Reviews by MathBrush

Binksi is an engine combining the minimalistic graphics engine bitsy (which allows sprites with few pixels, 2-frame animations, 1 or 2 color palettes, and text interactions when you run into things) with Ink.

This is not a game with a set ending, as far as I can tell. Instead, you explore Manon's desktop while putting off making a game.

There are funny things and serious things. There are communities that are slow and become uninteresting and others that are outright cruel and hostile. There are fun times and fun friends and the ability to help others.

It was fun to explore. Some places have multiple interactions, but I only did 1 interaction for most objects.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief as I opened this game. I had been playing a lot of short games as part of a competition and there is, of course, a lot of variety, some amazing, some that feel like work to get through.

I opened this and saw nice styling, compelling writing, some interactivity I really had to think and strategize with, and well-written characters. It was great to see!

Here's an example of the kind of stuff that I liked in this game:

"You start slicing the eggplant, but you hear ominous noises from the living room. Clanking noises, like something metal is being batted around on a hardwood floor. It sounds like one of the cats (probably Natasha; it's usually Natasha) might be playing with something that is not a cat toy.

Maybe you should go intervene? Whatever she's doing is probably not good for your security deposit. But losing focus when cooking isn't always a good idea either."

A lot of short games introduce characters but don't really 'introduce' them. We just get snippets, like a page from the middle of a larger story. This shows Natasha's character through both a single incident (being noisy) and a general statement ("it's usually Natasha"). It uses concrete details ('clanking noises') as well as emotions connected to it ('ominous').

The second paragraph sets up the choices that follow (going to check on her or not) and lets us know both that it's possible to strategize and that our choices matter.

And, while short, the game still manages to have a real start, build up, climax, and denouement.

While I enjoyed the game and found only one ending, I felt satisfied with that and didn't have an urge to play again. But I appreciate the thought that went into this and think that I can learn from it when it comes to writing choice-based games.

In this Ren'py game, you play as an author who is trying to write a story about a human child and a dragon whelp.

You make choices on how to write the story, but eventually you get stuck, so you go back and write something different.

This ends up mostly being a binary tree, which you can view on a map, although there are some convergences. It turns out though that you can get ideas in one branch that unlock new options in another.

There is a lot of sameness in trying to lawnmower every branch, and having both story text and commentary on the bottom meant I often forgot to read the commentary. But the main story was cute and I liked the overall concept.

This is a game in the vein of the Arcade Pack spoof that went around a few decades ago. It's a procedurally generated version of Dragon's Lair where your options are U/D/L/R and S (up, down, left, right, and sword).

It seems to go on forever. I used cheats and undo eventually and still never found the end, but the scenarios eventually looped (but not the same order). Looking at the Club Floyd transcript, they eventually just gave up, so I don't think it ends.

I love this concept and this kind of spoof. As a game itself it wears thin really quickly, but spoofing arcade games is funny.

This game is one in which you pursue a metaphorical world, like Alice in Wonderland or the Phantom Tollbooth. It relies heavily on philosophical implications and interpretations. It is also just a demo.

It uses a parser system, except you choose from words given to you. You can proceed through much of the game by just repeatedly hitting enter, but there are parts where it branches out. I thought the system was really cool; it was hard to use at first but I eventually got into a rhythm with arrow keys and entering.

I never played this back in 2018; there were several games from that year that I never got around to for some reason. But I like it; it's too bad no sequel ever appeared. I did think their previous game 'Niney' was cool, though!

I remember seeing this game in Spring Thing years ago and didn't play it because I wasn't familiar with the games it was inspired by.

But I thought I'd try it anyway just now, and it worked fine as a standalone piece.

It's a mostly-linear twine story about a guy named Nigel and his space-traveling alien friend. The two of you go together to a mysterious asteroid where you encounter a variety of aliens.

There is a long lead-up of linear story followed by a more exploratory section.

The writing was interesting enough to hold my attention, and I felt like I had real agency in the choice-based parts. This doesn't look like it was ever finished, but the part I've played is fun.

This is a Spring Thing choice based game from a while back. It's a choice-based story about your friend and your stepbrother (a trans man) who get romantically involved while in high school.

This relationship is not a good one. The boyfriend becomes increasingly possessive as your stepbrother draws away from society. Things get physically bad.

The writing is expressive and descriptive but has some typos scattered throughout it. There are enough options that it feels like you have some real agency in the game but that is of course balanced by the fact that you can't always make someone make the right choice in a relationship. Interesting read. Contains some strong profanity.

This was a Spring Thing 2012 game written in Quest.

The idea is that you have a spacious mansion with guests placed randomly in it at random locations, together with random items scattered around.

Your goal is to find the magnifying glass, then look at each item till you find the murder weapon. You also ASK people ABOUT their alibis until you know who killed someone and where. You then GATHER the suspects and ACCUSE the killer.

The game is, alas, largely unfinished, with the author describing several possible future improvements. There are lots of bugs that crash the game, such as when I accused the murderer.

People don't have descriptions and are often referred to as the incorrect gender; while you are meant to ASK them ABOUT ALIBI, clicking on them only gives the TALK TO option, which none of them respond to.

Overall, if the author ever came back to this and fleshed it out, I think it would be a fun game, and I would give it a much higher star rating. But for now, it's undercooked, although ambitious.

I helped test this game. This is a brief one-room parser game with a well-written atmosphere. You are in a carriage with your father who has come to a grim decision regarding your future.

The game lets you talk and look around as well as several other actions. The issue with parser games with puzzles in ectocomp is that it can be hard to correctly clue things in a way that people can naturally follow the puzzles; fortunately, while the main game isn't too hard, the author managed to fit in Story Mode, which you can activate by typing STORY and which basically types in a walkthrough for you. I found it to be useful even after completing the story itself since it helped me key in on important things.

I definitely like the setting and the nuances here, the focus on the details of the wood and cloth and expressions.

This is a twine game with visual novel-style controls. The game focuses more on story than branching, with one very important choice at the end.

The story is written in a way that is grounded in reality (with a lot of description of physical sensations) but also very disconnected from reality as it's difficult to sift out what is actually happening, what the narrator thinks is happening, and what the underlying meaning is. As the story goes on, details make more and more sense.

Visually, the game uses fixed-width fonts and (I'm only now realizing this) varies between left-justification and right-justification, with just a hint of center.

The story is about a woman who's pulled in different directions, between a new and exciting life and a life of respectable office work (these characterizations may not be those intended by the author). In this story, this difference physically manifests in two sides of the body fighting for control.

I thought the imagery in the game was unique, a blend of old folklore and modern technology.

Parts of it were confusing, but I think that's the intention. Noticing the text justification thing made a reread a lot easier!