Reviews by Hanon Ondricek
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I felt there was some dodgy tense shifting at first, like the author may not have been sure if the action was happening now or in the past when they started the story. This is a CYS joint with a handful of choices that branch widely with no recursion or variation like a printed choice narrative (not a complaint; it just means any playthrough will be brief and by nature will end abruptly on certain choices to avoid time-cave combinatorial explosion.) The opening scene is funny, if just for the exchange:
And why exactly do we hate the dwarves?”
“It’s canon. Don’t ask questions.”
Then there's a scene about unicorn farts.
I can tell the author at least has a good sense of comedy writing and you may vibe with this story if you're into gory cartoonish mayhem with a "Van Wilder" slant.
Games have needs too!, March 4, 2021Highly recommended. Not what I expected in a very good way.
It’s not porn, so play it if you are of age and are up for an exploration of the concept of horny.
(Spoiler - click to show)Horny Game is horny for you, and I’m not kidding - games have needs too. It’s a game, and it’s horny. So horny, you’re gonna bang. Of course you are. But first, there ensues a labyrinthine conversation about consent and highbrow knots of double negatives and making boats and spiraling in a loop of reversals and counter-denials that become manipulative in a way that, in my experience, defuses any desire to bang… The kinks get meta and spiritual.
The game is horny, but also a little bit off. What it’s asking for is something you can’t do and - you can’t bang the game really and have to explain that in no uncertain terms eventually if you want to stop looping. I really enjoyed what it had to say. I believe I found the ending, but the path is tricky, I wouldn’t put it past the game to have hidden secrets I didn’t explore.
One potentially missed opportunity:
I wish there would have been a more specific reaction if I had typed in “bang” when deciding on an activity other than banging.
ChooseYourStory (CYS) is a website that allows users to write simple choice-narratives. Most of these tend to take the form of linear "time caves" without variable-tracking nor text variation - much like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" branded physical books that were printed on physical pages and thus couldn't keep track of any world-state beyond asking the player "If you have seen what's in the closet, turn to page 23, otherwise turn to page 15..." I'm unsure if the CYS software allows these sorts of options that would make them work like RPG GameBooks with dice-rolls and light stat-keeping to maintain a world-state and inject randomness into the proceedings.
As with printed CYOA stories, you read a couple of pages and then flip to another page to continue based on given choices. 331 Oakmount Drive follows this format closely, allowing the reader to click on the next choice to move the story forward. This is perfectly legitimate type of IF and many people enjoy this format, but it tends to be more prose-heavy and there are frequent single game-over choices that really don't foreshadow in any way the reader can predict. Late game, I chose a direction and died by falling in a pit that wasn't predictable in any way, but that's a common CYOA and time-cave trope. Luckily CYS stories allow the reader to use the back button and choose again, similar to keeping your finger in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book at the last choice page in case you need to "reverse time" to make a better decision.
This entry follows that format. The protagonist and a friend are cleaning a house and get locked inside, meeting the man of the house and his creepy maid(Spoiler - click to show)-who seem to be on a killing spree after murdering the wife? Much of the interaction boils down to "Go Left"/"Go Right"/"Enter the Lounge". Choosing the correct sequence results in (Spoiler - click to show)escaping the house and being set for life by selling the rights to the story as a book deal.
It's a simple and uncomplicated example of CYOA and, despite being in the horror genre, eschews any lurid descriptive violence. If you're interested in understanding the CYS format and play style and seeing what it has to offer, this is a good entry to sample.
A short combo, February 7, 2019Using both Twine and Bitsy. A neat idea that I'd like to see expanded.
Is this a bogus entry?
This game is dysfunctional..., December 8, 2018And that's part of the fun. Worth 10-15 minutes - I was smiling the entire time.
Nontoxic Vampire AIF, October 20, 2018"Monster Fucker One: Vampire is the first in a series of text-based interactive fictions in which you attempt to seduce various beings of myth and legend." I only played the demo. For $2 on itch.io you get "seven different encounters, more than a dozen unique endings, and about 23,000 words of text."
This is a decent choice-based adult story about a protagonist who is horny to get bit by a vampire. The game offers a binary choice of gender (anything more nuanced may be outside the scope of what the author is doing here) and gets right to the hookup process without futtering around too much with an atmosphere or description beyond the surface anatomy of potential paramours. This is fine - it's not trying too hard to be much more than vampire fanfic. I appreciate the gender choice and that the game doesn't lock out your partner's gender based on that. As far as I can see here, consent is observed and the protagonist desires to be bitten, so it's a bit of harmless smut.
The writing is fine. There's no conflict except finding which vampire is DTF; some are skittish, some are haughty, one is just right. You choose whether to take the lead or be passive in a quick hotel room encounter and the deed is done. There's nothing special about vampire sex either and no discovery or surprise - they have sex just like everyone else, save the extra penetration one might expect at the end. The comments on itch.io seem to be positive so this might be what some people are looking for. There's no suggestion that as a vampire the protagonist might gain any "superpower" sexual prowess based on what's here, but I might be wrong.
The Actor's Nightmare, August 28, 2018This is a Twine game where you have three hours to learn the lead role in the Scottish play...only it's a wacky heavy-metal musical version with pyrotechnics and a flying harness.
Thus ensues budgeting the time you have to learn as much of the show as you can before the curtain goes up. You can't choose everything, so there are decisions to be made: Should you polish the lines, should you learn the music, do you talk to other actors in the show, should you make sure you eat or is it really important to make sure your costume fits?
Then the show begins. The choices you did and didn't make help or hinder you to fumble through the entire production. This is accomplished with some nice text effects and timing. The game assists you with the stuff you rehearsed and leaves you flailing for what you didn't. You can learn the show by memory a bit on repeated plays, and it's possible to get a standing ovation - or be taken out in an ambulance.
This is a great use of Twine, a lot of fun all around. The author has obviously been through this before, and a lot of the situations ring true. When an understudy is thrown onstage at the last minute, there really is a lot of triage: "Just stand on the side instead of learning the dance, because it's more important we take this time to teach you how not die by getting eaten alive under the turntable during the set change in this blackout..."
Having actually lived through similar theatrical shenanigans, including being part of a concept recording for a Macbeth rock musical, I can tell you Understudied is an absolute blast.
Less talk, more action, sexy mer-peeps..., April 21, 2018...I appreciated ULTRAMARINE, and though I think I made only two or three actual choices, I got a numbered unsatisfactory ending, so it appears I could go through again and try for another ending using the SKIP function (I didn't bother to save) but I think I can infer the other branches of plot I didn't discover. Though this is listed as a "full length" game - mostly due to the expository water-treading - I felt like I was being somehow hastily brought up to speed on a much more expansive story in a bigger world than shown here. I'd love to see at least some of this happen over some still art or kinetic concept drawings to break up the characters just do-si-do-ing their positions while facing the audience and describing the off-stage action.
I feel like I missed Act One..., April 16, 2018I appreciate the effort here and the writing and thought behind these characters studies which feel very "now" - but these are the kinds of revelations that are usually justified in turning us on our head after sucking the player into a "fun" fantasy world where we already have formed a worldview and have a basis of uninformed choices to build upon. Here, it feels we've skipped the revelatory turn (No! This fantasy world is our own!!!...!) and the game just handwaves all that.
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