Reviews by MathBrush

I avoided this game for a while because I thought it was just a polyamorous sex simulator. But, trying it, I found that sexuality played a very small role in it, and even less if you chose not to.

Instead, it depicts what life would be like in a polyamorous lesbian relationship. I can honestly say that it made me feel like that kind of relationship would be a ton of work and not worth the intense cross-connections.

Secondly, it was very satisfying dealing with the work-related portion of the game. I spent the first half as a workaholic obsessed with my career, and eventually realized that fame as a singer was crushing my life, so I purposely torpedoed my job to find freedom from the old ball and chain.

Polished overall. A lot of pages in linear order, but mixed in with enough choices that it didn't feel overwhelming. I don't plan on playing again, as I'm satisfied with my choices.

This is an odd little game, and the lowest-ranking game of IFComp 2015. In its own sphere, it's great and wonderful, but it's just not what most people are looking for.

What it is is epic, obscure and symbolic poetry about trees planted over ancestor's graves coming to life to take revenge on their descendants for blasphemy. There is an intentional emotional distance between the listener and the author.

The battle system is similarly opaque. You can attack. You can pray. What do these do? Is not knowing an essential part of the experience?

It starts with Choice of Games-style choices establishing stats before diving in.

Interesting game. To get it to run in modern python 3, open all the python files and change raw_input to input.

I put off playing this game for a couple of years because I thought it was a sexual game. It mentions a few things here and there, but is quite a bit tamer than I expected, with almost all salacious material at the beginning. If Shakespeare is acceptable, this has about the same level, or Don Quijote.

Anyway, this fun adventure puts you in the role of Ariadne (THE Ariadne from mythology), engaged in a wasteful and promiscuous lifestyle, who receives a wake-up call from her aunt Circe (THE Circe). Most of the game is fairly linear, with TALK TO being the main interaction, but its well-oiled and polished. This is a great little game.

This game is just a regular Panks game: a village with a central well, with a two-story tavern and a cross-shaped church with altar in a different direction, forest and monsters outside of town.

It's a commodore 64 game, so you'll need an emulator.

This one was disqualified from IFComp due to being released early.

This game is very similar in theme to David Whyld's previous IFComp game, as they both involve a tough guy with a beautiful blonde who conspire against the woman's necromantic former partner.

Again, this game focuses for some time on the male gaze towards the woman, although there is no explicit sex or too much gore. It relies pretty heavily on the 'people can get knocked unconscious frequently without any adverse consequences).

The storyline, that of a detective having a client who comes in requesting an investigation of her own murder, works well. I didn't reach a perfect ending, but the third or fourth ending I got was good enough for me.

It's mostly CYOA with occasional parser-focused segments.

This homebrew parser game from 2006 works a little better than others. It has easily readable source, which helps, especially when divining what verbs are allowed. It doesn't do disambiguation well, but everything else is passable.

You wake up in a space station with amnesia, discovering logs and evidence of what has come before.

This is a grimdark game, with mentions of topics like (Spoiler - click to show)frequent contemplation of suicide and enforced rape. It's pessimistic and sad.

This game contains erotic themes, but you’re told you can avoid anything explicit. I found that to be true, and played to two pleasing endings without encountering anything shocking.

Papillon was a prolific author around this time, producing several excellent games before moving on to visual novels.

This game involves you, an Arabic noblewoman, experiencing violence and oppression in the city. You are required to enter a brothel in the game (although one early ending doesn’t require this), providing most of the opportunities for erotic choices (which, again, you need to choose).

The main drawback I felt was that the game felt like it could have developed more. It would have done better as a Choice of Games novel, but such tools were limited or unavailable at the turn of the millennium.

According to my rating system, I'm giving this game 2 stars. Here are my criteria:

-Polish. This game has several holes in implementation, enough to be annoying.

-Descriptive. This is where this game (and all of Sherwin's games) really shines. The game puts as a shallow gravedigger who only thinks about picking up women and digging up graves. You are extremely shallow and the game depicts that well.

-Interactivity. I think the game does well here. I felt like I hide control.

-Emotional impact. I didn't like all of the sex, and it made it harder to enjoy the rest of the game.

-Replay. I don't intend on replaying.

Santoonie Corp. was an interesting group in the early days of IF, and there are debates about whether the games released under their name are really there's or not. Suffice it to say, the games released under their name are poor quality.

This one is better than the other Amissville's, but still dreadful. There are TADS errors I've never even seen before for trivial actions. There is a fairly expansive map with some interesting scenes, but the scenes are built into the text description, so typing 'look' will repeat large chunks of action.

The story is nonsensical, something about hiding out in the woods and looking for weapons for your friend while being on run from the cops. Half of items are portable, the other half (often identical things to the ones you can carry) are 'too burdensome to carry'.

This is not the worst game I've ever played.

This is a clever concept. You right click on a picture, and the menus are huge, with enormous branching.

Some do relatively nothing, or are just dumb jokes taking advantage of the menu structure. Others have functionality: turning off the whole system, or allowing editing.

An interesting feature is a text adventure in the 'games' section with nods to Leather Goddesses of Phobos and to Adventure. It tracks state and allows revisiting locations, but it is easy to lose your spot.

Overall, it's funny as an idea, but too tedious to explore fully, and tedious even in medium exploration.