Mathbrush IFDB reviews IFComp 2022 (Done reviewing)

I’m going to use this post to link to IFDB reviews. I’m working on games with few reviews, and then generally focusing on games that are hard to play or long.

Reviews:

4 Edith + 2 Niki by fishandbeer

The Absence of Miriam Lane by Abigail Corfman

According to Cain by Jim Nelson

Admiration Point by Rachel Helps

The Alchemist by Older Timer

An Alien’s Mistaken Impressions of Humanity’s Pockets by Andrew Howe

Am I My Brother’s Keeper? by Nadine Rodriguez

Approaching Horde! by CRAIG RUDDELL

Arborea by richard develyn

The Archivist and the Revolution by Autumn Chen

Blood Island by Billy Krolick

Campus Invaders by Marco Vallarino

Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency by Younès R. & Yazaleea co-written by: Duo

CHASE THE SUN by Frankie Kavakich

A Chinese Room by Milo van Mesdag

The Counsel in The Cave by Joshua Fratis

Crash by Phil Riley

Death by Lightning by Chase Capener (skipped for explicit sexual opening)

Elvish for Goodbye by David Gürçay-Morris

Esther’s by Brad and Alleson Buchanan

Glimmer by Katie Benson

Graveyard Strolls by Adina Brodkin

The Grown-Up Detective Agency by Brendan Patrick Hennessy

Hanging by threads by Carlos Pamies

Headlights by Jordan White

The Hidden King’s Tomb by Joshua Fratis

HOURS by aidanvoidout

i wish you were dead. by Sofía Abarca

INK by Sangita V Nuli

Inside by Ira Vlasenko

Into The Sun by Dark Star

January by litrouke

Jungle adventure by Paul Barter

The Last Christmas Present by JG Heithcock

Lazy Wizard’s Guide by Lenard Gunda

Let Them Eat Cake by Alicia Morote

A Long Way to the Nearest Star by SV Linwood

Lost at the market by Nynym

Lost Coastlines by William Dooling

The Lottery Ticket by Dorian Passer, Anton Chekhov

Low-Key Learny Jokey Journey by Andrew Schultz

Lucid by Caliban’s Revenge

A Matter of Heist Urgency by FLACRabbit

No One Else Is Doing This by Lauren O’Donoghue

Nose Bleed by Stanley W. Baxton

One Final Pitbull Song (at the End of the World) by Paige Morgan (skipping due to helpful content warnings)

One Way Ticket by Vitalii Blinov

The Only Possible Prom Dress by Jim Aikin

The Pool by Jacob Reux

The Princess of Vestria by KPO

Prism by Eliot M.B. Howard

Star Tripper by Sam Ursu

The Staycation by Maggie H

Thanatophobia by Robert Goodwin

The Thick Table Tavern by manonamora

The Thirty Nine Steps by Graham Walmsley

Through the Forest with the Beast by Star

The Tin Mug by Alice E. Wells, Sia See and Jkj Yuio

To Persist/Exist/Endure, Press 1 by Anthony O

Tower of Plargh by caranmegil

Traveller’s Log by Null Sandez

Trouble in Sector 471 by Arthur DiBianca

U.S. Route 160 by Sangita V Nuli

Under the Bridge by Samantha Khan

Use Your Psychic Powers at Applebee’s by Geoffrey Golden

A Walk Around the Neighborhood by Leo Weinreb

Who Shot Gum E. Bear? by Damon L. Wakes

Witchfinders by Tania Dreams

You Feel Like You’ve Read this in a Book by Austin Lim

You May Not Escape! by Charm Cochran

Zero Chance of Recovery by Andrew Schultz

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Is there an overlap so far this year between thinly-reviewed games and Windows executables? I seem to recall that being a pattern in previous years, but I’m not sure if it holds up across time.

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So far none of the games that had 0 public reviews at the time of my playing were windows executables, which is a surprise! I guess we’ll see the overall trend at the end.

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Figured I’d bump this thread every 10 reviews so people can see if I got to their games yet.

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I’ve posted 10 more reviews; this group includes two games I beta-tested: The Princess of Vestria, and According to Cain. Comp rules say I can’t put a rating in the actual ballot, so to be extra cautious I’m not assigning them an IFDB rating until after the comp is over. I do like both of them though!

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Thanks for the review, and thanks for making Cain a better game!

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Thank you very much for your review.

All the best

Richard

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Thanks for the review of Crash, Brian, and for the encouragement to make a post-comp release! I’ll definitely be doing that.

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I’m glad it helped! I think the game should place above average, it has a lot going for it. I’d love to see more games from you in the future.

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From @mathbrush 's IFDB-review:

I think this is already a good game, but I think with a few tweaks it could become a great game. Maybe there could be a post-comp release with a bit more things written in?

I wholeheartedly agree. Glad you want to put in the extra effort to push Crash even higher.

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Thanks for the review @mathbrush ! Also yay, now I have a review on ifdb :slight_smile:

The missing of the ‘it’ pronoun was already reported during beta testing, but I did not want to risk breaking the game by adding it hastily. I already implemented it during October and will be added as a post comp update to benefit future players. I find it to be too big of a change to allow myself adding it during the comp.

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Another batch of 10 is up; I’m mostly focusing on games with few reviews first, then longer games.

Hey @mathbrush - I’m the author of Graveyard Strolls and saw your review. Just want to touch upon something - when you mention there isn’t any branching and that there are 3-4 screens, that isn’t true. There should be four characters/beats you can encounter Hank, Xenhortio, Dog, Mother and there are about 13 different endings you can encounter, many with pseudo-save points where you can backtrack to a certain choice that affects the narrative in some way. I can help you out if you missed something, but the game really isn’t what you characterize it as in your review.

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I’m glad you contacted me then! My apologies for seeing it incorrectly. Do you have a little guide I could look at to see more? I’d be happy to revise my review based on the new information.

Edit: The only character I met was mother. In one ending, I never went to the graveyard. In another, I I died after I think Mother scratched me? In the third, I heard mother’s voice but then left and I felt like things would have been different if I had stayed. I thought I had tried every possibility of links after I had seen those three.

Editedit: Okay, I see what happened; looking back, I must have found the 2 early endings (not 3, I think) and just assumed that was the whole game. I’ll go back and replay!

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Not a problem - I’ve just uploaded a walkthrough file to the IFComp site but here it is for convenience:
graveyardstrolls_importantbranches.txt (1.9 KB)

I’m writing this as you’ve updated your reply so I think you’ve figured it out! The endings you got to were early enough to where I felt I didn’t need to include the save points. That’s something I could change though. In any case, thanks so much for understanding and playing it again! Looking forward to your updated review.

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Okay, I revised it. I’m glad they changed the rules so that authors can respond to reviews now, because I had seriously misunderstood the game and missed 20% of its content. Thanks again for the feedback!

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I’ve put up 10 more; there are some truly fun games in this competition.

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Thanks for the review, and thanks for helping shape the game. I appreciate all the input. :slight_smile:

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Darn!!

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I can take a crack at it if you’d like!