Reviews by MathBrush

This short Frog game was written in 500 words or less for the Neo Twiny Jam.

It's a cute story and written from a frog's perspective in various phases of life, including egg, tadpole, and adult (I think).

Each part is written in minimalistic style. At times I lost the thread of what I was reading, trying to figure out what the terse words corresponded to. The ending was pleasant.

This game was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less.

It does a great job of getting use out of those words.

At first, it just presents a kind of opaque technical screen that I didn't really understand, and then more of the same. I was so lost, all this scientific research-type jargon about chemicals and samples. It ended quickly but with some mysterious notes.

So I replayed 4 times and got deeper into the mystery. I don't think I ever completely solved what was going on but I got plenty of hints of horrible things going on.

Some background: I wrote a game for Choice of Games a few years ago, but it did really poorly. I ended up playing and reviewing all the 100+ available COG titles at the time to figure out where I went wrong and ended up seeing a lot of different patterns in their titles and in what sells well.

At the same time, I kept seeing hints of a game by Emily Short coming out, who is one of the most respected IF authors with some of the most well-known games in her repertoire (Counterfeit Monkey, Galatea, etc.) But it was always delayed, and disappeared for years.

So I was excited to hear that it had been finished (with a little boost from Hannah Powell-Smith, another very popular author), I was excited to hear about it.

So for the game itself. My first go-to with a choicescript game is to look at its stats page. The best-selling games tend to have clearly defined and cleary differentiated stats, while the less popular ones often have confusing or overlapping stats. Here the stats are a bit overlapping: discretion vs self promotion, practicality vs daring, loyalty vs idealism, populism vs elitism. If you speak out to a billionaire and say you hate the wealthy (not an actual in game example), is that populism, idealism, or daring?

So in games where the stats are confusing, it can be hard to min/max, so I tend to just imagine a very specific persona and pick only what I think that person would do. This game responded to that very well, and I got a good story out of it, which is a good sign.

You play as a concierge to the rich. Billionaires ask the company you work for to arrange parties, trips, housekeeping, etc. Kind of like a fancy butler. I felt some connection with this theme as I work at a private school, and helped supervise a trip to Spain this summer, something I could not have afforded on my own. I don't work with billionaires, but sometimes with millionaires.

In the game, you encounter a series of challenging or intriguing clients. That's another aspect of this game compared to other CoG games: this is much more character focused than plot focused. I've heard some say it ends early; with a 500K wordcount, that's not really true. I did finish it in 3 hours or so, while I've had some CoG games take 10, but there are ones like Choice of Dragon that are finished in 30 minutes but don't feel like they end early. I think it's because the plot arc is fairly flat; there's not really a sense of continually rising drama with a dramatic climax; instead, there's a rolling succession of parallel character-focused subplots that each have their own rise and fall.

Going into more detail, rather than having dramatic overall events, we have things like examining in great detail the life of a trans billionaire who is uncomfortable with wealth; the life of a rich woman with a troublesome child; the life of fellow coworkers, bosses, etc. Much of the game is about reflecting on your views on them and life in general and on yourself and your feelings for them.

And reflecting is a key concept here in terms of other CoG games. The real big bestsellers tend to have actions have direct and dramatic consequences. Do you spare the life of the prisoner, or execute them? Do you take the evil crystal or smash it? On the other hand, a lot of the lower-selling games are reflective. Here's what you do: why do you do it? It's much more passive. This game is in between. You do get some pretty big choices, but a lot of things just happen to you and you reflect on how you feel about it.

This makes this game not really fit with the power fantasy that most Choice of Games fans look for. You're not stomping around destroying things. You're not constantly winning despite the odds. There are failures and takebacks (like a long sequence about a helicopter near the beginning) where you lose ground, something a lot of fans distinctly dislike.

But the games that do these things often win awards for writing, like Rent-a-Vice. Having the reflection, the failures, the character drama all are associated with games that have won awards. So if I had to predict anything about this game in the long run I'd wager that it will likely have middle-of-the-pack sales (definitely better than mine!) but be nominated for at least one writing award.

My particular narrative arc worked out well. I played a people pleaser who is mildly uncomfortable with the status quo but not enough to do anything about it. I ended up (Spoiler - click to show)becoming the CEO and marrying my coworker. I was interested enough to try another playthrough. I clicked through the first four chapters quickly trying to do bad. A lot of the early storyline was similar in the major plot points, although wildly different in the details (I somehow picked up an aunt I didn't have the first time). Later chapters were completely new material; in my first game I had several chapters about blackmail, while in my second I had a kind of international investigation storyline, which was very cool. Overall though I don't think it sells its branching very well; my first playthrough looked like I had hit up most major content, while the second was quite different. Signposting that more content exists is hard (more greyed out choices than we have here, chapter numbers with subletters, etc.).

I liked customization; I was able to refuse a drink and say it was because I was a latter-day saint, which I've never been able to do before.

Overall, this feels like a story about real people in real life situations. It feels like a biography more than a fantasy novel. I like to think of IF writers as opera composers and I've often thought of Emily Short as like Verdi, finding some similarities in their tones and settings. This is more like Beethoven though, with a clear aesthetic free of unnecessary clutter.

I don't think this will be a bestseller. But after having played more than 100 of these games, I think it's unique and high quality, and worth playing. I got really burnt out after playing them all and have started a few I never finished, but I played this all the way through in one setting, taking it to the library and reading it on my phone there, and even replayed it. I'm glad it was published; it would have been a terrible shame to leave this work incomplete and in storage.

This Neo Twiny Jam game, written in 500 words or less, has you exploring your father's crypt after his death.

It seems he has built an enormous tomb, and under great secrecy. But you're determined to find out the truth.

The game has a puzzle or two, and did a good job incorporating exploration and mechanics. All of it was a bit slight; the 500 words was pulled thin, having to handle story, puzzles, etc. but all the pieces that are hear are either already good or promising.

This game features in a more self-reflective way than a traditional narrative. It was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less, and all of those words (save just a couple) are displayed on the page at once.

The self reflection is in choosing which words to keep. There are a dozen or so 'cards' with nice images, good backgrounds and fonts, etc. and they describe magical abilities and items like lucid dreaming or door portals.

It's a fun choice and written well, but there's no hidden depths. In a way it's the opposite of the author's other entry EVISCERATETHISGIRL.com, which is completely linear and nothing but hidden depths. Together they make an interesting study in contrasts.

This Twine game, written in 500 words or less for the Neo Twiny Jam, is about Sisyphus.

I've seen a lot of revisionist takes on Sisyphus recently, but this one is a straight-up thoughtful interpretation of the original myth as-is.

The short 500 words get reused a ton as you go through many very similar loops. There is a gradual increase in knowledge, the loops changing.

I found that very effective. But the frequent use of yellow-on-white was a bit hard to read, and it got repetitive (which I know is the point, but an accurate representation of a frustrating thing is still frustrating).

This game was written in 500 words or less for the Neo Twiny Jam.

It uses a UI similar to a google doc, and the best part of it to me was the way that it looked and the detail in the highlights and such.

The second best part was the overall writing, which painted a fun picture of having a mysterious officemate who you contact every day but don't know in person.

The worst part was not having enough of it; the premise was great, but it kind of just stopped, presumably when the author hit the word limit.

This short game, written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less, has you play as a cute rat and to live out your days. You can eat, drink, play, etc.

There's not a ton of variation, so I was inclined to give it 3 stars, but it's sweet, especially the tribute in the credits, and in a way the way it just keeps going on (Spoiler - click to show)could be thought of as a way for Puck to always live on.

This game was written in 500 words or less for the Neo Twiny Jam competition.

It takes the limited word concept of the competition and works it into the game. You have died, but your soul only has 400 words left to say before they perish.

Unfortunately, Charon is a bit of a chatterbox, and you've got to cross the river.

This game was pretty entertaining. I only found 2/3 endings, though, although I tried a lot of stuff to find the third.

This game was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less.

It uses a mild amount of branching and a few other text techniques to tell the story of an Australian who immigrated from Jakarta. While the rest of the family is preoccupied with political unrest, the protagonist is interested in love.

While not long, it is well written and presents some interesting facets of life that I wasn't previously aware of, and it looks good while doing it.