Reviews by MathBrush

This game was the cowinner of the first IF Comp with A Change in the Weather by Andrew Plotkin.

This game has some very ingenious puzzles. It focuses on alchemy, metals, and a bit of mythology. There was a puzzle with bottles that I thought at first might have been like Emily Short's later bottle puzzle in Savoir Faire, but then the solution was very different.

I didn't really enjoy the middle of the game. After exploring all the areas, including the tower, I was overwhelmed by the number of items and possibilities, and just felt like moving on to a different game. However, I've been wanting to finish games, in case there is better material at the end, and that was the case this time. Following the walkthrough, I accessed the end puzzles, which were really good; it almost made me wish I had just stuck it out and experimented more.

The story was not that great, but it's not a bad story; I feel like the very first and very last scenes got the most work, and the rest were pretty unmotivated. The rooms are sparse; there is an in-game reason for the emptiness of the house, but it felt forced.

Puzzle lovers will love it; story lovers should just use a walkthrough to catch the best bits.

This is a short Twine game with short sentences and a large font. There are three endings, bad, neutral, and good. There are some pretty sad choices you can make, but they are not rewarded.

This game is just a simulation of going to work and coming back, with a complete play resulting in about 20 total lines of text. It's kind of like a Twine version of 9:05 without the more intense parts, and with a condensed text.

There are a few spelling errors (e.g. 'cublicle' instead of 'cubicle').

TUNDRA was one of the first Twine games I had every played, months ago. As such, I didn't like it at all, being used to parser games. I also thought the game was unfinished, because I hadn't found an important plot tool.

Having played more twine games, now, I see that this is actually a well-crafted game. I just played it through all the way to the ending, and I like it quite a bit better now.

The game allows you to undo at any time, and there is a map to help you move around. You can pick up 5 or more items in your endeavors. I am told there are 3 endings, but I only reached one.

You are in the arctic tundra and must explore. I found the game very reminiscent of Babel.

In this game, you go through years worth of trying to talk to people about being transsexual. You have some control, but things tend to happen whether you like them or not.

This results in a fairly linear narrative, but the choices make you feel like you are participating.

You either like this type of game or you don't. The author did a good job of making you feel like you understand the pc.

Broken Wand is a short Twine game with multiple endings, text input, and some non-trivial puzzles.

In the game, you discover a broken wand under the playground slide that you must repair. You encounter a few villains and some nontrivial puzzles, including some math.

The atmosphere is goofy and silly, like a story a kid on the playground would tell. Events in the game are often illogical and disconnected. If you like goofy games, you will like this.

This program generates fake Buzzfeed titles, which participants are supposed to use to write articles, which are then judged by a judge.

The titles are supposed to be darkly humorous.

Many of Soda51's games are similar, short, one message games, often one-screen games.

Rameses is like 'Ulysses' by Joyce; a well-known classic that is uncomfortable at times and neither of which I can really recommend as enjoyable.

Rameses is a young college student who is dealing with loneliness, loss, and ennui. The main idea of the game is that you cannot always, or even often, overcome your character's desires to accomplish your own.

The character is accurately portrayed a shallow young man of his age, leading to a lot of profanity but worse, to the player becoming a partner in small despicable acts. Not things like murder or assault, but petty and mean things that he feels are not his fault.

Within its sphere, the writing is good and the implementation is excellent. A mid length game.

Beyond struck a good chord with me. In this game, you play a sort of spirit that is aiding a detective to investigate the death of someone close to you.

The game is completable in one day. It is divided into 3 or 4 acts, usually with a spirit part and a real-world part.

This game has great puzzles; in fact, it won an award for best puzzle of the year. The plotline is interesting and exciting as well.

However, although the game has several interesting NPC's, scripted events, and other well-done factors, the game feels sparse. Rooms have small descriptions and few items in them. It gives the game a kind of minimalist feel.

I enjoyed the game. There are some PG-13 parts, with both violence and unwanted sensuality, but both are portrayed as negative things.

Photopia is often cited as the best interactive fiction of all time. It has won numerous awards, inspired a shift to story-centered Interactive Fiction, and so on.

It really is a great game. Despite all the hype, sitting down and playing through it is fun. The meta-puzzle of trying to understand what's going on keeps you going through different scenes. The different scenes give you the impression that you're playing a hard puzzle game while actually simplifying things without you knowing.

The colors are a good part of the game; if your interpreter doesn't support or if you are unable to distinguish between colors, you should use your imagination.

Is this really the best IF of all time? I honestly would have to say that nothing is really better than it. I don't replay it because it makes me sad. I like to stick to puzzle games or big crazy worlds. But this game has substance and meaning.

Porpentine is currently the best writer of Twine fiction out there. Howling dogs is perhaps her best work. This branching, non-linear long game is a far cry from most twine games, and in fact better than most parser games.

In howling dogs, you are imprisoned in some sort of futuristic cell. You alternate between boring, daily life and brief trips in a VR machine. The trips become more and more complex, and have deep underriding themes about inevitability and restraint.

I only got the bad ending at first; I didn't realize there was a good ending until I read the reviews. To get the ending:(Spoiler - click to show)On the page with tons of links, one link will give you the good ending. It isn't random, but plot related.

I recommend this game for everyone.