If someone with 2900 IFDB reviews gets stuck there too, I guess I can feel a little less bad about sucking at parser.
9 Likes
Mathbrush is human! He forgot to examine something! This happens to me several times every game I play.
9 Likes
With me, I have never forgotten to examine since I was testing mathbrushâs current game and said something about making things super obvious (although it was pretty obvious anyway) when I couldâve just examined it and solved everything. I felt like I had missed something very important and vowed never to forget again.
Just kidding! But that was an incentive.
4 Likes
The sad truth is that with my heavy reliance on walkthroughs over the years I never developed parser skillsâŚitâs like doing weightlifting but without the weightsâŚ
All the Troubles Come My Way
I think I underestimated this game going in. It seemed just like a regular old Ink game with a silly premise that would be over in a few minutes.
Instead, it was a somewhat longer ink game with a pretty funny premise and a lot more state tracking than Iâm used to in Ink games.
You play as a cowboy who was been transported to New York City (I read that in the voice of the old pace picante commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6AFz2fbr8&t=13s). Once there, you have to find your cowboy hat!
I liked the tone of the game. It reminded me a bit of old âholy foolâ operas/plays where someoneâs pretty dumb but is resistant to suffering and oddly accepted by everyone around them.
I had recently revisited NYC after moving out years ago and it was fun to see how his experiences paralleled mine (like wandering through the city and accidentally ending up in Times Square, having wild youths follow you aroundâin my case, the students I was chaperoningâ, a helpful city native who doesnât really care whatâs going on with you as long as you donât get in their way too much).
There was a kind of stat system. I couldnât tell if it was actually checking stats or just being goofy, but I liked the stat names. And frequently I had to strategize to try to figure out what to do next.
So overall, this seems just right for a mid-size game in IFComp: not long enough that you get tired or bored, not short enough that you feel like you didnât play anything. Good middle ground.
8 Likes
Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head
This is a complex and rich puzzle game written in Twine.
In it, you are tasked with recovering 14 different puppets from a studio that is about to shut down. It seems like a mix of Muppets and Disney, with a studio next to a giant theme park and all the old history about to be demolished.
You, a former puppeteer, are tasked with stealing the puppets with the help of an anonymous accomplice. The twist is (revealed very early on), when you find a puppet, they come to life! Each puppet has different features that can help you in different situations.
Opposing you are evil puppets that stalk through the halls or vents. They can steal puppets from you. I always used âundoâ, so I donât know if you can get them back. If you donât have a puppet, they just kick you out, which can actually be a nice shortcut!
There are four main areas. I finished 3 on my own, getting all puppets, but needed to poke around the code to figure out how to get in and beat the 4th one. However, you can get a good ending even if you miss out on the final building.
While the premise is inherently amusing, the game is more about the march of time and the loss of childhood memories. There is a subplot that you only encounter in the very end parts of the game about the Black experience in America.
I found the ending to be a bit long, with page after page of fullscreen text. That part seemed like it was meant to be a tribute for Jim Henson (like the game mentions in the credits) or maybe an exercise in worldbuilding, but it was a little bit long for my liking. I may be a bit sensitive to that because I have something similar in my current game (a museum at the end describing everything you did or saw) and Iâve been trying to figure out what a good length of time to spend there is.
The âtrue endingâ I got with all 14 puppets worked out well, I think.
I found the random movement of the enemies a bit difficult to avoid at times, but with UNDO it wasnât too bad. It provided a bit of flavor. The only place I found really rough was the final building, where there were usually only 2 exits at a time, so moving in and out was pretty risky.
I think fans of big parser-like twine adventures (like Agatâs games) will like this a lot. I enjoyed it!
12 Likes
Trail Stash
This is a game by Andrew Schultz, an author who excels at wordplay-based games.
But, instead of a parser game, itâs twine!
The conceit of this one is taking pairs of words in pairs (so 4 words total) so that if you switch the first letters or (or chunk of letters) of the first pair, you get the second pair. Just like the name: âTrail Stashâ, if you switch the TR and ST, becomes 'Stale Trash".
I wondered how effective Twine could be in this format. After all, this is a similar concept to the parser games; would it be less effective here?
But as I played, I thought, âhmm, this is great!â. One of the difficulties I often have with the parser games by Andrew Schultz is that it is often uncertain how to interact when you have an item in a location; do you type the solution of the wordplay puzzle, or use a verb with the object?
Twine solves this problem by limiting possible interactions.
This doesnât make things easy, though! I had difficulty near the end game where just nothing seemed to work. Then I realized that I had missed an important solution early on and missed out on three locations!
So overall, this worked well. The only caveats I had are below:
Caveats
There was a recurring bug, that took this form:
You found the tech chip just around the corner in [object Object][Weedy Nerds]
The name of the object and place changed, but the âraw codeâ didnât. This happened about half of the times I used the wrong object in the wrong place.
The other is that there was no apparent connection between some of the items and the solutions. For instance, you have to detect losers, but the object is funk pail or punk fail. Although, now that I think of it, I guess 'punkâ has multiple meanings. So maybe itâs just my lack of imagination.
9 Likes
Iâve got a mental list of âtough cookiesâ, which may or may not be all in my head, who I expected to judge me harshly and find all the errors and pick my themes apart on an academic level. Maybe this is just my own merciless review style bubbling up, but when one of these âtough cookiesâ takes a look at my work, Iâm always on tenterhooks when I click the link.
This is me fainting with relief. The Spring Thing himself likes my game!!! Thank you so much for your generous and thorough review.
4 Likes
Yeah, it was a great game! Glad your work paid off!
1 Like
Dr Ludwig and the Devil
This is a parser game about making a bargain with the devil. I decided to put Der FreischĂźtz in the background for its devil-dealing music.
This game was polished and well-thought through. You are a mad scientist/demonologist in the vein of Dr. Frankenstein or Dr. Faust. You have summoned the devil in order to bargain the secrets of life from him. But, the cost may be too greatâŚ
Everything worked seamlessly in this game. At no point did I encounter anything I would consider a bug or a typo or bad puzzle design. At times it was leaning a little against my religious sensibilities but it always backed off before getting too harsh.
The writing is funny, with a fake-old-time language for an ancient grimoire that was able to contrast modern tropes with older grammar forms. All the NPCs, including the Devil, were played with a nice mix of intelligence and stupidity, just smart enough to oppose you and plenty dumb enough to fall for your tricks.
The puzzles seemed very hard at first, but through simple exploration I was able to make some guesses on what to do, and so while I had to think a lot, I never needed hints or a map.
The conversation system worked well, with both general topics and individual topics. It felt seamless for me.
So, I thought it was a great game. Very nice work!
13 Likes
The Sculptor
This is a Texture game, one of several in IFComp. Itâs a game system where you drag actions onto nouns, with different actions having different nouns. Hovering over the nouns can add more info, as well. Itâs a character study of the main character, a sculptor who has given up everything to buy one final marble block and carve a sculpture.
The man is deeply invested in this. He focuses on his work despite the loss of things like family, friends, and good health. The writing is highly dramatic, with unusual positioning across the screen and extensive use of metaphor. Hereâs a sample sentence: âHer words were cascaded venom, and you, their subject.â
It also changes between tenses from time to time, in a way thatâs hard to know if itâs intentional or not. I found at least one important typo. In general, the text is ambitious but I was confused from time to time.
What works best for me here is the effort put into descriptiveness. I can feel the authorâs enthusiasm for the story and that gives me enthusiasm for the story. But for me, it was hard to sustain that emotion; the whole story was at the peak of intensity, but I think it could have benefitted from having more contrast between high-intensity and low-intensity. But thatâs a personal choice.
There is some intermittent strong profanity in the story that, for me, doesnât fit the abstract and metaphorical text very much, but it may be intended as an earthy contrast to the heights of the rest of the game.
10 Likes
Death on the Stormrider
This was a nice, substantial puzzler parser game with some fun hand-drawn sketches.
It starts with a large chunk of made-up names which was a bit hard to parse at first, but that quickly settled down. Next, I got confused by the directions, but fortunately the map made that a breeze.
Then it settled down into a sequence of puzzles. You play as a foreigner on an airship whose brother has been accused of murder. Its your job to navigate the ship and collect evidence!
The game could have easily gotten overwhelming if not for the helpful tablet which kept clues and to-do tasks. I consulted it frequently.
I got halfway through the game without consulting hints. The second half, I had to consult hints for. It turns out that every time I needed hints, the answer was the exact same.
I try not to read reviews before playing a game, but from browsing I suspect that almost every review has addressed this point (the puzzle I needed hints on), so Iâll collapse that part of my review in case the author is sick of reading about it.
Hard puzzle
Almost half of the puzzles in the second part of the game revolve around breaking pipes to make Bashti move around.
How are we supposed to know to do this? WellâŚ
- Bashti comes up when we mess with the valve in one room.
- Pipes are mentioned prominently in a couple of rooms, and examining them says they are âeverywhere in the shipâ.
- The description of the wrench mentions it fits the pipes that go all over the ship.
- The wrench is not used in any other puzzles.
AndâŚthatâs pretty much all of the clues. I suspect (given my own past behavior) that the author thought of this idea for a puzzle and started organizing the game around it to the point where it seemed obvious, but then forget to put in the clues that would make it clear.
The reason I donât think the above clues are sufficient is that âall over the shipâ is ambiguous. They are explicitly mentioned in at least 4 rooms; it would be logical that that is whatâs meant by âall over the shipâ. In addition, the description of the pipes doesnât have a clear âhookâ that shows you can mess with them. The wrench does, but the pipes donât. Is there a gasket or something that looks turnable? I would have been afraid to mess with the pipes in case it made the ship not fly, or something.
I think it would be fine to hint this better, since even if you know that the pipes are breakable and that it summons Bashti, using that fact is pretty hard on its own and requires several leaps of intuition. So heavily hinting this puzzle wouldnât ruing the rest of the game. Iâd recommend having an ambient âa pipe next to you hissesâ or something every now and then in every room, and make the pipe description specifically mention it can be turned and/or that it looks fragile but inessential, or that it has signs of having been repaired many times before.
But thatâs just personal opinion and may not fit in with the authorâs design. Either way I had fun!
Outside of this puzzle, I found this to be a well-made and difficult puzzler parser game that I definitely enjoyed, especially analyzing the evidence!
With one last note on the story, I did find it a bit odd how much we can do without getting in trouble. Like wandering into places we clearly should not be. So I had to suspend disbelief a bit. On the other hand, I enjoyed the many layers of information and the multiple endings and plots within plots. So Iâll be rating it highly.
12 Likes
Thank you very much for the review!
Re That One Puzzle: When you first examine the wrench, it mentions that itâs the right size to work with any of the pipes on the ship, and causes the pipes to stop being scenery until you break them. The hope was that the pipes showing up in every room description would hint at what to do with themâŚbut unfortunately it hasnât worked as well as Iâd thought it would, because itâs not always obvious the room description has changed, and people arenât going to read the room text as closely once theyâre already used to what it says. For the post-comp release Iâm definitely going to find better ways to hint at that! Because realizing that you can take that action isnât supposed to be the main puzzle; figuring out where and why to take it is. And struggling with realizing that you can do it just makes the other parts less fun.
6 Likes
Hmm, I donât think I actually examined the item in game since the previous items I obtained all seemed self explanatory. Seems like this one was on me!
3 Likes
Assembly
This is a great-looking Inform game. Inform has the capacity to make âwebsite templatesâ that people can share with each other to make projects look nicer, but people rarely use them. I donât know if this one uses a custom template or just had css/html edited manually, but it looks great.
The concept is really funny, too. What if IKEA instructions were summoning rituals for ancient Gods?
Actual gameplay revolves around following IKEA instructions closely. I found that fun, as I like both assembling and deassembling IKEA furniture. My school had to throw out some cabinets recently that had gotten old/bug-ridden, and I had a hammer and just deconstructed it from memory (remove the thin bar, then pry the back panelling, then remove the edge pieces, then break out the last bit of wood with the hammer, etc.)
Anyway, this game scratched that itch, which was nice. Most of the puzzles revolve around clever ways to use the instructions. The game was a little smaller than I first imagined, but in a good way, as it was beginning to get overwhelming.
I did have some trouble with phrasing. It was hard to find an an antonym for âinsertâ. The transcript shows my flailing about. I ended up also using hints for what Iâd consider the biggest puzzle of the game, but it was entirely fair, I just was getting close to the 2 hour limit.
Overall, pretty fun!
assembltext.txt (107.5 KB)
11 Likes
Little Match Girl 4
Iâve seen a few people saying they felt out of the loop with this game since they didnât play the earlier little match girl games. I can say (having played the first 3 but not the offshoots) that the only thing important from the first games is in the recap. This game does continuity kind of like early Adventure Time, with mostly âadventure of the weekâ stuff with occasional throwbacks.
The game features some beautiful styling, with nice location descriptions, music, and scrolling text. I missed some of the intro timed text since my son asked me for help with something; timed text isnât so much of a pet peeve as it is something that just doesnât fit into my play style of fitting in games around the corners of my life. Fortunately the ending could be scrolled back if missed!
Apparently this game has a ton in common with Metroid Prime. Iâve never played that game, but I looked it up and there are quite a few similarities, even some cameos, if you can call it that.
The overall structure, like most of the Matchgirl games, is that looking into any source of fire (outside of the nighttime stars) will teleport the player to one of five or so worlds. Thereâs some nice variety here, including space, dinosaurs, wild west, etc. The Pirates of Penzance had a strong presence.
Each area has some kind of powerup that helps you explore other areas. In the meantime, there are different diversions (such as helping a goldfish or doing a time typing game).
I found the structure and side quests engaging and fun. The writing was flawless for me and had its moments of gravitas. I observed how it was done with interest, as my current WIP is structure much like this one, with different worlds or dimensions leading to some emotional moments (including the use of third person). I liked how it worked here, so it gave me more confidence.
I did get stuck once. I suspected I had missed some exit. I used location based hints and quickly realized I hadnât noticed an exit, and then solved the game soon after that.
I can see the weight of a long series making it hard for people to get invested in playing a game, but this one as a standalone might as well be the introduction to the series, as continuity isnât really a major feature of the games. They can be played in just about any order.
Itâs nice to see high quality in the comp. Between Ryan Veeder, JJ Guest, BJ Best, we have three former winners entering well-done games, as well as newcomers producing polished games of great value.
13 Likes
Beat Witch
This parser game had a really strong storyline and distinct worldbuilding, with some pretty fleshed out characters and interesting UI.
You are a beat witch; you see, some adolescent girls wake up one day with the power to be hurt by music and to use music (and other things?) to affect others.
The entire city has been blasted by an EMP and thousands are dead, so everyoneâs blaming you, and you have to set things straight.
Music is frequently mentioned in the game, and is included in the game itself through vorple. Color is also used, and there is frequently either timed text or text that scrolls when you hit a button (I think itâs mostly the latter).
The story is at times gruesome and at times cruel, with some kindness mixed in. There is a lot of control, whether through magic or force, and a lot of deception. The villain is a definite villain, and some of the lines are darkly effective, although some are a bit weird (I swear at one point they said Iâm gonna squeeze you like a fart.)
The gameplay seems entirely linear; at times there are choices you can make which are remembered and mentioned later on in the game, but mostly it seems like the game is designed for you to find the trigger for the next cutscene. Its generally smooth and I rarely had difficulty finding what to do.
So, overall Iâd say this is pretty high quality. Something for me seemed slightly missing from the story; maybe more breathers from the intensity of the action? Something to add more contrast to make the dramatic moments pop out more. But the styling is excellent and the writing is very descriptive.
6 Likes
Detective Osiris
This is a longish Ink game where you are Osiris, recently deceased pharaoh and newly resurrected God.
Most of the game consists of travelling to different locations and interrogating different Gods. There is some freedom (in which Gods to visit first) and some saving of state (some topics only come up after you talk to others elsewhere).
There was one math puzzle which I both overthought (by getting tripped up by the mention of Base 12 beforehand, which turned out not to be important) and underthought (by just not getting it).
The characters were very diverse and interesting. Some gods were nice; Geb was a big loser who smoked weed and acted like a peeping tom.
I classified murder mysteries in an earlier post. This one was the kind (as far as I could tell) where you complete puzzles and the mystery solves itself in the process.
Overall, the setting and characters were the biggest strength to me. I didnât derive enjoyment from the sex scenes. I did like the reimagination of the Egyptian mythological world, and thought the styling looked good.
8 Likes
Thanks so much for taking the time to play and review Beat Witch, Brian! Iâm glad you appreciated it as much as you did. (And yeah, that line was Denise going even weirder than usual.)
3 Likes
Thank you for taking the time to play and review Detective Osiris! I appreciate your feedback!
3 Likes
The Long Kill
I think I can summarize this game for me by saying that it very effectively told a story that I didnât like.
It is a long twine game about a sniper fighting in Afghanistan, told in non-linear style through different points in his life. It uses a lot of interesting styling, has music, and uses images generated by OpenAI, according to the end credits. The images look almost like hallucinations, fitting for this grim and unpleasant story.
As the author has stated, this story includes scenes of torture and violence. The author writing this has talent, and has used that talent to effectively show the horror of torture. This is not something I enjoyed or wanted.
With multiple wars going on and massive disinformation campaigns causing me trouble in real life it was interesting to spend some time thinking about the game. It does show (and this is something I believe) that most people at the âbottomâ on both sides arenât there out of hatred or desire to kill but because their government or other leaders have pushed them into it. Itâs a terrible job where the better you are at it the more lives you ruin.
On the other hand, it depicts the Afghanistan enemies as being particularly despicable in terms of torture and murder. Iâve always thought that in the past, having grown up during the 20 yr-long war in Afghanistan, so I looked up âtorture in Afghanistanâ. The first thing that came up was the long-term torture and death of two Afghani citizens carried out by the US. The second was the torture of a British officer by the Taliban.
I donât know, this isnât the kind of stuff I want to read about or really even think about. I would like to help end war, for sure, and I think there are ways I can do that privately and publicly. But I donât think even people who were captured and tortured want other people to learn to vicariously suffer for them. And I donât need more convincing that war atrocities are a very bad thing.
So, the writing on the story was very effective, the use of media and nonlinear narrative was expert, and the math calculations were interesting. But I did not enjoy the game and certainly donât want to play it again.
9 Likes