Reviews by MathBrush

This is a Bitsy game with 6 different main paths. Bitsy is a visual equivalent to Twine, using simple graphics and arrow keys, although this particular game has some more elaborate images.

Instead of moving a character like most Bitsy games, you navigate a conversation menu. It's a rainy day, and you walk in to see an old friend you haven't seen through years. Different conversations seem to give completely different friends; or do they? There's another thread at the end which is interesting.

Overall, I found this game polished, descriptive, and the interactivity matched its length. I don't think I'd play it again, but it was emotionally interesting to me.

This is an entrant into the 2022 French IFComp. It is a prologue that covers the first scene or so of Mozart's opera Cosi Fan Tutte.

It's very appealing visually, with a detailed backdrop and avatars for speakers.

Overall, I found it solid, but I felt less capable of making decisions that change the story. Most options were about reacting, with a few important actions. I wasn't sure if anything was being tracked, but at the end it listed my stats and showed that I had changed things a bit. It might be good to have a way to check that more often in the finished game!

This series of games starts with a simple puzzle in the first entry (just a locked door) but adds puzzles every time.

This entry is quite complex compared to earlier entries, with a broad map, numerous tools and items, an NPC, easter eggs, etc.

However, some bugs and typos have crept in, like 'bathroom' being lower case and some synonyms not being set (like for the (Spoiler - click to show)safe, where 'set' and 'turn' don't work but 'turn' does).

So the game isn't polished, but it is more descriptive and compelling than the others.

This version of the Locked Door series (which adds more and more puzzles to the original) introduces the first real puzzle, although its fairly simple.

Rather than the original two rooms, there are now 5, with one room included in another.

There was a bug in this one, where trying to (Spoiler - click to show)open the crate without (Spoiler - click to show)the crowbar will (Spoiler - click to show)increase the score and partially act like you have the crowbar but not open. Given the smallness of the game, I think it could have been error-free.

This game is part of an iterative series, where every new episode builds on the last.

This one adds an NPC and requires a single somewhat complex interaction, as well as making the final room one step longer. It's reasonably well polished, and I was amused/intrigued by the iterative concept, making it more emotionally impactful than the first.

This game is essentially one of the coding examples from the Inform manual. It consists of two rooms, one with a locked door and a key. There are no real surprises; decompiling shows no hidden content.

The game is polished, but is not descriptive, has little interactivity, low emotional impact, and I wouldn't really play again. According to my rating system, it's 1 star.

This is just a choose-your-own adventure story with a Halloween theme. You are alone in the woods with various options, and have two encounters with strange creatures. Your reactions to the strange creatures (at least the second one) determines your ending.

It's pretty short and the interaction isn't too strong. I found it relatively funny and played through it a couple of times. It feels very 'halloween'-y, so if you're in the mood for a shoot spooky treat, this is a good option.

This is a short Twine entry in Ectocomp 2021 and is, I believe from comments on intfiction, based on a true story.

You are a young girl with a generally kind and loving father. He begins acting strangely, though, and you try to come up with a hypothesis to explain his behavior. But nothing you do helps...

The game has some options, but is generally structured linearly. The game has custom styling, but the majority of the game's strength resides in its matter-of-fact storytelling of an emotional and complex issue. I found it polished, descriptive, emotionally compelling, and with just enough dynamic energy to push the story forward; however, I don't see much replay value. That would make it a 4-star game under my rubric.

This game is written in Mosi, which apparently is like Bitsy but for mobile. Both platforms are used to do basic pixel art and to have little 'interaction spots' that bring up text and change the environment somewhat.

This game has you wandering around as an egg in the world of nightmares, eventually encountering others of your kind and humans. I explored a lot but saw some parts I couldn't reach. One part of the game was still in spanish, but the rest was translated well.

There was some freedom as to what to do, but overall the game left me wondering a lot about the main character and didn't really fill in very much, so I didn't feel a strong emotional connection to the game, nor did I find it very descriptive or have a strong desire to replay.

This is a game with a lot of good ideas that get kind of lost in execution.

It was written in 4 hours, and not finished. It uses interesting color styling for the background, links and plain text that generally works well (although some inline links are hard to see, being merely bolded).

It sets up an interesting competition where you sample a blood's color, odor and taste and use that to guess its original owner's age, last thoughts, etc.

Only one scenario is programmed. I guessed wrong, but an error in the game let me go on; however, it merely went to a page that said 'this is how far I could get in four hours'.

The text that is here is detailed and interesting, but in most ways it is unfinished and not ready for play.