Ratings and Reviews by Lance Cirone

I'm a fan of wordplay games, so it's only natural that I'd end up liking Letters from Home. It took me a bit of time to understand what I was really supposed to do, but the catch here is that you need to collect letters around an old mansion that's being moved out. To give a few examples from the game, (Spoiler - click to show)taking the "F" that signals Fahrenheit on a thermometer, plucking one of the roman numerals out of a date, or working out homophones like "sea" vs. "C".

Once you've found all of these, you get to solve a cryptic crossword. The clues you get are things like (Spoiler - click to show)"Confused DJ was a KC; that's for the birds. (8)" and "Crystal units of volume, we hear. (6)". I was pretty confused, but the logic does make sense if you think about it in an unconventional way.

Strangely enough, the weaker parts of the game have nothing to do with the homophones or pangrams, but are the standard adventure game-type puzzles. You get an array of standard verbs like JUMP, PUSH, and SEARCH that are used sparingly but easy to forget about. One puzzle has you needing to reach something high up, and the solution is to (Spoiler - click to show)push a bicycle in from another room and stand on that, while another one involving retrieving something from a small crack on the floor involves (Spoiler - click to show)jumping to send it up, then putting a pad of paper (specifically this, nothing else) over the crack to catch it. While the game has a lot of items and rooms, things you don't need to bring elsewhere will be left behind in the rooms after you solve their puzzles, which is a nice detail.

There is one thing that you can lock yourself out of, though, and it's (Spoiler - click to show)one of the crossword clues. I was pretty discouraged to realize this, so a warning to new players: (Spoiler - click to show)don't take the yew tree until you're sure you've done everything with it.

Still, I enjoyed my playthrough overall. While many of the puzzles can rely on esoteric knowledge, that's kind of a given if you're even interested in a game like this. There is also a very detailed hint system, with Invisiclues-style hints that get more direct as you go down the list, so don't be afraid to use it as you play.

Toonesia knows what it wants to be and isn't anything more than that. It's not a criticism with the game, it's a fun (albeit short) puzzle sequence consisting of loads of references to classic Looney Tunes. You play as hunter Elmo Fuld, hunting down Bud Bunny and running into a Tasmanian devil and a daffy duck. Even if you've only seen a few of the cartoons, there's still plenty of the classic tropes to laugh at here, with variations on all kinds of running gags. I didn't find the linear structure to be as big a problem as I was afraid it would be. The only real problem I had with the game was the described directions sometimes being reversed, which misled me a couple of times. I'd recommend it if you're looking for something light and quick, with a lot of cartoon logic.

There's a specific style to Emily Short's games that I really like, and it's inspired plenty of my own writing. Just this dry, bleak tone, how everything can pass by without being given too much notice. The descriptions that manage to say so much in just a few words. The way characters with differing outlooks to the protagonists are portrayed. Bee, a story about a homeschooled, religious girl with dreams of winning the spelling bee, is even more of the greatness I've been expecting.

Bee gives you a few stats to keep track of. Obviously, you want to study frequently and raise your spelling skills, which have the helpful effect of eliminating wrong answer choices for the player during the spelling bees later on. But you also have a motivation counter, reminding you to take a step back and ask why you're really going for this. Your parents are aware of the stigma against homeschooled children and they want you to be on the national media, showing that your family and your fellow homeschoolers are worth something. Other challenges the protagonist grapples with include games and chores with the family, trying to support her younger sister Lettice, celebrating denominational holidays, a crush on a local boy named Jerome, and meeting various neighbors whose unfamiliar lifestyles lead to dissatisfaction.

As Bee goes on, the protagonist's outlook on life changes. She's no longer dreaming of the almost superhuman feats of language mastery she's wanted. She spaces out during her lessons, pays less attention while tutoring, idly doodles on her notecard. Her daydreams consist of wondering how Cinderella ever escaped her situation, and what kind of freedom she'll have once she finally finishes the contest. In one particularly effective vignette, she forces herself to trudge back and forth through heavy snow, the cold being the only thing that can keep her awake as she finishes her word list top to bottom. She loses motivation and realizes that she's only doing what her parents want of her. By this point, she gets an English tutor who is "some form of heretic" (not atheist, but possibly agnostic) and is pursuing Jerome in private.

The overall tone just gets increasingly disinterested as the game goes on. Studying your word list in the later segments will get you this: "All those words on your lists are like tokens of a life outside, beyond these walls; of a variety and diversity of human life; and you are not allowed to know any of it. For now. You'll get out. Eventually. It has to get better." Even the final segment consists of two challenges, one of which goes by in a blur (you don't even remember what the word is), and then the next. The protagonist gets second place, but her parents are still proud of her. This hollow appreciation leaves her unfulfilled -- what was the point of all that studying if she doesn't feel any accomplishment? Will failure ever stop being okay?

I only got one of the four endings, but considering how stories like Best of Three go, I can't imagine the others being too much happier. With a simple gameplay loop, a few stats that are a nice balance to manage, and the engaging prose and meaningful decisions that direct the protagonist's attitude, this game won me over on the Choice of Games format. One of the best.

Fine-Tuned has an incredibly fun vibe to it. From the character names, to the descriptions, it feels like a classic action movie. You are adventurer Troy Sterling, driving with your inventor companion Aloysius in your awesome car. Soon after, you are harassed by anti-auto farmer MacDougal, whom you accidentally send flying into a ditch. Once you save him, he relinquishes his duty to pick up Melody Sweet from the train station.

In the second part of the game, you play as Melody, as ancient history professor Sneedlemeyer gives you an artifact, which your opera singing skills might be able to unlock the secret to. It's a bit hard to figure out what your goal is, but the puzzles do make sense and it's fun to see Melody's singing talent integrated into them.

In the third part, (Spoiler - click to show)you play as Troy again. You have to investigate Sneedlemeyer's house, plotting in advance how you're going to deal with your arch-enemy, the glass-eyed Salomonder, who has come to hold everyone hostage.

The fourth and final part has (Spoiler - click to show)you as Melody as you have to solve your way out of the hostage situation. Next, your goal is to chase the Salomonder down before he can board a train and beat you to the museum. I was totally on board for this, and then:

"Your little party is ready for the final showdown. The motors roar thrillingly... [press any key] (To Be Continued...)"

The game has no conclusion. I will admit it ended on a heartwarming final scene, (Spoiler - click to show)Melody and Aloysius together, singing along to the song that started Melody's opera career, but it does sting knowing there's no follow-up to it. Right before what would have undoubtedly been the most exciting part of the game, too!

Even if the game is cut short, I think it's a good linear story as it is. The puzzles aren't complex and the pace of everything is kept moving at a fast speed. I liked the characters a lot, and there's plenty of well-implemented sequences. The way everyone loves Troy, from the train conductor to children playing around your car and asking you to honk the horn (which you can), he's quite a defined protagonist. Melody has her own unique traits, too, such as an ear for music and a more classy approach to problem-solving. Plus, the Salomonder and his pun-based villainy were cheesy enough to be funny.

Overall, I found the game easy to play, but there were a few oversights. It said the watering trough was empty even after I filled it with water. Similarly, I was able to steal the handle to the hatch of Sneedlemeyer's roof, which I shouldn't be able to. Generally, though, the game is very polished, with the story cutscenes being hard to break the flow of, and plenty of in-character responses are present for nonessential things you might think to do. An unobtrusive scoring system also rewards exploration. There was clearly a lot of testing going into this, and the author had a clear direction of what tone and style they wanted. In conclusion, I would recommend Fine-Tuned, but don't be caught off-guard when the action ends earlier than you'd expect.

This is the other 2009 24 Hours of Inform entry. What surprised me is how comprehensive the game is, it really does have a non-default response for most things you try. Even uncommon ideas like eating, drinking, or smelling certain objects will give you specialized responses. Descriptions are particularly short and succinct, and it never feels like you're missing information you need. I thought the caveman theme of the game was a nice change of pace as well. It's impressive for a game that was made in a short span of time, and I definitely prefer it to Semi Intelligent Design.

This game was one of the two entries written for the fourth 24 Hours of Inform contest, in 2009. I'm not sure what the deal with the game is, because it seems like two totally different things in one and might not be possible to complete.

In the first half, you work as the housekeeper of a very cranky Senator and have to serve him soup for supper. The puzzle here has some pretty odd implementation: stirring the kettle gives you a message that seems like the soup is ready, but the powder remains. You actually have to pour the boiling water into the cup first, then put the powder into that and stir it. Due to an oversight, you can earn an infinite amount of points by repeating certain actions, and your score is given "out of 0." Also, it's described that a garden is to your west, so I tried to see it, but I got a "you can't go that way" error. To be fair, I did enjoy the sequence where you get bored waiting for the kettle to boil.

Once you serve the soup, the Senator gets mad due to your choice of cup and flavoring, which you presumed he liked. He goes in to attack you, and suddenly the game cuts to something completely baffling. You play a different character locked in a dark room, whose mannerisms and speech bring some kind of ogre to mind. You have to do tough labor to earn your soup. You have a cage with a lump in it that you can't drop or do anything with or else the Senator yells at you for mishandling "testing material", and on the other side of the room is some snarling beast that attacks and kills you if you open the wall. There's also a "special cage" that apparently you can put things in to change them, and the game tells you to clean it, but nothing happened when I did. The soup is stuck on the bottom of the cage, and you can't meaningfully interact with it. I also got a blank message when I tried pressing the round button in the other room. It's a frustrating experience, and it felt like I had exhausted all my options and wasn't getting anywhere.

In this game, you run a 1940s theme restaurant, full of amusingly awful items, a band playing non-stop, and a toilet that's more high-tech than a good portion of your kitchen utensils. You are tasked with appeasing a food critic to save your restaurant. Everything that goes wrong can, in a really slapstick comedy way that lends itself to fun puzzles. The scope of the game is well-contained, mainly just focusing on finding things you need to serve your meal, and there's only a handful of rooms.

The quality and frequency of the jokes is the high point of the game. I tried a bunch of different actions and searches, even when I knew they wouldn't work, just to see the responses. Even the name of the restaurant ("Mack n' Geez") made me laugh when I first read it. I also like the added variety for messages that'll show up a lot, such as taking an item or running into a wrong exit. The descriptions of the rooms also change accordingly during the last part of the meal, to reflect the chef's mood. I think I ran into a bug near the end of the game, where (Spoiler - click to show)I couldn't reach for the lobster even though I ran the other two customers out and Mrs. Davenport was distracted, but I still enjoyed it. If you want something light and quick, check this out.

Never Gives Up Her Dead is a massive puzzler reliant on multiple set pieces, all tied together with an intriguing concept. The game openly states at the beginning that the protagonist, Emrys, is going to die at the end. I was initially conflicted about this idea. I was worried that it would make the game too much of a downer and detach me from the experience, but it started to make me wonder... how, when, and why would this happen? There is a general sense of hopefulness throughout the main game as you do your best to retrieve stolen items for the rest of your crewmates, lifting their spirits in times of disaster. You don't spend super long with any of the characters, but they serve their purposes well. The game keeps the inevitable ending in the back of your head by revealing more backstory every time you solve a dimension.

The structure of the game ensures that even if you're stuck on a puzzle, it's still fun to play and feel like you're making progress. If I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, I'd just shrug off, "maybe I don't have what I need yet" and go to a different dimension. Either I'd come across something that gave me an idea on what to do, or by the time I was ready to return, I'd have some new insight and pick up on something I didn't before. Also, in the style of Cragne Manor, you have an infinite-capacity rucksack you can put items in to cut down on inventory bloat. It's a convenient option to have, especially in the endgame. One feature you get in the midgame is (Spoiler - click to show)an upgrade that lets you detect items that belong to different dimensions, effectively cluing you in on where to use them. You even get to label the dimensions yourself. The first time I used it, I stumbled across an item I didn't even know was free to take and immediately knew what it was for!

The game starts with a really interesting scene. You have a presentation to give, but no time to prepare for it. While you're in the closet to look for the captain's signature jacket, you can grab anything you think might help for your presentation. Emrys's character is introduced when we see how she manages to make something inspiring and thoughtful out of even the most mundane and decidedly garbage objects (such as a toy robot to represent advancements in technology, or a rubber spider that segues into how we face our fears).

Also, only after reflecting on my notes after beating the game did I notice that (Spoiler - click to show)all of these items actually connect to the dimensions later on! One thing this game excels at is contextualizing everything. Nothing is thrown in for the sake of it, and even seemingly disconnected segments do all come together by the end. My favorite instance of this would be (Spoiler - click to show)the ending, where you get to reunite with characters from previous dimensions at a party in your honor. There's also a neat museum segment before it where you get to see how your actions have advanced science, all of them calling back to the previous parts of the games. It's careful writing, giving everything a purpose but not restricting the actual gameplay and ideas.

Going over the gameplay will also require me to spoil some of the special mechanics and gimmicks the areas have. Discovering them was part of the fun for me, so I'd recommend playing the game blind before reading further. I won't give away puzzle solutions, but I will discuss some of them.

The first portal has you visiting (Spoiler - click to show)a sort of therapy/horror combo called Monsters Inside. While there are plenty of monsters, they're more busy with their own personal problems than wanting to scare you. One of my favorite puzzles is trying to find the Pharaoh's cat: he likes "organs, hearts, and teeth", but not in a biological sense like you might think. The second half takes place outside a castle, where you have to find a way up. This was the first place I found, but for some reason, I blanked out on finding the dictionary and thought it would be elsewhere, so this ended up being the last thing I solved.

The wax museum (Spoiler - click to show)challenges you to play cheesy, arcade-style games or solve historical figure-oriented puzzles in each room. I love the atmosphere and how the puzzles blend in with the scenery and statues you come across. I got a good laugh out of some of the jokes here: the incredibly self-congratulatory winners shelf that makes you feel dumb even after you solve a puzzle correctly, the statue of Fish Blade the mime, and the fake-out with the absurdly complicated machine near the end. The puzzles here require some more thinking outside the box than the rest, but everything makes sense if you're looking out for the clues.

My favorite segment would be the train (Spoiler - click to show)murder mystery. You get to interview four different suspects, exploring their flashbacks through mini-puzzles, and writing down clues. If you find a contradiction between two alibis, you can link them together for a new subject to press into further. The dialogue system is very easy to use -- each topic is given a one-word description to identify it, and you can easily look back at conversations you've already had. I love the unique backstories each character has, and how fast new information is revealed. Excellent writing, and a lot of fun to play through. But the fact that it was all part of a game does make me wonder if anything said here was true at all, especially since Maeve is a real person in the ending segment. This was the first dimension I solved, and I smiled at the Maeve/Mefe connection, especially Emrys asking about the rhinestone jumpsuit: "Just thinking of a friend of mine."

Another especially fun segment comes in the Adventureland (Spoiler - click to show)robot fights. Here, you get to program up to five moves for your robots and then take them to an arena. Besides just shooting, you can aim to ensure accuracy, or hide behind scenery so you can't get hit. You also have an ultra-powerful grenade you can use once per battle. There's a lot of strategy to planning out your moves, and it's really exciting to see how it plays out on the field.

The horror caves (Spoiler - click to show)definitely have a different vibe than the rest of the story. You're given a spellbook and have to find scrolls to learn more spells. Some of the descriptions, and the different ways you can die, are incredibly disturbing. Judging by the hint thread, I think this one gave people the most trouble. I had already beta tested this and Adventureland before playing the final game, so I had a good idea of what to do here. Still, a fun segment altogether.

The monument islands (Spoiler - click to show)weren't one of my favorite segments. It's probably just because I missed a key detail about the cannons, and went almost the entire game before I figured out I could solve them. I also ended up getting hardlocked in the library due to an extremely rare bug with the clock that prevented fumigation from ever ending, but I think anyone else should be fine. The calculator puzzle thankfully wasn't as difficult as I expected, since most of the formulas and numbers are given.

The tool dimension (Spoiler - click to show)makes use of a concept I love: getting an ability that unlocks new upgrades over time. The progression here is comparable to Junior Arithmancer, where you have to find shards that will further upgrade your tool. It also gives you an incentive to explore the other dimensions, to find rifts and doors you weren't able to open the first time around. The mini tests and puzzles you get to solve to test out the new tools are alright, too.

The zoo dimension (Spoiler - click to show)is pretty open-ended, where you have to find 11 drone parts by exploring a zoo. You're able to leash some of the animals and bring them to other places, and puzzles like riding the goat or chasing the snake around are enjoyable. It's not too difficult, but the caiman puzzle had me stuck for a while. It's cool to see how many different biomes and animals there are, and the informational signs help out a lot.

The lakeside cabin dimension (Spoiler - click to show)is a pretty simple one, where you have to renovate a cabin and explore a garden. Throughout, you uncover journal pages that give you hints on how to progress and tell you a bit of backstory. I liked this one, it was pretty easy to know what to do with all the tools and pieces, and combining them together was satisfying.

After you clear all nine dimensions, you reach the endgame. (Spoiler - click to show)Here, you learn the true extent of what everything you've done meant. The only thing left is for you to go back and sacrifice yourself in the reactor. The story anticipates that you might not want to do this, with Emrys's available dialogue choices. However, you can also send your guide Arawn in your stead, since the body was burned beyond recognition and it will not mess up the timeline severely. No matter which of the two you choose here, you're sent into the same puzzle chain, from my testing. I like that it incorporates puzzles from Monsters Inside and Adventureland, but combines them together for something new. Getting to talk to your crewmates from the computer as you activate the radiation shields is a bittersweet moment. Going into the core requires a small puzzle, but you turn the valve that ends up killing either you or Arawn. The buildup to this moment was amazing, but I wish there was a bit more to the actual movement. You get a yes/no prompt, a brief description, then a memorial based on what you told Gareth earlier. It just felt a bit anticlimactic after everything. Also, since the contents of the tank were described as molten and there was coolant and water, I was wondering if this was a fake-out ending? Is there more to do after this point, or did I give up too early?

(Spoiler - click to show)The alternate ending is when you destroy the recorder, sending you back into the chaos as you're left scrambling to escape the ship. The atmosphere is a lot darker, and some new areas of the ship open up for puzzles. In this ending, both you and Gareth manage to survive, but many others aboard the ship don't. You and him are then cryogenically frozen, leaving off on the note that your future is finally your own. Seeing the consequences of what would've happened if you didn't seal the rifts is a good concept, but outside of escaped criminal Tiffany, it doesn't amount to much. To summarize, I have minor gripes about the endings, but they doesn't detract from the experience.

It's always nice to have a game that's giant in scope and full of puzzles, but the most important part of Never Gives Up Her Dead for me is that it's always fair. Nothing in it comes off as random or underclued, and I felt like every solution was easily solvable if I just looked around a bit more or thought about the clues from a different perspective. You're able to make progress at a good pace without getting hung up on anything for too long.

The prose deserves special praise, being concise without obscuring necessary detail. It knows what to emphasize, and the language used lets you know how to interact with items without running into parser issues. It's all too easy to overlook this, but when I only had two issues with the parser over the hours I spent typing commands, it's a pretty good sign.

In one sentence, it's a Mathbrush game, so you know it's going to be great.

This quick SpeedIF was written under command to include various random topics in a game, which include Hank Buzzcrack, Mother Theresa, T.S. Eliot, the golden banana of discord, and Grant Stern. This game uses Best of Three's engine to cast you as Gustav Schmidt. It's all a little confusing without context. I'm not especially well-versed in IF history and, much like Grant and Gustav, had no idea who Hank Buzzcrack was.

Perhaps the most interesting part is when you ask Grant about his desires:
"Desires? [...] I would like to undo a mistake I made, a mistake of attitude that hurt someone. I would like— many things that are not possible." This seems to be referring to Helen from Best of Three, whom you can also ask about. Much of the gameplay comes down to reading topics from a list to see who gets to take home the golden banana of discord. Still, Grant definitely feels like himself and I enjoyed reading what he had to say.