Reviews by MathBrush

I've long enjoyed games about fairies, other worlds, and dreams. This game doesn't branch much, but provides plenty of humor and child-like fantasy.

You play an insomniac who is visited by the dream fairy. The dream fairy attempts to diagnose your insomnia, taking you from person to person to try and find someone who can help.

This is a Choicescript game written in less than 4 hours for Ectocomp 2019.

I had a lot of fun with this one despite its size. The author managed to cram a lot in. There's a 'build your monster' segment followed by a series of moral choices. It provided a feeling of agency beyond its substance and had solid writing.

Loved it! If you want more monster stories from this author, they also wrote Each-Uisge from IFComp 2019.

I'm pretty sure this game is the result of someone opening up Quest for the first time, putting in some rooms and an object, and sending it out. Probably a younger person as well.

There's nothing wrong with doing that, but it's not really a game. It's three locations and an item and nothing else. In addition, it's released as the code for the game instead of the finished game itself.

I'm glad the author figured out how to use Quest, and if they want to make longer stuff, more power to them.

This game has you travelling to live in a small village where electronics are banned, church is every night and the rules must be enforced.

This is a common theme in horror (like Midsommar), and this pursues a lot of those tropes.

I found the story interesting and exciting. The formatting threw me off, since the paragraphs sort of ran together. All in all, though, it was a fun short horror experience.

This game is very small, smaller than almost all the Twine games in IFComp. Made in 4 hours for the speed competition known as Ectocomp, it seems the author spent most of the time working on polished writing and world building.

I think it was very successful. I found myself repeatedly surprised as I read, each time realizing how the surprise connected with proceeding material. The author does an excellent job of choosing what to reveal and what to imply. I'd give more details, but it's better to just play it yourself!

There's some violence and brief strong profanity.

Another Smith limerick game
But this isn't more of the same.
Instead of a jolly
heist or other folly
You're seeking to kill or to maim.

Who then is your target, your foe?
A vampire's the one who must go.
Or 'wampire' I mean
(since that's what my screen
displays as the name of the foe.)

But to my surprise there's a twist!
I had guessed the genre, and missed.
It's truly perturbing
This game is disturbing
So keep it right off your kids' list.

If you liked the Heist game, here's more
That also deserves a good score.
The writing's well done
I found it quite fun
So I'll give this short game a 4.

(Edit: improved with suggestions from A. Schultz).

This Portuguese game is a nice, compact Twine game about creating something when you are an omnipresent, solipistic being. There are a lot of options, and the consequences of them can be unexpectedly amusing and spot-on.

Many options lead to a sort of puzzle, which gives you more and more hints. I had difficulty with this, especially due to the language barrier.

Overall, the writing and the interactivity was very satisfying.

In this game, you are a maniac who shoots all of their enemies with a shotgun at a party.

Half of the game is devoted to saying why you hate people, and the other half is devoted to gruesomely describing the blood and guts that come out when you shoot them.

Their are numerous typos and errors. Given its poor taste, I cannot recommend this game. Even if it's somehow a parody, a non-American's perception of Americans, I think it could have been done less offensively.

Katie Benson has a specific genre of games she makes that work pretty well. They are Twine games with some light styling and multiple endings, with a branch-and-bottleneck structure.

Structurally, they're all very similar, but Benson has done a lot of exploration of controversial topics, innovating in the subject matter portrayed rather than in the mechanics.

This game is a sequel, and has the player working in a food kitchen in a version of Britain where the British Jobs Act has given subsidies to companies hiring British citizens (I think).

I found two different endings. There was one encounter that occurred twice in the game with identical language (Spoiler - click to show)(talking to the cop), but it was otherwise a smooth experience.

I've rated this game on my 5 point scale:

Polish: The red color on the choices is a nice effect, but typos and grammar problems drag this point down.

Descriptiveness: Very good! Lots of vivid images here.

Interactivity: The available choices felt pretty satisfying, especially for such a short game!

Emotional Impact: The shortness and over-the-top-ness limited the emotional impact for me.

Would I play again?: I tried all the options, and I think I've seen everything I need to here.

Edit: Overall, I would say that all of the problems could be fixed by having more time. As a Speed-IF, this is good!