Reviews by Nomad

Commercial game, free ad-infested version available.

So the player receives a text message from a girl called Sam. She claims to have found a smartphone with the player's number in the contact list. An unlocked smartphone, nice. Sam's surroundings have been the stage for a zombie invasion, but it can't be that serious, for the player didn't get to know any of that. Or the player didn't watch the news for the past few weeks, who knows, the player character is not fleshed out. Sam is in great danger but finds the time to use correct spelling, grammar and capitalization.

The gameplay is good old CYOA. To answer Sam the player always has two choices. Usually the choice doesn't matter, sometimes the wrong choice kills Sam and moves the player back to the last save point.

Yet another cheap CYOA game. The story ain't bad (apart from the plot holes) and the gameplay concept has potential, hence two stars.

A short, surreal scene about a nightly "conference" (rather a performance) in a hotel, interrupted by short, surreal dreams. It has vibes, and it's not annoying. If you're looking for a game though, look elsewhere.

Just in case you stumble across this database entry and wonder what kind of game it is: It's an interpreter for the Funge-98 programming language. An interesting abuse of the Z-machine, but nothing for a romantic evening at the fireplace with just you and your laptop. Three stars because everything else would be unfair.

You're swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and are suddenly sucked underwater by a "whirlpool". Down there you can swim around without worrying about a lack of oxygen, and get killed without warning when you enter certain rooms, or enter other rooms with certain items in inventory.

Quill games, or memory-restricted games with a two-word parser in general, can have a certain charme. "Sea of Zirun" doesn't. It doesn't even have an "examine" command. The underwater setting with clams and seaweed and turtles and all is nice, but everything else is plain annoying.

This game would probably have much more reviews if it was playable in a browser. Anyway, it starts out as a simple fantasy gamebook with a linear flow. Writing is actually good - the game world is presented from the perspective of the protagonist, meaning there's no lengthy explanations of everything, because the protagonist *knows* what kind of social system etc. he's living in. I like that. Next up, a horror element creeps in, almost lovecraftian. Then, a sudden change of perspective which I'm not going to spoil. After that, the game was over relatively quickly.

I played it through once only - so far. I'm pretty sure the game is not as linear as it seemed to me. There's a score at the end indicating I could have performed far better - means I maybe only scratched the surface. Three stars so far, for the interesting setting and plot. Probably a fourth star the next time I play it. If you like gamebooks you should definitively try it.

A short story, not exactly interactive. A spaceship crew discovers a lost spaceship and boards it. Nice setting. Good pacing at the beginning, maybe a bit too fast once on board the lost ship. More trouble begins there: Logic dissolves. Crew hierarchies don't matter as everybody just does as he pleases, everybody intuitively knows the layout of the strange ship, a former crew member had the means to paint paintings with acrylic. The "game" end happens soon after. I counted two situations where I could make a choice. A nice quick read (with a few flaws), but not a game.

No explanation what your goal is. Sparse room descriptions. Things are lying around unmotivatedly. NPCs are not communicative. Two word commands are all you need. It's like the past 40 years didn't happen, and Scott Adams still squeezes obscure puzzles into 16 KB of RAM. I appreciate the effort, but I do not long for a sequel. Not recommended.

Wow.

First glance: Artsy experiment
But then does the fun increment
It's a game of adventurous exploring
Scattered puzzles make sure it's not boring
For a Twine game it's really excellent

It's not a game, just a story you click through. But the story is nice. Well, it's pretty trivial until the one interesting twist, but that'll grab you, promise. Makes me a bit sad it's not a game.

Shambolic, horribly implemented. If the storyline wasn't on rails you'd never get beyond the first room. Plus, the story didn't grab me.