Reviews by MathBrush

Recently I've been realizing that reviews mean different things to different people, and that everyone has different criteria for what they value in games. So I've been reading this author's reviews of other games to see what they consider important for success in a game and what scores should mean for a game, and this review and rating is calculated relative to that standard.

This is a classic puzzlebox. You are on a ship (I believe a submarine) and have gotten stuck in the control room due to an emergency. The door is locked, the alarm is blaring, and you have to find your way out.

This progresses in escape-room like fashion. Many of the puzzles present you with challenges that hint at a solution which you have not yet found, which is nice and lets you strategize. Finding numbers and codes is essential, as is carefully exploring and reading the text closely.

I only found one error ((Spoiler - click to show)typing ENTER (the correct code) ON THE KEYPAD gives an error implying that that didn't work, but typing CODE (the correct code) does work. The game does tell you to use the second one, but it's odd the first one gives a message implying the number is incorrect.). The relative lack of errors is remarkable for a first-time author, especially given the complexity of the game. The coding is very impressive.

As for the story and writing, the situation is presented as an important and dangerous one. The background for the ship, mission and crew is less present, however, mostly told through logs that describe events in methodical language. The ending is quite abrupt as well. As a first game designed to make a polished, puzzle-dense experience, I think it succeeds, but I think that it lacks a certain narrative element that I'm confident can be provided in the next game by this talented author.

This game was fun, combining cute graphics with mechanics that made me feel kind of like a mouse scurrying around worrying about life.

It has gorgeous custom art and color choices. At first, it looks like your only options are “get off at a station” or “stay in” but as the game progresses it’s clear there more to it than that. A shadowy and frightening conductor hunts you, some stations are wrong in some ways and you may not even have a ticket.

I eventually got to a good ending but had fun along the way. This is a game that would be fun to show people at my school.

This game lets you select how 'intense' you want it to be on a scale of 1 to 5.

The level 1 game version is very brief and succinct, and provides almost no information.

The level 5 is visceral, removing control from the player and filling the screen with text.

There are two layers to the game. One is the story, which is someone's authentic and personal story communicated in an effective way that fits with a lot of experiences I've seen in myself (a little) and in others (a lot) over the years. You can't really measure a story like this as a success or not, but you can say whether it was transmitted in an authentic-feeling and competent way, and it was.

The other layer is the selection of the different levels. Seeing the variety of them was really telling and compelling, because it showed what the author considered most disturbing and least disturbing, and the choice of some background information only being in level 4 was particularly interesting. I'm not sure how I felt about the response to level 3; it seems like a value judgment separate from the main message of the game. If the author had just (Spoiler - click to show)provided a description for level 3 that was in between 2 and 4, I wouldn't have thought 'that's silly, there's no such thing as middle ground.' It would have just been normal. But, the choice does provide an interesting talking point for discussing the game and leads to the name of the game.

I hope everyone who has suffered from eating disorders in the past or currently are suffering gets help, patience, and kindness from those around them, and if you're reading this while going through it, I support your efforts, whether big or small, repeated or rare.

I beta tested this game.

Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight" is a delightful game from Drew Cook (author of Repeat the Ending) that is inspired by the old Zork CYOA books (which I haven't read, but I definitely got old-school CYOA book vibes from the writing here.)

This is a highly polished Parser game with several illustrations, cinematic 'cut scenes' and act changes, several layers of help menus and a lot of independent actions by actors and scenery changes. It has a lot of custom responses as well.

The idea is that you are a highly intelligent cat and you're exploring an abandoned movie theatre with your human friend that you've been locked inside of as part of an adventure. The movie theatre is mysterious and dark, and it's up to you to guide your human around.

The text is rich and expansive, while the geography is small and limited. I'd say that this game is designed (intentionally?) to be accessible to those familiar with gaming in general but unfamiliar with parser conventions and tropes. It has extensive tutorial comments early on, a constrained list of verbs that can be accessed at any time, a list at the top of available locations and important items, and hints in the text at which actions are appropriate to progress.
It's not too long; it's divided up into six acts and a finale, with each act solvable in just a few actions. The story does feel complete, though, which is another reason I think this makes a good game for those new to parser games. I've found that when starting parser games (or playing parser games in a new and unfamiliar language) that it really helps to split up the game into distinct sections, limiting the geography, and keeping a running list of important items makes it so much easier (I write this as I'm struggling with a long French parser game).

The pictures were a real highlight, very evocative and fitting of both the setting and the style of writing. They worked for me in both downloadable and online versions but I preferred the overall look of the online version.

The HELP text at the end suggests that the game was made with learning and/or teaching new Inform techniques like scenes in mind. I hope the source code becomes available, as the game does enough neat stuff that I think people would benefit from seeing examples of it.

I appreciated the little 'paw pictures' that let you know when to press a button, as there are often large amounts of text at once.

Veteran parser players will enjoy the Zork references (which manage to be both pretty faithful while also being creative) and newcomers will appreciate the help systems. Fun and not too long.

This is a game with many endings. I achieved one, but didn't get any of the 7 achievements.

This game uses extensive music, styling, and art to provide a dark and (literally) demonic atmosphere. You play as someone in a messy and cluttered apartment. Looking around, you find reminders of your life as well as huge messes.

Any attempts to get things done result in demons appearing that attack you. You can confront them in negative or positive ways (I laughed when one potential response to a demon attacking you was to doom scroll, but it makes sense since that's often a real-life response to stress).

You have a strong connection to food; there are a ton of take-out menus and each item gives you a flashback or an emotional connection.

This worked for me as a 'depression simulator', and I found it relatable and having an overall uplifting message.

This game has great multimedia presentation. It fakes a desktop with music, notes, etc. and a cute cursor dripping purple particles. It has occasional images included as well, and it seems to have been written as part of an academic requirement, as it cites committee members.

The writing is more literary/poetic than genre-based. It depicts several vignettes from the life of a girl, from 13 to 21. All of them are dynamic and full of emotion, some strongly negative (there is attempted sexual assault and violence) while others are more thoughtful or melancholic.

Much of it seems pretty realistic. I work with kids and a lot of kids get into the occult or, worse, poetry at around 13-15, and talking to former students who graduated college, many of them do find it grueling and rough entering into the working world. I found this poignant overall.

This game runs on a timer, although there is an option to download a non-timed gblorb. While I played it, I had to get called away three times for family business while the timer was running. I talked to my son about including that in the rating (the fact that it's hard to find time for timed, unpausable games) but he said that that shouldn't be factored in, since the game was specifically about being timed. So I won't. Edit: I've been told the game is pausable, so that fixes things! I didn't notice it earlier.

Story-wise, you are the Little Match Girl (whose powers are best discovered by playing one of the other Little Match Girl games), trying to stop a spaceship of villains from their plan of blowing a hole into heaven through the golden sphere that surrounds it. Along the way, a variety of shenanigans occur.

The game reminds me of Attack of the Killer Zombie Robot Yetis (or whatever the name is), in that it's meant to be played in one fell swoop with high stakes while cleverly disguising the way the game pushes you forward. I have a list on IFDB of games like this called "Linear Thriller Games" but haven't found many games to add to it recently. This one is an especially good example.

The timer starts out at 30 minutes but can change and adapt over time. I'm not sure what would happen if it got to 0.

The lore of the series continues to evolve. It is self-consistent. It reminds me of shows like Adventure Time and the Simpsons that start out with no continuity then end up, several seasons later, being very heavily continuity based with long storylines.

Overall, the dialogue, characters, world-building, story arc, and descriptions worked well for me.

As I played this game, after Spring Thing had ended, I thought, "This is a lot of fun. I'll probably rate it at 4 stars, but I kind of feel like it should be 5 stars under my criteria."

Then I went to see what others had rated it as, and was really surprised to see that it had an average below 3 stars.

So I wanted to share my reasoning on it.

First, a description. This is a Twine game with a kind of central hub where you, a stowaway, are hiding in the cargo hold. From there, you can go to four different locations, each of which contains either an item to grab or a place to use an item, together with (Spoiler - click to show)a strange and fantastical world unrelated to the ship you're on. There are at least 5 endings, of which I found two.

As I write this, I reflect that this is very similar to the first Twine game I every truly enjoyed: Astrid Dalmdady's You are Standing at a Crossroads, which has a similar spoke and hub structure where you find places you need items first and use them later.

Perhaps it was this similarity which made me enjoy the game. Here is my breakdown on my rubric, which is not hard and fast, but helps me organize thoughts:

+Polish: The game was bug-free, as far as I saw, looked nice, and was complete.
+Descriptiveness: I enjoyed the descriptions of the very different areas, and I liked the feel of the pirate crew.
+Interactivity: I felt like I could strategize towards my own desired ends. Interactions were clear and intuitive.
+Emotional impact: I enjoyed the sense of wonder and the whimsy of the game.
+Would I play again? I was interested enough to play to two endings.

This is a ren’py game with an anthropomorphic animal character. It features pretty strong language, so I wasn’t going to play it, but I found the script file and searched and replaced it and it was just fine.

This game has you play as a cat-like human who wakes up a little later than they’d like and has to make some cookies for an event later.

The character is self deprecating and funny, and their life is filled with both good things and challenges like an annoyingly broken phone.

As others have mentioned, it does cut off suddenly, which is why I marked it with less stars. It’s a pretty good story already; just adding a short conclusion to it would make the whole package pretty satisfying.

I genuinely don't like most RPG maker games, as I enjoy reading text more than seeing game cutscenes or walking around mostly non-interactive worlds. Fortunately, this game keeps most of the annoying parts of RPG-Maker to a minimum, with well-controlled text, relatively fast walking speed, and plenty of options.

You play as a scammer coming to an island to steal sea eggs. You can pick what to explore on the island. As you do so, you can change your character's sprite, and you find out more about what is happening on the island.

The game has multiple paths, with at least 3 endings and a few buildings I never had a chance to explore.

The story is short and a bit quick, but I prefer that in RPG maker over something drawn out agonizingly long.