Reviews by deathbytroggles

There are many types of games that can be made with Twine, but seemingly the most common and to this reviewer's opinion the most frustrating is the game on rails that pretends it's not on rails. The last thing I want to do after spending an hour playing a game is to replay it with all the different choices and discover that other than some flavor text, nothing has changed.

Babyface never pretends that it is a game or that the player has any agency. It's simply a short horror story that uses Twine to enhance the player experience by using inventive visuals, frequent changes in pacing, and opportune music and sound effects. I'm reminded of House of Leaves, a landmark horror novel that used vivid stylings with text to immerse the reader. Similarly, first person perspective here works as we're just along for the ride.

While the story itself is derivative of horror I've read in the past, and there are some loose threads at the end I wish had been tidied up, I was nevertheless engrossed and experienced the tension the author was going for. Good horror is incredibly difficult and I'm excited if Mark Sample continues with this genre.

The Shadow in the Snow is a short Twine adventure that uses as many IF tropes as possible, including the broken down car on the side of the road, the spooky forest, and the spooky hotel. Using tropes is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are no surprises with this story and thus the tension is minimal.

Beyond the story, there are also several issues with the game design. While the game allows you to ostensibly tackle the exploration and puzzle in any order, there is actually only one path to victory despite it being unintuitive (and rather random) that the actual path is correct. Additionally, you can lock yourself out of victory without realizing it, though the game is short enough for it to be only a minor annoyance.

The writing style also doesn't work well for this type of game. Despite the fact that you are given choices to make for the PC, it is written in the first person, which detaches one's self from the choices. There's also a lack of rhythm to the writing, with many short paragraphs, excessive ellipses, and a lack of sensory descriptions to the surroundings. An awkward simile is one example:

"The back window has been smashed out as if a large beast had leaped through it."

Honestly, I have no idea what that looks like or if windows smash differently if large beasts, small beasts, or table lamps have propelled through them.

This is the first game I have played by Andrew Brown. Looking back at their previous games, many reviews cite the lack of editing and beta-testing, and this game appears to have the same concerns.

My son is autistic. He's bright, kind, and empathetic. Most days go fairly well for him now. But some days he has big emotions and his coping skills he's learned in order to deal with uncertainty go out the window. Right now he's young enough that we can always be there for him and let him work through it. And I have the fear that when he gets older, and he's in the real world, we won't be able to protect him from people who want to take advantage of him.

This brief Twine experience from Ann Hugo brought all those fears to the surface while doing so in an honest, compassionate manner. The story is on rails, but the choices given effectively convey the lack of agency autistic people feel when under stress. Every time I was trying to champion a choice that I wanted Theo to make, the story came back with "You Couldn't Have Done That," and I nodded my head as my heart broke a little.

Superb use of the medium and a gift to the IF community.

What the Bus? is pure CYOA (about trying to catch the right bus to get to work) in that there are no puzzles to solve and no parser quirks. You just go through every potential story path until you find all the endings. When I was a child, I would use my fingers or paper clips to hold my place at different plot branches so I wouldn't have to start from the beginning. Joyce doesn't quite make things that simple, but the presence of an "Undo" button is incredibly welcome and makes this much more palatable.

Growing up and living in the suburbs, I have never been on a subway in my life, and only a few city buses. So I can only imagine the frustration that led to this story. Still, the snark is delivered well without drowning in it, so I was motivated to find every ending. And the choice to go surreal with many of the endings was also a treat. I don't think I would play this again, but I was grinning the entire time I played it.

The authors note that they completed this game in thirty days; it appears there was not enough beta-testing done, as within ten minutes I found a game crashing bug that purged my save point. Looking at other reviews, it appears I am not the only one. I stopped playing after that.

Prior to that, I found the premise somewhat intriguing. You essentially need to solve a long puzzle to escape a dinosaur park when your prehistoric friends get released. It's light-hearted and goofy. But for me it was hard to follow due to the grammar. In one choice early on, you are allowed to "Ask if you can pet the Ankylosaurus again," even though to this point in the story you have never seen a dinosaur nor has the ankylosaurus been mentioned. In a later point in the story you are hopping between boats, Frogger-style, and it's hard to keep track of which boats the game is referring to as in the text they're often just referred to as "the boat," despite there being several around you.

It sounds like those who have managed to finish the game have enjoyed the process of solving it, so hopefully if there is a future release it will be more accessible.

The author notes that this was a short story turned into a linear game, and I very much would like to read it; or rather, I would like a slightly larger version of this short story.

It’s a peculiar, intriguing world we find ourselves in. I wish I knew more about this place, and the people in it, and why our protagonist feels the way they do about the people in their sphere. I love short stories in that they often don’t exhaust themselves with pointless details while also leaving the reader with a sense of wonder. In this case, I felt I was wondering too much.

Ever since I was a child I have loved puzzle books, especially ones with a lot of tiny, random puzzles. I'll happily solve one cryptogram, but six pages of cryptograms -- no thank you! Sage Sanctum Scramble is basically one of those comfortable puzzle books come to life, with a cute plot about destroying a monster using keywords you find by solving puzzles.

One's satisfaction with this game will likely be directly correlated with whether the puzzles within hit that sweet spot of not too difficult and not too easy. For me they did just that. One nice (and necessary!) feature is that you only need to solve around 30 puzzles to beat the monster; I solved 31 and had ten more that stumped me. Not having to check the back of the book for the answers to win the game made it a satisfying experience.

The game has some personality and I wish it had even more. There's a risk, I suppose, of getting too cute and detracting from the puzzles. But the highlight for me was when it shamelessly acknowledges that there is a slightly American bent to the game. To wit: (Spoiler - click to show) "GREY is for people who want colours. I want colors."

Deck building games have never quite been my cup of tea. Generally I get really into them for a brief time, but after a while I tend to get frustrated by the randomness. And while I'm unlikely to return to play due to my own proclivities, Tragic is quite competently built and I enjoyed myself for the two hours I gave it.

There's a larger story outside the deck game itself, as you play an actual marauder who is transported into the 21st century and finds themselves at a live tournament where this deck game is played. The hijinks that follow are expected, but amusing all the same. The heart of adventure is the card game, where you play while a dungeon master of sorts narrates your exploits. Within the card game are also mini-games and oases where you can win/lose/buy weapons/armor/cards, etc.

The presentation is slick and the tutorial did a great job of teaching me the ropes. There are also several modes of play depending on how much story you want and how difficult you want it to be. I do wish there was more than one save slot, but that's a small concern.

Definitely worthy of play by those who enjoy this type of game.

A very brief story about a stutterer trying to find their voice through a therapy retreat.

Despite its brevity, this conversation is hard to follow. It appears as if the player character is the therapist, though the conversation feels distant enough that I was detached from both the PC and NPC. The topic is important and the journey could be potentially moving, but the dialogue does not feel realistic. Both characters have a similar voice (aside from the stuttering of the NPC) and there are few interjections from the author for any atmosphere; it's just endless dialogue without any breaks, and sometimes it's hard to remember who is speaking. Their communication feels rehearsed, as if they're trying to emphasize the pathos of the story without letting it come out naturally.

The ending is pretty cool, both story-wise and stylistically. It might be worth the few minutes of play just to see it.

One of many 2020 IFcomp Twine games that is on rails, High Jinnks rises above due to being generally delightful.

For me, watching a jinni toy with humans is not generally my cup of tea; I prefer my games that take place in the real world to be ground in that reality without magic or mysticism. But gosh darn if it I didn't grin a dozen times while playing this one, probably because there's a heart and soul to these characters I wasn't expecting. The plot itself is forgettable, but the repartee between the jinni and your scrawny human friend is relentless. Sometimes the conversation feels a bit too cavalier and I don't truly buy the motivations of the humans in the story, but all in all it was a good time.

One thing Chamberlain excels at is using the hidden text feature in Twine to great effect. While I wasn't always enamored with the story choices, clicking on the hidden text was a regular treat.

Unfortunately, I did find one endless Twine loop near the end of the game that forced me to restart.