while a summary of the content can be found in my original review below.

Transitioning to Twine altered the feel mechanics of the game in an interesting way. The original setup was more or less 'one correct action at a time', leading to the next possible action. Due to the nature of parser games, the main interaction with the game was trying to guess the correct command to proceed.

By limiting the set of possible commands through Twine links, this revision on one hand eases the pain of 'guess the verb', but on the other hand limits the feel of exploration. I think it's a net positive, though, as the interface with its inventory and 'nested' sub-links still allows for a feeling of achievement.

My expectations for parser games and twine games are different, so seeing this game in Twine gave me a new viewpoint on the storyline. It's not unusual for parser games to flimsy plots and bizarre settings, as many classic games like Adventure and Zork focused more on interesting set-pieces rather than cohesive storytelling. But Twine has a history of attracting expert storytellers, so the bar is set higher.

There's a lot that doesn't make sense in this game. Why is there an entire chest, locked, containing (Spoiler - click to show)a single gold ring? Why is there (Spoiler - click to show)an altar that requires sacrifice, but that sacrifice isn't killed, just trapped inside? Later on, most of these concerns are addressed, because it sets up (Spoiler - click to show)the second playthrough(Spoiler - click to show) as a resolution for many of these questions, but it's a bit bewildering on the first go through. On the other hand, the game is influenced by the Conan series of books, movies, comics, etc. and there is perhaps no better way to show tribute to the original writing style than to have a flamboyant, bigger-than-life story that doesn't quite make sense but allows Conan to hit a lot of things really hard.

Overall, I felt like this was a satisfying play. It has different strengths and weaknesses than the original, and I think I ended up liking both version about the same. I did laugh at the jokes the second time and enjoyed the details in the writing, and I feel like overall the 'Conan-style' writing is my favorite feature of the game.

Original review:

This game is one whose development I have followed for some time.

This is a parser game set in a Conan The Barbarian-like world, with a muscular barbarian king who travels about fighting monsters and wizards and generally destroying things.

There is a cast of memorable NPCs and the writing has a strong voice, with complete customization of almost all messages and a rich setting.

This was originally developed in conjunction with the single choice jam; this game, instead of having exactly one action in the whole game, like most other entries, has exactly one correct action in each location (or, more appropriately, only one allowed action in each point in the game, since some rooms require consecutive correct actions).

There is also a limit on available verbs (customized to have clever names), so that means that at any point, to progress, you need to figure out which of the available verbs to use. Theoretically, this means that you could progress at any point just by trying all of the verbs on all of the nouns. The author works around this by frequently requiring unusual or surprising combinations.

Overall, it took me around 1.5 hours, and I found it clever and richly descriptive.

This review is for the newer version of the game. I'll mostly be focusing on changes between the versions. The original review can be found below.

The biggest thing that struck me on initial play was the addition of AI-generated graphics and helpful windows on the side. But after completing, the biggest thing that struck me was the overall increase in code smoothness and good programming.

AI art has been controversial recently due to its being trained on artist's content against their will. I've seen it in a lot of games recently, and I find it tends not to contribute much as the art is often inconsistent. However, I definitely think it adds something here. Maybe it's because the well-known nature of the story it's based on has produced a lot of art over the years, or maybe because the writing itself is more utility-focused and so is complimented by art.

I did struggle with the side windows; the inventory one shows up just fine, but on both gargoyle and lectrote, I couldn't get the topics window to show up. Thankfully, typing TOPICS works just fine.

I liked the timing aspect in the new ending and the whole 'future' area in general much more this time around. I definitely feel like this is an overall improvement to the game.

Original review:

I beta tested this game.

This game is an adaptation of a static fiction story. This is something very hard to do well in a parser game; I've tried it myself and more or less failed, and so have many others. This game runs into a lot of the same problems: a faithful adaptation assumes a linear plot, while a parser game is centered around freedom of expression.

This game implements a house with many mentioned details but few which are usable. There are bugs, such as when one attempts to break a window (not needed in the game).

Plot wise, it doesn't follow the book directly, but instead starts after the action of the first one, allowing you to prove to the world that the time machine is real. The whole setup makes it seem like it will be very complex, but in reality there are only 2-3 puzzles and the whole game can be completed in very few steps.

This is an interesting game, entered into the Text Adventure Literacy Jam. It explores a small village and hotel in rural Japan, and includes a variety of Japanese monsters.

The emphasis here is definitely on introducing aspects of Japan to outsiders; I see the author has, on the itch page, credited others with help on being accurate, which is nice. The game goes into loving detail over the names of different mats, cabinets, etc. and includes a notepad with interesting terms and an encyclopedia/dictionary to look them up in.

My favorite part was the ending reveal, which I didn't see coming at all but seemed clear in retrospect.

The game does suffer a bit in implementation. Many objects are referred to by names that you cannot use for them (like 'friend' for your friend) and you can only CONSULT BOOK ABOUT _____ instead of LOOK UP _____ IN BOOK (which I could have sworn was Inform's default behavior anyway). A few interactions weren't clear to me (at one point I had no money, but once I did it didn't show up in inventory and I could buy tons of different things).

Overall, the enthusiasm of the author in presenting Japan feels like a big positive. My only drawbacks were some of the above-mentioned implementation issues, and a moderate lack of variation in the narrator's emotional tone, but they were enough to limit my overall enjoyment.

This game was entered in the Text Adventure literacy jam. It includes a brief tutorial where you take a nap, encounter a violent earthquake and are led to another world lying underneath yours!

The gameplay revolves around exploring the fantasy world, picking up items, often magical, and using them, frequently through the use of riddles.

The game makes heavy use of AI art to provide location images. It provides vivid and detailed images, but due to lack of consistent themes it made it difficult to really imagine the way things were.

I found the gameplay both polished and unpolished. On the one hand, several puzzles were well-clued and suggested the commands to be used. On the other hand, some simple things were difficult to do (to go to sleep, I couldn't SLEEP or ENTER BED but had to LIE DOWN ON BED, for instance). A frequent issue I encountered was that the solution to one problem was often very far away from the problem itself, which meant that a lot of the game involved just grabbing everything and hoping it would eventually be useful. You may say, 'but all games are like that! Zork! Adventureland!' and that is true, so if you liked the gameplay in those games you may like this style. I played about 1/3 on my own and used a walkthrough for the rest.

Somehow the story and setting felt like it was consistent in each scene but not consistent altogether. There is an overarching story with recurring characters, but outside of that a lot is random. The world is accessed through a ravine in your world, so it's like a 'portal' story. But then you go through another portal, so it's like an isekai within an isekai, but the second portal journy isn't really remarked on. You go from unused stairways to a city and from descending a dungeon area to being outdoors. Things like a pirate are included, but why? Plot points are repeated, like your cat running off and you rescuing her. Nevertheless, each component was fun.

Overall, it was interesting, and felt a lot like a playthrough of AI dungeon, except it's a single story, not a collection of them. So the best part of the game for me was the sense that everything would be new and unexpected in each new area, but I missed a sense of cohesiveness and purpose.

This is a polished parser game entered in the Text Adventure Literacy Jam.

In it, you find that Mother Goose was kidnapped, and you have to save her! On the way, you'll encounter many of the characters from Mother Goose's fairy tales.

Gameplay is classic parser style, with most of gameplay revolving around taking and dropping objects, using objects with clearly-defined uses, and talking with NPCs.

There is an odd feature of the game, where most of the time the use of an object is directly told you ('you should search this', 'you can open it', 'you can PUT IT ON something'), but other times you're merely told what you can not do, often with objects where some use would make sense. For instance, I was stymied when (Spoiler - click to show)the game told me that I needed to hide my smell, and I had (Spoiler - click to show)perfume, but the game only said (Spoiler - click to show)you don't feel like putting on the perfume. I felt like that was pretty frustrating. I found a different item later, but I thought it odd that the game had a clear solution which was just ruled out as a preference. A similar thing happened with (Spoiler - click to show)the need to make a loud sound and (Spoiler - click to show)the gunpowder. While I've spent a long time on this, these frustrations were only a part of the game and the rest was overall smooth.

I enjoyed the writing in general. The characters, while true to the stories, were also more flirtatious and/or violent than many modern adaptations of nursery rhymes, holding more true to the original versions.

Overall, a well-made game.

The trouble with parser games is that players can type in literally anything and hope to get a reasonable response out. This causes problems when the player enters something that seems logical to them which the game rejects.

There are two ways of addressing this: training players on a standardized set of verbs, so they enter a narrower range of commands, and programming more responses into your engine/game.

This game is a custom C# engine. Unfortunately, it doesn't recognize as wide a range of commands as most of the popular parser engines do, and it doesn't use common player-recognized commands and shortcuts like I and L, so it's missing both ways to keep player frustration at bay. I ended up frustrated a lot. I couldn't even read the initial text, as it scrolled off screen and mouse and arrow keys didn't move it (althought pg dn eventually did).

There are buttons and an extra text field, designed to make the task easier, which helped. But overall I think that the author vastly underestimated the ability of players (including me) to type exactly the wrong thing, over and over.

Combined with this, the game does not save or undo (and I had to manually exit to restart), and it has several instant deaths and other ways to lock yourself out of victory (I had to restart on two different occasions because I GAVE something TO someone, which the game accepted, but they didn't give it back).

The storyline is that you are in a dungeon cell where Excalibur has appeared, in the stone, and you have to escape. There are a few segments with fairies, but that's the end of this preview.

As a C# project made in a month this is very impressive, so much so that I would be impressed by this if I were on a hiring committee. As a parser game among many other parser games, it falls a bit flat. I don't know if the author reads IFDB reviews, but I'd suggest looking at some other current parser games to see what's possible in terms of responsiveness, and/or running more cycles of feedback with having people test the game and see what commands could be implemented to smooth gameplay.

This game was written in Adventuron for the Text Adventure Literacy Jam.

The idea is that you've stolen or smuggled some gems that have a mysterious glow and power. You find someone to report this to, a woman in the woods, but instead of listening to you she requires you to carry out some basic tasks for her first.

The game is both easy and hard. It is easy because the room description constantly updates to tell you what to do next. There are only two puzzle sequences.

It is hard because of three reasons:
1-The game only allows two word input, but has many puzzles involving combining two items. So while you might think 'tie rope to wood' would make sense, you have to find a way to do that in two words. Tie rope? Tie wood? Combine rope? You'll have to guess. But there are also at least two points where the solution requires 3 words, which are the only points in the game its available.
2-Implementation is spotty, so many objects are mentioned but can't be examined (like a sack of fluff), or can be taken but not examined, or can be examined but don't show up if taken.
3-The game has aggressive or insulting messages for all of its messages, along the lines of 'What are you doing, you fool?' or swearing at the player.

Combined, this means that you spend most of the game guessing the right word combination while the game yells at you in bright red text over and over.

On the plus side, the game's worldbuilding and plot are interesting. I think that relaxing the two-word parser and allowing more complex inputs, together with implementing more synonyms, would make the game pretty fun!

This game was entered in the Text Adventure Literacy Jam, designed to introduce newcomers to the genre.

It was co-written with a kid, who has provided the art for it, which gives the game a pretty awesome feel. I especially enjoyed the lettering on the parachute.

The game is well-fit for an introductory game, with good programming, a generally easy but dramatic set of puzzles, and a lot of humor.

The plot is a bit silly so some things didn't make much sense, but I don't think 'makese sense' was high on the list of priorities here; it seems like 'have fun' and 'be cool' were higher priorities, and it succeeds at both of those.

This is an Adventuron game entered in the Text Adventure Literacy Jam.

It uses some pixel art which looks very detailed. I found out later that it was AI-generated, which would explain the lack of recurring characters.

The story is interesting and fun; a dragon has helped you, a princess, throughout your life, so when a prince asks you to marry him, the dragon helps you flee away. Now, you need to help your dragon while making friends with local fairies.

The map is not tiny but is easy to navigate, and it's easy to picture the room descriptions. The main NPCs have strong personalities, so that was fun.

There were definitely several bugs, as the author stated (due to lack of time). The weirdest to me was that there are supposed to be large crystals in the mine but instead they're listed at the pool, but you can't reference them with 'large' or 'crystals', instead you call them 'pool' and the game offers a disambiguation prompt between them and the real pool.

Similarly, there are several puzzles where you have to type things just right, like using 'jump on' instead of 'enter' or 'climb' or 'get on' or 'stand on'. This definitely could have used a longer testing period!