Reviews by Jacic

This is a really fun bitsy game twisted Oz setting. I’m glad I finally managed to get my (Spoiler - click to show)dog back in one form or another.

I really enjoyed this entry. This is a swiftly moving, unusual game for IFComp.

It is a well made, stylised retelling of the King Midas story where everything marches inevitably on as your touch gilds everything you come in contact with. The way the soundscape changes as you progress through the actions is great.

I'm not sure if the platform it's made on allows it, but I think it might have been interesting to have the ability to (Spoiler - click to show)reconsider what to do when there is one final square left. Commit. Or similar to the mythology, beg for the "gift" to be reversed so there could be two different endings.

That was just a little thought though. This was something fun and different to have entered this year.

I'll admit, I really wasn't sure what to expect with this one from the description, but I actually really enjoyed it. It kind of gave me a vaguely Farscape setting feel, a small crew, including alien species, on the run and working together out of necessity that can evolve into friendship under the right circumstances. I actually liked the flashbacks revealing the background information in a bit of a drip feed rather than one big info dump somewhere, and felt for me at least, it helped rather than hindered the story progression.

Minor spoilers below:

This is actually a really cute game. I loved the concept of being able to play a game from the perspective of a crow. The language lends to that with some decriptive words dropped in to describe people/places/other animals in place of their "human" names. It seems to be on a timer so you can't do everything before the days end, and lends itself to replaying where you investigate one or two story threads at a time. I actually did find myself invested in trying to find out the answers to the questions like what happened to (Spoiler - click to show)Penny, and our feathered and furry friends?

This is a game I'd love to see have a post release with a bit more content. There were a few bugs here and there, and it sometimes seemed difficult to be sure what you were supposed to do. I think it might be unfinished also? For example, I could not see any way to (Spoiler - click to show)save the dog or find out who had been tormenting him. The fact that it feels a bit unfinished is the main reason for the 3* as I did really enjoy the overall feel of the game.

This is a well written little game given the limitations of the 300 word limit meaning it has little deviation in the storyline achievable. It left me wanting to know more in a longer game.

It's short, but I think that works in its favour given the kind of "atmospheric experience" game it is, and it performs that task quite well! It jumps into the story and holds you there for a little while until it finishes playing out. The sound effects are used to great effect to create a very creepy atmosphere and build tension about what you'll find next. If you're prone to being creeped out, I wouldn't play it at night with the lights out.

This game did actually cause me to go and check out the Moiki system that was used to build it.

This game has a clear lovecraftian influence (particularly Call of Cthulhu but with an original setting in a small fictional town in Scotland) and manages to pull off a sense of disquieting uncertainty at points in the game very well. You're caught up in an increasingly dangerous series of events starting with a murder investigation and becoming ever more estoric and damaging to your mental state from there. If you enjoy games with a lovecraftian flavour, I recommend this one.

Well it does what it says on the tin!

Somehow I missed playing this game in IFComp which I'm surprised about as the game's premise immediately caught my attention when I saw it on the IFDB list.

It's interesting and the writing is overall good although it feels like it could have leaned a bit more into describing the atmosphere like the disorientation or horror of being trapped in the belly of a whale with all sorts of weird stuff going on. The constant sanity meter is ok, but sometimes feels like it's trying to do the lifting that perhaps the text should be doing more of to make you feel as the author seems to want conveyed.

I actually do like the concept of a game that requires text entry giving you the possible commands, essentially turning it more into a "choice based" game, and it can be friendly to new players who may be unsure what commands to use, although the platform doesn't feel like it is parser either. There are perhaps a few too many one option choices in there where there could have been more even just to reflect how the player is feeling about doing something I feel, perhaps adding some flavour text with two options instead of one might help with this?

Unfortunately I don't think the chat style really suits the type of game it is though and feels like it may have worked better in something like twine or ink. The chat bubbles just feel a bit jarring for me against the concept of being trapped in a whale, and I personally dislike delayed text as it causes unnecessary delays in progressing through the game. As I often do with games that have long delays in displaying text, I find myself getting distracted and leaving the page to let it do it's thing, then coming back when its finished loading as I would get frustrated waiting which affects the atmosphere of the gameplay and makes it feel unnecessarily dragged out and I lost connection with the story. I couldn't find any way to click through the waits. These sorts of chat style games I feel seem to work best when it is a believable premise like people using their phones or computers to communicate through the game (and even then, the delays can be an annoyance if they cannot be bypassed.)

I believe this is a debut game from this author though, which makes it a really good first effort and worth playing.

This is a short, easily played game, and thoroughly enjoyable and fun with lots of little references to the scifi movie genre. I enjoyed the replayability, getting to try out all the different ways of trying to make your way into the premiere of the latest installment of your favourite movie franchise after you accidentally overslept only to find it sold out when you arrive.