Reviews by MathBrush

This game resembles to me a Dungeons and Dragons type quest without leveling or classes. You play Questor, on a quest to help everyone. You have to save a man from poisoning by finding an antidote, defeat a witch, gather things in the forest, engage in combat, answer riddles, and do a few more intense Kerkerkruip-like combat segments where you choose whether to attack or defend and what to attack.

I would not classify this as an 'old-school game', but more as a 'faux-ld school game', a game that recreates what people think early parser games were like.

If you enjoy DnD type games (like Eye of the Beholder), this could be a fun mid-length game for you.

This IFComp 2015 game places you in a preset underground map that is vaguely maze-like, and sets a monster chasing after you.

Although the map is preset, there are many doors that are locked, and the keys randomly distributed. Also randomly distributed are items to set traps with to kill a monster that is chasing you.

It is a fun game, with good atmosphere, but over pretty quickly. It would be fun to see the author add a version with multiple monsters, where you have to work harder to evade them and need to set multiple traps.

Pilgrimage is a deeply symbolic game. The author has based the game around several symbolic progressions, including a progression of colors, the stages of grief, and more.

It is set in a pastiche of the medieval world, and it includes almost the entire world. Typing E will not take you one room east, it sets you off on a journey of months or years, to Russia or China.

You travel around trying to gain alchemical knowledge, and acheive a kind of transcendence. You seem to worship a dark Babylonian God, because Blessings of Babylon of disputable benefit are given to several people.

The IFComp release was a bit buggy, but I hope the author will do a postcomp release fixing the bugs discovered in the comp. This would result in a great game that people could discuss for a long time to come.

Onaar is different than most games out there. It is an RPG with heavy amounts of grinding, but can still be completed relatively quickly.

You are a young person who crashes on an island with a community on it. You become an alchemist's apprentice. The game has a real economy with things you need to buy and sell, a variety of stats, a mild hunger daemon (with plenty of free food items regenerating all over), and many potions you make by gathering alchemical ingredients.

It was fun. It is not like other parser games; if you are looking for a traditional puzzler, you should go somewhere else. Traditional puzzles are here, but the RPG/alchemy system is the real star. You can make yourself incorporeal, stronger, a teleporter, etc.

Great for fans of classic RPGS.

This mid-length IFComp 2015 game is an old-school game that is surprisingly forgiving. While you need to decipher passwords and complex machinery and examine each item and location, it has an internal consistency that makes it easier. Also, on two occasions when I was wandering around stuck, the game openly said "You remember that you..." and gave me the answer.

You are a vampire that seems like he would be played by a comedic actor in a darker film (kind of like a Buffy the Vampire take on an ancient Vampire). The game gets morbid but jokes as it does so (you remember torturing people a lot, for instance, but it' s played as an enjoyable hobby. I thought it was too much at a few points, but this game is unlikely to seriously offend anyone.

If you like puzzley games, you will love this one.

5 Minutes to Burn Something is a short-to-mid length IFComp 2015 game. It is about a woman who needs to set something in her apartment on fire so she won't be fined for a false alarm.

The game is set into two parts; first, you try and set the fire. Then, you (Spoiler - click to show)have to frame your ex-boyfriend so you don't get arrested for arson.

The puzzles are clever and imaginative, but due to the detailed scope of the game, some implementation got left behind. Many reasonable synonyms of things are not implemented, or reasonable alternative to in-game solutions; for instance, as a fictional example, you might have a jar with a lid, where LOOK IN JAR says 'you see nothing', while OPEN LID will tell you 'You find a cookie and pick it up'.

I think theses issues will be fixed in a post-comp release. I really enjoyed the first part of the game, although the second part seemed a bit creepy.

Recommended for puzzle fans.

Dalmady brings their characteristic charm and structure to a mid-length Twine game about interning for a company with actual magic.

The company uses rune/sigil-based magic, but the character is mostly familiar with magic through a Harry Potter-like series of fictional books.

As others have pointed out, the strength of the game is the contrast between the exciting world of magic and the sheer drudgery of intern work (making copies, getting coffee, etc.) I reached all three endings, and enjoyed the variety as well as the mechanisms by which the character achieves the 'good' endings (in my opinion).

There is a single instance of strong profanity, but otherwise no violence and profanity. The horrible reality of a boring office life (with low pay) may be too much for children and most adults, however (How many copies do I have to make!!!!!).

This game was my predicted winner of IFComp 2015. This game is well-written, has great pacing (especially in the first half), a strong narrative voice, and excellent graphics. It is easy enough for people to get into with little IF experience, but provides enough of a challenge later on to be interesting.

You play a teenage girl whose town is overrun by the eponymous Brain Guzzlers. You have a cast of creatively-described friends and acquaintances who help you out. Conversation is menu-based, which allows Cherrywell to express the real flavor of the PC's world (with a lot of 'Jeepers!').

The game has some very creative puzzles, and some more straightforward. Each character of the game (besides yourself) comes with one or more high-quality graphics that show up when talking to them.

Game play is 2-3 hours long, I estimate. I recommend this to everyone; I feel like it will be played for years to come.