Reviews by MathBrush
15-30 minutes
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A game from many perspectives, set at a work party with drama, April 6, 2024This was an intricate and surprising game. It uses a seed for color palettes and another for ‘one click=one change in perspective’.
So the way it’s structured is that it has a setting and a list of dramatis personae. All of the people’s names are linked, and clicking on them gives you a view of the soiree from their perspective, as well as links to the three others.
So, I thought, ‘Ah, I get it. There are just four story passages, and you can pick what order to read them in.’ But, it was actually a lot more complex than that. Each link that you click takes you to another person’s perspective, like I thought, but it also advances the time. So there’s actually quite a bit of complexity in play here.
At first, I thought there were 8 or so people, until I realized that every person had a first name and a last name and that which one was used in the text depended on the familiarity of the person who was speaking. This introduced an almost puzzle element for me, as I had to go back and forth between the dramatis personae list and try to fit together the different perspectives into a unified whole. It made me feel like this was a lot of worldbuilding for one game, so I checked the ‘about’, and saw that this tied in with the author’s earlier game Structural Integrity.
Overall, the writing felt natural and the scenario was interesting enough that I played through 4 or 5 times (unlocking the ‘faster read’ mode). The basic concept is that you’re at a work party and two male/male couples that have beef with each other bump into each other with a combo of flirting and veiled insults.
I felt like the ending didn’t really end on a satisfying, conclusive note; it felt like there was either something missing left to be told or that room was being left for a sequel hook.
I also think that the extensive worldbuilding and the ‘one click = one viewpoint change’ concepts had tension with each other, because with such fleshed-out characters I would have liked to have more time with one character to learn names from their point of view and get a feel for them and their worldview before hopping over to the next character.
Finally, the styling looked nice, with well-chosen colors and backgrounds, and a fancy dramatis personae list. I thought early on ‘I wish I could just bring up the list of people more easily’, and then I realized there was a button that does exactly that, which was good design.
Fake game listings for games that could have been, April 6, 2024This game has a genuinely funny title, which I like.
In ATGIWHMFSIIHTTWIDNOWTANN, you are provided a list of game seeds the author was interested in. You can click each one to see the seed itself, either visual or text, which honestly was great; in the actual seedcomp planting round, you have to download the text prompts individually which can get really annoying, so copying the structure of this game to make a ‘hub game’ could be really nice.
Anyway, once you select a subset of these, you can push a mysterious-looking ‘alchemize!’ button. Now, there are a lot of seeds here, so there would be hundreds of combinations. But the game automatically culls things to combos the author thought of, so clicking one box deletes most others.
I was delighted to see that the function of ‘alchemize!’ was to make a fake ifdb page for the game! It comes complete with summary, reviews, and votes on those reviews.
It was really fun seeing what someone’s perception of IFDB was as expressed through the various voices they invented. It was pretty funny seeing things like two-word negative reviews that got a single 0/1 helpfulness vote.
I found it interesting that the fake reviews quoted or summarized large portions of the game explicitly. I know the reason for that was to communicate to us, the people reading this, what the games would have actually been like. But actual reviews tend not to include so much stuff (like a ranking of characters in a game), probably because people read reviews before playing and don’t want to get spoiled. It made me wonder, what if we did include more stuff like that? In spoilers, of course.
The one thing I didn’t really like was the color choices. The fake IFDB page had black text on a dark grey background (I tried two browsers just to check). I could read it but only barely, so I went into the console and edited the text to be easier to see. Might just be a me-getting-old thing, though.
Very fun to see IFDB represented this way.
Go on trial with several poets, April 6, 2024This game uses a seed where you have to stand on trial before four famous poets.
It’s written in Dendry, one of the first Dendry games I’ve seen not written by Autumn Chen, making this pretty unique.
The game presents each of the four poets (Sappho, Tagore, Milton, and Khayyam) as characters each having themes, virtues, and vices.
The concept is that you are on trial for plagiarizing their work. Each one accuses you of having plagiarized certain themes of theirs. Your own identity is kept secret.
At first, I thought the game would have very little interaction, since clicking on each poet gave me three pages of non-interactive text.
But then, I found out that that was just the intro! You then reveal your own identity which was a powerful moment for me (I got mild chills on my arm hair).
Then there follows a combinatorial puzzle. I found it tricky; I just randomly clicked for a long time and didn’t understand the mechanics. After about 10 minutes I started thinking more about it, and finally came up with a solution. It was pretty complex; it reminded me a bit of an Andrew Schultz puzzle.
The game inspired me to look up more about the poets. Due to my inexperience, it was hard at times to see the differences in their themes and their values, so I had trouble distinguishing between them. I look forward to learning more about them and am glad for Onno and Rovarsson (the seed author) for bringing them to my attention.
Make some sad food after a breakup, April 6, 2024This Adventuron game was pleasant to play. I was able to grasp what was going on, make a plan, carry it out with some exploration, and get a satisfying conclusion. It relies on the central core of parser games: take, drop, examine, open, close, etc.
You’ve had a bad breakup with a woman and she’s taken a lot of things, and you need to break out of your depressed languor and feed your very hungry stomach. Unfortunately, some of the food you have left is a bit weird.
I ended up making the tuna and tangerine pizza, which is pretty weird but not too weird (my favorite food when I was a missionary was green beans, tuna, shredded cheese and noodles).
Overall, short and satisfying. I did have some parser struggles, which I’ll DM the author as the particulars don’t matter for the review, but they were pretty similar to ones I’ve gotten reports for for my own game (little synonyms and such). It didn’t really detract from the enjoyment, and fortunately the game offers several layers of help to ease any friction with the parser, up to a full walkthrough, which thankfully I didn’t have to consult.
Manage conflicting social demands during a DnD game in a fantasy world, April 6, 2024This game consumed a lot of my attention and thought process.
You are a dungeon master/game master having a night with a classicallly-sized 4 person party, complete with fighter, rogue, cleric and mage.
All of the participants, though, are magical (well, mostly), including a fox spirit and a golem. Also, many of them are neurodivergent in different ways (including you).
The gameplay loop is that you advance the campaign a bit (which seems like its own fun story), and then an issue arises either in-game between characters or in-person. You have options to resolve it, which vary but often include taking gentle action, taking firm action, or doing nothing.
There are three ‘negative’ things that can pile up (or, occasionally, go down) that I found: you can get more and more distracted; the individual people can feel hurt or disconnected from the game; and time can progress.
I wasn’t sure what each of my actions would do or what the consequences, if any, of the above would be, but I had some idea and formed a strategy. It was very similar to a real-life stressful situation; it reminds me of my day-job as a high school math teacher (do I continue the lecture when everyone’s bored and the only topic left is really obscure but has a 5% chance of appearing on the end of year exam and ruining their life? Do I focus on the engaged students and let people talking in the back keep going? etc.)
I ended with time running out in the climactic fight, and that seemed just fine to me. I didn’t feel a need to replay, as there aren’t any perfect TTRPG sessions in real life, and ending without any major meltdowns seemed a big plus.
The characters were very distinct and their individual personalities mattered, making this work well as a character piece.
A surreal horror game about a friend group and their relationships, April 6, 2024This game starts off very strongly with a nice animation of tv static, good styling choices and a creepy intro. I was ready to be scared and felt a bit nervous/excited going in.
Four friends are going to watch a famously bad movie that has previously been edited, but now they find the original director’s cut.
Unfortunately, one of them is killed. Even worse, it’s the friend that was keeping the whole group together, the leader.
The game then takes a quick turn and opens up to the main gameplay, where each friend must confront the death of their friend and what that means for the future. This was a unique and fun part of the game.
There are a ton of different endings, and I played through to see 8 of them, but after the first two you have to re-see a lot of the game so it petered out eventually. But the endings I got were very strong.
The beginning was a bit hard to follow; I thought they were going to a theatre, then to pick up something, then a concert, then they were at a gas station. I eventually realized it was all one story, but the jumps were a bit confusing. That’s my little nitpick for an otherwise very solid game. I like surrealish horror with two worlds/realities, so this was fun.
The intro to a longer game about revolutionary radio, March 29, 2024This is a prologue to a humor sci fi game written in Moiki.
In it, you play as a radio repairman in a futuristic world. A transgender celebrity comes to visit you, and more importantly, a strike is going on and the radio station that supports it is in trouble!
The text comes in very short bursts, just a sentence or two per page in many cases. There are several character portraits designed with, I assume, AI art (many games in this comp have used it and it has that kind of style, although I could be wrong!).
The game has a kind of animated feel/vibe, like the Jetsons mixed with characters from the Spiderman newspaper comic.
The story's not complete, which makes sense, as I felt like it kind of jumped around and was a bit confusing at times.
A surreal game set in a dream, March 29, 2024In this game, you fall asleep, and wake up trapped in a strange dream world.
The game is choice-based, using Moiki, but it has a strong world model, with most interactions based on finding and using items, movement, and working with NPCs.
It's pretty short, but took me a while to work through, as there are many options. The writing was a highlight, with humorous quips, strong metaphors, and some just straight-up weirdness (like licking the horizon and discovering it is yogurt).
Overall, it was nice to have a short, kind of goofy break. There are almost certainly parts that went over my head; I bet if I were a native French speaker I'd appreciate it even more.
I did find a portion that resembled a parser game pretty funny, especially since it was a 'prairie informe', where inform can either mean the language or, in this situation, 'shapeless'.
A databse search game with revolutionary poets, March 29, 2024This game took me a while to figure out. There's a text box to enter stuff, but hitting enter just goes to a new line.
Eventually I realized it was a search feature with a bit of a delay; you type in a word and it brings up all elements in its database that match that word. I think the game Her Story might be similar (?)
The stuff that comes up includes text message conversations, journal notes, images, schematics, interviews, etc.
It was written in four hours, but there's some impressive stuff here. The idea is that two women who live together have been arrested after police suspected them of dangerous revolutionary activity, and you have to determine on a scale of 0-2 how dangerous they are.
Pretty neat stuff! I wish I learned just a bit more about them and what was going on, since the worldbuilding was so fun.
An easy-to-play and intriguing IF mystery set in a small town, March 27, 2024This Ink game was fun. You play as someone who received a note to come and investigate a town on behalf of a countess who has had to make herself scarce.
Most links involve either moving to a new location or performing an action in a location, most commonly talking to someone.
There are a diverse cast of characters. To me, the most evocative parts were the location descriptions; it's really nice to think of the bar with a back patio that is set on stilts overlooking a river. Sounds really beautiful!
The investigation was slightly tricky for me, being in French, but the game keeps things simple and it's not too hard to solve just by clicking around, although you may get stuck if you don't stop and think things through just a little.
Definitely enjoyed this one, and easy enough for a foreigner like me. I wondered about the motivations of the characters, though; I feel like they were as detailed as the settings were. Except for the priest, who I felt was very well characterized. Overall I like this, though; this is just some little nitpicks.
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