Reviews by MathBrush

This game is about a young person who longs to be free from the mundane world. They try to escape, and begin to find the faery world.

The game has a variety of branches, picking from 2 sets of three big options and many smaller ones.

The game is very successful at creating and maintaining a wistful, deep atmosphere.

S. Woodson is a talented author, and it comes out in this brief game.

In this game, you create a story by choosing from menus. This game has a time cave structure, where every chance branches widely into more choices.

This usually is not effective, but the branches are short, the game meant to be replayed often, and you have a general idea of what effect your choices will have.

Options include choosing a setting for your short story, choosing characters, choosing motivations or objects, and so on.

This Sub-Q game is tightly focused and compact. You play as Fuwa Bansaku, a samurai based on a real-life Japanese swordsman. You are investigating an abandoned shrine that is rumored to be haunted.

This game uses a small number of directional commands and tightly-written poetry to achieve a compact and peaceful feel.

The story revolves around court drama and the story of the abandoned shrine.

An enjoyable, short piece.

This game is about a father who is macho and masculine, and a son who has taken a different path and identity from their father.

You take turns playing as father, son, or, eventually, unicorn. The meaning of the unicorn is enigmatic to me, perhaps representing social pressure, but you'll have to play to see what you think.

There is some strong profanity, vague reference to sexual acts, and occasional violence.

In this game, the doctors are testing to see if you have recovered from a mental illness. They test you by having you rhyme words that they say, but in an odd way and with a timer counting down quickly.

In no way is this an epic or life changing games but it satisfies all of my criteria for 5 stars, which is why I'm giving it that score.

This is my favorite Apollo 18 one move game so far. It is very simple; someone is chasing you, and you have one chance to escape them. There is a correct solution, but all endings are interesting (I found 11 or so).

This game really shines in its writing and creativity. It affected me emotionally in a mild, pleasant way.

There is some mild profanity right at the beginning.

This game, one of the later entrants to the tiny utopia jam, has several unusual features. Fist, it uses neutral pronouns (ze, zir,..). I found that this helped with establishing the tone of the game and the allowing the player to identify with the protagonist.

The second unusual feature is in its branching structure. The game has an unusual structure in its branching that had me playing again and again. This is a strongly branching games but is short enough that replay is easy, similar to Porpentine's Myriad.

Unlike most strongly branching games this game's branches build on each other and create a unified story. Also, the author left little surprises and added variety in the branches.

This game is a Tiny Utopia jam game, and Groover has picked an unusual vision for his utopia. You play a skull-scraper in a house of skulls, and you interact with the world in unusual ways.

This game has great production values, with combinations of advanced visuals, sound effects, etc. The setting is macabre but not gory, dark but not depressing.

The writing is well-paced, with a truly beautiful and almost-hidden turning point. Perhaps my favorite Tiny Utopias game.

In this game, you are in a room that seems incredibly detailed, with many NPCs. As you progress, there are interesting locations, exciting events, and complicated scenarios.

However, it is all for naught. The family curse has activated in you, so that any action besides GO NORTH will cause your death. Time and again, it seems like some other action is needed, but only GO NORTH is allowed.

This is amusing, and would not work nearly as well in a short story. This exact feeling of helplessness is unique to an interactive format, and it's a welcome effect.

Strongly recommended.

This game is almost like westernized Haiku, with short, clipped, uncapitalized sentences, usually of two or three words.

It is minimalistic, with perhaps less than 50 words in the entire game, two rooms, etc.

It is essentially puzzleless, but I was stuck a bit at the very end. But with so many objects, it's easy to try.

The game attempts to be one of deep/shocking/horrifying at random, and somewhat succeeds.