Reviews by MathBrush

This game is a Twine game with extensive use of images, audio, animations or video, etc. It couldn't be hosted by Spring Thing directly due to its large size.

It's a story about someone who has really messed up sleep patterns, due to waking up early for high school, using acid, and just enjoying the night, among other reasons. You constantly have the choice to sleep or to wake.

Does that choice make a difference? It's hard to tell. I tried all waking for a bit then all sleeping, and ended up spiraling out of control.

I like surreal imagery, and the images and music were evocative. But I didn't feel a need to revisit the game afterwards.

This is a game that was put on hold for several years before being finished.

In it, you play as an octopus in an aquarium who's owner is out for the day. Bored, you're trying to find a way to make your owner move.

In the process, you discover that the man of the house has been sleeping around! Pointing that out might have some effect on your owner...

This is a fairly brief and sparse but well-implemented puzzle game with one or two major puzzles. I did consult the hints once or twice.

Overall, everything that's here is pretty good, but I think I would have liked either the storyline, the environment, or the puzzles to be developed on a bit more. The octopus character was really cool, and I was impressed at not finding any bugs or typos.

This game is about Pride (and given the rainbow flag, I assume with LGBT pride and pride month). However, it doesn't really talk about that in the game at all.

Instead, there are six paths, each corresponding to one letter in 'pride' (and an exclamation mark). Each of the letter paths has part of a hidden message that unlocks a final message.

On the letter paths, there are copies of the letter that you are currently learning about, each corresponding to a positive word, like Respect or determination.

However, all of the connections are really tenuous. The words don't have anything to do with Pride specifically; they're just describing positive traits in generic terms. It could equally as well be Pride in your local grocery store, patriotic pride, religious pride, pride in rehab, etc.

I think it might have been neat to tailor the message more to the theme.

This is a brief parser game about a samurai preparing to commit seppuku. You are given food, alcohol, and writing implements to write your death poem.

However, events intervene, and the game goes on to several action sequences.

It was generally fairly easy to figure out what to do next. I found the events interesting, and enjoyed following along. I did figure out what was going on partway through, which was nice, but the ending was heavy-handed enough and out of tone with the rest that I took off a point. It's a good story as is; why not just leave the self-deprecation and message in an author's note?

The writing was a little nondescriptive but makes up for it with fun action scenes that are uncommon in parser games.

I've really enjoyed fairy-based stories in recent years, probably starting from reading SCP-4000.

This is a cute and well-written adventure about two swashbucklers who have been separated by the law. An execution is at hand, but faeries have gotten involved, and that throws everything into the mix.

This story works well in that it leans into the swashbuckling and fairy aspects with full sincerity, allowing their natural humor and adventure to show out. I could see Errol Flynn playing one of the characters (depending on your choices).

There's not a huge amount of branching, but there are enough places where it feels like you can really mess up or do great that I was pleased with the interactivity. There is an inventory system and some text-entry riddles.

Very fun overall.

I knew before I played this game that it was fairly old-school, with the possibility of getting in non-winnable positions and a strict inventory limit.

I assumed that meant it would also be buggy or sparse. But I was pleasantly surprised to see I was wrong on both counts!

This is an amusing and puzzle-dense and polished game about zombies and other undead. You meet quite a few supernatural beings, many of which are pretty goofy and others which are frightening.

This is a hard game, and I used a walkthrough for the majority. I was able to get about 60 points on my own out of 300. I was glad to see that there was a 'winnable' setting you could activate to know if you had done something dumb or not.

The inventory was a major sticking point, though, and I'd probably raise the score by a point if it were removed. It is very tight, and I locked myself out of victory by bringing a shovel into the mansion, since I couldn't carry everything I needed out of it. And it doesn't contribute anything to the game; no puzzles are improved by the inventory limit. And you can take things out of the backpack but not put things in when it is being worn, which exacerbates things.

Overall this author shows great talent, and I would be happy to play more games from him (without inventory limits if possible!)

This was a pleasant game to try out. You play as an expy of Captain Kirk, although your ship is now called The Marigold and your enemies are the Glexx.

Like the games 4x4 Archipelago and 4x4 Galaxy, you are on a 4x4 grid with the contents of most of the grid randomly generated. You can encounter planets, asteroids, aliens, and enemies.

You have fuel, weapons, and crew, and you can make a wide variety of choices, like killing everything you see or being peaceful, taking time to study nature or exploring.

I had pretty different experiences on two playthroughs, although some events were of course the same. Overall, a fun game to while the time away. It did take me a while to notice that the star map showed me which ways I would be able to exit.

This is both the highest-rated and most-rated game on IFDB that currently doesn't have any reviews. I played it in preparation for the IF playoffs.

This game is a downloadable executable. It simulates the look of old windowed (not windows!) computers, like Amiga style. It gives you a couple of programs, at first just messages and a way to connect to BBS (bulletin board systems, and old style of forum), and then more over time.

A major facet of the game is typing in numbers to connect to Bulletin Boards, some of which are very convoluted. A common experience in the game is typing in the local number for long distance lines, typing in a long distance card number, finding your card number is expired, typing in a different local line, getting more card numbers, typing in the long distance line number, typing in the new card number, finding its also invalid, typing in the long distance line number, typing in a second new card number, then typing in the long distance number you want to enter.

This is repeated several times in the game and is mind-numbing, a major drawback for me.

Outside of that, it's a great game. You encounter the wild word of the early web, before the public knew much about it, before there was really any government oversight, and even before it was actually a 'web'.

You meet tons of people arguing about things they care about, like Star Trek TNG vs TOS, or hacking Sprint phone lines. But you also meet a woman named Emilia, who writes poems and wants to learn more about you.

Eventually drama ensues, and the game expands in scope and genre.

Like Emily Short in her Game Developer review, I found it very effective that we never see 'our' messages, only the replies to them. The power of imagination helps us build up a relationship.

There was a point early on where I felt genuine panic and an urge to try and move quickly as possible. Right after that is when the game's pacing plummeted. But the content was good enough that I wanted to keep going.

This is a great Twine puzzle game that manages to have immense complexity.

You play as Rosalinda, an animated skeleton who can detach her body parts, and Piecrust, a powerful mage turned tiny mouse.

Rosalinda can detach her body parts, allowing you to control up to 5 independent characters/things, including the mouse.

Piecrust can cast numerous spells, gaining more as the game progresses, with some serving as a Chekhov's gun.

Both have their own inventory of items. Items can be dropped, picked up, and, adding to complexity, used on things in the room or combined with each other or, reaching tertiary complexity, combined with each other and then used on items.

There is a big cast of characters. Overall, I'd say this game is more story-driven than the first one, which felt more like a puzzle box exploring using Rosalinda's bones in creative ways. This game has a lot more variety, and has extensive character development. Honestly, I loved it.

It's a long game, taking me several hours. The plot is hard to summarize, but basically Rosalinda is exploring her (un)life and where she came from, but her and her friends get captured and put on trial. Later, everyone is separated, and must find each other again.

This game is centered around three essentially immortal space marines (or equivalent) who love to make out and who are the last resort for armies to employ.

The game looks cool visually, and the writing is descriptive.

The plot was a bit hard for me to follow. A lot of it is just the main characters really enjoying laying on top of or close to each other. There is a fight, and at first I thought there'd be a big twist as they see something amazing, but it's just (Spoiler - click to show)the other side surrendering, which is what was implied would happen anyway.

Some of the links move the story forward and some are 'asides', but there's no back button and no way to distinguish the two links. I'd appreciate some way to know if a link is side info or 'go forward irrevocably'.

Overall, I found it polished and descriptive, but had difficulties with the interactivity and felt a reduced emotional impact due to confusion with the story.

If there were more games in the series, it would really cool to learn about the characters backgrounds, or major differences between them, or how they 'work'.