Reviews by MathBrush

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.

This large and multi-faceted game has you start off trapped in a closet in a motel room--not an auspicious beginning for a game of great mystical power.

The idea here is that you are someone possessed of magical powers. This power can be exercised through the use of amulets representing different animals; however, the amulets are not enough. You also need gemstones to power them.

And that's where the game really opens up. There are a lot of amulets; there are a lot of gemstones. Each combination gives you different powers, and each power can be used in different places. This gives essentially cubic complexity to the game!

Which means you may want to experiment a lot and take notes. The game is kind, giving you a lot of leeway and plenty of optional paths.

I first played this as part of Castle Balderstone, and then played the newer version. While it was probably in the original, I didn't realize the first time that you can (spoilers for very end) (Spoiler - click to show)open portals to tons of different dimensions. I thought it was pretty cool, to be honest. Really loved this game.

This game has a clever meta concept: you have to switch between different versions of the game, installing and uninstalling upgrades to progress.

In early versions of the game, you can see things like objects with can't be interacted with or placeholder text. In later versions, you get more advanced things like NPC conversation.

This idea of being able to switch back and forth between the two modes and explore outside the bounds of the game is brilliant!

It just doesn't last very long, and it can be hard to figure out when you can use these abilities or why. So the concept has great promise, and this version is okay, but I didn't feel that it filled out the measure of its promise.

I had a great time with this game, then a bad time, then a pretty good time.

This is a PunyJam game, written using PunyInform, a variant of Inform designed to fit onto small devices.

It has one of my favorite game tropes, multiple worlds that all play off of each other. You start in one, but the game shifts you every few minutes into another, and you have to solve pieces of each one to figure out what's going on overall.

It uses nice color changes.

Where I had less enjoyment was a puzzle I got very stuck on in the CPU world. I turned out that there was one object I had overlooked in a paragraph, and so I spent over an hour trying over and over again to figure out what was wrong. I decompiled the game, used all in-game hints, got help online but had to ask for multiple hints. I don't know why I got so stuck! Most of it is my fault, but I think having some gentle nudges on what to focus on could help. And there were a few items that didn't have any descriptions.

So, overall started out loving it, got frustrated, but I still like the concept and most of the gameplay. Very fun.

This Twine game is a retrospective from an alternate ending of the original Cinderella story.

In this version, the stepsister won out. By cutting off her heel to fit in the shoe, she married the prince.

But...

She knows she isn't the one he fell in love with.

This is part of the Single Choice Jam and, as such, has one big choice in the middle, which is a nice complex option letting you choose an adjective and a noun. Each one gives a different branch.

The game is not too lengthy, but has several poignant points. At times, it felt a bit repetitive, before the choice, while after the choice each branch seemed unique.

There are text effects adding to the overall appeal of the game, although one passage was all shaking, which was a little distracting.

I enjoyed playing this overall.

This was a fun treat of a game to experience. You are a violent death machine, used as a pawn in an interplanetary war.

And you love slime prince, one of many duplicates of a true prince. The duplicates are made of slime, mere imitations designed as fodder for assassins like yourself.

The game is a limited parser game, and consists of slowly gaining capabilities over a map of around 20 (?) locations. Most capabilities are motion based.

The worldbuilding is both extensive and light; it's clear that a great deal of thought has gone into developing this world, but we mostly get hints and light touches of it, through the window of the slime prince's thoughts.

I did get stuck at one point, but the HINT command is gentle and helpful. I didn't use it at first, and ended up 'lawnmowering' for a long time. I wish I had turned to help sooner!

Overall, the writing is strong, the game is enjoyable. This is something that can be picked up and played relatively quickly, but is long enough to be substantial.

This game was written for the Single Choice jam. As such, it is designed more as a short story, adding interactivity only to punctuate important feelings.

As such, this game relies heavily on the writing quality and the styling of the game. And I felt that this game pulled off both of these very well; having played Fallen London (and finished the Nemesis ambition, although with a different choice than the author), it was clear that this was an author's depiction of her own character and the features/items they possess, but the descriptions were skillfully woven into the story rather than being dumped all at once.

The styling is nice as well, with gentle colors and subtle animations that I thought were just my eyes tricking me at first.

The overall story is a monologue of sorts from an interesting perspective. There are several stories, for decades, of (Spoiler - click to show)'they came back from the dead, but wrong', but this one gives the viewpoint from the other side. Maybe the reason someone else feels (Spoiler - click to show)you came back wrong is because they changed, not you. A lot of food for thought.

It's hard to know how much playing Fallen London affects the feel of playing the game; the ambitions are hard, and it's likely that < 2000 people have completed it. But I think this story has some elements that everyone can appreciate.

This is a parser game entered in the single choice jam, which requires that games only allow a single choice throughout the game.

This takes a clever spin on things by making you only capable of one real action at a time. There are many small things you can do: looking around, taking inventory, etc. But only one action really works.

It took me a bit to find what it was, which was frustrating at first.

Once I did, the game took on new dimensions, basically showing everything that could go wrong with a family party when your values and self-concept don't align with theirs.

Short and constrained, but impactful.

This game always shows up on lists when I'm searching alphabetically, due to its use of parentheses, so I wanted to review it.

It's a Twine game that makes heavy use of 3d isometric perspectives. You play as a little rabbit whose world has suddenly gotten a lot larger.

The game has a kind of mix of cynical and dadaist worldviews. The characters make rape jokes and use strong profanity, drug use is mentioned frequently, and there is a long quest to see the color of the sky, which can break your mind.

The visuals were very nice. The overall philosophy reminded me of late stage Beatles. I think the game is well put together, but it didn't move me emotionally.

This was made for the Single Choice Jam, and it takes that format in a straightforward way. The game has a linear text that spools out until the single choice, upon which the ending spools out.

The styling is done well, with a moody background color and font (as well as well-chosen graphical icons) that add a lot to the flavor of the game.

The story is about Orpheus and Eurydice, told in an engaging and dark style.

Most takes I've seen on this classic story are subversions, so I was expecting the twist in the first ending I saw. But I didn't expect the second, and overall felt this was pretty creative.

The interactivity was the weakest point, but that is severely limited by the jam.