Short reviews for short games

27.) Tried to play In Girum by @BenyDanette , but got stuck on the screen with the orange hat-looking graphic at the top. I spent about 15 minutes trying to move there but couldn’t-- I plowed through every move I could think of to move past the invisible blocks but did not succeed. It’s a really interesting game, so I’ll give it another whirl if I can figure that screen out. Any tips?

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If it’s the room I’m thinking of, you have to walk off the screen into the border near the bottom right corner to work your way around. Does that help?

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Yes, but still trying to get to the hat. At first I tried so many places to get onto to blue border and couldn’t so figured it wasn’t possible. Good lord, this screen is taking a long time. Almost 30 minutes just on this screen.

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Yeah, I think I button-mashed my way up there somehow. It’s somewhat of an S-shaped path with another border crossing on the top left, if I recall. Fortunately the game ended up being worth the struggle!

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Thanks for the review! I don’t dream lucidly either but wish I did, for the same reasons as you.

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I don’t know why this section of In Girum is so hard for me, but I’m started to get mad at it and sick of it and I have a lot of games to get through, so I am abandoning it after about 35 minutes spent trying to reach that hat. One day I’ll try it again.

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With bitsy (-like) games, you can make it faster by pressing any arrow key. It will skip the typing animation.

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27.) In Girum by @BenyDanette

I remember now that I didn’t have time to play any of the Grand Guignol games from Ectocomp at the time (my mother died in the middle of November), and that’s why there are all these Ectocomp games I didn’t play. I was really digging this game, loving the narration and the pixelated dungeon-crawling and the weird story, and then I hit the orange hat screen. I spent a looong time trying to get to the hat, and for some reason it was just extremely hard, and I was starting to hate the game, so I quit. I’ll try it another time.

28.) Pick Up the Cookies and Sigh by @pbparjeter

I have a confession to make that will probably dent my nerd cred a lot. I never read any Douglas Adams at all. I don’t know why. I guess when I was kid I was dismissive of popular things because I was a twit. Today there’s the word “basic,” and I had a horror of being basic then, although I embrace the crap out of my basicity now. So I was kind of stoked when the game told me it was better if I didn’t know the story.

There’s not much to do here, and it’s a very short story based on a joke, which is a pretty funny one. I don’t know if there was a time limit for making this, but I do wish a little more had been implemented here. Still, I laughed at the end and enjoyed my time with it.

29.) how do i love you? by @anon66621404

This has the ring of the autobiographical about it, although I suspect every single person has had an experience like it-- of being manipulated and gaslit by an asshole we decided to be in a relationship with. What is strange to me about it is the online-ness of it. The idea of going through that on a computer is very, very weird to me. All my experiences like this (and unfortunately there were many before I got my shit together and stopped picking jerks) were in person, which at least gives you the opportunity to throw a potted plant at the fucker (yes, I did this) and slam the door on him.

Anyway, a very relatable game in some ways, and like sci-fi in other ways for us oldsters. I cheered when the PC decided to chuck the loser, although frankly I don’t see any reason to have been so nice about it.

30.) Fix Your Mother’s Printer by @AdventureSnack

This was really cute. Great graphics, and something everyone can identify with. Very heartwarming. A lovely little snapshot of how the relationship between an adult child and their parent can see-saw: sometimes you need them to parent you, and sometimes you need to parent them. I really enjoyed this.

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I was 34 before I read any Douglas Adams, unless you count playing Infocom’s HHGtG, which I don’t. I got tired of missing the references. I actually liked his Dirk Gently series and his last book published posthumously, A Salmon of Doubt, over his more notorious Hitchhiker series.

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Just curious, did you use the newest Frankendrift version?
Releases

Frankendrift is still under Development, it hasn’t even reached v1.0 yet so the screenshot is not relevant to the game author but the Frankendrift developer. But I put a link in the Frankendrift thread so the developer will hopefully notice.

So please do not rate the game due to bugs in the Mac interpreter :slight_smile:

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I don’t rate games that I can’t play because of tech problems. I hope no one does that. I downloaded it at least a year ago, so my guess is that it’s old, but I used it without a problem then. Who knows? I’ll trash what I’ve got, install the newest version, and see if that works.

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posts a meme of Cersei walking through the crowd

… Shame… Shame… Shame…

:slight_smile:

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S’OK, @Pinkunz. I’ll be right there with you, but seeing as how I’m 52 and STILL haven’t read any Adams, I think I’ll be taking most of the rotten eggs on the shame-walk.

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Got me freaking out over here! Thanks for playing and this review, Amanda, I’m really glad you enjoyed it. (And I spy that loved x3! This is like finding an Easter egg.)

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Beny DM’d me. Here’s the solution:

Summary

The Xs are the blocks

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31.) Buck Rockford Heads West by @J_J_Guest

A very nice little Western, depressing as hell (although I chose all the worst options so maybe there’s a happier ending), that does a lot with its 500 words. A nice example of what can be done in a very tight space.

32.) Now We’re Clicking’, Team by @aschultz

I only knew this was about basketball because the cover art is of a basketball. I suppose this might mean something to sportsball people, but not being one myself, after picking my pre-sports habits, I clicked through the game data with no understanding of what it meant other than that I had won or lost. Seeing as how this game wasn’t written for a person who hasn’t followed or watched any sportsball ever, I suspect it will mean more to other players.

33.) No Space at the Movies by Kobato Games (no obvious handle)

Funny little game about trying to see a new popular movie but being late. I liked the various options and chuckled a few times. Nice job.

34.) Put-Peep™ by Pmarlow (no obvious handle)

A parser game in which a late-night work stint goes wonky. I fought with the parser a lot in this, and grumbled about exits not being listed in every room. But the map was small and easy to remember, so it didn’t make me instaquit the way not listing exits normally does. Although I wish this had been more robustly implemented, I enjoyed it.
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That’s one game by every author in the comp (that I didn’t already review elsewhere), I think, so I’ll take a break here and maybe get to some Shufflecomp games. If that’s not true and I missed someone, please point out who I missed and I’ll get to it.

I’m not going to re-review the Petite Morts or Seedcomp games, since I already did that, but I’ll say that of the ones in this jam, the standouts for me were:

Your Body a Temple, or the Postmodern Prometheus by @OverThinking
In a minute there is time by @pieartsy
ConfigurationUploader by @cchennnn
free bird. by @malacostraca

I remember all these vividly, even the ones from a year ago, so they have legs, for me at least.

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:joy:
I’m glad you reviewed Collision out of the 3 !
Thanks for the reviews too! they were fun to read through!

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I DID miss one author. Profuse apologies.

35.) Successor by @30x30

This was a good one to end on (although I may get around to the rest of them later). Lovely writing in the sad-- and hopeful-- story of planetary destruction and eventual regeneration. Terraforming leads to new worlds for people, and pure greed leads to some planets being used up. But time will pass, millennia will pass, and these worlds may become something new. No one who terraformed, or who stole and killed, will be around to see what happens, but life finds a way.

There are things to ponder in this story-- the “you” and the “me” who have such different outlooks, the heartbreak of things lost and gone, the hope and fear in wondering what will come next.

A very small but very rich story.

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@AmandaB Thanks Amanda! Re: Pick Up the Cookies and Sigh. There was no time limit, it was just a quick April Fools’ Joke.

A few other people have asked for more to be added … I don’t intend to add more, but the source code is here in case anyone else is inspired to do that.

@pinkunz: I actually liked his Dirk Gently series and his last book published posthumously, A Salmon of Doubt, over his more notorious Hitchhiker series.

I think I’ve read Dirk Gently more times than any other novel because it always seemed to be on the shelves at libraries when I was travelling.

It juggles a lot of plot threads really well especially the eagle / fighter pilot one … though Googling it again, some plot details were beyond me I guess.

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I have read the Dirk Gently novels, listened to the BBC productions and audio books. I watched the British series and am angry they canceled it. It was really good.

I was hoping for a long series.

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