Junior Arithmancer

by Mike Spivey profile

2018

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Reviews and Ratings

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Number of Ratings: 49
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- _firexe, December 4, 2019

- dgtziea, November 8, 2019

- elias67, November 4, 2019

- draziwfozo, September 8, 2019

- nosferatu, August 23, 2019

- Zape, June 30, 2019

- wisprabbit (Sheffield, UK), June 7, 2019

- Stian, May 14, 2019

McT's Interactive Fiction Reviews

It is one of those games that if you like this sort of thing, then this is a thing you will really like. The puzzle mechanism is exceptionally well implemented, the narrative might be thin, but it does succeed in adding character to the game. To me, the puzzles felt hard but fair.

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The Good Old Days

Anyone who has done some serious maths will tell you that it can be quite magical. Even with the most basic of operations you can do some impressive tricks with astonishing results. It is that feeling of wonder you get, when you finish a long set of calculations that end up with surprising – simple but true – answers which makes people love mathematics. Just think of the flow of solving a problem, that single moment when everything fits together and you see all the connections, and you might know what I mean. And this magic moments is exactly what Junior Arithmancer is all about.

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IFComprehensive

The game is really about abstract number puzzles, or even computer science and programming puzzles, rather than mathematics per se. Despite its similarities to ABCA, it reminds me of programming games like “Robot Odyssey.” It’s also one that rewards creativity in thinking about and exploiting its mechanics, which is a great feature in a puzzle game.

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- JoQsh, April 12, 2019

- Joey Jones (UK), April 4, 2019

- CunningGabe, March 14, 2019

- IanAllenBird, March 13, 2019

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
An enjoyable math-based pattern game with academic humor, February 19, 2019
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 2 hours

This game is essentially unique among interactive fiction. In a Zork-like setting, you are a math wizard (or arithmancer) taking an exam.

Your job is to use spells to create sequences of decimals coming from famous mathematical constants. The further you can get in any one sequence, the more spells you get.

You begin with basics like addition or subtraction, but soon you gain spells that modify other spells and it all becomes complex and tangled up.

In the midst of this mathematical quest, the committee viewing you gossips about academic drama, discussing department conflicts and upcoming changes. As an academic myself, it is spot on.

I work with the author and beta-tested this game, but I wouldn't feel bad giving it a lower score if it deserved one. This is a fun game, and I recommend it.

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- nf, February 11, 2019

- Ploppy, January 28, 2019

- mapped, January 3, 2019

- Greg Frost (Seattle, Washington), December 1, 2018

- E.K., November 20, 2018

- Doug Orleans (Somerville, MA, USA), November 18, 2018

- Karl Ove Hufthammer (Bergen, Norway), November 18, 2018

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Original math puzzle game, November 16, 2018
by Denk
Related reviews: Inform

This was my favorite 2018 Ifcomp game. I can imagine that this game is not for everyone, since it is basically a logic/math game. However, it does not require a lot of mathematical knowledge. I would say that you can complete the game using basic math, though to get a perfect score, you should have heard about complex numbers.

In this game you are given the role of a candidate in something called Arithmancy, which is some sort of magic concerning numbers. You need to pass the exam in Arithmancy. To do this, you have to cast spells in the right order, to produce the digits of pi, e, etc. I don't know if this sound like a lot of fun, but it is, if you like logic and math puzzles. In addition, you can get extra points. Some points require that you produce the digits with very few spells, while other points can be gained by finding the numbers with a given color. Yes, in this game all the numbers have a color, though some numbers have the same color. Figuring out the color system, at least to some extent, is needed to obtain a perfect score. I didn't understand the color system completely, but still I managed to get a perfect score, though not within the two hour limit of IFcomp. Thus there are several hours of entertainment in this game.

The game starts out easy but slowly gets harder. Whenever you achieve something in the game, you overhear conversations from the examining committee, which are quite fun. The real fun for me was however figuring out the puzzles.

So if you are into logic puzzles involving math, I can highly recommend this game.

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- Jacob MacDonald, November 13, 2018


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