Reviews by Lance Cirone

"Life is meaningless, we are but players of a game, and that game is MARIO CARDS".

MARIO CARDS has you being blindfolded and kidnapped by no other than Mario, who's going to play a card game with you whether you want to or not. The game consists of matching pairs of cards with Mario's face on them. Turns out this is just the start: you have more games to play, and MARIO CARDS was only the beginning. Early into the game, the author interrupts to say that he was a sleep-deprived wreck when he wrote it and he isn't even sure if it makes sense.

The game is full of awkward middle-schooler humor: the subtitle is "MARIO CARDS : The Text Adventure about a Card Game about Mario who's from a Video Game - I don't Play Them myself but my Brother plays Call of Duty and says it's Pretty Good so There You Go", and you're given the option to "kicK OVER THE TAble godadMN this is taking forever". There's regular jokes about life being meaningless or the general laziness of the game, such as railroading your choices or even saying "I'm a goddamn saint and you are going to play this through and appreciate it for the Art that it is." There's obligatory swearing and forced sex jokes ("At first you thought it was some kind of deprived sexual ritual of MARIO's, but he is literally a video game character and video game characters don't do that, unless they are a video character that does, then they do").

The game's ending declares that "NOBODY WINS AT MARIO CARDS," and that's right on the money. The game itself admits that it's aimless and nonsensical, and while I did find the writing and plot direction slightly amusing at points, it's not worth your time.

One horrific night in the 1950s, teenager Bonnie Noodleman finds her almost-boyfriend attacked by horrific brain-guzzling monsters from beyond! However will she and her friends stop them? Such begins Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!

This isn't a hard game, but it's of a nice length. The puzzles are pretty basic, but some have multiple solutions, and areas you don't need to go to anymore tend to be closed off. The game is a parody of 1950s sci-fi, in a way that reminded me of Max Blaster, featuring comics with absurdly preachy messages and an absolute lack of severe language (such as "Oh my gosh!" and "We’re in such a deep pickle right now!"). These jokes are where the game is at its best, and I particularly loved your conversation with the robotic Wife of Tomorrow. The sci-fi aspect is handled well and plays a good part in the story. The latter half was full of great jokes with all the psuedo-futuristic technology; it felt like I was playing through an episode of Futurama.

There's a cast of characters in this game, all of whom get unique portrait art, which I didn't expect. The conversations are interesting and full of different options, and a lot of characters will stick around and even get a bit of surprising development. My favorite in this regard was Mary Jane, the hysterical prom queen who (Spoiler - click to show)turns out to be a brilliant inventor. Following these characters throughout the games, learning their likes and dislikes and getting their help to solve puzzles, was definitely one of its strengths.

Overall, the game's appealing writing style, approachable puzzles, and fun characters make it an easy recommendation. Definitely play The Mary Jane of Tomorrow after you beat it, too; that one's great.

You are a disgraced high school Rock Paper Scissors champion. It's been a long year, but you are ready to regain your position, with the help of the three RPS Gods.

Rooms are bare, descriptions are blunt, and the setting isn't that interesting. The two core puzzles here are finding your offerings (a rock, a paper, and scissors), and tricking your sacrifices into making RPS signs. That latter puzzle is repeated nine times and makes up the bulk of the gameplay. Talk to someone until they make a sign (such as holding up their hand as a stop motion, or posing for a picture with a V sign), then do the right symbol against it. Then (Spoiler - click to show)they get sucked into a vortex. It was surprising at first, but this is most of the game. The mechanic doesn't get expanded upon and the difficulty stays low throughout, eventually feeling kind of boring.

With all that said, this isn't a bad game, just pretty middle-of-the-road. It'd be worth a try if you want a more low-key game.

The doctor gives you a word, and you have to respond with a rhyme for it. Rack up as many points as you can before time's up to get a better evaluation. It's something you can easily finish in six or seven minutes, and there's not much incentive to return once you've seen the best ending. It's not a bad game, and the idea is implemented well.

Looking back at the game now, it doesn't seem that revolutionary or interesting. It's almost a troll game, if anything. Games like Aisle have done its concept so much better.

Nuns commence incanting as the lightning strikes your temples thus! Electrifying your chambers wholly, scorching out their sovereignty! You were just a boy, you see! You plead of them, have sympathy for you!

Actually, this game's pretty light on plot. The Kaden have locked your mind's essence away in cyberspace, and your companions, the Souden, might be coming to help you. Most of this game is spent talking to a cube, which is frustratingly obtuse because it barely has anything useful to say. It feels pretty esoteric: you know the spider is used for maintenance, but do you know how to talk to it? It's repeatedly spinning around and holding a doll, how do you deal with that? Other puzzles include just typing a command twice in a row to make it work, or trying to overload computers.

You can easily miss out on story events, including the warp to the game's ending, if you happen to be in a different room than the cube. The game also loves giving you puzzles with time limits, so I had to save often for what's ultimately a short game. As far as the ending goes, I thought it was pretty unsatisfying and confusing. Also, there's these pretentious quotes that keep showing up at the top of the screen, but they don't go away very fast and just cover up earlier text. It'd be easy to turn this into something worthwhile, but it's not worth seeing how the brain plays around.

Indigo is a game that's really more frustrating than fun. I love the concept, but it's not communicated well, and the game is full of bugs. I was relieved to be finished with this one.

You're sent into the wide land of Threediopolis. Your new employer, Ed Dunn, has a list of places he wants you to visit so you can complete tasks for him. But, in this realm, it's not about where you're going as much as how you get there.

Threediopolis is a game that seems overwhelming at first. You have 40 tasks and 10 friends to find. Every place is signified by a 3 digit number and a cryptic description. At first, I was wandering around without a clue. (Spoiler - click to show)I decided to figure out how my movements effected the numbers, then honed in on one place that wasn't far from the start. I had to go down, north, and east. Easy. I tried every combination of these... but when I went north, east, and then down and met a guy named Ned, I suddenly realized what this game was. It's a word game!

(Spoiler - click to show)You have 6 directions, using letters, and you have to spell words with them. Like SEEDS takes you to a gardening supply store, DUNES takes you to a desert, and WEENERS is a hot dog restaurant. There's also a bunch of bonuses if you type things like SENSUS (you fill out a census forum), SUDDEN (a loud noise startles you), and SEUSS (you meet a Dr. Seuss creature). If you can't work something out from the text description, you can try to figure it out with the numbers.

I was able to finish all the tasks and find all the friends, but you don't have to. You can return to Ed at any point to turn in your list and get a final score. The postgame gives you a list of 80 bonus tasks, some of which you may complete over the course of the regular game.

Overall, I found Threediopolis to be a fun time. The writing is witty and funny, even wrong expeditions will reward you with something amusing, and it's not that long or difficult once you get the hang of it.

Very Vile Fairy File has you as Kerry Kyle, transported into a strange world consisting of rhyming couplets. The titular Fairy File will repeatedly show up to insult you until you can put a stop to it.

The game revolves around rhymes: you have to turn Soft Sand into a Loft Land, a Coral Cage into a Moral Mage, a Stark Store into a Dark Door or you can Mark More. Seeing how many puns the writing can string together is part of the fun, especially when you run into a dead-end room.

The game encourages guesses, since ones that might not exactly help will still feed your Lurking Lump, allowing you to use a Jerking Jump to bypass puzzles you're stuck on. It's a fun trade-off, but I did find myself devolving into just going down a list of syllables or letters during particularly frustrating areas. You can also use your Leet Learner to get an idea of whether or not you have to subtract or add letters from a term.

There's a good amount of context clues you can work out from examining objects, and only once did it use a word I didn't know. There's also a flat-out hint feature, but most of the time it wasn't that helpful. Either way, there's plenty of anti-frustration features, and multiple areas will always be open at once, so you can just do something else to clear your head until you want to return.

Very Vile Fairy File is strong and funny, and definitely worth a try if it seems interesting to you.

This game has a nice story, but once you've exhausted it, there just isn't that much to do. The wording on (Spoiler - click to show)the final command is awkward, and while the clues are there, (Spoiler - click to show)it just amounts of doing the same thing in every room until you happen to come across it.