Reviews by Sobol

Besides being amusing, absorbing, excellently written, cozy and generally making you warm inside, the games by S. Woodson also demonstrate an interesting approach to branching in an interactive story.

There's a sort of contradiction in choice-based puzzleless IF. On one hand, linearity is usually considered a drawback; most players want to feel that their choices really matter and substantially affect what happens, want the game to be truly interactive. On the other hand, in a significantly branching story the player will only see a small part of what's written by the author, can easily miss the best bits; the ratio of the player's enjoyment to the author's labor is low.

It would be great to make the players restart the game and explore all the various plot paths; but motivating them to replay many times and read different variations of the same story requires some serious stimulation.

In the games by S. Woodson - this one, ♥Magical Makover♥ and Beautiful Dreamer - different story branches entwine and interact with each other to form a kind of higher unity; some paths throw light on enigmatic elements of the other paths, make you see your previous game sessions in a new way - and even revisit them because, as it turns out, you didn't pay proper attention to something curious. They are all different elements of the same picture, and you want to see the picture whole.

(Narcolepsy by Adam Cadre utilized the same idea, though less effectively: the crazy guy in the university plaza always gives you hints referring to other storylines.)

In both ♥Magical Makover♥ and Beautiful Dreamer, there's one "main" branch - the one which is central to the picture and which the player is most likely to find first.

In ♥Magical Makover♥, it's the one featured on the cover art - the only one where the protagonist's initial goal is reached. If, say, the player tries three different random products on their first playthrough, they get this branch with the probability of 60%.

In Beautiful Dreamer, it's talking to Cephiros about the moth - which has the highest priority among all the topics the protagonist may discover.

Get Lost!, which is much smaller than the former two games, lacks the "main" branch: all the paths are of equal importance.

A curious mix of Russian folklore and American humor. Being a Russian, I was delighted to see familiar fairytale motives and phrases like "speedily a tale is spun, with much less speed a deed is done" (скоро сказка сказывается, да не скоро дело делается), "are you here to shirk a task or to find one?" (дела пытаешь аль от дела лытаешь?), "three times nine" (тридевять), etc.

The game is rather old-school - even for 1998. The world is sparingly implemented, there are some minor guess-the-verb moments - but it's funny and light-hearted, the puzzles aren't hard, there are multiple solutions (be sure to check the AMUSING section), and the "good" ending really has a naïve fairytale charm (while the "evil" ending - the one where you (Spoiler - click to show)side with Katschei the Deathless - is, um...). There's a big maze in the game - but you won't need mapping it.

P. S. I was able to kiss almost everyone from the bear to Baba Yaga without anybody protesting. Well, I suppose being a prince has its benefits.

A series of scenes from the life of an opera performer (or a backstager, if you choose so) in an alternate reality version of the XIX century where doing opera is traditionally a female occupation - like in Shakespeare's time acting was a male-only profession.

I didn't find the overarching story about your theater's relations with the authorities really exciting, but the writing, the atmosphere and the richness of detail were good; the city of Tristendesande felt alive and interesting.

On the whole, the game was rather relaxing. There are some things at stake for the PC - your performances may prove more or less successful, the Opera may even be closed down - but you mainly go around eating delicious and well-described food, wearing elegant and well-described clothes, riding in carriages, singing in aristocratic salons, talking with mostly pleasant characters (there are no "villains" here, although there are conflicts of interests), casually seducing people and generally having a good time.

Since prehistoric times, people loved anthropomorphic animals; one of the reasons is a huge potential for generalization.

When watching movie actors with certain facial features, hair color, skin color, this human concreteness of detail somewhat impedes seeing in them our friends, our relatives, ourselves - and, thereby, somewhat hinders our understanding of universal things the movie is trying to say. But Judy Hopps, an anthropomorphic rabbit, looks like many and many different young girls from different parts of the world.

Aesop's fables are always about humans - but not about specific humans. Even when they feature human characters, those are always extremely abstract figures with minimum individuality: "a shepherd", "a fisher".

House of Wolves is a very short game about a young human who is being raised by eponymous talking canines. The wolves fit here especially well: on one hand, they're dangerous predators, long feared and associated with cruelty; on the other hand, there are many stories of wolves adopting human children. And they are similar to dogs, so familiar to us and so capable of loving us... in their own way.

I personally find wolves wonderful and beautiful creatures, but it doesn't really matter in this game - because, in truth, it's not about wolves at all. It's about humans, just like an Aesop's fable. About parents abusing their children and trying to shape them into something they could never be. There are many ways to understand it; you can read it as a fable about being transgender, or about being vegetarian, or about many and many other things. There's a huge potential for generalization.

The story mechanics is of a particular interest. (Major spoilers follow.)

(Spoiler - click to show)The game gives you an illusion of choice and then takes it from you. It's a technique used in several classical games such as Rameses. Although it may seem to make a story resemble static fiction, it's actually a powerful twist that only IF can manage. Never having freedom of choice from the start and having freedom forcefully taken away are two completely different experiences.

"The Little Match Girl 5: The Hunter's Vow" is the tenth game about the titular Match Girl overall. Being familiar with the previous nine, I correctly expected it to be smooth, pleasant, gripping, and take me to some more interesting times and places.

What I didn't expect is to be genuinely surprised. Come on: it's the tenth game on the same subject.

It surprised me. Then again. And again.

P. S. "Goroshinka" means "Little Pea" in Russian. That's another Andersen reference.

A small, silly parody of Suspended where you turn dials and observe, via monitors, how your settings affect the planet.

I think Admiral Jota's SpeedIF output is worth serious scrutiny for those who want to learn making very short but entertaining parser games. Being so brief and written under strict time constraints, his SpeedIFs don't offer deep stories, complex game worlds or clever puzzles; and yet they are fun to interact with.

If you liked young detective games by Brendan Patrick Hennessy and Felicity Drake, you should probably also try Sixth Grade Detective. It's in the same genre, but with younger characters: the children are around 11 years old, and reading about their fluffy crushes is as sweet as watching Chico and Roberta dance. The mysteries you investigate are accordingly tamer - like finding a missing book in the second episode.

The characters are likeable and have some curious hidden depths; I was particularly surprised by Kyle, the leader of the bullies. And the fifth "case" was really heart-warming.

A concise, effective story with a couple of twists and interesting narrative mechanics akin to Common Ground.

It wouldn't work as static fiction. The player has to make choices without having full information and not knowing what to expect next - this experience is important in presenting the character of Nora Curtis. The plot structure doesn't just serve to tell a punchy zombie apocalypse tale; States of Awareness is also about personal relationships, and our current pandemic, and other things.

On my first playthrough, I got the most positive ending - but didn't realize it was the best for the characters until I replayed the game.

Those planning to participate in the recently announced Emily Short Anniversary Contest might be interested in this 2001 mini-tribute - a SpeedIF by Admiral Jota. Emily is the villain of the game, disrupting the XYZZY Awards ceremony. There's a reference to Metamorphoses and some other in-jokes.

In reality, the next ceremony went without incidents (you can read the transcript here); Emily won the Best NPCs XYZZY for her Pytho's Mask.

I had a dream based on Grimnoir after playing it. Don't really know what made this game so engaging; I guess it's just an interesting story, deliberately filled with recognizable clichés but humane and absorbing. It would make a good TV series.

After exploring and interviewing witnesses, at the end of each chapter you are faced with a diagnostic puzzle (in the vein of When in Rome). These puzzles make you read the previous text carefully, searching for clues, and not just skim through the links - which, of course, adds to the experience and makes the game world more vivid in your imagination. The bestiary guidebook you are given is well-researched and, in addition to unavoidable vampires and basilisks, features some rather unusual monsters; I was pleased to see it starting with Alkonost, a lesser-known creature from Russian folklore.