Reviews by Nomad

So you're supposed to find a haunted house (which is right in front of you but on an island) and challenge a ghost inside. A bit generic, but probably suitable for the Halloween theme. Probably homebrew parser. And that's where the trouble starts.

Typical two-word parser ambience. Okayish room descriptions, though punctuation makes them hard to read at times. Rooms are incoherent, here you're in an orchard, one step south you're on a beach that's never been mentioned before. You can only interact with what's mentioned as "Here is ...". The text is written in caps lock, which is annoying, if only mildly. The parser does not accept abbreviations. The room descriptions do not indicate available exits. Sudden death is possible if you move in the wrong direction.

Back in 1980 this might have been a smasher, but really, I'm too old for this shit.

Okayish setting: You're an employee in some medical laboratory, something's turning the population into zombies(?), you got to escape and maybe find out what's happening.

Problem is, Quest (the engine used here) seems to entice authors to be sloppy about implementation. Objects in room description can't be examined, verbs are not working, everything's underclued. I didn't get very far. A pity, for I would have loved to know whether there's a good story behind the game.

In terms of tech, there's photos of rooms and some objects. Good in general, but not very well implemented - the pictures don't blend in well with the general interface, and don't have a common style. A general problem if you're using pictures from the net.

I would love to love this game more, but in its current state I found it annoying.

Physically disabled PC goes through college. Not the worst setting, but the "game" is in fact just one big rant against ignorant society, and a link container for websites dealing with the topic. In other words: A primitive infomercial for a good cause. Injunction: Support the cause, ignore this "game".

Great premise: A self-invented game world with a self-invented religious system, and some ritual is going on. Plenty directions to go from here.

Unfortunately, neither the religious system nor the game world are being fleshed out. You're a vampire, you've done bad, you're punished, then you go to a dungeon to fight a deity, and that's it.

The game world has potential and I really want to know more about it, and because of this I was very tempted to give a third star, but in the end the game disappointed me because of its shallowness. I'll follow the author tho, because potential is definitely there.

You're Justine Thyme, an ordinary schoolgirl with a passion for superheroes. She trips into a war between superheroes and villains and discovers she's got a superpower herself - she can control time. And so she stumbles through an abandoned amusement park to save everyone from a nuclear catastropy.

I personally don't like superheroes, with the exception of "Superhero League of Hoboken"-style ones. "Madame Time"'s wee heroes are cute enough to not repel me. The frozen time scenario makes for some neat puzzles, and the game world, small as it is, is well constructed and cozy. I had a problem with understanding the overall target of the game, but once that is clear it's fun working towards it. Definitely recommended, especially for n00bs (and I myself am always playing like one).

Interesting premises: The game "world" is just one room, and it's filled with abstract obstacles, encounters, fears and chances of your everyday life (as the author). Interaction with listed terms drives the story forward. Could probably be turned into an interesting experience.

Problem: Massive underimplementation. Guess the verb. Typing in plenty random thoughts just to get standard library answers. Sometimes you succeed and the story continues, but most of the time it feels like a big...

...waste of time.

Zugzwang puts you in the position of a chess piece close to the end of a game. Sounds quirky? It definitely is.

The game is extremely short (10 turns) and extremely linear (two paths). For me that's a classic candidate for 1, max 2 stars. The game is so quirky though - the setting alone is unique, but there's also dialogue between the individual chess pieces, IF-style description of the events, optional examining - it still sucks as a game, but it has so much potential, and as a "proof of concept" it sort of shines. I constantly had to think of a Romeo and Juliet story unfolding through a chess game. Too bad this is just a (term used by game) demo.

The Lesson of the Tortoise is a short, okay game with an interesting setting. You're a Chinese farmer who finds out his wife has a lover, and those two dump him in the basement of his own home, probably to kill him later. Interesting setup, innit?

Unfortunately the game is very short, linear, and not overly well implemented. The plot takes a few (well, three, it's short after all) sharp bends that are interesting but leave you wondering if that was really necessary. It resembles a fable that's been brought into IF form with a sledgehammer. Also, it's somewhat underimplemented, could need a transcript or two to smooth the crucial scenes.

All in all, I'd bet you start the game because of the promise of an interesting scenario, and then when you're done you're like, "Okay, but that was it?!" Waste of potential, probably.

You are thrown into a typical slice-of-life situation: You find yourself at the foot of a tree, and your corn dog is somewhere up in the tree. You get choices, and with each choice a usually completely unrelated consequence happens. Like, you decide to climb the tree, and happen to stumble across a family of elves living in the tree. Or you decide to walk to the next gas station, but on the way you meet a troll who's got a problem with the local skateboard kids. Stuff like that, all the time. Chosing the wrong answer results in an end screen. As funny and entertaining as requesting a new passport at the registration office, but less rewarding. Two thumbs up in case it was written, as I suspect, by an ADHD-infected teenager within the scope of a mandatory homework. If you're looking for entertainment as a player, look elsewhere.

Oh, you play as a small dinosaur. Doesn't change a thing.

C64 only. A slightly obscure commercial game, didn't get much attention back when it was published, which was in 1985.

The game throws you right into the pit. Probably pardonable, let's assume the original game featured some sort of instructions. You can find some blurb on the web: Free the king's daughter from an evil magician.

Designwise the game is pretty horrible. The rooms are generic and don't even try to form something like a game world. The two-word parser is stubborn. The puzzles are not blended into the action. The typography is one big mess, looks a little like noone ever proofread the (commercial!) game.

On the plus side the game has a few surprises up the sleeves. It's just one file so it's limited to 64k of memory. Probably a tape release. It features graphics and music(!), so there's almost no memory left for the game and parser antics, right? Wrong! The map is rather large, you control two characters (although you can't switch at will), and you can command an NPC (a walking tree, of all sorts). The puzzles, as randomly thrown onto the map as they are, are associative and thus not too difficult, yet somewhat rewarding.

Not recommended for people used to sophisticated parsers of the Inform age. If you have witnessed and enjoyed the 8-bit era, or if you have a weird interest in how adventures looked like before the invention of upright walking, you might want to give this one a brief look.