Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This is a complex and rich puzzle game written in Twine.

In it, you are tasked with recovering 14 different puppets from a studio that is about to shut down. It seems like a mix of Muppets and Disney, with a studio next to a giant theme park and all the old history about to be demolished.

You, a former puppeteer, are tasked with stealing the puppets with the help of an anonymous accomplice. The twist is (revealed very early on), when you find a puppet, they come to life! Each puppet has different features that can help you in different situations.

Opposing you are evil puppets that stalk through the halls or vents. They can steal puppets from you. I always used ‘undo’, so I don’t know if you can get them back. If you don’t have a puppet, they just kick you out, which can actually be a nice shortcut!

There are four main areas. I finished 3 on my own, getting all puppets, but needed to poke around the code to figure out how to get in and beat the 4th one. However, you can get a good ending even if you miss out on the final building.

While the premise is inherently amusing, the game is more about the march of time and the loss of childhood memories. There is a subplot that you only encounter in the very end parts of the game about the Black experience in America.

I found the ending to be a bit long, with page after page of fullscreen text. That part seemed like it was meant to be a tribute for Jim Henson (like the game mentions in the credits) or maybe an exercise in worldbuilding, but it was a little bit long for my liking. I may be a bit sensitive to that because I have something similar in my current game (a museum at the end describing everything you did or saw) and I’ve been trying to figure out what a good length of time to spend there is.

The ‘true ending’ I got with all 14 puppets worked out well, I think.

I found the random movement of the enemies a bit difficult to avoid at times, but with UNDO it wasn’t too bad. It provided a bit of flavor. The only place I found really rough was the final building, where there were usually only 2 exits at a time, so moving in and out was pretty risky.

I think fans of big parser-like twine adventures (like Agat’s games) will like this a lot. I enjoyed it!

I think I underestimated this game going in. It seemed just like a regular old Ink game with a silly premise that would be over in a few minutes.

Instead, it was a somewhat longer ink game with a pretty funny premise and a lot more state tracking than I’m used to in Ink games.

You play as a cowboy who was been transported to New York City (I read that in the voice of the old pace picante commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6AFz2fbr8&t=13s 1). Once there, you have to find your cowboy hat!

I liked the tone of the game. It reminded me a bit of old ‘holy fool’ operas/plays where someone’s pretty dumb but is resistant to suffering and oddly accepted by everyone around them.

I had recently revisited NYC after moving out years ago and it was fun to see how his experiences paralleled mine (like wandering through the city and accidentally ending up in Times Square, having wild youths follow you around–in my case, the students I was chaperoning–, a helpful city native who doesn’t really care what’s going on with you as long as you don’t get in their way too much).

There was a kind of stat system. I couldn’t tell if it was actually checking stats or just being goofy, but I liked the stat names. And frequently I had to strategize to try to figure out what to do next.

So overall, this seems just right for a mid-size game in IFComp: not long enough that you get tired or bored, not short enough that you feel like you didn’t play anything. Good middle ground.

I spent more time and attention on this game than just about any other game in this comp so far, using the full 2 hours and thinking a lot.

This game is about a person who is part Australian and part Indonesian going back to Bali to visit family. To their surprise, they discover they’re running a bed and breakfast for a week!

Like most Choicescript games, there’s a lot of customization here, but not too much. There are stats here, but they don’t seem to be used for pass/fail as much as just keeping track of your choices and giving you a consistent story.

I started out playing a boy, but over time and with the events of the game I started thinking of my character of a woman more, and ended up in a romance with the guy RO.

I think the game had a satisfying narrative arc for me. I read some other reviews before playing, which had expressed disappointment with a certain major arc not being fulfilled, but knowing that helped me be more satisfied with what I did see. The rewards and trials both build up over time in the game, with a satisfying action conclusion.

I enjoyed the cats, as others have mentioned. But most of all I enjoyed seeing a blend of cultures of which I have not previously been aware much of. The intersection of ‘what Australians are like on holiday’ with the intersection of Indonesian and Chinese people and the effects of local religions, as well as the kinds of food available and the transportation…there’s a lot going on here and it’s described lovingly. I don’t know how autobiographical it is, but it either seems that Felicity Banks is describing things from her own experience, and is part Indonesian, or that this was simply just written with a deep love for and interest in the region. It’s possible that, not being from the region, I may be mistaken as to authenticity or tone, but from an outside perspective it seems very nice. I enjoyed this overall.

I approached this game with a combination of excitement and hesitancy. To Hell in a Hamper, the previous game in the series, is one of my top 10 IF games of all time, out of around 2900 reviews. That puts To Hell in a Hamper in the top 0.4% of all games ever for me. So on the one hand, I’m sure I’d like more, while on the other the chance of any new game also being in my top 0.4% of all time would be pretty low.

Overall I liked it a lot, I can just say that. I found it more challenging than the first game and with more of a focus on adventure than comedy, though there is definitely a strong comedic slant. It was genuinely engaging and funny and, in my opinion, well written.

The idea is that the captain of your pirate vessel has fled his ship with his greatest treasures as well as you, a young cabin boy. Unfortunately, your row boat is sinking! You have to toss all of the captain’s treasures out to succeed. He’s not willing to help, though, and a dangerous Yateveo tree is out to get you, too!

I mentioned this game being harder than the other, and that’s true. I got kind of stuck 4 times.

I liked the ending puzzle, a nice contrast to the rest of the puzzle style. And the final scene had some quit nice poetry in it.

So overall, I’d rate this as pretty difficult, but at no point in the four scenarios above was I unhappy. It’s hard, but a fun hard. That’s good, and gives the game high points in my mind on the puzzle side.

On the writing and story side, well, like I said, this is different than the last game. That game’s humor depended heavily on the increasing absurdity of the objects you found. In this one, though, almost everything I found was reasonable. Instead, there was a lot more emphasis on the adventure of it all, like the helpful octopus, the dangerous tree, and above all the changing relationship of you and the captain. It was almost more like Violet than Lost Pig; each of your actions affects your relationship with the captain. So it was not as funny to me as To Hell in a Hamper, but I think it has a deeper story and a bit more substance.

Polish-wise, it was great. I found only a couple of bugs.

In conclusion, this game isn’t in my top 0.4% of all time, but it’s solidly in my top 4.0% of all time. Great work, and something I could recommend to people looking for humor, pirates, one-room games or great NPCs (maybe a nomination for Best NPC xyzzy?)

This was my favorite game of the competition!

This is a twine game that uses some simple branching and rejoining to tell a short story. In the absence of state tracking and styling, its stripped down to just the essentials of twine. Such a story can be amazing or awful, depending mostly on the storytelling.

This game has 2 main paths and four different endings. I played through once, backed up and tried another path, and then looked at the code. The code gave me a much deeper appreciation for the game, as I hadn’t checked out the other 2 paths. They strongly complement the other paths, so I highly recommend playing through at least three paths to see how things go.

It’s a shorter game, and all the paths tell of a cycle of rebirth and of timelines in a universe that has gone wrong. It also focuses on love.

Overall, it’s pretty slight and small, but I loved the storytelling trick with the different paths. The game could benefit a bit from more work; for instance, there were numerous typos in the early game, around 1 per screen that I noticed. Other than that, it seems like a complete story as envisioned by the author.

I’ve liked Xavid’s parser games before, so this twine game looked interesting.

It reminded me of an extended version of Astrid Dalmady’s game You Are at a Crossroads, which is the first Twine game I really liked and the game that got me into choice-based games originally. Both of these games involving ritualistic revisiting of locations, unlocking more content by having net items in an inventory.

I like Astrid Dalmady’s game, but it’s pretty small. So this game is nice way to get that same kind of feel, although this game has quite a bit of its own structure and story that is unique to it.

You are packing up, ready to move out of a home, but every in your house are pictures of a man who is someone close to you, a boyfriend or spouse or lover. You have worries and fears and concerns, and you begin to explore those in a symbolic way.

Several helpful people guide you as you go along, exploring memories of the past in a symbolic format. At first there is much you can’t do, which can get frustrating, but eventually your new capabilities give you more strengths.

The feel is almost a parser/choice hybrid, with its extensive set of locations and inventory items. But it manages to tread the thin line between too many options and too few; I occasionally found myself trying to lawnmower all options, but in each case I realized that it would be easier to just step back and think.

So overall, a strong game. The psychology of it isn’t unusually insightful, but the symbolism employed was enjoyable and interesting to me and the descriptions were evocative.

This game was loosely based on 'The Blessings' by Dar Williams.

This is a choice game in interactive play format, with the option to act out the play yourself.

It is set in Russia in the time of the NKVD and the period between the two World Wars. One character, a policeman, has to deal with those close to him, some of whom are dangerously too progressive and others that are dangerously too conservative.

While the Russian setting originally suggested similarities to writers like Dostoevsky or Chekhov, I actually found more similarities here with Ibsen’s plays. There is a great deal of emphasis on interpersonal relationships that are fundamentally flawed but with an underlying spark of life; not of hope, or of joy, but simply of a determination to continue existing.

I’ve seen other reviews describe the ending as perhaps weak; I saw a comment saying there was a third ending and tried it as well. I do think that something is missing. I feel like the narrative arc is missing a little more denouement. We build up throughout and get a climax, with the endings all being very climactic, but there’s not enough time to resolve the tension and resolve the various threads. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what’s here, but I think for my personal tastes I’d like a little more. I’ll be rating this one highly.

This was another game of interest, as one of the last things I’m programming in my game is a similar scenario to this: trying to flee a ship that is being destroyed and trying to make it to an escape pod. It was interesting to look at this and try to see what worked for me and what didn’t.

This is a timed game, with approximately 100 turns. I found that time ran out pretty quickly for me; I had explored about half of the ship when I first found out the game had ended.

That time is marked by frequent messages from the ship’s computer. The messages start normal but become more and more unusual. I found that for my tastes it was a bit too frequent and intense; I felt like I barely had time to do anything before it was pushing me to go and run and do.

The layout is large enough and the puzzles complex enough that it felt weighty and had that feel of ‘don’t know if I can do this’ before the puzzles were solved and ‘ahh so that’s how it is’ after. There was clear competency in coding; I didn’t encounter problems where puzzles malfunctioned or interactions were misleading. However, there was somewhat of a deficit in polish; many objects are undescribed, and the game could have had more scenery items implemented. A particularly rough example was the holographic doctor, who had no description and didn’t reply to TALK TO or ASK DOCTOR ABOUT DOCTOR or stuff like that.

But the manual was really cool, as was the multiple paths, and it gave me some ideas. The overall craftmanship was high, I think I had different expectations from the author. So I definitely think if the author did another game, I’d expect it to be really good.

This game was good to read. I’ve known Bez for several years, and while I have not been able to be as helpful as some of his other friends, I’ve been able to watch his journey over time and follow along.

This is an interactive museum of Bez’s experiences through several different locations, with one exhibit per living location. There are photos, transcribed documents, and music from several indie musicians, which sounds good.

The museum is a well-written and fascinating look into the life of one individual. It is frank and open about challenges like debilitating illnesses (the pseudo-dementia, for instance), suicidal thoughts and impulses, homelessness, unsupportive staff and family, and so on. The fascinating part is how relatable it is; this is a very specific life with considerations that aren’t universally applicable, and yet for me the writing was relatable and approachable, and I could connect with it and consider similar challenges in my own life.

It’s not all challenges though. There are many successes and realizations and small happinesses mixed together with the hard times.

Bez has written solid games before with interesting mechanics, as well as interactive essays that are more limited in scope and linear. This game combines a lot of the best of both, with a non-fiction emphasis but with more ways to interact. There’s no need to make autobiographical fiction ‘fun’, since it’s just a story of life, but I think that the features like graphics, music, and navigation improve the reader experience and increase the connection between writer and reader.

This game features a magical protagonist that goes away to camp for magic kids.

At first I thought the game had read my mind; I named my protagonist Eduardo, and I was shocked to see Eduardo raised in a Spanish family! But then I realized it was just part of the story, especially when I saw that Eduardo was chosen to be a girl (I had imagined a boy), although gender is explicitly stated to be somewhat flexible".

The game treats many social issues, with a heavy emphasis on climate change and corporations destroying the wilderness, which gave me fond flashbacks to movies like Ferngully and Ernest Goes to Camp from my youth. Many of the NPCs were black, indigenous and/or hispanic, with a wide variety of hair types, skin tones and backgrounds. Mention was made of differing family types, including having two moms or being orphaned. And there was a discussion on how magic had been stigmatized in women more than in men.

So it seemed like social issues were a heavy topic in the game, not as a side tangent but as the central focus.

There’s a lot of promising features in the game but it is incomplete. Only the first chapter or so are finished, and there are some typos here and there, not enough to be distracting but enough to be noticeable. So once things are fleshed out I could see it being pretty solid.

There’s a lot where it’s hard for me to say if it worked or not. The personalities of the NPCs, the voice in the player’s head. A lot of it depends on where this ends up going. So I think my rating might end up a little in the middle of the range, getting bumped up or down if a continuation is made in the future. But overall there’s a lot of promise here, both in the writing and the art.