Reviews by MathBrush

I beta tested this game, so it's hard to be objective about it. I think I would give it a 4.5/5, so I rounded up.

Faute De Servo combines several game ideas that I love, including waking up in a lab-like environment with no clue what's going on (like Babel) and gaining powers by devouring random things (like the under-played Mangiasaur).

Much of the game consists of figuring out the action system, as well as the backstory of your location. I found this somewhat confusing (which is why I gave 4.5/5) but the presentation is so slick that it makes up for it.

There's also a good deal of humorous banter in the game, which I enjoyed. It is derivved from a cast of characters with distinct personalities and varying levels of intelligence.

This is definitely worth playing, both for the overall game concept and for the nifty implementation.

This French game is in a CYOA format. It’s an adventure story, almost novella length, set on a fantasy world. It has a tone that is lighter and appropriate for young adult and middle school readers. In fact, it reminded me of Norbez’s IFComp game If You Squint it Looks Like Christmas in its tone, genre, length, and choice structure (as a point of reference for ifcomp players).

I liked the story overall, even sharing parts of it with my wife. It’s a heartwarming and cheerful story, with vivid characters and moments of excitement.

The choice structure wasn’t what I’m used to; many of the choices were “do something awesome or leave”. I never tried leaving, because I wanted to see what would happen. Eventually, I become somewhat paranoid that the leaving choices were important, so it gave more weight to my decisions.

I would give it 4 stars if it had a save system. I couldn’t find one, and this is very lengthy.

This game is, it seems, written in Esperanto. I thought it was Portuguese at first, but the game itself corrected me.

You are Alice, and, I believe, you are headed to an Esperanto-speaking conference, where you meet someone who tells you about Esperanto. I learned that Esperanto has between 100,000 and 1,000,000 speakers. Given that the number of Twine fans is probably somewhere in that range, too, and the intersection is fairly low, I don't think many people will be able to complete this game.

I only got through the first third of the first chapter. Looking through the code, it seems like there is a compelling fantasy element in the middle.

This is an intriguing game, and a great amount of work.

This quest game has refreshingly original storybuilding. It includes a big pamphlet you can read which does a good job of displaying a 'descent into madness', although I think it could have done better if it left a bit more mystery in the last few pages.

The game has a layout (story-wise) similar to Karella's earlier Night House. You are alone in a building, and something is outside, and you have to figure out what it wants.

I was unable to complete this during Ectocomp. Afterwards, some people commented on intfiction with the solution.

Overall, this was a positive experience once I knew what to do.

Ojuel is a master of setting, and this is a great game. You play as an former dancer in 1958 in a communist Carribean country. You have to extricate something from a house party, but you don't know what it is.

The game has great storytelling, using flashbacks and conversation to good effect. I see it getting nominated for several XYZZYs.

There were several implementation difficulties, though, because it was sometimes hard to know what verbs to use. A post-comp release that implemented every command response contained in judges' reviews would not take much time, and would add the finishing touches to this already great game.

I could see myself picking this book up and reading it in the library. You play as an orphan who gets sucked into another world by a mysterious stranger.

This other world is an Oz-like fantasy world that is creatively engineered. A long story plays out.

There's not much interactivity to speak of, though there are options scattered throughout. But I liked this; it reminded me of 'pulpy' kids books that I read when I was a teenager, like Deltora quest.

I beta tested this game.

This game casts you as a translator of ancient languages in a fantasy world. It's split up into three acts: a tense moment on a boat, a fight in a town, and a climactic finale in an archaelogical dig.

The overall story, the characters, etc. are all well-drawn. But the game is so big that more needs to be filled-in; more responses to synonyms and commands, more conversational topics, more alternate puzzle solutions.

I beta tested this game.

This game has a utilitarian interface, but don't let that fool you: this is a seriously great game.

Your magical witch house is broken, and you need to fix it. You have an inventory (even though it's web based), and you have the power to alter the elements of various inventory elements.

It has a cheerful backstory. Different items you carry interact with each other.

The various interactions are fiddly sometimes, and perhaps even unfair; but somehow everything gelled for me in a great way. Not everyone may feel the same.

I beta tested this game, and it was my personal choice for winner of IFComp 2017.

It is a grotesque game; you are a child granted a bottomless pit by a magical character in a fairy tale. You are imprisoned in a dungeon where countless other children have met gruesome deaths.

The game revolves completely around eating, with eating the only real action. Like DiBianca's Grandma Bethlinda's Variety Box, where USE was the only verb, the puzzles in this game revolves around timing and sequence.

I found this game satisfying, and have played it 6 or 7 times.

This is a game with a brilliant premise; you are some sort of alien being charged with protecting a young girl.

You have visions of the future, showing you that seven enemies will come and attack her.

You can do various things to improve her chances of survival, with each thing you do providing you with a new vision.

This was very successful in general, but I found it fiddly in two areas. First, some things weren't implemented; for instance, the first thing you learn about Kayla is that she has pulled-back hair and a simple dress. But if you try to examine either one, there is an error.

Second, the game essentially becomes a hidden-object puzzle. You have to scour descriptions for nouns, examine each noun, and hope that you find the right thing. Some solutions that seem like they should work, don't; like finding alternate things for burning/clogging, etc.

But I still enjoyed this game a lot. It has a nice map.