Reviews by thesleuthacademy

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Closed Door; Key?, by KnightAnNi
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Curious and curiouser, March 26, 2023

Interesting way to craft an IF game! Short but it was fun while it lasted. Lovely colour scheme too. Would’ve been great if there was more than one puzzle.

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Happyland, by Rob Fitzel
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Body was unsearchable :(, March 21, 2023

I was not able to examine or search the victim's body. It just kept saying the body was not there (Spoiler - click to show) when I examined the car at the crash site. Otherwise, the walkthrough made the game look very promising. I appreciated the plot twist along the way, but I could not continue with the gameplay without being able to access the abovementioned vital evidence.

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The Wizard Sniffer, by Buster Hudson
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent, March 15, 2023

By far the best game I've played. Was quite stuck at the machine puzzle and had to rely on the transcript. Otherwise, the in-game hints were sufficient. The twist was unexpected (perhaps because I was too engrossed in solving the puzzles), but it blew me away. This was one game I could do without a map. Five stars because it has done very well in both narrative and game design. Thank you!

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Mystery!, by Gene Welborn
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Text-based Cluedo!, March 13, 2023

This was a nostalgic one for me. There were more things to explore than the usual Cluedo, which was a nice touch. Having a map was great, as usual! Spotted several typos, however. Thanks for creating this!

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The Mansion II, by Nick Dablin
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
An improved version of the Mansion, March 12, 2023

Had to replay it when it hanged while I was more than halfway through (hence one star less), but managed to complete it eventually. It's similar to The Mansion in terms of the gameplay, but I was pleasantly surprised that there were more locations outside the building. The forum was helpful when I got stuck, but the game was logical enough for one to progress by... "logical" trial and error. I preferred this to the first "sequel", partly because there was a lot more to explore and discover. Thank you for another well-designed game!

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The Mansion, by Nick Dablin
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
More like an escape room than a mystery to be solved, March 11, 2023

Having the maps were very, very helpful. Didn't think I could finish it without the maps nor walkthrough. But with these aids, I felt the game was well-planned, and the gameplay logical and sequential, somewhat like a slightly more complex escape room. I took about four hours to complete.

Would have been great if the "Save" feature could work (as there were a few times it got really laggy and I was almost at the end of the game). The buttons on the right panel of the page made the interactive fiction a lot less frustrating (Spoiler - click to show)- I couldn't "climb" things by typing it the usual way, but the "Look at" button allowed me to do this.

The game is heavier on the navigating and unlocking of doors and lighter on discovering what happened to the victim (the latter occurred really sporadically). Highly recommended if you enjoy escape rooms, but for those looking to solve a mystery, you might be disappointed. However I'm giving 5 stars for an intricately designed game that went pretty well without bugs, glitches, or textual errors.

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Bronze, by Emily Short
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Well-designed mechanics, March 2, 2023

I felt that being able to find something and the directions on the status bar made the gameplay a lot more enjoyable and much less frustrating, given the vast number of rooms to explore. These two features should be standard practice for complex or multi-room IF games. One of most well-designed IF games I’ve played to date and I’m glad to have stumbled upon this. Interesting storyline as well!

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Detective 1: Blacksea Island, by Will11
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Would be better if there was a map of sorts, February 26, 2023

Well thought-out classic murder mystery which is made slightly easier given that it's Twine-style, but it was confusing without a map (Spoiler - click to show) - thought a map would be useful as I completely missed one of the areas (and therefore several suspects) as there were too many forks in the path. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable hour of investigation. Would recommend it to all armchair detectives.

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Lost Pig, by Admiral Jota
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A gem of a find!, February 16, 2023

This made me laugh. I couldn’t do without the hints (had to get help from external hints to exit as well), but the puzzles were great and made sense. I liked how one could just go to a room without re/navigating using directions. This is such a cute game. I even tried putting pants on Pig and also giving pants to Gnome when I was stuck XD Great theme, great storyline. Would replay this just to explore the funny interactions between Grunk and Pig!

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The Missing Ring, by Felicity Drake
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A light and heartwarming mystery, February 14, 2023

A clean and light-hearted family mystery, with a hint of humour. (Spoiler - click to show)I was reminded of the quote from Sherlock Holmes: "... When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" when the time came to deduce who did it.

I particularly appreciated the notes which provided useful direction, and I felt that the game mechanics were skillfully crafted - the initial gameplay was pretty straightforward, but after the first statements were taken from all suspects, it became a lot less obvious as to how one should proceed (but by then one would have gotten the hang of exploring the house and locating the characters to unveal further revelations).

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