Reviews by MathBrush

In this game, every 'room' is a conversation with a new individual. Topics that you can discuss are highlighted in brackets or by other means depending on the interpreter.

Interestingly, every topic you learn in one location can be used in another. An important command here is 'GOODBYE', which I didn't learn for a while.

The story is intricate and interesting, told only in conversation. You have returned to a city dominated by a new god and his priest, Salyndo. You try to find a way to overthrow it.

Short, but breathtaking in the images it gives you glimpses of. I used 'help' about 5-6 times.

Strongly recommended.

Chandler Groover has put his characteristic mark on the magician genre. The game is similar to "An Act of Misdirection" in tone and concept (where the player is forced to perform magic tricks without completely knowing how, in a grim setting). However, the focus is on atmosphere over puzzles. I felt on the edge of my seat the whole time, wavering between fear and mild disgust.

The game is about dueling magicians who will go to any length to disrupt each other. This part reminded me in a good way of The Prestige, especially as the magicians use new tricks to upstage each other and try sabotage.

The game is thoroughly polished, and credits a lot of testers for a compact game, which helps explain its smooth gameplay. I encountered no bugs, and the parser was very well-stocked with synonyms. Playing this game was like watching a thriller, with the parser so slick that it essentially disappeared, leaving the player to interact directly with the story.

This game is generally about exploring in a submarine. You catalog new species you find, you can descend, ascend, or go left or right.

Perhaps the best thing about this game to me is the ability to make and execute plans. I had an idea from the beginning of what I wanted to do, and the game let me do it very well. You are constantly presented with choices to explore, to go deeper, to chase something, to return.

You have an air meter that goes down when you make choices. The beginning is more linear than the midge me and endgame.

I only played once, but it seems to be highly branching.

This game is a short 3-act play of sorts. You have to live through a single evening through the eyes of three people. I found this story to be compelling because it asked me to identify with people I usually would not have identified with.

In each subgame, the actions are relatively basic; I did not have to use hints or a walkthrough, which is unusual for me. Eventually, the game will hint at what you want to do.

Stephen Granade is one of my favorite authors, with the ultra-hard Losing Your Grip, the comedy Child's Play, and the mid-length escape game Fragile Shells.

This game won the first ever unrestrained section of Ectocomp, which was traditionally a speed-IF until 2015, when it was split into a speed-if section and an unconstrained section.

It is a sort of psychological thriller, when 6 friends (or former friends) visit a cabin to carry out the wishes of a dead friend. Everyone has something to hide. One of the highlights of the game is a drinking game about truth, where you decide how to play.

The game has violence and strong profanity, which is not something I generally recommend, but I enjoyed this story, and I have to admit it. It set a high bar for future Ectocomp games.

This game is a peaceful, calm exploration of nature, the way She's Got A Thing For A Spring or A Change In The Weather would have been without puzzles.

This game was a Landscape entry in the IF Art Show, so the emphasis here is on detail, setting, the five senses, and so on. I loved the nature feeling here.

There are multiple paths you can take, but I just played through once. There are some exciting random events, and some philosophy.

Recommended for everyone.

Adventureland was the first commercial adventure game, written by Scott Adams. It was all caps, with short, simple sentences and basic verbs.

This game is a homage to that, a Speed-IF with 7 treasures, an interesting map, and several enemies.

The game is actually very appealing; people haven't changed in the last 40 years, and there is a reason that adventureland was appealing back then. Pure minimalism really stokes the imagination. I got the same sort of feel I have talking to characters in the original Zelda game.

It's short, but difficult. With the small number of combinations possible, however, it should be possible to beat it. Pretty fun!

This game would work great as a text adventure (which it is), a point-and-click, a sidescroller, and frankly just about anything.

You are stuck with a rat captain and have to get out of sinking ship as fast as possible, grabbing whatever treasure you can. There are some mild puzzles (and probably some harder ones I couldn't figure out), but mostly you just try to figure out what's worth saving.

This is pretty fun. I enjoyed spending a ton of turns trying to get an obscure object only to discover it was completely worthless. Sometimes things are not what they seem (diamonds in the rough) and sometimes they are what they seem (dirt clods in the rough).

Lots of fun, and super short (to maximize replay value). I recommend a few playthroughs for fun.

Deadline Enchanter was one of the first IF games I played, 5 years ago. I remember that it's bizarre atmosphere and self-awareness really attracted me to IF in general because it showed me what was possible.

You play someone in a magical city that has appeared in Detroit. You've been given a message from the Folk, a magical race, and the message is a parser game. This game has a walkthrough. So you walkthrough.

The beauty of this game is seeing the story unfold and seeing the guts and edges of the parser. The world it paints is beautiful. When it came out, it was very controversial, but since the Twine revolution, I believe this game can be better appreciated. In facta, the author has moved on to Twine, making great games like Solarium.

Like I said, this is one of the games that drew me into IF and established my perceptions of the whole genre, together with Curses! and Not Just An Ordinary Ballerina.

Thanksgiving was my first Hannah Powell-Smith game, but I'm going to play her other games now. Before I talk about the story, I have to mention my favorite part of this game: the use of color on links. I think everyone should copy this: cycling text is one color, expanding text is another, and branching text is a third. This makes it so much easier to know how to explore. I really support this.

As for the story, it was one I haven't seen done before. As you go to Thanksgiving with your boyfriend, you come under pressure due to your hidden past. It's hard to say more without spoilers, but this game made me nervous in a good way.