*** WARNING WARNING WARNING ***

THESE ARE NOT REVIEWS!

These are just my random stream-of-consciousness thoughts while playing 
the comp games. They are not constructive. They are not remotely fair. 
They are not polite. They tend to mention the bad things about a game 
while ignoring the good things, because I did not feel any drive to gripe 
or grumble about things that were done *right*. If you're an author, read 
at your own risk!

Also, if there's a second number in parentheses after a game's score, 
that's the adjusted score I actually submitted (so that I could make 
better use of the 1-10 range); the first number is the raw score I gave 
it while playing.

*******************************


Divis Mortis - 7(8)

So I'm already guessing from the start that I'm going to find out a 
certain twist later on. (This isn't necessarily a bad thing.) I am 
disappointed that >MOAN is unimplemented. (And yeah, there's 
confirmation of my guess...) Implementation is OK so far, although 
not perfect. The capitalized room names in the exit list at the end 
of every description are a little weird. Why isn't "pan" a synonym 
for "skillet"? "You grab a bottle. Pills here."? Does that make 
sense? Harrumph. I guess that didn't count as food? This game is 
definitely lacking in polish: a lot of perfectly reasonable 
vocabulary and syntax is unrecognized. And it gets a bit worse near 
the end. But I enjoyed the game and the ending. Dunno why I didn't 
get the full score, though.


Ninja's Fate - 4(5)

I get that this is a tribute to Panks, but A) I'm not sure if the 
writing is also meant to be like his, and B) whether or not that's 
an acceptable excuse for it. But it's not really an excuse for the 
gameplay (or rather, the lack thereof).


Aotearoa - 6(7)

So the tutorial and coloring features seem like an interesting idea. 
I wonder how useful they'd be to an actual novice. (They're just 
annoying to me, of course, but I thought I'd try them anyway just to 
see what they're like.) Aside from that, it seems pretty responsive 
so far, even when I stray from the keywords. (Well, somewhat 
responsive, anyway.) I guess re-iterating the puzzle solution is to 
help players who solved it without knowing how? (And I can see how 
players might do that here, all things considered...) Ah, the old 
gum puzzle. While the implementation and writing aren't bad, I'm 
afraid that I'm just not finding this game that *interesting* -- I 
think I'm not the target audience, maybe. 


One Eye Open - 4(5)

Interesting enough start. But you'd think at least one of these 
corpses would be carrying a key to something or other. Stuck, and on 
asking someone for a hint, I am told I can concentrate without an 
object. Was there something in the game which would have told me 
that? The papers seem a bit cumbersome -- in particular, whenever I 
found a new one, the parser wants me to be talking about the notes I 
already have. Now look, if you're going to specifically tell me to 
"LOOK UP [topic] IN FILES", you had better accept that specific 
syntax. That's worth a point right there. What the $*%@ is "strewn 
nothing"? Also, I think I've passed the two hours by now, so we lose 
another point or two for that... (not to mention the fact that I'm 
getting tired of doing the same kind of stuff over and over with no 
real advancement.)


Flight of the Hummingbird - 7(8)

Scenery is pretty scarce, relative to the amount of geography. Odd 
response to hidding the beams with the crowbar. You'd think a 
supervillain would bother labelling the controls in his rocket. If 
he had, I might have bothered to actually figure out the orbital 
mechanics rather than just fumbling around. Also, if I have to fly 
here, how did he do it? By the way, we English speakers like to call 
spinward "east" most of the time. And shouldn't the hub be "up"? But 
there are some amusing lines, and it's relatively short and easy, so 
I'm inclined to be nice.


The Chronicler - 1

When it starts by telling me I'm surrounded by "light gray rhyolite" 
and then doesn't know the word "rhyolite", I am not impressed. Also, 
I'm as good looking as ever. OK, what is the point of putting in 
empty rooms whose descriptions say almost nothing and which don't 
even have the few nouns in said description implemented? "0 out of a 
possible 0". If the author cares so little, why should I care any 
more? And the button you can neither see nor press, and... I give 
up. [Then later, I learn that the game wasn't even finished, so...
bleh.]


Gris et Jaune - 5(6)

I am sensing a possible theme for this comp. Interesting and the 
beginning. Well-polished. Some minor hiccups later on. On the other 
hand, there isn't a lot of guidance as to what the heck I'm supposed 
to do, so I wasted a lot of time wandering around aimless before 
going to hints. And I'm still not entirely clear on what to do, and 
I think I've lost motivation. 


Gigantomania - 3(4)

So... it's not terribly interesting at the start, is it? I've 
already lost twice. And I am apparently confused by what I'm 
required to do in this first scene, since whatever I try seems 
wrong. And it's far too tedious to keep going. 


Heated - 3

Premise and first room description don't really promise much. Bug in 
the response to my first command. Oh come on. You go out of your way 
to draw my attention to a particular etching, and then don't 
recognize the word when I examine it? Ah, and I see the game has 
started with a timed puzzle which does not immediately present 
itself as a timed puzzle. "Cupboards" which I can only refer to as 
"cupboard" and even then is/are "not something [I] can open." Also, 
its central gimmick is lift straight from Bureaucracy. Quit early.


The Blind House - 8(9)

I feel like the game has a banner ad at the bottom of it. Isn't "get 
on bed" a standard Inform syntax that should be understood by 
default? Hmm. Nice ambiguous foreshadowing... Unfortunately, despite 
this apparently not being a puzzle game, I seem to be stuck on 
something. (Fortunately, a friend gave me a hint. I don't think the 
THINK ABOUT mechanic is really working -- I was halfway through the 
game before I even remember it, and it's inconcenient to have to go 
around using it on every object I see.) Why do people take things 
that work by default in Inform and break them? (Like >UNLOCK DOOR 
being able to ask for disambiguation.) Is there anything you can do 
to affect the ending other than choosing your last dialogue option? 
Still, an interesting piece nonetheless.


East Grove Hills - 4(5)

Self-referential, much? Why is the game being so coy about whom I'm 
talking to? "Uncomfortable socially swakward teen" is not really a 
fun conversation style to take part in, y'know. Er, aren't some of 
those conversation options kinda inappropriate here? What is with 
this conversation mode that won't end? Why is the game so obsessed 
with repeatedly reminding me that the characters are Asian? I may 
have a short memory, but it's not *that* bad. OK, the degree of 
self-reference is getting unbearable. And... that's the ending? Buh? 


Rogue of the Multiverse - 8(9)

The writing seems good, but the story so far has been on almost 
literal rails. Bah, disambiguation issues this early? Relative 
directions are confusing. If a gyrocopter isn't a vehicle, then what 
is it? I bet a lot of people are going to hate this game. I think 
it could be improved, but fortunately I'm not one of those people. 
("Full score" seems redundant at the end of this. Or rather, 
shouldn't SCORE have stopped talking about credits and started 
talking about other things once you were re-arrested?)


A Quiet Evening at Home - 2

The blurb was demoralizing enough, but then I read the opening text. 
I do not want to play another game about having to go to the 
bathroom. Aside from that, do I have any motivation here whatsoever? 
No. No I don't.


Pen and Paint - 3(4)

"You have considering that death by drowning in it might be the best 
way to go out."? Hmm, I wonder if this will be like Myst. Or that 
game with the paintings and the keys and the time freezing and stuff 
from a few comps back. This started nicely, but the pyramid seems 
under-implemented. I seem to have gotten stuck early in this one. 
Weird (parser?) bug with the rubble in the mine. The author doesn't 
seem aware of the "listen" verb in the standard library. Oh, except 
*now* it's the solution to this puzzle, after not having been 
implemented in any of the places where it would have made sense? 
Switching to the walkthrough.


The People's Glorious Revolutionary Text Adventure Game - 6(7)

I guess this is somewhat funny. The "Marx"-ism is amusing. 
Apparently turning on a sink does not imply anything to do with 
water. Hmm. It seems like I just solved a particular puzzle, but I 
don't seem to have gotten any credit for it. The Mk II is a bit 
repetitive. I wonder what I'm missing. Ah, there we go. Uh, so what 
did the device do?


The Warbler's Nest - 6(7)

That was shorter than I expected. Unless I missed most of the game. 
There didn't seem to be much to it (even after checking the other 
endings), but what was there wasn't done badly. (Also, I was 
somewhat sleepy when playing this and somehow failed to understand 
what was really going on until I entered the cottage. Up until then, 
I had been assuming a death had already taken place.)


Death Off the Cuff - 8(9)

I haven't even typed a single command, and already the screen is so 
completely full of text that I need to hit space to continue. Does 
Windows Frotz mishandle this game's font, or is the author just 
allergic to apostrophes? The contextual auto-disambiguation is a 
*nice* touch. The response to the Doctor's jeans is a great line. I 
am enjoying the absurd and implausible webs of deceit that are 
coming unraveled. Entertaining use of the genre cliche. On the other 
hand, the way I had to keep re-examining things when there was no 
reason to expect they had changed (or had suddenly become valid 
objects when they weren't valid before) took away from things a bit.


The Sons of the Cherry - 3

So I guess I have a pop quiz to take before I can play this one. And 
after defining my character, I'm reading text that sounds entirely 
out of character for any me I would have defined. It just asked me 
if I stay or leave, I said stay, and the very next response says I'm 
leaving? And since it's javascript, there's neither UNDO nor a 
"back" button. If it's going to be a period piece, shouldn't 
something have implied that earlier? Not only is this not very 
interactive, it's not even trying to hide it. Do it or don't, huh? 
The writing -- which is what this mostly is: uninteractive prose -- 
isn't terribly compelling either. There's the end of the game, and I 
don't feel any interest in playing again.


Under, In Erebus - 5(6)

A confusing introductory sequence, but I'm not certain that's not 
intentional. Should I be mapping? Probably. A player needs to have 
goals at the start of a game, or they're just wandering around 
aimless. And what is the point of having an inventory limit? I 
kinda wanted to like this, but going around collecting letters is 
insurmountably tedious. Sorry.


The Bible Retold: Following a Star - 5(6)

So we're looking at bits that weren't actually in the Bible per se 
this time. And we're doing it in a lighthearted way. That's fine. 
I seem to have a lot of places to wander around. I'm not sure if I'm 
supposed to be wasting my time selling pomegranates right now or no, 
but I don't see what else to be doing at the moment... And this fake 
Latin puzzle? No. Just no. And then things seem to fall apart with 
the two mazes. Oh well.


The 12:54 to Asgard - 4(5)

Well, it started out disappointing me by not recognizing a lot of 
the nouns it was telling me were here, but then it earned back some 
goodwill by featuring a rutabaga. But then after a bit, I seemed to 
be stuck in a situation with no idea what I can do. There are no 
hints, so I guess I get to restart. Then after a little more 
exploring, it happens again someplace else. Walkthrough time. And 
now I have no idea how one is supposed to think of half the stuff 
that one is supposed to do. And there is absolutely no way I could 
have done a significant fraction of this in two hours. I am sad and 
disappointed. 


Oxygen - 7(8)

I'm reminded of Orevore Courier, although this isn't nearly so 
complex. It's annoying that you can't see the markings on the cards 
while they're plugged in. These miners seem suicidal: we'd both 
survive if they left their gamma card in, but instead they keep 
stopping their own oxygen flow. But it has good replayability. 
(Although I'm surprised that Andre lied to your face like that...)


Mite - 6(7)

Over-long intro (hitting a key isn't the same as interacting). Game seems 
inoffensive, non-buggy (so far). NPC's seem decent, if not terribly deep. 
There's one puzzle that seems to fall into the pattern where plenty of 
things *should* have worked but only one does (but that happens in lots 
of games). Although only allowing the verb "put" for the final action is 
rather annoying. In fact, there are multiple places where logical 
syntaxes are unnecessarily rejected. On the whole, not bad.


The Bible Retold: The Lost Sheep - 5(6)

I am greeted with a misspelling in the very first room description. What 
is the deal with the stick and the daisies? How can the river take me 
east, but drop me off northwest of where I started? Missing newline. Had 
to use the hints multiple times, but that could be because I wasn't 
feeling very drawin-in. And the ending was very anti-climactic. But at 
least it was short.


*****

And in short, my recommendations are to play The Blindhouse, Death Off 
the Cuff, and Rogue of the Multiverse.