Reviews by MathBrush

In this snazzy-looking game, you play as a kid crocodile asking questions to an older crocodile.

The game is meant to be replayed over and over again until you get it right. It has a 'gauntlet' structure which means that only one answer is right and all others are wrong. The pool of answers stays the same, though, so every answer you get right makes the rest of the game easier.

The story is the same vein as Around the World in 80 Days or the story 21 Balloons. Our intrepid crocodile visits great cities and cold continents and becomes a businessman.

The structure of the game can be hard to figure out at first, so initial playthroughs are frustrating and repetitive. Originally, it had a 20 second timer, making it a challenge to read in time. But solving it is rewarding, and the stories are captivating.

This is a short feel-good choice game where you wander around a greenhouse.

There is some freedom in what to do, as you can explore different parts of the greenhouse and make real-feeling choices like confronting the boundaries of the world or not.

I'll admit, a chunk of my score is from the cute illustrations (aided by music). The little faces are a great touch, and the overall design works well.

Pretty brief, but a good example of how to make a satisfying short game.

This choicescript game is mostly about self-reflection and thinking about who you are. It has questions which are brief and whose answers could apply to many people. Things like 'who are you?' (pick between three metaphors). 'Why?' (pick an explanation). It has peaceful moments and more emotional ones.

This kind of thing can definitely be helpful. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has some exercises like this, and the early Eliza program would ask questions like this and people found it soothing.

I liked the overall positive vibe of this. I felt like a lot of the choices didn't apply to me very much right now, but some of them did. Good for someone who wants to introspect with the guidance of an author.

This game is very brief, with just a small handful of choices with a small handful of text.

The graphics are lush, though, with active elements and of lot of decorations like bar codes and other elements, giving a sci-fi feel. There is also music in the background that responds to the current situation in the game.

You are some kind of intermediary or servant for a space fleet leader, and you can choose to be rebellious or not, with at least two different endings.

Fun concept, characters are well-differentiated and the small bits of dialogue establish a setting effectively. The brevity of the game means that I was left wishing for more interaction, but the plot arc did feel fulfilled. As always, this author's writing and design were excellent.

This game is interesting from a coding point of view but a lot of it happens behind the scenes on the first playthrough.

You are trying to get home along the train tracks. The game tries to predict what you're going to do next and then does the opposite. If it can't predict it's sometimes random.

So on a first playthrough it just feels like completely random success and failure.

On subsequent playthroughs the mechanics are revealed through a guardian angel. It then can be a bit of a game to see what it responds to.

The text, while meaningful, is minimalistic and will eventually become repetitive on repeated play. So while the text isn't bad, I value the conceptual parts of this game more.

This game reminds me in a weird way of an older parser game called Byzantine Perspective. Both revolve around a strange issue with perspective that takes a while to resolve.

My first thought when playing this game was bewilderment. All of the game text was about a kind of mystical garden, frightening and old. You stumble around in it, looking for escape.

But, the choices are all about a conversation that you have on a train with a stranger who looks oddly familiar.

The game ended really quickly at first, but I realized it was called a maze. I eventually figured a way out: (Spoiler - click to show)picking choices related to connecting to the stranger next to you. Near the end, I picked wrong, but replayed and got it right.

The ending resolves the discrepancy in perspective.

Edit: This review has been changed after getting some new perspective from others.

I have liked the other games by this author, and so I feel bad giving two stars (and I would raise it if asked). However, I will try to explain why I'm doing so.

This is a two-screen game with no choices. It does have fade-in text on each of those screens. It's for Neo Twiny Jam, so has less than 500 words.

It does have a nice background image and some ambient music, so I do feel it is polished. Without interactivity, all that remains for a game to be good or bad (for my tastes) is its emotional impact and its descriptiveness.

But it's hard to know what's going on. Is there a war? Is there a posse coming? What's our relationship to the woman in question? Is the ending metaphorical or literal?

Obviously a story can be ambiguous and still be fantastic, so I don't think all these things have to be spelled out. But I felt more confused than intrigued. The overall theme is one I had difficulty picking out; the ending suggests a theme of (Spoiler - click to show)alienation or lost nostalgia, but it's hard to see how the beginning fits in that case.

I guess this review is more of a plea for understanding. If someone can give me a helpful lens by which to view the game, I'll increase its rating.

This short Twine game managed to surprise me quite a bit (although me saying it is surprising will likely make it less surprising to others). It just didn't go where I thought it would and sat and made me think for a while.

You are working in your office when your clock stops. All of your clocks stop, in fact, even digital ones. You try to figure out what's going on, but things seem slow for everyone.

This game is less than 500 words long, and is part of Twiny Jam. It only has one choice, I think, with the rest being linear. Overall, it was refreshing to play.

This game uses a few cards from a tarot deck that you can flip over and click on in order to reveal story text. It uses less than 500 words as part of the Twiny Jam.

The writing is descriptive and well-done. It's not easy to parse, though, and I'm still not sure exactly what it's about. It seems to be written from the perspective of a shapeshifting pond monster, but I'm not sure.

Visually very lovely and the writing is good. Very short.

This is a brief choice-based game where you're vibing inside your spaceship.

It has atmospheric background music and custom font and some illustration.

In it, you make a variety of low-stakes decisions about how to spend your time. Snack, or eat a meal? Look out the window of your spaceship at the stars, or watch a movie?

There are two possible endings, and the very end was the strongest part in my opinion.

The writing is fairly non-specific in a way that it can apply in a lot of situations. This makes it more of a self-reflective exercise in some ways than a story to be told, so if you're looking for a game to help you relax and mirror yourself this is a good option.