As the eye can see
This made me think about the nature of interactivity. There are no choices, here, you simply click throigh the story to the end. And yet I felt the time I spent with each beautifully written paragraph was a choice in itself. How long to let the memory linger? This is ephemeral and well worth your time.
Your Little Haunting
Despite the ususal Petit morte trapping - like the ghost seriously lacking synonyms, this game was fun and creepy. The puzzle solution makes sense in retrospect, but I had some trouble figuring it out due to the sparseness of the implementation. I does something I wish more horrror IF did, use the trapping and conventions of puzzle solving in a parser game in a unique way.
Nick Neat-Trick-Treat
So english is my second language, so rhymes are already tricky, but I felt the game itself was not helpful at all. (The Eye command didn’t work for me?) After the walkthrough showed me commands I still have no idea how to arrive at, I chose not to play this further and not to rate it. This might just not be my cup of tea, might be easier when if I played the earlier games or english was my first language. As it stands, it left me utterly befuddled.
This does sound a bit harsh, so to reiterate: This is soley my personal experience. You might enjoy this is rhymes are you thing.
The Depths of Madness
What is it with IF and Lovecrraft? Anyway, I wanted to love this more than I actually did. The Call of Cthulhu has been used endlessly (but can apparently not lie eternally, he he he) as a reference, as a quote, so much that it has almost become parody. Yet I can’t really fault this piece for using it. It’s mostly used as a starting point to tell its own Lovecraftian story, It’s all over soon, but the writing is evocative. I’d love to see more from this author, as this is a promising start.
At the strike of 12
What a great premise! A bit marred by the unevenness of the writing. Again, petit morte shows. With another round or two of editing this could’ve been even stronger. I did like the clear indication of which ending your reached (the omission of wich I myself am often guility of). For fear of sounding like a broken record: Would love this as a complete game!
Like a sky full of locusts
In 2016 or so, I played D&D over Skype with Ryan and his friends in Australia. I had to get up at 2am and had a lot of fun. We played the beginning of Curse of Strahd and all died. It was fun! This has no bearing on this reviews. I just remembered and it amused me greatly.
I love Ryan’s writing. This story seems to be an entry in one of his ongoing series. The tone here is great. The snarkiness of the frame story with the kind of earnestness of the actual game. I’m not sure if the guns and bullets were meant to imply an survival horror aspect? It became clear early on you had more than enough. I liked the puzzly aspects and exploring the fort well very old-schooly satisfying. It’s high time I’ll check out the rest of the series.
Rathbone! My character was called Rathbone.
Lucky Spinelli muss sterben
Now I try not to get to personal in these reviews, but this was the worst game I have ever played. I don’t know what this author was thinking in his pathetic excuse for a brain, but he should never touch a keyboard again. In fact, his computer should be burned in a sacrifice to appease to mortally offended gods of creativity fot this utterly bad, sad excuse of a game. It’s not even so bad it’s good. You can feel your IQ lowering with every new inane line of writing. Bah. Should’ve been disqualified. Unrelated, I hate lame meta humor, too.
I’m sorry you had to go through that experience. I hope the author makes it up to you somehow
your life, and nothing else
This game made great use of Twine effects to create and increase the uneasiness of the whole piece. I liked the gradual reveal of surreal and creepy stuff, how the circular story somehow stayed banal in its tasks and yet got worse and worse. There’s some obvious hell imagery here (can’t go up, only down), but other than that, there was a lot of things I couldn’t really make sense of, like the very ending, where you’re surrounded by people and fed water? No idea what it means. One of a few reasons this game will stay with me.
Oh, how cunning. And now tell me that negative advertising doesn’t work. 
The abandoned house down the lane
I like the retro aesthetic of Adventutron. This small little game is sold really well by its twist ending, and the many questions it leaves open. What was real? What wasn’t? Is there a use for the mouse?
[do not let your left hand know
If you’re reading this you’re probably aware of the discussions of parser vs choice-based. One arguments in the forrmer’s favor is the lack of interactivity in the he latter. Now, this game is an interesting case. It’s mostly very well written, atmospheric text. The one point where you do have to chose is so pivotal to the reading of the whole piece in a way I’m not sure a parser game could manage.
It’s a bit marred by the fact that a simply undo will give you the different ending. For me, that is never a big thing in games though. I always chose the ending I want to chose and then any alternatives as a sort of bonus or easter egg.
Forevermore : A game of wring horror
This was the funniest game in the comp. The central conceit - you’re Poe wiriting the Raven, though depending on what you chose, it ends up quite differently - is excellently executed by the poems you create (and get to keep). I did not find all endings but I want to. The writing does a great job of saitirising the serious artist stereotype without being mean about it. So the game is well worth playing around with.
The Little Match Girl in the Court of Maal Dweb
Apparently an entry in a long running series, so some callbacks might have gone over my head. The crazy quilt nature of visiting other places via flames is great. It does feel a bit haphazard at points and yet that somehow adds to the charm. I didn’t quite finish it without @David_Welbourn 'S walkthrough, but the puzzles generally weren’t too hard. I’m a bit surprised this didn’t place higher.
And that concludes my Ectocomp reviews.
Phew!