Ratings and Reviews by RadioactiveCrow

"The Eleusinian Miseries" is a puzzle-filled parser-based game set during the annual Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation rites into the cult of Demeter and Persephone. Most of that last sentence I had to google to make sure I was getting it right, I know very little about Ancient Greek cultural history, and if you are like me then don't let that deter you. Just think of it all as taking place during your final initiation into a fraternity that is very dedicated to authenticity. You play one of the current pledges with only a few tasks left to complete before you can be fully accepted into the group.

The game is a series of puzzles incorporated into a small map played out over several acts. If you aren't familiar with Greek terminology then keep a dictionary handy to look up some words. The game does a pretty good job of kind of cluing you in on what some objects are in modern English, but I still had to look up several and knowing the function of many of the objects is key to solving some of the puzzles. For the most part the puzzles are fun and fair. With a limited number of locations and objects you can usually brute force your way to a lot of the solutions. Most of them just needed a bit of common sense applied, and the parser seemed pretty forgiving with phrasing. That said, there were a few puzzles that I had to look at the walkthrough to get past. After seeing some of the solutions I'm glad I didn't wait longer as I don't think I would have ever figured it out. On a couple of the puzzles though, the way I solved it is not the way listed in the walkthrough, so I think many of the puzzles have multiple solutions.

While many of the puzzles were very enjoyable, it is really the humor that makes this game great. Don't forgot to stop and read the prose in between completing tasks as there are more than just funny lines, but hilarious whole scenes. It is unusual to me to see humor mixed into a parser game this well and at this level. My compliments to the author.

This is fairly short, choice-based game that takes place over the course of about a week... all at the same time! The core mechanic of this game is that frequently a choice you make will cause the story to jump from Monday to Wednesday to Saturday and back. Think of it more as remembering the week rather than living it. At some of the pivotal moments in remembering events on Monday or Wednesday, you jump to seeing how the consequences of those choices played out on Wednesday or Saturday, respectively. Then occasionally, you will fall back down the time ladder to an earlier day, usually to remember a scene that informs why the main character is feeling the way she does now. I know my last couple sentences make it sound like Primer, but it is much easier to follow than that, and the weaving in and out of the various days helps you appreciate the developments of the story in a unique way.

However, because of the weaving timeline, and the fact that the story jumps right into it without a lot of context, understanding what is going on, especially early, is one of the weaker points of this game. That said, I think I was fully up to speed by the end and it helped me to appreciate the earlier parts better. Plus, I think the point of this game is more the experimentation than telling a clean story, and I love this concept. Hope to see more narratives like this in the future.

There isn't a lot to this game. You play as some version of a primitive human, who finds some mushrooms, eats them and has a giant leap forward in consciousness, enough to eventually (Spoiler - click to show)join a human town. Even though this is a choice-based game the story line is very minimal and the game is mostly about solving some simple puzzles. That's really it, give it a whirl, it won't take long.

Two things I really liked about it:
1) How the prose got more verbose/detailed the more mushrooms were consumed. I thought it was a nice illustration of the increasing intelligence of the player character.
2) How the author was able to program a Tic-Tac-Toe and Mancala AI in Ink for the game.

This is the first Choice of Games game that I played and I really enjoyed it. You play a member of the navy of a fictional country, roughly equivalent to 19th century Great Britain. It isn't particularly deep or long, but it was fun to guide the main character through not just a single battle or campaign, but really his whole career. You make a high-level choice for how to proceed with the next step in a battle or your career, and then watch the result play out in front of you, with your choices having lasting consequences throughout the game. While I usually go for more characterization and detail, this game is a nice change of pace. An excellent introduction to the Choice Of Games model/style as well.

I really wanted to like this game. The idea of playing a large, long and ever-changing text adventure via the web, along with some ability to interact with the other players, is a great one. However, the execution just hasn't grabbed me. I know there are a lot of players that love this game, and I've heard great things about the more traditional video game sequels from this studio (Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies), but I just can't get in to it. The stories just feel shallow, that there isn't a lot to them, nothing to really sink your teeth into, nothing to keep you coming back to see what happens next.

Plus, there is the limited actions mechanic. This is a free-to-play game, but it is the primary source of income for the studio. So one way that they've monetized the game is to limit you to 20 actions before you have to stop and let your action bank recharge, or you can pay a small monthly fee to get unlimited actions. The fee is very reasonable and if I was into this game more I would have no problem paying it to support the studio. Also, you can really accomplish quite a bit without paying. The 20 actions will let you play for about 20 minutes or so, then you can leave the game for a few hours to go about your normal routine or play other games and when you come back to it you will have recharged to 15-20 actions. Really it isn't the limited actions in and of themselves that I don't like, but that it seems like so many of your actions are spent grinding for a myriad of different resources to advance your character. It has a very MMORPG feel to it. And that would be right up my alley if the stories and payoffs for the grinding were better, but I just haven't found that to be the case yet.

The game is very well done though, the interface is clean and easy to use. The atmosphere of the game, from the graphics to the word choice, is incredible as well. This game has a lot of potential, but seeing as how it is already ten years old I don't know if it will ever get there.

This is a truly amazing game. I didn't think it was possible to create a game so gripping out of these simple mechanics. At the same time it is truly amazing the amount of free will you have in this game, and all the amazing discoveries you can make with it. (I just said "amazing" a lot didn't I? Well, there's a reason for that!)

The basic mechanics of the game are a little bit of resource management underneath a choice-based text adventure. The game includes some very fun and simple graphics to aid in the visualization of the story, without getting in the way of your imagination too much. Also, there is some nice music to accompany you on your journey.

The story is taken from "Around the World in Eighty Days" by Jules Verne, but set in a steampunk/futuristic past. You play the role of Passepartout, the valet to the main character of the novel, Phileas Fogg. However, unlike how I think the novel goes (apologies for never having read it), you as the valet are making all the decisions on this journey, Fogg is just along for the ride and is frequently more trouble than the baggage. Rather than having to fit yourself into the role of Passepartout, think of it instead as you being given a starting set of stats/personality, but after that you are free to mold the character in any number of interesting ways.

The mechanics are simple, you are given a small bit of the story, usually small enough to fit on the screen of a smart phone without needing to scroll, then you get to make a choice. The choices are presented as what the next line of the story or dialogue will be. When you pick one the game smoothly places in line with the previous writing as if it had been there all along and then shows you the result of your choice. It is through these cumulative choices (plus making sure your luggage is full of useful or valuable items and managing your funds) that you plot your journey and move around the map. At every turn there are interesting characters to meet and subplots to discover, some of which will follow you around the globe. The writing is superb and keeps you enthralled longer than I would have thought possible in a game that gives you so much agency. It seems there would have to be some boring branches to the story, but there really aren't and even the few places where I wasn't as in to the story didn't seem to last long before something else intriguing came along. Among the things that you can discover are (Spoiler - click to show)Captain Nemo and the Nautilus, a rocket to take you to the moon, a murder mystery that you can solve and a planet-wide conspiracy by the shadowy Artificer's Guild.

The game is also very replayable. There are eight seeds to the story, with some locations or subplots only showing up in certain seeds, and you rotate through them with every playthrough. Additionally, with so many locations on the map you can always just choose to go a different route from your previous playthroughs to see what other parts of the world have to offer. A single playthrough takes about two hours, give or take how fast of a reader you are and if you encounter any material you've already read before and can skip through quickly (but still, there is always the chance to make a different choice from before and see what happens). I've played through this game at least 20 times and know that I'll be back for more again soon. Give it a try, you won't regret it.

How can you describe A Dark Room? It is truly unlike anything I've played before. The style is simple: black and white screens, all lowercase letters, just text and ASCII maps to move around. But the game designer was able to accomplish so much with those elements and you are drawn into the game so deeply that you feel like you are living it out. The game only takes 2-4 hours to playthrough, depending on the choices that you make, and I remember during my first playthrough being so immersed in the game that I pretty much finished it in one session, all the while my family went about their Saturday morning around me.

You play the main character, who at the beginning of the game wakes up not really remembering how they got there. A friend helps take care of you for a little bit, but shortly you are working together with her, collecting resources, crafting equipment and stepping out of your little camp to explore the world. You can recruit others to help you and you can also find resources out on the map, but you will have to fight your way through monsters and men to get them. The combat is RPG style, with you selecting an attack, then having a cool down period before you can pick another one. There are consequences to dying, but not so severe as to set you back much, rather you will just want to get out there and try again.

I'm struggling with what to write about this game without spoiling portions of it. Also, it is hard to compare it to anything because there is nothing quite like it. I would just recommend playing it for 10-15 minutes and I'm pretty sure you will be hooked after that.

There is some replayability to this game as well, after it is over the game suggests that you try again with a new strategy, one that I didn't even consider on my first run. Doing it this other way yields a very different experience and a different ending as well. Finally, after you beat the game you can read the designers' notes, which provide a lot of insight into what just happened.

This is one I might come back and give 5-stars to at some point, depending on how it grows on me and what it feels like playing it again after awhile.

EDIT 08/11/23: So this is me coming back to give this game 5 stars. It has really stuck with me. While it isn't IF in the traditional parser or choice-based style, I think the foundation and spirit of IF is there, along with some RPG elements. So many great things in this game. Worthy of a Top 50 vote.

This seems more like a proof-of-concept for an educational game. As far as I got there wasn't really a story. Your choices consisted of whether or not to use electricity (a precious commodity living in a van with solar panels) to do things like make coffee, or wash dishes with hot water. Then you had to answer math questions regarding how much power it would take to run the selected appliance.

Again, this seems like it was specifically built for an electrical engineering class. Since I'm not an engineer I didn't really have any clue what I was doing and the game didn't educate you at all that I saw. This would be more like the final test after the lessons.

Could be a lot of fun if you are in to the subject matter, but didn't really do it for me.

I struggled with how to rate this game. It is note perfect in so many aspects, from the prose, to the sound, to the pictures, to the interactive elements, and yes, to even the timed text, which I usually hate. My biggest complaint was that (Spoiler - click to show)the plot didn't have enough payoff. But then I decided that wasn't the goal of this piece, that it was mostly about mood and feel, and it absolutely nailed those aspects. So 4-stars instead of three. Bravo!

This is a choice-based piece, with very limited choice. It is pretty much a short story presented with a modicum of interactivity, but it makes the absolute most of those interactive elements. Text changes after you click on it (similar to Will Not Let Me Go). A few pictures and a creepy soundtrack. Even timed text, as I mentioned before, that was timed so well as to leave me in a legitimate state of suspense, but only for a second or two before the story spilled its next secret.

And the writing! Each word is measured to fit its part in the story. Again, other than my one minor complaint above, which is a bit unfair for a story of this length, this is a master class in writing and production.

I don't want to say more as I don't want to spoil anything. I will just say go play this game, it is well worth your time.

While I've never taken hallucinogens, I was drinking whiskey while I played this game. Not sure if that made me like it more or less.

Re-live the infamous sidewalk chalk tournament of 2011 as you take control of various people who were there, playing out your part in its sordid conclusion. I can't say too much about this game without spoiling the best parts of it. I will just say this: go into it with an open mind and if you get stuck don't be afraid to scroll slowly down the walkthrough, just to get the trick you need to move forward. I used the walkthrough a few times and it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the piece at all. Rather, while this game does feature a few things that I would consider puzzles, it is mostly about experiencing the moment. So take your time with this game, look around, talk to people... and when it gets weird, enjoy that too. I promise it will make sense (at least as much sense as possible) by the end. And don't forget to explore the bonus content after the end of the main game. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in this game once you get the bit.

The only very minor, slightly spoiler, but essential thing that I would advise players of going into this game is (Spoiler - click to show)that in the first scene, playing as Lane, as you move through the map, make sure you stop and "x art" in each artist's square. It will help the rest of the game make more sense. Trust me.