Reviews by MathBrush

In this game, you play as a young Inuit native (I believe; it never says, but you live on the ice and eat seal meat). You can summon beings from the Stars by placing runes on the ground that describe them, two runes at a time.

This game uses a parser/choice hybrid, by having a variety of nouns at the bottom which, as you click them, provide verbs to act on them with, usually two or three verbs at a time.

This system took me a bit to get used to at first, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. The runes become an alphabet of sorts that, like the alphabet in Ingold's adaptation of Sorcery!, allows for a great deal of variety and difficulty in a parser hybrid.

The story was slow to start for me, but grew on me. I strongly recommend this game. It took me about 40 minutes to play.

In this game, you are trapped inside a small shop with a grue (a creature from the Zork series). Just any connection with Zork makes a game more silly, but that's not a drawback here.

You have to move through the darkness with limited resources. As you do, you find different sources of light and other surprises. You're just trying to survive.

I had to replay a couple of times to get it right. It has some nice ambient sounds and good use of images and backgrounds.

I really liked it, and recommend it.

This game uses many full-color illustrations and background music to tell the story of a young inuit child, her relationship with outsiders, and an inuit legend.

The music and sound effects are well-chosen to establish the atmosphere. The illustrations are nice, too, with a couple of cool tricks with them.

The pacing of the twine story was effective for me, with appropriate use of fade-ins and repeated links.

Overall, a nice short creepy story.

This game is genuinely creepy in many of its parts. It has gorgeous css and html styling, with nice background music.

You play a police officer investigating the disappearance of a shut-in. As you enter his home, you discover more and more about his history and his solitary life, as well as interacting with a variety of candles.

Everything worked well for me in this game; it was effective and well styled.

Ryan Veeder is known for tongue-in-cheek, polished games. This game is well polished and paced, but this time it's a creepy ghost story. Like a campfire tile, it is spooky, and dark, but has a vague hint of a smile at times (which may just be my interpretation).

I found the game to be effectively creepy, banking on anticipation, slow changes in writing, and gradual, creepy, realizations.

I strongly recommend this game, especially for fans of campfire tales.

This game is set in an unspecified fantasy setting. You play as a poor young woman, who, unlike most poor young women in fantasy stories, is very ugly.

You have been coerced into things that you may not want to participate in, but your actions remain your choice. There are 8 or so endings depending on what course you decide to take.

The writing is well-done, with rich descriptions and a well-conceived plot. The game is polished and smooth, and includes some text effects and images.

Overall, recommended. This was I believe the author's first game, and they have gone on to win several competitions. This first effort was a sign of things to come.

In this game, you play a medieval character who has been dared to spend the night in the house of a deceased nobleman.

This game is divided into a couple of parts, the first of which is figuring out just what is going on. The game has three inventories, including one for things worn and one for memories.

The memory mechanic works well for me, as does the big last puzzle at the end.

Overall, this is a light treat, lasting 15 minutes or less. The writing is very descriptive and gameplay is definitely polished.

This game begins with a fun text-effect introduction, teaching you about the background of Winter Storm Draco.

You then begin to try to get home from the grocery store to your house. You will encounter a striking variety of puzzles, including classic-style puzzles, combat, and conversation.

Overall, the writing is amusing (although the game clearly states that it is a serious documentary, and not intended to amuse).

This is a short parser game, and I strongly recommend it.

This games, an entrant in last year's Spring Thing, is an Undum game (meaning you can click on links to advance the story, graphics are included, and the story can be scrolled back to see what came before.

The story is about a small group of anarchists rebelling against an oppressive hierarchy. While the game uses magic, it feels more like a stand-in for power that allows the author to discuss class struggle in an attention-grabbing way.

I feel like this game has something to say, and does so in a way that deserves attention.

This is the author's first Twine game. It uses no styling, and is based on goofy, crazy humor. These are usually signs for disaster, so I was skeptical when I saw it was highly rated.

But this game has a lot of thought and some actually pretty funny humor. You play a villager sent on a quest to find a magical item that can save your people from a tribe.

The narrator frequently talks with you, and the game discusses the balance between choices and story and free will and so on, but only in a goofy way.

I enjoyed this story, but I had low expectations. People expecting it to be great may be less impressed, but this is a long, funny Twine game.