Reviews by MathBrush

This game seems somehow unfinished; you are called in as an expert to an old abbey to investigate some pottery. You travel around the house and grounds, gathering various items, and then are thrown into a different kind of story.

The game then ends soon thereafter.

There are some implementation errors. Overall, its fun with a walkthrough if you are a fan of archaeology games.

This is a really creative and original game, with a nuclear apocalypse and a sort of dual-world situation.

Despite its many plot innovations, the implementation itself is sub-par, making it difficult to play without the hints (which are split up into 5 sub-files, and seem intimidating, but which are fairly simple).

Definitely a good play (with hints) for fans of apocalyptic things.

This is a shortish game mostly involving complicated puzzles (like the lights puzzle where pushing off one light turns on all those around it, or counting to 255 in quaternary).

Some of the puzzles are gross or a bit mean-spirited, and it could all use some more cluing. Beyond that, it's pretty competently programmed.

Mostly interesting for fans of convoluted puzzles.

This game has you as a student of the future in a little pod who has to print a paper. This is one of 6 virtual reality games in IFComp 1997, probably as a response to Delusions from IFComp 1996.

This game also reminds me a lot of The Legend Lives, which has a very similar opening setup.

I actually liked this game; it was overwhelming, getting started, but I liked the well-thought out means of transferring information between the physical and virtual realms.

Well, I guess marketing works. After seeing months of promotional materials for Strayed, I decided to try it while it was on sale out of curiosity.

This is a longish hyperlink game. Although the ads seemed to show graphics for the pc version, the android version was, as advertised, pure text.

The game has a strong central horror narrative, with several detours allowed on the way, with many of the choices being flavor choices.

Just before this game, I had played Abyss, which is a similar game (twinelike without stats, on the play store). This game has better writing, less typos, and is more mature than Abyss, but is of comparable size. Those differences, though, make the difference for me between a free game (Abyss) and a commercial game (Strayed).

On replaying Strayed, I found quite a few new areas I had not previously explored, and the grand finale was different in a way that ties into the nature of the horror.

However, I did not find the horror gripping. It reminded me the most of some creepy pasta stories, where some reactions of the participants don't reflect reality (an example not from the game: "You see an airplane that morphs into a fluttering leaf. You shrug it off.")

I guess I was hoping more for emotional investment (like Hana Feels) or persistent consequences of actions (like Choice of Games), both of which the authors had written for. But $1-$2 is an appropriate amount for this game.

Edit: I added another star when I found out the underlined text showed you what your choices had affected; I really like this in a game.

This game is like a DnD or serious Munchkin game: door, challenge, reward. You select some attributes about yourself (like luck, strength, etc.).

Then you are shown two doors, and you have to pick one. Behind each door is a text scene with some sort of dnd-like encounter, like a feast of food you can eat or not, or a chest that is obviously trapped.

The font, colors, and atmosphere were very good, and the writing was good.

I had to download the entire ifcomp 2016 file to get all the files for this game.

This is a creative horror game, focused on ghoulish/crypt horror and exploring some tombs/labs.

The game is creative, with various NPCs that are active. But the implementation is no good, with even the walkthrough's commands being unrecognized at times.

Still, it is interesting for fans of non-Lovecraftian horror.

This game was really talked about a lot in the 2016 IFComp. It is unusual; it consists of many (< 500) short stories about apocalypses, many of them grim or with body horror, but with good writing. The player was invited to add to the total number of apocalypses.

I found a lot of the apocalypses very enjoyable. The format was hard for me to navigate, though; I couldn't find new stories at the pace that I wanted to. They are linked by keywords, sometimes, and sometimes not (i.e. there are dead-end links).

I enjoyed it.

You are a blind woman kidnapped by a sort of serial killer. The writing is pulp-y.

The big idea here is that you FEEL, SMELL, and LISTEN instead of LOOKING.

This concept is actually implemented pretty well, but the puzzles themselves are mostly of the search-everything and perform-uncued-action variety, which makes the game less exciting.

It took me 209 choices to complete this game on my third playthrough.

This game took third in IfComp 2016, but as of this writing, it has the highest rating and number of ratings on IFDB.

In this game, you arrive at and explore a mysterious old motel with a supernatural flair. The game uses two main types of links: mostly-static location-based links for movement, and then conversation/emotion links for small scenes that play out as you move.

The two kinds of links are very consistent, making for some great gameplay. The styling is also good, with some nice animations and fonts and colors.