Reviews by MathBrush

This game was entered in several minimal jams, including the Single Choice jam. It is the author's first game.

It's a visual novel with one main image of characters with slight variation. The writing is intense and earnest: you, a time traveller, have been stuck in a loop over and over again with one person at its focus: your love.

The image used is high-quality and is very stylized, more anime-style. The story reminds me of fanfic in its genre conventions.

Though this is in the single choice jam, there's not really any story choices, but it is rewritten in as a 'restart/quit' option, which I actually thought was pretty clever.

I think if there's anywhere this game could be improved, it's in specificity. Right now the writing could apply to almost any time travel seting and situation: it could be a WWII era drama set in France, a turn of the century New York tale, a futuristic sci-fi set in China. And the lover could be anyone; we meet with only tiny details that fit in every life, like grabbing a cup of coffee or going on the bus. Part of that is intentional and works, in that it could be read as a MC/reader fic that needs to be vague to allow you to insert yourself. On the other hand, those incidents could be expanded on; there could be conversations that were had; there could be specific incidents recalled that are unusual and remarkable. IDK, I felt like I went off on this a long time but only because I feel like this author actually has a lot of talent and so I'm kind of imagining a really good story that could be written by them, if there were some more concrete details in it.

This visual novel was entered in the Single Choice jam.

My overall impression of it varied over time, as at first I thought the story was a bit trope-heavy but later on I enjoyed the progression it made.

You play as the husband of a recently deceased witch. After her death, you discover a letter from her telling you how you can contact her spirit.

You adventure through dungeons, killing goblins, to get a spirit orb to contact her with. Eventually, things come down to a difficult choice.

Overall, a lot of the game could have had more specific descriptions instead of relying on implicit common knowledge (like the fact that dungeons exist with goblins who are enemies, who the Lord of Light is, how heaven/hell work, etc.). But I liked the main narrative thrust of the story.

This is a nicely styled Twine game that is digestible in an hour or so. You play as a robot rover helping a damaged ai-driven (fictional AI, not chatgpt ai) spaceship to get repaired.

You discover a world with little slime creatures in it that can shapechange. You also have an inventory of items that can be used to alter the shapes of the creatures and things around you.

It's a fun concept, and the game is designed to be relatively mild and enjoyable. While some puzzles are tricky (I had to use the walkthrough because I got stuck), there's a lot of leeway to help you finish without having to solve everything. I stopped at 150 points.

I like the worldbuilding and inventory here. I didn't feel a need to revisit this game in the future, but I'm glad I played it. I came to try it because it showed up on the Interactive Fiction top 50 for 2023.

I played this game because it was one of 2 on the Interactive Fiction Top 50 poll of 2023 and I had never played it before.

There are a lot of things that can be spoiled in the game, so I'm going to just describe the beginning here and some accessibility stuff, then put some mid-game stuff in spoilers, and leave out the endgame stuff.

The game starts like an idle game like Universal paperclips. You have a 'stoke the fire' button and, on another tab, a 'gather wood' button. A stranger wanders in, freezing in the cold.

Gameplay expands significantly as you go on, adding crafting mechanics and mild city-building. Eventually you do need movement keys and there are some parts I don't think would be accessible to screen readers.

For mid-game spoilers:

(Spoiler - click to show)Once you are able to craft a compass, you are able to explore a world map. This map contains a variety of outposts, and includes real-time combat that involves clicking, with some battles requiring intense clicking.

As you explore the map, you can make the world a safer place, eliminating threats as you go and establishing outposts. As you do so, you learn about the lore of the world.

Overall, the game is very polished, and while minimalistic it is descriptive. The interactivity worked well for me, although I found some endgame timed events very difficult. I found the game emotionally satisfying and could see myself revisiting it.

This is a Ren'py game entered in the single choice jam with some other minimal constraints.

It's go-go-go from the start, with flowery and/or extreme language choices, intense scenario descriptions, harsh music, etc. It tells a lurid tale of someone kidnapped by a jealous rival and tortured over and over.

I only played through one ending, so there were likely chunks of story I missed, but what was there was very descriptive. Aside from the game itself, I'm surprised that ren'py has over 1700 files to unzip when you download a python game.

Overall, a good exercise in writing stressful or tense situations, but the one-note harshness and intensity could have been balanced by contrasting scenes.

This is a game from the Single Choice jam written using Ren'py.

It depicts an annoying situation edging towards disturbing where the main character 'you-chan' meets 'yandere-chan', who is cosplaying as a yandere girlfriend from an anime (here 'yandere' being part of a classification of character personality types, including tsundere and kuuder, with yandere being the personality type that is obsessive and mixes romance with violence and abusive behavior).

There are two endings depending on your single choice. Mine went from a kind of cutish, annoying meeting to a deeply disturbing one, as is appropriate for a yandere situation. I didn't feel super invested in the storyline, but the descent into danger was handled pretty well I think.

Although short, this game satisfies all my criteria for 5 stars:
+Polish: This is a short twine game with custom styling and no typos or errors that I saw.
+Descriptiveness: The three main characters are painted vividly, with distinct and well-defined personalities and motives.
+Interactivity: As part of the single choice jam, there is only one option to choose, but it's an interesting one: which perspective to see the story from. It was fun to contrast the different perspectives and viewpoints.
+Emotional impact: I chuckled after the first story, not so much that I found it amusing but that it managed to pack in so much in a short time.
+Would I play again? I enjoyed playing it three times to see all endings.

This game was written in Narrat, an engine I hadn't heard of before but which worked very smoothly; this was a visually well-done game, with an appropriate stock image, nice styling/layout and smooth scrolling.

This story was entered in the Single Choice Jam, and features exactly one choice in the center of the story, at what felt like a powerful emotional moment.

Content wise, the story revolves around remembrances of Girl's Day, which I assume is the Japanese holiday, as the imagery used reflects that, and I'm not currently aware of other Girl's Days out there. The protagonist is old now, but reflects on the generations of women in their past. There are strong implications of the narrator's changing gender identity, but nothing explicit.

Overall, a thoughtful, reflective, and well-done piece.

This is my fourth TrexandDrago Development game and honestly they're out here doing things no one else is really doing.

All of these games are kind of surreal setups for dinosaur-related mysteries or dramas. None of them seem to lead into each other, so it gives the feel of an anthology.

All of these games are fairly short and unpolished, including this one that has elements of Gravity Falls, dinosaurs, and horror.

I've been giving most of these games 1-2 stars because they generally feel short and rushed, but if they were in one big compilation I'd probably give it 3 stars since it has a whole vibe going for it.

This is a Bitsy game, a kind of game that uses arrow keys to control minimalistic pixel images.

In this game, you pass through the mind of someone who is deeply concerned about the world. Passing through the mind once gives one thought, which can stick in your brain (usually only bad things) or pass through. The background images change depending on the person's reaction.

Topics include things like dating, climate change, police brutality, and others.

Overall, the concept works thematically. There's not really any kind of choices, though since it's in the One Choice Jam it might have made sense to have a decision at the end. Overall, everything that was here was well-made, it just felt a bit light overall.