This user has not published any games publicly yet.
Beautifully written and well presented, Jay raises the bar and reveals to the rest of us the limitless design possibilities when spending a bit of time and digging a little deeper under the surface of of Quest's GUI. Looking forward to seeing what direction his next offering takes us in.
I was initially excited when this started. A lot of effort has been put into the appearance and there's been some code tweaking going on. But then after five minutes I still didn't understand where it was leading me, if anywhere. Was that the point? It wasn't a fun experience particularly in the long run.
CYOA games aren't really my kind of thing but it was refreshing to see one so well presented. I hope you continue with it and perhaps take your eye for the aesthetic over to parser style gaming.
There's been some effort put into this (I like the art, are you the artist?) and it was quite funny in parts (intentionally?) but it was quite short and my play through only presented two actual choices. Three stars because I'm in a good mood but you could expand it (and give more choices).
I was enjoying this but alas, "press any key to continue" doesn't work on tablets that require a text box to bring the keyboard up.
I enjoyed this. I liked the fact you'd incorporated die rolls and inventory like the old Fighting Fantasy books. I picked up some gold yet the game wasn't long enough to spend them. Was there even a shop in there? It was a bit short and obviously you said you'd taken the idea from elsewhere. But three stars for a first effort. I look forward to something original (and longer) from you.
This is very well written and a lot of work has been put into it. The reason why I gave it four rather than five stars is that it's still a choose your own adventure and, compared with puzzle games, they make me feel passive to rather than active in the unfolding plot. But that's just a matter of personal taste.
Haven't completed this yet but you get drawn into it very quickly and there's plenty to do. Think I'm going to have to set aside some time for this. Makes a refreshing change to starting games that are sparsely populated, broken or half finished.
No idea why this is getting great reviews. There's plenty of locations to visit with not really much to do. Perhaps I'm missing something? I generally prefer fewer locations with deep descriptions and plenty of things to interact with rather than the other way round. I did manage to get myself killed in the first five minutes of exploring this desolate place which is another red flag for me in game design terms. If you have locations where there isn't much to see, why bother including them in the game? It's interactive fiction without the interaction and without the fiction.
Way too short. I also suspect the ten-year-old 'author' either had help, are older than they say, or are wasted doing IF and should be in college polishing their remarkably good grasp of English.
When at the carnival you can go east to a maze which you can neither examine or enter. Going back west takes you to the midway (what happened to the carnival?) and going east takes you to the carnival again. Bugs needs fixing.
I keep hitting dead ends where the story neither gives any more choices or concludes. I don't doubt that you've put a lot of work into this - I like the bits you have done although another glance over the spelling wouldn't harm - but you'd be surprised how quickly it takes for a game that's taken you hours to build to be played, especially with choose your own advetures. I liked the animated graphic when I tried t back out of a test and the ship exploded but you really need to spend quite a bit more time on this so all the various story paths have some meat to them. Judging on what you've done, a couple more weeks plugging awaybat this will turn out something quite nice.
Very good game. I only cheated the once with the riddle but the rest I found very enjoyable.
My only criticisms would be that when you had the cut scenes It took me a bit by surprise and I didn't really know what - if anything - I should do to interact in them and before I knew it they had ended. Do they have any bearing on the differing conclusions? The other thing is that it could have done with some further polish. When objects were created by the cut scenes they could still be seen in the rooms after they'd been picked up. Also when trying to solve the riddle by "Say *answer*" any word put in there other than the correct word gave a reply of 'I don't understand'. This may actually put a player off the scent in that they don't have to say something to solve the puzzle even though that is what is required. A simple 'else' on the script saying 'nice try, but not getting warmer' or somesuch would have revealed the player was on the right track but had the wrong solution.
Despite the above, I really enjoyed the game and feel it deserves five stars, especially as a first effort. I look forward to the author's future endeavours.
On the 28th of July 2012, in the womb-like confines of our oldest alehouse, a new institution was born atop a hill in Sterling town.
Let's get one thing clear. This game, as American people might say, sucks ass. Big time. You're prompted by the author to do things. How cool is it when a text adventure tells you the most simplest of actions leaving the old grey matter wishing it was watching an episode of grass growing in the garden instead?
So I played it differently. I decided to check if there was actually a band called Haivercraft and if there playing skills were any better than their adventure game writing ones. Turns out there is. And their music is a pub/ozzy/ac/dc hybrid which most definitely appeals to my inner 15 year old.
I would award the game one star. I would probably award the band two stars. Maybe three after four pints. I am, however, awarding them four stars for their marketing skills which obviously worked on me for some reason. Actually their music isn't all that terrible. But I do appreciate rock.
The author has clearly put some time and effort into writing this. It's probably the best un-reviewed work I've reviewed so far out of 30(ish) I've looked at so I'm giving it four stars although it really only deserves three.
Interesting concept. Game doesn't load. Although does 'Invalid Error' actually mean that the error is invalid? If so, the game should work...
The many corridors you get to walk down all have the same wallpaper. The interior designer needs a pay rise for not making any fundamental design errors and sticking to uniform blandness.
This game doesn't even load.
The author patiently included a timer (poison!) into the game so you wouldn't be bored for longer than five minutes. He deserves a star for it.
You're a pilot of a ship. A captain, surely? Or is it a spaceship? There's no mention of the universe. What year are we in? You see a city. So I guess you're on planet Earth. You hope someone might come to help. The RNLI? Maybe you have the coast guard's number? Or the charity that deals with other kinds of ships? Is it a city on Andromeda? Your armour is ruined. Armour. Maybe it's a land ship in the Tudor period? Or you can sea a city that is close to the sea? You have a handgun. A pistol? No lasers are mentioned. It's at least the 16th century then. You also have ration pills. So maybe your ship was a time machine?
I've only played two play throughs which I feel is a reasonable amount of time to form a view. My first play through resulted in me dying for the heinous crime of not wearing a jacket which I felt was unfairly punishing. So a possible five star game went down to four stars. On my second play through I ended up in a forest and some heart-stopping writing had me chased by a mysterious force which turned out to be a tree. Things look promising and I consider giving five stars again.
I'm presented with two options. I forget the first but I remember the second, which I took, because it was called 'take the right path'. Geddit? It can't be the wring one? So I did that and had some more good writing and then got asked to click 'continue'. I did and I got a game error. Very disappointing.
My problem now is that it has gone down to three stars. But I feel it's better than all the other games that I've rated three stars. But four stars would be an almost perfect game, which this isn't. But it isn't bad enough to be three. So I'm giving it 3.5, but selecting four on the menu as it doesn't allow me to select half measures and the writing was good.
The problem with conducting some kind of debate via interactive text is that you get to control my available responses. Kind of left me feeling frustrated. Interesting concept though and at least you saw it through to the end and gave it a conclusion.
If this is a taster for some fabulous shooter game, I don't hold out much hope for it. You basically leave a helicopter, pick up a radio and a gun before being led along a rail through a couple of locations before dying.
You're in a magical kingdom. The supernatural forces that surround you are so strong that you are rendered incapable of interacting with any of the magnificent things that furnish your world.
"(This is my first game, so please don't say hateful things about it or me despite how bad it may be)"
I can work with that! I thoroughly enjoyed having to start over trillions of times unless I chose the *exact* path that you had in mind. This is exactly what makes games fun!
You are locked in a room with Little Mix (terrible group from talent contest) so perhaps should be in the horror section. You need to guess an instrument in two minutes. You can ask Little Mix some questions about its weight etc (its quite heavy). So I asked about its shape and they didn't understand what I mean. So I asked about its sound and I guess the game played a sound file but I failed to hear it. I'm not going to sit here all day arbitrarily guessing instruments. Piano or quit (it wasn't). Quit.
You can visit five or six locations and drink a beer. Don't waste your time unless that sounds like fun.
You basically get locked into an outside toilet with nothing more than a hosepipe and the newspaper you're carrying. It's actually fairly well, written except for, the errant apostrophes, that, appear, in the most grammatically incorrect, places. I'm actually convinced that there's no way to finish this game but if anyone manages it give me a shout.
There's two locations: the lounge and the kitchen. You can pick up a severed head in the sink or some excrement in the lounge; the latter being fairly representative of this 'game'.
You're on a ship and you have five minutes until it sinks which creates a tensity in the narrative. Once you manage to leave your cabin there's two areas you can explore that are almost exclusively filled with people that don't have much to say despite the gravity of the situation you all find yourselves in. Needless to say, the whole five minutes is swallowed up speaking to these people and the ship sinks and you drown. Interestingly, the author appears to have overlooked the drowning aspect of the code so you're free to carry on the adventure, although this extra boon in time did nothing to further the narrative in any way.
You begin the game poisoned. Choosing the right direction will bring you to some ladders. Choosing the right direction on the ladders will lead you to the antidote - if you've picked the key up - whilst the other leads to death. After choosing the correct route you eventually reach a maze. Careful to choose the right paths here aswell or you'll wound up dead again, which is what happened to me. I must say, i'm not really a fan of games that punish the player for making simple choices even if there would be seventy vestal virgins awaiting me at the end of the maze, which I very much doubt there would be.
You fall into a cave that is very dark which makes it difficult to see. This is illustrated perfectly with the dark green text on black background that you must squint at to make sense of. If only you had some kind of light. Well actually, you do! It's in your pocket. But the game gives no hint what-so-ever about this and only by reading the comments section prior to playing was I alerted to it which extended my playing time from one minute, to two minutes. The light illuminates a chest with nothing in it. There's a statue there. I assume the statue needs to be interacted with in order to open the locked gate, but will what is on the other side really be worth the effort?
Boring and linear despite the appearance of 'choices' with needless swearing here and there to make it appear risque. Although I did enjoy the picture of the guy urinating on some riot police, that's as far as the fun goes.
The name Event Horizon attracted me to the game as I enjoyed the film of the same title. Unfortunately this failed to live up to its namesake. It started out with promise with a well described location and an illustration. On choosing a direction I was instantly killed by a well illustrated alien, presumably not designed by the game author. Another direction leads to an Arena where a beam rifle can be picked up. Or, rather, a beam rifle can't be picked up. Exploring a little further brings me face to face with another well illustrated alien and a stark choice. I can either go south or do something else. This is where that beam rifle that I couldn't pick up would have come in handy. I go south. And die.
There's five rooms. There's a door that needs a doorknob but the doorknob you pick up doesn't work with it. There's a key that you can't pick up as it's lodged between floorboards that you can't interact with. There's a cupboard that you can get inside but never leave again. And a paper clip. The End.
It's short. Maybe you'll go to Nasa. Maybe you'll win a prize somewhere. Maybe you'll die. I'd rather play something short and sweet like this than the half-hearted attempts at long games.
It's like dungeons and dragons. But instead of a dungeon it's a school and instead of a dragon it's Stephen Hawking.
This is interesting. I now know how to locate a book in an institute I'll never visit by typing in the bleeding obvious. That said, i'm sure it serves Its purpose. And the graphics were a nice touch.
Interesting short game. Sort of. Basically you can make one of three decisions but I only discovered one. You cannot pass the door if you're holding any questions, but I managed it. I tried numerous things to open the door but only religion worked. It hinted at it being the right decision out of a choice of one and like religion in the real world left me with more questions than it managed to answer.
Another game that has plenty of rooms with not much in them. As a point of pedantry, emergency exits don't tend to have card readers attached to them which can deny access. The reason why everywhere except this game don't have card readers attached to emergency exits should be obvious, but I'll explain anyway. You see, if there's a fire, it's sort of against the law to only allow certain people to leave the building. Furthermore, those who are entitled to save themselves would perish as they attempted to retrieve their identity card which they left in their briefcase next to that burning desk...
Another mansion game. There's lots of rooms. It has the kinds of things you expect to find in a residential building. The problem is it's the world's most boring posh house. Try as you might to squeeze some enjoyment out of your experience and the game goes to great efforts to thwart it. For instance, in the living room:
You are in the living room.
> look at fireplace
It's the mantion's fireplace.
> look at cabinet
It's the cabinet.
> look at rug
It's a small rug.
> look at couch
It's just the couch.
Apart from a keyhole in the back of a fireplace that I found and a safe where I had to guess the code much of the other items had the same care and attention paid to them as above which compelled me to quit before it got too exciting.
Really not sure why I'm awarding this with 3 whole stars. The author has taken time to give descriptions to the many objects that you find, most of them useless. Nothing was particularly broken. The solutions to the few puzzles I encountered were basically telegraphed to me. Because obviously I'm stupid and need the help. There also doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to any of it. Is it in the surreal section? I forget.
You begin in a bedroom. Once the game explains how to get the key to leave this room you enter a library. Then another room that has a guard (are we in a house?) then a room that has some service workers, then a room that is a jungle followed by a room that had great arts in it. Along the way I was picking up notes that looks like some kind of recipe that matches nothing I've seen in the game so far.
The writing is witty and the game 'interesting' but essentially quite boring. Perhaps once you get the key to get you out of the brass door (explained to you in game, naturally) it all makes sudden sense but it hadn't really gripped me enough to want to continue.
It's a game set in a (surprise surprise!) mansion that you get trapped inside once entered. There's a few rooms downstairs with a guestbook, some paintings you can look at and some lions heads on bannisters that have no descriptions. The same holds true for the corpse you find at the top of the stairs. It's there, but no apparent way to further examine it. This alarmed me somewhat as being an investigator I would have expected some clues to a mysterious death to be available on a body.
Not to worry, there must be clues elsewhere. I further found a statue, picked up a cask of oil and then found some symbols that had a handy graphic to illustrate them. Or, rather, there was a red ex where the graphic with the clues on should have been. At this point I deduced it would be wiser to count my losses and give up.
The saving grace was that the game was so sparsely populated with explorable objects and puzzles that I only managed to waste twenty minutes of my life rather than the length of a movie or longer.
I'm not entirely sure why people put up un-finished games. Perhaps there's an interesting combat system they want beta testing? Sadly that isn't the case here.
After the opening foreword that takes great effort to big up the experience you're about to have you begin the game in an open empty space with white walls. Thankfully the monotony of the place is broken by there being a gatekeeper present who prevents you going north until you have the right documentation. No bother, I'll try east. This leads to a room with glass shelves with objects on, none of which you can take a look at. No bother, I'll go west again. Although it doesn't seem possible as a mystery closed steel door has now materialised from nowhere blocking my route. So I'm eternally trapped in a room with miscellaneous objects that I can't interact with.
Starting the game again and going west to the coffee shop proves more fruitful as a conversation with Jill reveals she can provide me with the documentation that will allow me access to the rest of the unfinished game.
It's difficult to imagine why people publish games at such an early stage of development. Any comments are likely to range from negative to non-existent. But I'll try to keep this upbeat. Fill those shelves with objects I can actually interact with, demolish any mysteriously appearing doors and give the walls a lick of paint because I'm sure there's still a game to be had out of all of this.
I'm not sure what appeal a skating simulator in text form holds but decided to briefly give it a whirl anyway. I managed to get myself to the training area and then manualled (?) which started a five second countdown proving the author has spent a bit of time doing some coding. I then typed 'up' which gave me a further five seconds, 'down' which added another five, then feeling things were going a little too well typed 'land' and the game awarded me 120 points for my efforts. Although the game holds absolutely no interest for me I awarded it a generous 3 stars for effort. Perhaps someone more attuned to text-based skating games can give it a more thorough run for its money.
If you want to play a game where you get to die in a variety of ways in a short amount of time then this is the game for you. Even the witty prose doesn't save it from anything other than one star.
The 'game' takes less than a minute to play. Although there's a few options to choose from the 'game' is essentially linear with only one outcome which leaves one feeling somewhat perplexed. Its one saving grace - which led me to award two rather than the deserved one star - is that it's illustrated with pictures drawn by a child which I found quite endearing. I suspect it was quickly thrown together for a loved one rather than meant for mass consumption.
