Reviews by MathBrush

This game is part of a group of similar stories. Other such games by this author have consisted of a classic short story with modern additions by the author where people comment on the story, including a text box where the reader can type something which the game then interprets using sentiment analysis to change some subsequent text.

This game is no exception, although it is smaller than the others. It is also different from the others, in that its 'meta-commentary' is no longer a separate, modern story; instead, it's an addition in-universe, still with the sentiment-analysis text box. However, due to this being a speed-IF, only one text box is included.

The short story chosen this time is obscure; I only found one 'hit' when searching, on an internet archive of an old magazine.

My view on these games has certainly changed over time. I went from believing they had no interaction to believing that they are excellent at hiding all the interactivity.

A game that makes you think its responding to your actions, even if it doesn't, is a game that is very fun to play, if only for one time. (For instance, see Attack of the Yeti Robot Zombies). But the converse is true; a game that does extensive work, but leads the player to think it does none, is not fun to play. Simply putting a message next to the box that is, as the author once said, metaleptic (or maybe extra-diegetic?) saying 'positive sentiment detected' in green and then highlighting the subsequent changed text in green or using red for negative sentiment would instantly improve reaction; this is just one idea, there are many ways to make it look like the game is really thinking.

Like a character says the movie The Prestige:

"The trick was too good, it was too simple. The audience hardly had time to see it[...]he's a wonderful magician; he's a dreadful showman. He doesn't know how to dress it up, how to sell this," and I think that applies to this whole series of games.

This gave me a chuckle, especially as a high school teacher. The game consists of two parts: a 1000-line text manual and a 35-question multiple choice test.

The game encourages you to do exactly what most students do when studying: start the assignment first and only look up answers as you go along.

The text is dry, an imitation of standard technical writing, but sprinkled with a variety of frightening or hilarious spooky situations, like scissor lifts made of solid flesh or horrifying accidents brought on by improper rituals.

Overall, there's a lot of effort here and the extra flavor is good. But a simulation or parody of a boring thing is often, itself, boring, and while there's a huge effort here to alleviate that, it doesn't fully succeed. As an idea, though, the whole setup is very clever.

This game, written in Ink in 4 hours or less, has you, apparently a psychologist, interviewing a cold, emotionless killer.

You have to ask about his life, his actions, and his dreams. He is emotionally unstable, so you have to be careful what you say. Your comments can make him shut up or open up.

The game uses a variety of charged language and imagery, including strong profanity, descriptions of violence, incest, misogyny, and violent death, and strong hatred.

It's all very grimdark. This man is irredeemably bad, and seems to hate himself or everyone around him.

It has some interesting narrative twists and the craftmanship in the choice structure really spoke to me. But the content did make me feel deeply uncomfortable, which is a subjective thing that of course differs from reader to reader.

(I discuss some body horror stuff in this post, so squeamish may want to skip)

This is a speed-IF made for Ectocomp. In it, you play as a victim of a torturer who sadistically injures you.

The game is quite gory. There's a lot of things that various games can have that makes me uncomfortable and not play, but I don't really hear that as often from other players. So when several commenters on other websites had said this game made them feel deeply uncomfortable or stop playing, I was expecting perhaps the most horrible game ever created. With such foreboding expectations, the game itself, while still excessively gory, wasn't quite as bad as I thought.

For one, you are a very willing and happy participant in the events. While the descriptions are written to shock and horrify, is it all that different than a C-section, or a dentist visit? I go to the dentist, and they stab the roof of my mouth with a needle and then grab my tooth with pliers and pull as hard as they can, ripping out what's essentially a bone and leaving a bleeding cavity for weeks. So the game wasn't quite as bad as I expected; in fact, the part that turned me off the most was the first ending which had some unexpected misogynistic language.

Overall, the game captures a rapturous tone in a way that reminds me of some of Porpentine's work, specifically Their Angelic Understanding. The violent torture in exquisite detail reminded me of Paperblurt's The Urge.

I don't recommend this game in general, due to a few people having an adverse reaction (and me personally not being a huge fan of torture), but I think the craft is well-done and the writing is descriptive.

This is a speed-IF written in 4 hours or less, written using Choicescript (which is a hard engine to do speed-IF in). It features a dinner party in old Constantinople, where you, a ship's captain, have to tell the story of a fated ocean trip that leads to the title of the game.

The story itself is bizarre and perturbing, and well done. The opening setting is also solid. Other parts of the game are a bit patchy, as is usual for speed-IF, since time runs out; the main things here are the quickly-sketched out endings and the fact that some parts of the game are written in rhyme and others are not.

Still, the story itself is very solid, and I like this setting and would like to see more. The only Byzantine/Constantinople game I've seen before is Kyle Marquis's Silverworld, also in Choicescript. Overall, I'm glad I played this short Ectocomp game.

I had a lot of fun with this game. Modeled on Untitled Goose Game, your goal is to cause trouble. Specifically, you have 6 hours before the new owner of your house arrives, and you have to make the house as scary as possible before then.

It's a cost/benefit analysis thing that requires trial and error: some actions take a ton of time but provide little benefit, others are short but trivial, some are heavy hitters. It requires some replay, but fortunately the choices are really funny and the text is enjoyable to read.

This was made in 4 hours, so it doesn't have huge depth, but it felt complete as a game. According to my rubric:

+Polish: I didn't see any errors, and the human-voice sound effects were really funny.
+Descriptive: The game had fun descriptions of everything.
+Interactivity: I felt like I could strategize and that the game was both responsive and not too easy.
+Emotional impact: it was funny to me.
+Would I play again? I played through three times.

This is a relatively brief choice-based game with an interface written in Ink that mimics text messages.

You are texting your mom and your friend ash, just having a regular day, when things get strange and weird. The game's appeal is mostly based on its twist, so I won't spoil it here.

The plot is pretty good, but the dialogue and characterization are a bit generic; it's hard to get a feel for who the characters are, and their individuality. The texts are slow to come, which was a bit frustrating.

The UI looked neat, which seems like a good accomplishment. This game makes me think its author is really talented at web programming.

This is a Twine game where you have three dreams in order, over and over again, about dying.

Each dream is fairly brief, with 2-3 or 4 choices per dream. There are a lot of options, though, so it's hard to know what to do to be safe.

Fortunately, if you explore each dream enough, you find hints about the other dreams. Phrases that don't make sense at the time but later you look at options and go, 'Oh, I get it now!'.

Even after playing a couple of times, I didn't always understand why some things happened (like why the kitchen just kind of disappears or what triggers the ending for the final dream).

The writing is on-point and covers some frightening situations. I didn't feel sucked in emotionally, maybe because I was focused on the puzzle-aspects and felt safe as it was all a dream. But it was very descriptive.

Excellent work for a 4-hour game, and a neat way to do choice-based puzzles.

This game is written with Twine and takes place in five acts, each of which is brief but meaningful.

You play as a ghost that finds itself in and out of existence, with the times in existence being important moments in the lives of your surviving family members. At first, there is very little you can do, but over time you develop more abilities. But it's not really a power-based or puzzle-based game; it's more about the story, about how your connection with the family deepens and grows over time.

The five acts vary between light hearted, dangerous, and sentimental. Gameplay mostly consists of navigating through the house, inspecting everything once, and then finding the one thing to return to to make things better. The pacing is excellent, as it does take some effort to finish each act but it never took long enough for me to feel frustrated.

The game does have some twists in it which, even though I saw it coming from some vibes in other reviews and though I've seen it done several times before, I did feel chills/lots of sentiment at the end, which to me means the author(s) executed the overall story with a lot of skill.

Overall, the best feature is the skill in plot and characterization.

This game is based on cosmic horror. You and two companions have been trapped in a shifting labyrinth for days, trying to find your way out. Tensions are rising, especially between your pushed-to-his limits friend Vlieg and your deeply-fascinated friend Tia.

The game is written using Binksi, a combination of Bitsy and Ink that uses tightly-constrained pixel art and the dialogue capabilities of Ink. You sometimes move around, running into things to talk, and other times have pure dialogue.

In the ending I reached, there was a massive shift in perspective. It was a clever concept and I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, it also brought a ton of profanity for a long time that honestly wasn't that fun to me. The big twist doesn't quite make sense conceptually, looking back, but it does make sense in terms of cosmic horror.

This game is quite complex, and I think it really shows off just what Binksy can do, for those interested in the engine.