Reviews by MathBrush

This one was a hard one to score. One of its main features is language. It's bilingual, and part of a project that produces multilingual games, which is something I support.

This means that many of its language errors come from incomplete translation, which means I'm more inclined to go easy on them. The most egregious error I saw was an entire passage in Spanish included in the English version (I'm sorry, I don't remember which passage it was!) There are other errors as well.

The system is interesting. Functionally, it's very similar to Ink: text continually scrolls downward, instead of replacing like Twine, and you either click a 'more' button or select from a menu of choices.

However, it's not actually Ink, I think, and seems to be a custom system that needs some work. Ink and Twine have me used to lovely little transitions between text (not slow fade-ins, but quick scrolling animations and so on). This game just adjoins the new text quickly.

Similarly, punctuation (like ---) are used for line breaks instead of nice horizontal lines. These are all things that can be added to over time.

Storywise, there's an interesting plot about abducted Russian scientists and bizarre experiments. But I was so caught up in the new system and multilingual aspect that I didn't have a chance to immerse myself in it as much as I'd like.

I've played this game 4 or 5 times now, trying to find if I've missed something important (and if I have I'll update this review!)

You are in space, having a family dinner on Halloween through a videocall. You can guide the conversation as your family clashes with each other over things like religion and politics.

Then something happens, and the game takes a more linear turn, then ends.

The twist involves several elements, and I just don't see how they all connect together. I'm a fan of leaving the most frightening parts of horror as mere suggestions, but we have so many things here: (Spoiler - click to show)a time loop, suggestions of being an android, government conspiracy, mind control taken from Bioshock. Each part is great, and the writing is good, but how does it all tie together? The simplest explanation is that (Spoiler - click to show)you are an android and your 'family' has always been fake, and your programming gets reset. But then why change the clocks? Isn't accurate timekeeping important in space? And why have the elaborate video call setup at all?

This Twine game has an interesting accretive feature: you build a blog post paragraph by paragraph by making different selections (such as for the name, etc.).

It's all fairly mild stuff, but the fact this game has content warnings should let you know it can't last forever.

Presentation is nice and smooth. Good for a quick bite.

This is a fun little game. You're dead, and you essentially have the option to pick your own punishment.

It draws heavily on Greek mythology with a little swerve into mathematical history. I laughed. I cried. It was fun.


The implementation could be a bit better. (Spoiler - click to show)X LIST or X CHECKLIST didn't work, but X CLIPBOARD did (which I know was highlighted, but LIST is a reasonable synonym). When I did X NOTE as Tantalus, it said 'Do you mean the nothingred post-it note or the blue post-it note?'. POUR WATER INTO BASIN didn't work as Danaid (although again, it was a different command than the note suggested).

This game has a retro-looking font. A button on the lower right titled 'messages' tells you that it was found on some old floppy disks.

The idea is that you're supposed to be able to click on certain words related to grammar lessons in the text on the lefthand side of the screen. I opened up the game in twinery to verify this, and there is code there for it, but it didn't work for me on Chrome.

Essentially, there are 6 'grammar lessons' but they are just an excuse for the creator of the software (in-game) to publish chunks of her novel.

Overall, it's interesting, but it's short, and it just kind of peters out. The chrome bug made the interactivity and polish just not there for me.

The one thing I did like was the writing in the actual novel. It was descriptive and interesting.

This game meets my criteria for five stars:

Polish: I found no bugs, and everything ran smoothly. The game logic was sound.

Descriptiveness: I learned new things. I was intrigued by the game in ways that bled into real life.

Interactivity: This game explores parser space in a way that (Spoiler - click to show)Take, The North-North Passage, and Lime Ergot did. These games take the player-parser interaction and do 'variations on a theme' like composers.

Emotion: I felt a warm glow.

Play again: Sure!

Sobol's been reviewing games for at least 5 years, it's high time he post one of his own. This is a lovely game.

This polished but small Ink game has you trying to rescue 7 cats from a cruel breeder.

You have three different places you can go to earn 'coals', the currency in the game. Each cat costs 3 coals.

There are many ways to get money, including some dark paths, some scientific. While the game is very short, it has 10 different endings, and is worth replaying a few times.

I may have given an extra star just because I love cats. But what's wrong with that?

This is one of two clear fan-fiction games this comp (the other being one set at Hogwarts).

This game is based on the Zelda game Majora's Mask. You and your buds are NPCs in that game, and since the moon is going to kill everyone, you sit on a hill drinking beer, shouting at the moon and waiting for the world to end.

It has some good animations, and some interesting text effects (such as giving you a five minutes time limit). It has some strong profanity. I found it descriptive and enjoyable.

This is a mid-length story, kind of between a creepypasta and fable in tone, presented as a completely linear story with a single link on each Twine page.

It has a few typos: wading instead of fading, for instance.

So the interactivity, polish, and replay value are low here.

But I liked the descriptions. Not everyone will like this story, but I have a very specific niche that I like, which is games/stories where you are transported to a dark shadow world and must conquer it with the power of light. (Eidolon, Kingdom Hearts, Zelda: A Link to the Past, Twilight Princess).

This seems like it's drawn from some game design, though. It mentions stuff like 'a ladder 30' above you', 'a 10' monster', 'a 10' globe of light'. The character (in this completely static story) collects globes of light to upgrade their weapon.

So, it's interesting, and weird, but I enjoyed the story.

There are some things that definitely need trigger warnings, and the warning for this game is self-harm.

(Spoiler - click to show)This game uses bare styling in Twine, but it's text layout, pacing and link structure are very polished. The writing is descriptive, with some profanity appropriate to the situation you're in. I felt strong emotions during this, first feelings that drew me in and helped me identify with the character, and then feelings of horror as I chose the 'bad' choices later involving self-harm. I didn't know it would be that bad, which perhaps is how the protagonist feels.

A powerful game.