I fly-readed the review and seemed to me enough polished, addequate and polite. The great thing that games can reach is generating sensantions, feelings and introspection (among fun and entertainment) in their players. Everyone knows that I read almost any review here and in IFDB.
I would feel very happy of having a review written by MB if (almost impossible) I will write an IF game someday.
4 Likes
Thank you for your kind review and feedback, @mathbrush ! Glad to know youāre a fellow armchair detective/mystery enthusiast as well 
I was inspired by the many excellent IF mystery games (including yours!) and thought itād be nice to come up with one.
Have taken your feedback into consideration for game revisions. Will definitely work on the replacing the standard responses. And yes, that piano should be playable. Thank you for pointing out these blind spots!
3 Likes
Lake Starlight
This game features a magical protagonist that goes away to camp for magic kids.
At first I thought the game had read my mind; I named my protagonist Eduardo, and I was shocked to see Eduardo raised in a Spanish family! But then I realized it was just part of the story, especially when I saw that Eduardo was chosen to be a girl (I had imagined a boy), although gender is explicitly stated to be somewhat flexible".
The game treats many social issues, with a heavy emphasis on climate change and corporations destroying the wilderness, which gave me fond flashbacks to movies like Ferngully and Ernest Goes to Camp from my youth. Many of the NPCs were black, indigenous and/or hispanic, with a wide variety of hair types, skin tones and backgrounds. Mention was made of differing family types, including having two moms or being orphaned. And there was a discussion on how magic had been stigmatized in women more than in men.
So it seemed like social issues were a heavy topic in the game, not as a side tangent but as the central focus.
Thereās a lot of promising features in the game but it is incomplete. Only the first chapter or so are finished, and there are some typos here and there, not enough to be distracting but enough to be noticeable. So once things are fleshed out I could see it being pretty solid.
Thereās a lot where itās hard for me to say if it worked or not. The personalities of the NPCs, the voice in the playerās head. A lot of it depends on where this ends up going. So I think my rating might end up a little in the middle of the range, getting bumped up or down if a continuation is made in the future. But overall thereās a lot of promise here, both in the writing and the art.
8 Likes
I found your medical diagnosis part the most intriguing. Itād be interesting to play a game as a coroner where you have to identify cause of death, with some books or something nearby to help you. Itād be a bit morbid, but interesting, kind of like Bones.
6 Likes
Having spent a large portion of the last day attempting to figure out how these pieces could possibly fit together, I would be very curious to hear what youāve come up with, because NGL, my brain is melting the more I try.
4 Likes
There was a pretty faithfully-realized teach-yourself-medicine game in the comp like 20 years ago, IIRCā¦ Ah, I wasnāt finding it since Iād remembered the title as Caduceus, but it was actually Cheiron. Not especially successful, but itās an interesting idea!
5 Likes
Thank you. 
Had a similar game idea to your coroner suggestion as well but Iām hesitant as to the balance to strike in terms of how technical I should go and whether itād compromise on accessibility to the general public. Will need to put more thought into this. Creating new murder mysteries is always on my mind though, and I might also explore other IF mediums for the next one(s).
3 Likes
My guess is that the fear of black cars and people snooping out back is actually fear of police investigation and of getting arrested, not fear of getting killed.
Edit: I just saw your review where you picked up on some subtle clues at the end I didnāt pay attention to. If your theory is correct, then my thoughts donāt contribute to that interpretation.
3 Likes
I think that actually a neat possibility - since itās actually Casey whoās telling the story, it makes sense that her fears of getting caught would haunt the narrative. But yeah, I think thereās deeper wonkiness here!
2 Likes
My Pseudo-Dementia Exhibition
This game was good to read. Iāve known Bez for several years, and while I have not been able to be as helpful as some of his other friends, Iāve been able to watch his journey over time and follow along.
This is an interactive museum of Bezās experiences through several different locations, with one exhibit per living location. There are photos, transcribed documents, and music from several indie musicians, which sounds good.
The museum is a well-written and fascinating look into the life of one individual. It is frank and open about challenges like debilitating illnesses (the pseudo-dementia, for instance), suicidal thoughts and impulses, homelessness, unsupportive staff and family, and so on. The fascinating part is how relatable it is; this is a very specific life with considerations that arenāt universally applicable, and yet for me the writing was relatable and approachable, and I could connect with it and consider similar challenges in my own life.
Itās not all challenges though. There are many successes and realizations and small happinesses mixed together with the hard times.
Bez has written solid games before with interesting mechanics, as well as interactive essays that are more limited in scope and linear. This game combines a lot of the best of both, with a non-fiction emphasis but with more ways to interact. Thereās no need to make autobiographical fiction āfunā, since itās just a story of life, but I think that the features like graphics, music, and navigation improve the reader experience and increase the connection between writer and reader.
16 Likes
All Hands Abandon Ship
This was another game of interest, as one of the last things Iām programming in my game is a similar scenario to this: trying to flee a ship that is being destroyed and trying to make it to an escape pod. It was interesting to look at this and try to see what worked for me and what didnāt.
This is a timed game, with approximately 100 turns. I found that time ran out pretty quickly for me; I had explored about half of the ship when I first found out the game had ended.
That time is marked by frequent messages from the shipās computer. The messages start normal but become more and more unusual. I found that for my tastes it was a bit too frequent and intense; I felt like I barely had time to do anything before it was pushing me to go and run and do.
The layout is large enough and the puzzles complex enough that it felt weighty and had that feel of ādonāt know if I can do thisā before the puzzles were solved and āahh so thatās how it isā after. There was clear competency in coding; I didnāt encounter problems where puzzles malfunctioned or interactions were misleading. However, there was somewhat of a deficit in polish; many objects are undescribed, and the game could have had more scenery items implemented. A particularly rough example was the holographic doctor, who had no description and didnāt reply to TALK TO or ASK DOCTOR ABOUT DOCTOR or stuff like that.
But the manual was really cool, as was the multiple paths, and it gave me some ideas. The overall craftmanship was high, I think I had different expectations from the author. So I definitely think if the author did another game, Iād expect it to be really good.
8 Likes
The Whisperers
This is a choice game in interactive play format, with the option to act out the play yourself.
It is set in Russia in the time of the NKVD and the period between the two World Wars. One character, a policeman, has to deal with those close to him, some of whom are dangerously too progressive and others that are dangerously too conservative.
While the Russian setting originally suggested similarities to writers like Dostoevsky or Chekhov, I actually found more similarities here with Ibsenās plays. There is a great deal of emphasis on interpersonal relationships that are fundamentally flawed but with an underlying spark of life; not of hope, or of joy, but simply of a determination to continue existing.
Iāve seen other reviews describe the ending as perhaps weak; I saw a comment saying there was a third ending and tried it as well. I do think that something is missing. I feel like the narrative arc is missing a little more denouement. We build up throughout and get a climax, with the endings all being very climactic, but thereās not enough time to resolve the tension and resolve the various threads. So I donāt think thereās anything wrong with whatās here, but I think for my personal tastes Iād like a little more. Iāll be rating this one highly.
14 Likes
One King to Loot them All
This game is one whose development I have followed for some time.
Iāve divided this review into two parts: the first, descriptive, meant for the general audience and author. The second is some thoughts I had on the design that are constructive criticism that can be safely ignored if no such criticism is desired.
Descriptive Review: This is a parser game set in a Conan The Barbarian-like world, with a muscular barbarian king who travels about fighting monsters and wizards and generally destroying things.
There is a cast of memorable NPCs and the writing has a strong voice, with complete customization of almost all messages and a rich setting.
This was originally developed in conjunction with the single choice jam; this game, instead of having exactly one action in the whole game, like most other entries, has exactly one correct action in each location (or, more appropriately, only one allowed action in each point in the game, since some rooms require consecutive correct actions).
There is also a limit on available verbs (customized to have clever names), so that means that at any point, to progress, you need to figure out which of the available verbs to use. Theoretically, this means that you could progress at any point just by trying all of the verbs on all of the nouns. The author works around this by frequently requiring unusual or surprising combinations.
Overall, it took me around 1.5 hours, and I found it clever and richly descriptive.
Critical feedback
Overall, parser games that arenāt completely puzzle free benefit from friction of some kind, some kind of opposition to forward progress. For my taste, I prefer games where there is little friction knowing what to do, but more friction on how to do it.
But, due to the limitation on number of verbs and actions per room, I often felt myself not knowing what the game wanted me to do. Frequently by acting in the incorrect way, it would correct you and tell you what to do, but that was often the only way forward (trial and error).
For instance, at one point I was nude, and the game said I could not yet leave. I found clothes and put them on, but then I still couldnāt leave until I had looked in the mirror. Why? Earlier, interacting with the mirror said that I didnāt want to look while I was naked, so it did indicate that wearing clothes would let me look in the mirror, but it didnāt give a good reason in-game to wear clothes.
The wine puzzle that others have mentioned in reviews is similar, with the game not giving you much indication on why that would be useful other than locking you out of all other options.
There is a similar reticence to provide direction in other areas as well. The most important error message in the game, the one that you are likely to see most often and which is intended to guide you, is
The barbarian furrows his mighty brow. āWhat kind of sorcery is this?ā he exclaims. Then his voice booms like thunder as he proclaims, āseek solace in the HELP command! You shall find a guide to tame the chaos besieging you!ā
For me, this does not communicate āyou entered a command which is not understoodā. The Help command is useful, and I used it, but I got thrown off by this comment a few times. One can certainly infer, upon careful reading, that the barbarian does not understand some message, but help messages often benefit from direct, unambiguous, and clear statements.
Some error messages seemed like two overlapping messages, like a ābeforeā rule and an āinsteadā rule both giving off giving slightly different errors. One very confusing one happened early on:
Give Axe
You stand there, gazing at the undefined void, feeling your impatience growing.
If you want to show something to someone, make sure youāve got it in your possession first.
This is doubly confusing. First, the first line seems like a different error than the second line (and there is a line break between them instead of paragraph break). The first line doesnāt communicate in any way what Iāve done wrong.
For the second one, while it makes sense and is clear and direct, it is actually not true; I was holding the axe. So this seemed like a bug.
Finally, some places could use more synonyms For instance:
l
Dark River
The boat gently rocks on the waters of the dark river, its lantern swinging in rhythm with its currents.The ferryman sits at the helm of the small boat, his black-robed form almost merging with the shadows. His hands, the only visible part of him, move with an eerie grace as they guide the boat through the riverās depths. You sense a presence beneath the surface, something massive and ominous stirring in the depths.
You are carrying a goat (sacrifice), your axe (wielded), a bottle of wine (closed), and your loincloth (being worn).
regard depths
Your muscles tense as you consider the command.
Your keen eyes sweep the surroundings, but you find nothing of the sort in this vicinity. Your attention would be better focused on whatās truly before you.regard presence
You stand there, gazing at the undefined void, feeling your impatience growing.
Your keen eyes sweep the surroundings, but you find nothing of the sort in this vicinity. Your attention would be better focused on whatās truly before you.regard water
You flex your powerful muscles and raise an eyebrow, a hint of confusion on your face.
Your keen eyes sweep the surroundings, but you find nothing of the sort in this vicinity. Your attention would be better focused on whatās truly before you.regard river
You feel the ominous presence approaching you from underneath, slowly rising and circling the ferry until it reaches the riverās surface.A massive serpent with a body as thick as a tree trunk erupts from the waters, raising its head with a deafening roar, its maw lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth. The serpent turns its head towards you and prepares to strike.
Now, this is all just my opinion. I skew a lot towards a certain style of game, while I believe Onno Brouwer has set out to make a game that defies expectations. Does it defy them in good ways? Yes! The UNDO trick is neat, and a lot of the mechanics are unusual. I do think that this is a game that breaks new ground. So if my suggested changes bring it more in line with a different kind of game, that might actually be a bad thing. On the other hand, some changes might enhance the authorās vision, so Iām leaving the comments either way.
Transcript:
lootking.txt (137.2 KB)
9 Likes
The Gift of What You Notice More
Iāve liked Xavidās parser games before, so this twine game looked interesting.
It reminded me of an extended version of Astrid Dalmadyās game You Are at a Crossroads, which is the first Twine game I really liked and the game that got me into choice-based games originally. Both of these games involving ritualistic revisiting of locations, unlocking more content by having net items in an inventory.
I like Astrid Dalmadyās game, but itās pretty small. So this game is nice way to get that same kind of feel, although this game has quite a bit of its own structure and story that is unique to it.
You are packing up, ready to move out of a home, but every in your house are pictures of a man who is someone close to you, a boyfriend or spouse or lover. You have worries and fears and concerns, and you begin to explore those in a symbolic way.
Several helpful people guide you as you go along, exploring memories of the past in a symbolic format. At first there is much you canāt do, which can get frustrating, but eventually your new capabilities give you more strengths.
The feel is almost a parser/choice hybrid, with its extensive set of locations and inventory items. But it manages to tread the thin line between too many options and too few; I occasionally found myself trying to lawnmower all options, but in each case I realized that it would be easier to just step back and think.
So overall, a strong game. The psychology of it isnāt unusually insightful, but the symbolism employed was enjoyable and interesting to me and the descriptions were evocative.
9 Likes
Hi Brian,
Thank you for playing and reviewing my game, especially the critical feedback. It will greatly help in improving my game!
4 Likes
For Eternity Again and Again
This is a twine game that uses some simple branching and rejoining to tell a short story. In the absence of state tracking and styling, its stripped down to just the essentials of twine. Such a story can be amazing or awful, depending mostly on the storytelling.
This game has 2 main paths and four different endings. I played through once, backed up and tried another path, and then looked at the code. The code gave me a much deeper appreciation for the game, as I hadnāt checked out the other 2 paths. They strongly complement the other paths, so I highly recommend playing through at least three paths to see how things go.
Itās a shorter game, and all the paths tell of a cycle of rebirth and of timelines in a universe that has gone wrong. It also focuses on love.
Overall, itās pretty slight and small, but I loved the storytelling trick with the different paths. The game could benefit a bit from more work; for instance, there were numerous typos in the early game, around 1 per screen that I noticed. Other than that, it seems like a complete story as envisioned by the author.
8 Likes
To Sea in a Sieve
I approached this game with a combination of excitement and hesitancy. To Hell in a Hamper, the previous game in the series, is one of my top 10 IF games of all time, out of around 2900 reviews. That puts To Hell in a Hamper in the top 0.4% of all games ever for me. So on the one hand, Iām sure Iād like more, while on the other the chance of any new game also being in my top 0.4% of all time would be pretty low.
Overall I liked it a lot, I can just say that. I found it more challenging than the first game and with more of a focus on adventure than comedy, though there is definitely a strong comedic slant. It was genuinely engaging and funny and, in my opinion, well written.
The idea is that the captain of your pirate vessel has fled his ship with his greatest treasures as well as you, a young cabin boy. Unfortunately, your row boat is sinking! You have to toss all of the captainās treasures out to succeed. Heās not willing to help, though, and a dangerous Yateveo tree is out to get you, too!
I mentioned this game being harder than the other, and thatās true. I got kind of stuck 4 times.
1-The very first puzzle. It took me a few tries to figure out what I was supposed to do without drowning. But I eventually got it!
2-Dealing with the tree. Again, I died a lot, but I was able to solve it by exploration. It basically turned my first twenty or thirty minutes into a one-move game (or I guess a three or four move game) where Iād try something and restart.
3-In the midgame, I got completely stuck. I asked for hints on almost everything, but most of them said āYou donāt need to worry about this yetā, which I loved, as it gave nothing away on those puzzles. I finally realized from one hint that I hadnāt examined the captainās coat.
4-Near the very end, I tried all sorts of stuff to throw out the empty barrel, but nothing worked. It turns out all I had to do was try a different command.
I liked the ending puzzle, a nice contrast to the rest of the puzzle style. And the final scene had some quit nice poetry in it.
So overall, Iād rate this as pretty difficult, but at no point in the four scenarios above was I unhappy. Itās hard, but a fun hard. Thatās good, and gives the game high points in my mind on the puzzle side.
On the writing and story side, well, like I said, this is different than the last game. That gameās humor depended heavily on the increasing absurdity of the objects you found. In this one, though, almost everything I found was reasonable. Instead, there was a lot more emphasis on the adventure of it all, like the helpful octopus, the dangerous tree, and above all the changing relationship of you and the captain. It was almost more like Violet than Lost Pig; each of your actions affects your relationship with the captain. So it was not as funny to me as To Hell in a Hamper, but I think it has a deeper story and a bit more substance.
Polish-wise, it was great. I took notes on two minor bugs but misplaced them. The one I remember is near the end it printed something like āYou can see a barrel floating here and an oar floating here.ā twice in the same paragraph, once after the room description and once after the captain description. My only other suggestion is that REFLECT LIGHT ONTO ____ and FOCUS LIGHT ONTO _____ should work in place of SUN because I typed that like 50 times. If you find a transcript that has that over and over again itās me!
In conclusion, this game isnāt in my top 0.4% of all time, but itās solidly in my top 4.0% of all time. Great work, and something I could recommend to people looking for humor, pirates, one-room games or great NPCs (maybe a nomination for Best NPC xyzzy?)
15 Likes
Bali B&B
(Note: Iām only playing non-archived games by invitation, and this one was invited!)
I spent more time and attention on this game than just about any other game in this comp so far, using the full 2 hours and thinking a lot.
This game is about a person who is part Australian and part Indonesian going back to Bali to visit family. To their surprise, they discover theyāre running a bed and breakfast for a week!
Like most Choicescript games, thereās a lot of customization here, but not too much. There are stats here, but they donāt seem to be used for pass/fail as much as just keeping track of your choices and giving you a consistent story.
I started out playing a boy, but over time and with the events of the game I started thinking of my character of a woman more, and ended up in a romance with the guy RO.
I think the game had a satisfying narrative arc for me. I read some other reviews before playing, which had expressed disappointment with a certain major arc not being fulfilled, but knowing that helped me be more satisfied with what I did see. The rewards and trials both build up over time in the game, with a satisfying action conclusion.
I enjoyed the cats, as others have mentioned. But most of all I enjoyed seeing a blend of cultures of which I have not previously been aware much of. The intersection of āwhat Australians are like on holidayā with the intersection of Indonesian and Chinese people and the effects of local religions, as well as the kinds of food available and the transportationā¦thereās a lot going on here and itās described lovingly. I donāt know how autobiographical it is, but it either seems that Felicity Banks is describing things from her own experience, and is part Indonesian, or that this was simply just written with a deep love for and interest in the region. Itās possible that, not being from the region, I may be mistaken as to authenticity or tone, but from an outside perspective it seems very nice. I enjoyed this overall.
12 Likes
Thank you so much for spending time and effort reviewing my game. I am choosing not to make any specific comments about reviews until after the comp, but I assure you that I am grateful for any and all comments, which are so useful in improving my game and future games.
4 Likes
Thank you for your review of To Sea in a Sieve! I was a little nervous to read it, knowing how much you had enjoyed To Hell in a Hamper, so Iām happy and relieved that you had fun playing the prequel. I will follow Felicityās example and refrain from making any more specific comments until after the comp.
6 Likes