Reviews by MathBrush

This is an interesting game in the Single Choice jam.

You play as a desperately hungry person at an exclusive restaurant where you just can't wait for each course, but, unfortunately, the courses are tiny and they do not sate your anger.

The text here is rich and, unlike the meals, benefits from slow reading/savoring.

I did feel like the game was initially setting up something slightly longer (I looked forward to a description of the main courses), but it still made sense as is. I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars, but I see from the description that 2/3 of the original game was lost and this is a smaller part, so I'll gives 3 stars for the game that is (here on IFDB) and 4 for the game that might have been (in my heart).

This is a French game entered in the Single Choice jam. It has some nice presentation and look overall, with multiple play modes and a long explanation.

However, there's not much there. You pick a description from a selection of rhyming couplets, and then a dice roll gives you a 'fortune'.

It's short, replayable, etc., and plays a role more similar to, say, a Tarot deck then a traditional narrative.

This is short one-room, one action puzzle game entered in the Single Choice Jam.

I interpreted it as a short coding exercise designed to be an brief but enjoyable game without further pretense.

At that, it's completely successful. It is nice and repeatable, each action uncovering more about the world but forcing you to think laterally to solve them.

I only had to use one hint, and that was for an item that's not in the room description but could be implied. Otherwise, this was short and satisfying. I didn't feel any strong emotional connection to the game, but I don't think that was a goal.

This is a game entered in the single choice jam. It has animated 3d graphics, but is used to tell a text-based story, the images serving only as a (helpful) backdrop.

It sets up a big choice through a 3-act story about a group of friends in poor circumstances that are trying to get one of the newest, rarest cards in a trading card game.

There is some realistic-sounding dialogue and some nice character dynamics in this game. Overall, I was drawn into the scenario. I also liked the little touches like all of the fake cards the author had to make for different scenarios. Seems like the game could be pretty fun in real life.

This is a surreal one-move game entered into the Single Choice Jam.

You start in a subway, but something feels...off. Every choice that you make gives you deeper insights into the world, sometimes through explicit dialogue, and sometimes through dreams.

The setting and ideas become increasingly surreal. Somewhere along the way, I felt like it became disconnected; at least, I found it hard to thread together the various experiences I had had along the way into a coherent world.

I had a little trouble figuring out some of the actions to take, but thankfully there's a comprehensive hint system.

I didn't find any bugs in the game itself; on itch I had some trouble with the game not recognizing input halfway through the endgame sequence, so I thought I was stuck, but downloading it worked fine. This seems more like a weird interaction between my browser and not something due to the author.

This was part of the Single Choice Jam.

It's a well-written surreal-ish game from the perspective of...

soda pop.

Apparently, it can talk! And it can read the mind of people that are drinking it...and it know all about you and your past.

This absurd setup is used to tell a touching and sad story about family and, possibly, something larger in the world.

There is only one choice, but this game rests almost entirely on the strength of its writing, which is strong in this case.

This game features you as a crew member on a ship that has undergone a catastrophe. You have to race against time to survive and to save others!

Gameplay revolves around physics and physicality: pushing, pulling, using forces, temperature, gas, etc. There is a great deal of attention to physical details of things, such as inventory limit and 'recipes' requiring specific objects in specific orders. Everything about the game demands doing things precisely and in the proper way, like following shipboard directions only; even the proper way to name a spanner is provided!

The game starts under a timer, and I had to restart many times before finding the solution. After that, it opens up more.

It contains a cryptography puzzle, using standard codebreaking techniques and even with a provided password. I found that I preferred doing that with online software rather than working through it directly.

Overall, I didn't really find any bugs. The game's atmosphere reminds me of 70's to 80's action novels that my dad had lying around the house by some guy that was kind of like Tom Clancy but not (less military stories, more stuff like boat crashes).

This game was very funny, and pretty short and simple. It's Hawaiian shirt day at work, but you've forgotten to wear one! And, in fact, anything else but underwear!

You have to grab anything and everything you can to make clothes, starting from the most primitive to the less.

I only encountered a couple of minor bugs (no paragraph breaks sometimes where it seems like there might be some, and Mo is improper named so is referred to as 'the Mo' sometimes).

This is honestly a very funny game to me. I enjoyed every action I took.

This is a relatively brief PunyInform game inspired by the start of the TV series Otherworld, and 8-episode miniseries that takes a family to another world.

Only the intro and a few puzzles are implemented. Most of it is implemented fairly well; I saw few typos. The game is a bit sparse; I imagine that having watched the series allows you to mentally fill in a lot of the missing details.

I had some implementation issues, as shown in the two following segments:

(Spoiler - click to show)
> x tools
Mostly made of wood, are now useless.

> search tools
No need to concern yourself with that.

> take tools
No need to concern yourself with that.

> take all
There are no things available that match “take all”.

> x corner
It’s very messy. It might be worth searching through the mess.

> search mess
Sorry, I don’t understand what “mess” means.

> search corner
You search through the mess in the corner and find a crowbar.


(Spoiler - click to show)
> pry sarcophagus
Using the crowbar you manage to push the lid aside so you can search
the inside.

> search sarcophagus
The big sarcophagus contains a box.

> open box
You can’t open that.

> take box
Taken.

> look at box
It consists of a wooden box. It feels like there’s something inside.

>



Besides this sort of thing, this was well-scoped and not too hard to handle. It would kind of be fun to see a one-room game from this author; they have the sort of writing and puzzle style that I think would work well with a single room with a lot of little puzzles.

This game, as its name suggests, is part of the same universe as A1RL0CK.

It's set in an underwater wreck that is enormous and filled with strange biological material. You have a special suit designed both to let you interface with the technology around you and to keep you under control.

The gameplay is partly exploration and partly puzzly. I enjoyed searching out parts of the ship, interfacing with technology and so on. I had some trouble with the parser when trying to deal with wheel valves, but I realized I had been using the wrong verb (SET is right, TURN works sometimes but not as often).

There is frequent strong profanity in the game. It makes sense in context. The story is very violent, kind of like 80s sci fi action like Alien, Predator, or Terminator.

Overall, I found the story strong. At times I got stuck, like I said; this is not an easy game, and careful attention to detail is basically required to pass through. I had a good time with it overall.