Reviews by manonamora

Mathphobia is a decadent puzzle fest of a text-adventure.
While your classmate rejoice in the Halloween break counting their candies, you are stuck at home solving a metric-ton amount of maths problems. As the night progress, and you are no closer to be done on time (it’s due in the morning!), you are visited by a strange character, who takes on an adventure in a faraway fantasy land, terrorised by Archfiend of Arithmetic, and… where maths is the only way to defeat them.

So you go on this adventure, where maths solves everything under the sun, travelling the land, helping folks with their measurement problems, and defeating in each region a villain specialised in one type of arithmetic (subtractions, divisions, multiplications…). The calculations starts off pretty easy, amping up in difficulty when moving to a new section of the game. While some of the latter problems may be difficult (or annoying/impossible to solve if you are mathphobic), you get as many tries as you need (or check the cheat-sheet - which I’ve done for the last-ish problems)!

The premise is really silly (but down-right tortuous for this poor child!), but the writing hooks you so easily (even if, like me, solving maths puzzles isn’t a fun time). The humour is full of charm and levity, and of puns (especially the villains, that cracked me up). It’s was downright impossible for me not to cheer for the kid, and do my best to help them save the land. And by the end, weirdly satisfying to actually solve that many maths problems without help.

Anyway, it was silly fun (that made me do maths against my will, gasp)! I’d even recommend it to tweens.

Ghost Hunt is a tiny Adventuron game, where you must find and catch the ghosts of long passed family members (all because you wanted to use a casket as a decoration for Halloween). Since catching a ghost is not an easy affair, the ghost of your great-grandfather gives you a box that will do the job for you, if you manage to find the ghost in the first place.

It is a pretty simple parser, with a very limited map and verb list, and generous directions on how to proceed with the descriptions/responses. It’s a polished parser starter-friendly game.

Boo. is a short spooky story, made in Moiki, in which you investigate the strange whispering voices you start hearing in the middle of the night (even though they keep asking you to leave).

While the search is fairly simple and to the point (the main block in the path can be resolved within a couple of turns), it excels in creating a genuinely atmospheric creepy environment, through both the simple dark interface, sparse and uneasy background sound/SFX, but most importantly the voiced dithered whispers. The voice creeps and disappears, climbs up your spine and runs back down double speed, jumps and leaves you just as fast - making you expect it at any turn to scream until kingdom come.

This game knows what is it doing, and doing it it extremely well. It keeps you on your toes, both bare and rich in content, on point with timing, and doesn’t stay its welcome.

SPILL YOUR GUT is the third instalment of the GUT series, after GUT THE MOVIE, and the spoof GUT THE MOVIE 2: GUT ves. TER THE TWOVIES, where we check in on the original cast of GUT, Gemma, Uma, Tilla, and their manager Stace, after the movie was completed (or was it ever made?). There are four paths to follow, one for each individual, with the request to follow the above order.

Now, I don’t like being told what to do and started with Stace, essentially spoiling myself with the outcome of the previous paths… or did I?
Confused by the tone of that path (reminding me of the vibes of GUT2), I reloaded and followed the instructions in the game. Granted, there was a good reason for that.

Gemma’s, Uma’s and Tilla’s paths are completely different from Stace. While the later is in the third person, with the same interface as the starting page, the formers focuses on inner thoughts and bright, duo-tones, stylised and distinctive and restrictive interfaces. But more so, the gameplay of each path builds on the previous one: Gemma’s deep taunting red in a limited N/S direction, Uma’s cool emotional blue opening to all four main cardinal directions, and Tilla’s envious and tortuous greens adding the up/down option. All to finish with the linear definitive and decided Stace section, looping us back to the start.

But the contrast is not just in the visual and gameplay between the paths, but also in its content. The RBG section is enmeshed with anxious vibes, in the way the characters talk about themselves, their fears and insecurities, and the repetition of screens (indicating the end of content in that direction). Gemma, in kill the internet, feels hopeless and lonely, and struggles to find a purpose moving forward (funnily, you can only move back and forth between sections). Uma, in call your girlfriend, ruminates over her past and current relationships, the good, the bad and the ugly, and their inability to stay emotionally connected while with someone (her thoughts littered in a maze without much sense). Tilla, in sell your dreams, hides her true feelings (about the movie and herself) behind a criticism of society, which she has left being by moving to the Moon (layers discoverable by taking the elevator). Each are tortured in their own ways, either barred from opening a specific door, or unable to ever find that wanted exit.
On the other hand, Stance’s section has a more absurd take. She isn’t riddled with insecurities or worries, only caring really with eating chips. She flips the script on its head, going against the expectations, taunting the monster instead of being taunted (who breaks itself and sorta the game), unbothered with the change of/breaks in the environment or herself - as long as there are chips, she is content.
This contrast is made extra obvious with the repeated “I am lonely/scared/tried” screens in RBG, which Stance’s action can be reduced to “Eat chips”.

Strangely, though most of the game is very different from the previous iterations of GUT, it is surprisingly still much in line with the series as a whole. Through RBG, you are forced through these anxious-riddled paths, tortured along the characters, unable - like them - to escape (unless you reload the page), stuck in their head… Only to return to the absurdity of Stace’s section, greatly enhanced as it calls for the opposite almost of feeling. Stace is never stuck, whether she acts or not, circling through a death/rebirth unending cycle, always moving, and changing - while still staying the same. Stace is both the anchor of RBG, and the much needed comedic relief.

A third opus I didn’t know I wanted or needed. Neither better nor worse than the previous GUT. Only leaving me with the want of more sequels!

Through the framing of a told tale about a cowboy, his/her choices, and their consequences, the game mixes a western setting with some fantastical elements, bringing an interesting take on 'the Devil's Deal. Because of this framing, the game utilises different interfaces to demarcate the present and the told story (as you are both listening and playing through the tale).

As usual with this author, the imagery is quite vivid through the extensive prose, especially the descriptions surrounding nature and the start of the second part of the story. Though the choices are limited and the story fairly linear, the interactivity in this game (or lack thereof) is nonetheless pretty interesting, especially through the first part.

I particularly enjoyed the endings, revealing much more than the fate of John Cassidy King. Surprisingly, that extra reveal stayed longer in my mind, especially the one of the earliest ending.

I'm still not sure what to make of this, as the game weaves multiple strands of story (POVs, but also past/future) together. Even through my confusion, I think I managed to piece some things at the end: a couple of peeps are trying to save someone (whose relationship is unclear), each with a different view on how to do so; they end up being hunted by religious zealots for some reason; and one of them meet the/a Devil? I think I took out of this a short take of heartbreak, betrayals, and a trip to Hell?

A certain positive: the portraits were pretty neat, I liked the coloured ones the most.

Forenote: I played this entry in English.

Even though the game is fairly short, I only had the stomach to reach two different endings. The writing is quite gruesome, with violent imagery, which considering the events happening around the release of the game made it very hard to read (personally) - even if they are probably not related.

The interactivity and choices available, as well as the responses from those choices, are pretty confusing, which makes total sense since this is supposed to be some sort of nightmare. The branching also seemed quite complex, with paths seemingly looping back.

Pretty impressive for something made (originally in Spanish) in 4h!

A short but effective horror tale, leaving the unsaid shape up the story. Framing the story through a questionnaire seemed strange at first, but works surprisingly well (since the protagonist is still in school), and even adds to the eerie/uneasy setting. It was a very interesting use of interactivity.

The writing was on the wall from the start, but I still was distracted by what was not and missed the hints. The end shocked me more than I thought it would.

And, as with any test, I scored poorly: only a crescent.

You lose or your lose... the question remains, how bad can you lose?
Well, pretty badly depending on your choices. But that's fine... end up fine, right?

You are given a pile of scenarios, randomly ordered, for which you must choose a course of action. Each action has a different level of success (which is 'lowest loss') for different faction of society (Culture, Military, Religion, Social Classes, Colonial power...). The further you go into the game, the worse your success will be, the deeper you fall. [I picked the worst options on purpose :P]

The writing in this game is humorous, taking jabs at different historical events, groups and countries (the French, the poor, the communists, women wanting to get votes...). Though, it is very much a British kind of humour: dry and prickly. And that's what makes the whole thing funny.

Still, there were some confusing aspects to the game (which I ended up figuring out after replaying). Such as what the percentages next to the choices were: where they success rolls? difficulty rolls? Even with different percentages in one list, since the links are all the same colour, it wasn't clear whether an option was "good"/passable or not.

Another one regarded the statistics. When choosing an option, the changed state blinks* at the bottom of the screen indicating the amount of loss. However, it was hard to make any informed decision, or targetting a specific element, without knowing the starting states of each groups. Some stats bar would have been welcomed here**.
*this happens way too fast. If your eyes are not staring at the bottom of the screen you will miss it.
**and also at the end of the game, to see how bad we messed up with which group.

Still, always fun to destroy the British Empire.

This was one twisted story. Starting already strange becomes bleaker with each passage, as you get deeper inside the man's values, morals, and outlook on life/society.

Though well written, this was far from easy to read, due to the implicit and explicit violence depicted in the text. While the main body gives some indication of what is happening outside of the man's thoughts and spoken words, it is brought even further through the list of choices. It is subtle enough to give you pause, as well as showing how insane all of it is...

I know there are multiple endings to this game, some of them "better" than others, but I didn't have the stomach to hunt them all down...