There are a lot of entries this year, and I'm trying to at least try to play them all. Here are some short reviews of what I've played so far. While I'm not doing any scoring here, (I've been making private notes for that to use when voting time arrives) there are some spoilers here. If you don't want to risk spoiling any of these games you haven't played yet yourself, then don't scroll down.
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- ALETHICORP -
First game on the list. I'll just click "play in browser" and away we go. No, wait. There's another link waiting for me there, to apply for a job. Interesting. Wonder what the pay rate will be? The 2nd job sounds like one perhaps I can do. Oh great, a personality test. I failed one of these miserably when I applied to Pizza Hut as a teenager.
"If you were a bear, what type of bear would you be?" I would most definitely be a Were-Bear. Unfortunately, that isn't on the list. Okay, Smokey Bear it is. Team player? 9, of course (total lie). A few more questions and.. accepted! Wow, that was easy.
As the game moves along, I find myself going through many texts in the form of emails, reports, and conversation logs while flagging some things as suspicious. The constant train picture and comparison in some of the emails is pretty humorous. I seem to be doing not such a great job, but not horrible either. One person who calls themselves "Alpha" is asking me to not do my job and delete as much as possible. I am ignoring them.
Eventually, when asked to make "recommendations", I recommend Alpha at threat level 9. Doing so results in my termination from the company, as it was obvious to everyone but me that I was letting all the bad people slide. Oh well. "Those 'Smokey Bear ' types are never reliable."
- AND YET IT MOVES -
x me
How very vain of you.
Okay, not a big deal. This is a game about Galileo and all, so I'm letting it slide.
"inventory" says I've got a travel case that contains what looks like useless scenery, but that I've also got a bag with a list in it. Hey, I'm going to start grabbing some stuff off that list! I remember seeing some fruit outside!
I go to take an apple, but can't due to my morals. However, I see a bit of metal, which is of course a key. I try to take the potato, and it tells me about the bit of metal again. A bit later, I discover a hint on an object referring to this key. I hope anyone reading this did not have trouble finding this key.
There are little slightly annoying bugs around but nothing game-stopping yet. Things like the latch on the globe can not be seen after the description of the globe telling you that it is affixed with a latch, which is locked. Soon, we are upon lack of capitolization in within various sentence beginnings. Pretty neat how it throws the items from the list into the bag once I buy them, though. Argh, multiple objects that seem to do nothing and do not have plural understandings; with exception to taking things.
Visiting the trinket shop, I notice there's no shopkeeper, so I'm going to loot the place. I start with the "marbles", and get 57 lines of:
marble: If you want that marble, pay for it.
Seems obvious the next course of action at this point is trying to find the new location of the bank so I can cash in the note so I can pay for the bookbinder's services. Found it.
"Now you just need some supplies, and you can be leaving for Holland. There is a market nearby, and you have a list of things to buy in your bag."
Cool. But I wonder what would happen if..
>give bag to bookbinder
(the bag to the bookbinder)
You give the bag to the bookbinder.
>take bag
Which do you mean, the bag or sack of coins?
>the bag
Which do you mean, the bag or sack of coins?
Very impressive and extensive hints system. Though the game seems a bit too simple for all of these. It also fails to tell me why I can't complete the 4th(out of 5 according to the hints) scene when I have paid to get the book bound and have walked into Alighieri street holding 2 apples, 3 pumpkins, a water vessel, and a veal slice. I did this with the items in and out the bag. Waited. Gave up.
Had good points and was fun at moments, but the bugs killed the experience for me.
- ARQON -
This game comes with a warning for anyone who may be offended by IF RPG. I will press SPACE to continue.
It doesn’t take long before a combat encounter begins in this game. I keep meaning to check out Kerkerkruip, so I can’t really compare that to this.
Starting out, I go check out a temple which houses a priest. I pray and receive bless and curse (strangely, the same 2 scrolls I already have with me). Praying again gives the same result. Over and over. You can’t actually talk to the priest though because “You can’t see any such thing.” You can ask the owner of the trading post about “the trading post”, but “ask trader about trading post” gives no reply. There is a free scroll referred to at the trading post, but I can’t seem to buy or take it.
The popular typo theme in this one seems to be missing ending sentences. While the game doesn’t describe my defeated enemies pooling into thin air, there’s no trace of the body after the combat to search for loot or whatever. After a while, I just became disinterested in this one and moved on to the next.
- BEGSCAPE -
Beg. Beg. Beg. Choice.
That’s where the choices end with this one. Your only possible action is “beg” over and over and then you asked if you should stay in the current town or move to another (unless you are kicked out.) Then you die. Then you restart. This being advertised as a randomized game, I gave it another try. I replayed it roughly 5 times.
The lack of options here makes for a disappointing experience. Descriptions of opportunities float by, yet there is no “ask dude @ bakery for a job”, etc option to click. Why can’t I stop begging after getting enough money for shelter for the day? There are very few options other than dying and seeing a slightly more detailed death message in this game. There’s no background to anything. WHY can’t I do anything but beg? I could start to imagine this for myself, but I feel the story should give me a lot more explain this lack of options. At least I can complete it.
- BUILDING THE RIGHT STUFF -
This game has an interesting layout, though it does look a little rough. I like the green coloring of the screen, but waiting on it to refresh can be kind of annoying. Checking bioscans between turns gives some cool results, it's just too bad that the game wouldn't let me go back to the menu and essentially froze on my 4th or 5th bioscan.
On my first play through, I accidentally exited the game by hitting escape. On the 3rd turn, the game ended due to "space sickness" despite talking to GENE as frequently as I thought to, though scared to do it too much in fear of triggering the freeze bug again. Bug fixes and some randomization of the messages would make this game more worthy of play.
- CAROLINE -
The game starts with a dinner date, and my date wants to play footsies. We leave after getting crappy wine from a creepy waiter, and away we go to her house. She agrees to cook spaghetti, but won’t give me her secret recipe. I think her disgusting secret is carrots in her spaghetti sauce. I like both, but the two don’t go together.
Again, I don’t feel like I have enough choices here. The “correct” ones seem obvious to keep from pissing off Caroline. Our next date is quite strange. “Do I forgive myself?” for what? I’ve been on my best behavior with Caroline. Whatever, I’ll say yes. I have to yes a few times once in the church to properly role-play. Doing this did make for an amusing (and pretty ridiculous) ending. No show-stopping bugs to be found, but the lack of choices going on here prevents me from rating much higher.
- CREATURES SUCH AS WE -
This game starts off as a typical CYOA style game, then (at least for me) quickly ended in a bad ending. Then, I was poked at in a “R U MAD, BRO?” sort of fashion. A few more replays later, I don't really find much fun to be had here.
- EIDOLON -
When this story begins, I mistakenly think there are flying saucers outside. Instead, there's some really strange and creepy things going on here dealing with insomnia, alternate realities, and dreams. We have a few choices here, but nothing story-forking. However, we do have some cool puzzles in this Twine game! While there were parts of the story I did not enjoy, there was a lot that I did.
The game presented itself well aside from one typo that stood out to me which I will mention later, never bugged out, had a cool and solid story, and was genuinely fun to play.
The only hitch was in the end: ”and now I just want everything to over"
- ENIGMA -
Got off to a rough start despite not getting many parser errors, and looked at the walkthrough. Lack of paragraphs makes this one a bit harder to read. Way too much typing to think and examine instead of just “doing” things to make this much fun for me.
- EXCELSIOR -
One of the bricks in the tower wall is black. That’s odd, you didn’t notice it before.
> x brick
It looks just like the other bricks, except black.
> take it
That’s not a command I recognize. Type “help” for command info.
> push brick
That’s not a command I recognize. Type “help” for command info.
“help” reveals a “use” command which is usually completely alien to me aside from graphic adventures with text parsers. The game advertises a streamlined parser, but it just feels more limited and frustrating to me. Not being able to use more than one line at a time is annoying once I glance at the walkthrough.
- FIFTEEN MINUTES -
After some examining and waiting, it's obvious that there's some time-travel puzzling going on here. I used to get helplessly stuck in Day of the Tentacle, so I don't have high hopes for this one. After bumbling about a bit, I consult the hints, then the walkthrough. This just doesn't seem like it's a game for me. Moving on again.
- FOLLOWING ME -
The lack of indenting and paragraph spacing in this one gets on my nerves, but the story
feels like something bad must happen, and that keeps me interested in moving forward. As it progresses though, things get pretty cheesy and profanities seem tackily overused. A few more typos pop up like lack of periods and a random % mark. I'm not sure how much impact my choices are making, but 2 plays didn't reveal much.
I would have made those bad guys pay a lot more, for sure.
