Ratings and Reviews by manonamora

Games with word-plays are in my experience notoriously hard*, as they either require a specific type of knowledge of the language or are based on a certain accent. But add a little bit of zazz here, some funny writing there, and a whimsical setting, and you can get away with it. Or at least, most of Andrew's wordplay/rhyme games tend to manage that.
*ESL reader ;-;

This game falls definitely in this category of fun word-play game. The prose is absolutely absurd, the rooms are nonsensical, and the gameplay whimsical. But it's also hard. When you don't get it, the game is frustrating, and makes you feel a bit dumb. But when you do, it's honestly fun, and you feel so darn smart about it!

Still, I didn't manage to finish on my own, even with the walkthrough and map next to me (got too frustrated - 23/50-53). But, starting a new file and following the walkthrough to the letter worked!

What a riot of a game this was, and so, so well done. The writing is hilarious, and had me wheezing at every passage. The premise is honestly insane an absurd, with the moral of the story essentially being that fixer-uppers are not always the way to go... (/jk)

It was honestly so fun essentially running around the house, at night, half-asleep and needing to go to the bathroom, trying to survive the crazy amount of danger in that house (realtors are always sus, of course they'd downplay the bad stuff!). Everywhere you end up, there is something that wants to hurt you. So you die, respawn, try something else... and repeat!

And even with its simplistic look, it is such a polished entry. The writing is impeccable, balancing the horror and comedic aspects brilliantly - it is never too dark or too comical. You're never really stuck, as the game includes check points to “undo” your last action when facing a dead end, as well as indicating whether a path lead you to a dead end before.

And there are 20+ different endings to find, some of them being secret endings. Trying to collect them all was a hoot and a half, each of their title being a joke by itself (the alliteration were fantastic!).

I really enjoyed playing this game! Laughed so hard it hurts.
Might be one of my favourite game of this year!

The witch and the vampires were the most funny thing I encountered

Tiptoeing the other-wordly aspect of horror, this short game shines in its pacing, starting slow before picking up fast enough to hold your breath until the end. The writing does a good job at hinting during the first half of the game of something not being quite right, while still keeping the stake low, keeping it subtle enough to leave you confused until the reveal - though it can be easy to guess the kind of twist the story has.

I could have seen the ending going a different route than is currently there, where you don't make it out, pushing the horror aspect even further.

Moody abandoned church? check! Two kids with not enough fear to know better? check! Spooky shenanigans? check, check, check!

The game plays like one of those horror movie, where dumb kids do something they shouldn't, stumble on a weird thing that definitely means them harm, and try they best to escape - hopefully in one piece...

The writing is quite moody and creepy, and with the quick page, it gives little space to breathe (you have to act now or else...). The reluctance of your PC towards your sister/more-than-friend/acquaintance's wish to explore without care is understandable, from the uneasy descriptions of the abandoned church (and all the horror warnings of not breaking off ranks). Endings can come quite fast, depending on the choices, with some leaving you with a sense of dread for what happened.

As is it quite easy to pick the "wrong" choice, and reach a bad end, the game gives you the opportunity to "rewind" to the last choice made, and try something else. While there are many ways to fail the game, it is also a short one - so getting back on track doesn't take too long.

Another interesting bit of this game, was how the text/ending was affected from the first choice: what relationship you have with the other girl. Different tactics are required for different relationships...

Anyway, going back to hunt the last of the achievements~

The theme of the game is made clear from the start that this is about having social anxiety and how it affects you. You are described or you experience situations where you are forced to interact with others, which makes you uncomfortable due to the awkwardness or embarrassment you take from it. Navigating the world is difficult, and the game doesn't shy away from telling you that.

Still, even with this disorder plaguing your life, you find yourself going to a haunted house, to win some cash... if you manage to stay inside during the allotted time. So you can go about, explore some rooms, meet some long-forgotten acquaintances (and be embarrassing), maybe help someone and get a treat in return... trying your best to stay collected to get that prize. The scenes in the haunted house brings some needed tension and unsease, as you'd expect from this kind of place

However, the game suddenly threw me off, changing the scenery without warning, before ending quite abruptly*. Felt like a whiplash...
It leaves quite a few threads behind and brings more questions than it answered.
*so I have a whole theory about it [in spoiler]

(Spoiler - click to show)My theory about the abrupt switch is that, you were not really going to a haunted house to win some cash but actually going to a clinic to get the help you need for your social anxiety. But, your brain tricks you, making up this whole weird spoopy scenario to actually get you there. Because, for some reason, you can't get yourself to go to therapy or something...

This was a fun short parser, mixing some surreal elements with the horror tropes. Late at night, you find yourself back at work to fix one darn bug that's been bugging you for a while, and mess with your colleague. Of course, because you're in an empty building, in the middle of the night, completely by yourself, you hear some strange noises that prompt you to investigate, as they get weirder.

The writing is pretty fun, and plays on horror tropes to give a very eerie vibe, to the point that you question whether what you are experiencing is real or you are hallucinating. I also quite enjoyed the in-game commentary ( * ) while playing, and even typed the command even when there weren't any indicators (there are no hidden one, but the response is funny).

I've only had to use the walkthrough once, for the middle puzzle (yay for in-game walkthroughs!), as the rest was pretty intuitive.

This was a fun time!

This was a short VN, a sort of sequel to wretched star, where, during a resurrection of a loved(?) one, you ramble to them about your past and your motivation for this resurrection, like a madman would. There seemed to be multiple actors at play, but it was not always clear who was talking when (or which sprite represented who); as well as some required background/knowledge was required to understand what was going on (and since I found the other linked game super confusing, I didn't end up with much when I was done with this game). The prose here is very cryptic, bordering at times on nonsensical, which is very much the author's style.

I didn't really get it...

This was my introduction to Andrew's rhyme game series, Prime Pro-Rhyme Row, and it took me a while to "get" it - as in, I went to download the walkthrough because I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Like other games in this series (which I have not played as of the writing of this review), the gist of the game is to... make rhymes. Word plays is at the centre of it all, with commands having to match the name of the room to progress, rather than your run-of-the-mill parser commands (examine, take, etc...).

On top of the quirky gameplay, the premise of the game is very silly, which makes sense considering the commands you need to input to solve the "puzzles" and progress through the game. The writing, in the rooms and the responses to commands, is pretty funny as well!

Though quite difficult*, the alliterations are pretty fun - see the title of the game for an example. And if you love rhymes and puns, this is probably a joy to go through. If you are not good at those, or if English is your second language, it will not be a simple walk in the park.
*cries in ESL, it was so freakin' hard.

Since it was done in such short amount of time, the only help you will find will be in the external walkthrough (if you don't want to keep guessing forever). Though, I did run into an issue where a command would not work, blocking the trigger for the next "event" to clear.

Final score: 14+1/23

This was a fairly short light-horror interactive poem about walking in the woods, with a bit of a Romantic vibe to the style. I found the different lengths of the lines making the cadence while reading them a bit wrong, which adds to the horror setting. Since the stanzas are consistent, it kinda makes things a bit uneasy to read through.

Through your walk, you are given different choices, which will lead you to the different endings. Depending not just on your choices but their order, you may or may not find your path out of the forest... or be corrupted forever. It took me a handful of tries before I could reach a different ending to my first playthrough (I even questioned whether there were other endings at all).

I thought that having a fear meter in the on the main page felt a bit distracting, as the poem holds on its own just fine. Keeping it only in the stats panel would have been better.