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Christina Nordlander's games and stats for all events →
| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Christina Nordlander's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 1 21:30:00 | Composition with Yellow, Red, and Blue | First game I play in this comp, and it's a zinger! The attractor mechanic is innovative (at least in my experience), and the gameplay is fun and challenging, with enough new features added to keep my attention. The combination of simple-but-colourful graphics and tough gameplay reminds me of the freeware games I'd play on my dad's computer way back when. <br/> <br/>Going with the minimalist theme, I like how the villain is a lot more complex-looking than the good guys. Er, squares. <br/> <br/>Seriously, my only complaint is that the cutscenes are a bit overly-long. Also it's a bit hard, but that might just me being bad at this. <br/> <br/>Kudos for a great little game. | |
| May 1 21:46:00 | 16m 00s | CubeMaster | Gameplay is nothing special (though it's an OK way to kill a minute or two), but I like the various graphical tricks you played with the blocks, and the increasing difficulty. The fact that the blocks could topple over was a nice touch. In short, very simplistic, but polished. <br/> <br/>SPOILERS <br/> <br/>I also like that you gave the option to play "pure" or "evolved" once you unlocked the "evolved" level. |
| May 3 15:30:00 | 41h 44m | Block Man | Not massively original, but a fun and challenging platformer with some nice use of the platform-switching mechanics. Once you iron out those bugs, this'll be a good little game. <br/> <br/>One nitpick I have is that the sound effects were quite a bit louder than a music. Which is a shame, because I liked the music a lot. |
| May 3 15:38:00 | 8m 00s | Platonic Dot Solid | This is a very good game. My only complaint is that it was sometimes quite hard to gauge your jumps. Other than that: nice graphics, nice use of powers, challenging obstacles, entertainingly melodramatic plot. I had a great deal of fun beating it. <br/> <br/>SPOILER <br/> <br/>It could have done with a more rewarding ending than just the "you have won" screen, but I appreciate the fact that you put an original song in there. |
| May 3 22:16:00 | 6h 38m | Invertigo! | A bit hard; still haven't beaten it. (I keep dying on the level after the first save point.) Might come back to this later. <br/> <br/>Other than that, probably the most purely minimalist game I've played so far in the comp. The core mechanic reminds me of a simpler version of "Eversion". Fun to play, difficulty aside. <br/> <br/>I'm kind of neutral to the music, but I appreciate the extra effort of putting it in. |
| May 4 15:51:00 | 17h 35m | Minimal: The Tiny Beast with the Big Hunger | Could have done with some attack animation for clarity (but then, it is a minimalist game), and like some other players, I got to the end and wasn't sure whether I'd won or lost. Other than that, it's OK. The graphics are atmospheric, and I like how you actually made the characters look wounded, though the blood itself was a bit simplistic. I wasn't very fond of the sound effect, but the music has a nice retro vibe. |
| May 4 17:39:00 | 1h 48m | Minimal Force | My main problem with this game is that the writing, while not terrible, has a part of grammatical mistakes (for example, it should be spelled "Cyclops"). Just read more English and you'll get the hang of it. Also, the graphics felt a bit sloppy; for example, the walking animation continuing even when the knight is standing still. And a "shield" animation would have been nice. I understand you probably didn't have time for such details, but it might be something for future versions. <br/> <br/>Apart from those nitpicks, however, the gameplay is great. The core concept is original, and you've come up with some great puzzles here. It's just challenging enough. <br/> <br/>In short, graphics and writing are nothing special, but great idea, gameplay and humour. <br/> <br/>SPOILERS <br/> <br/>The endgame is a very good puzzle. I'm quite relieved that the Cyclops didn't regain health when my character died. <br/> <br/>And the ending... well, that's by far the funniest thing I've seen in this compo so far, and I'd be surprised if I come across anything funnier. |
| May 4 19:43:00 | 2h 04m | Ethical Spud | A business simulator, eh? I lost on Day 8; might come back later to see if I can make it further. <br/> <br/>Not massively interactive, as games go, but I like this sort of thing. The humour is top notch. |
| May 4 20:05:00 | 22m 00s | BareBones | Spellcheck: "franticly" should be "frantically"; "out tibias" should be "our". <br/> <br/>Quite a good interactive story. I'm not very interested in erotica, so I was happy to find that this wasn't your average sex scene. There was enough variation to make me play through it for all the different storylines, too. <br/> <br/>My one complaint is that the writing skill fluctuates a bit. At its best, it's absolutely arresting; however, it can get a bit overblown in places. There's also a bit of an overuse of the word "off", occasionally several times in the same sentence. (And "off of" isn't necessary: you could just write "off" in those instances.) I'm probably judging the writing very harshly, but a game like this stands or falls by the quality of its writing. <br/> <br/>That said, when your writing is good, it's very good indeed. The central idea of this story is going to stay with me for a long time. I also like how it's possible to reach one ending without encountering the fantasy/surreal element. |
| May 4 20:33:00 | 28m 00s | DeaN | Wow... that's a heartbreaker. Very original set-up, and as for the graphics: this is the first game in this compo I've given a solid 5-star ranking for graphics. I particularly love the balloon girl, and how the balloon bursts when Dean... does his thing. <br/> <br/>Unfortunately, I can't give this game a very high Overall score, since it seems to be unfinished: Story Mode has no other sprites, and Game Mode just runs out of sprites after a while. <br/> <br/>I really hope you keep developing this game after the compo. The graphics and mood in this piece are amazing. |
| May 5 00:52:00 | 4h 19m | Pendulum | Not much of a game, but still entertaining and rather interesting. The core idea has been done before, but it wasn't a waste of time by any means. |
| May 5 08:48:00 | 7h 56m | Exciting Game Experience Unit Shifter | I like this idea. Makes me wish I'd thought of it, actually. <br/> <br/>And I'm always happy to see more Twine games. |
| May 5 15:10:00 | 6h 22m | Solitary | I enjoyed this a lot. Not the most original set-up, but the story is immersive and mostly very well-written (the writing felt a bit bare-bones in a couple of places, but that's about it). The ending is very powerful. <br/> <br/>Very nice work on Twine. I didn't find any technical flaws, except the slight problem of the "infinite dinner". <br/> <br/>Great work! |
| May 5 19:35:00 | 4h 25m | The Strange Room | First of all, I'll just say that I'm no good at Inform and wouldn't be able to create an IF game in such a short time. <br/> <br/>That said, while this is a solid entry, there's nothing that really wowed me. The writing is extremely sparse (fair enough, given the theme), the set-up has been done before, and the security system in the facility seems a bit lax. Also, "paper" really should be a synonym for "slip". <br/> <br/>Hope I'm not sounding too negative. You clearly know how to make IF games; I just wanted a bit more plot and/or innovation. |
| May 5 19:58:00 | 23m 00s | this game might lie | Fit the theme, and a pretty innovative idea. |
| May 5 20:11:00 | 13m 00s | RogueOut | Now this is something I haven't seen before! Fun idea, and very neatly executed. I like the audio, though the scream effects got a bit repetitive. |
| May 5 20:26:00 | 15m 00s | Enough | I didn't really get it, or figure out whether there was a winning state. Very innovative concept, though, and kept me playing with it for a while. |
| May 5 21:03:00 | 37m 00s | 50 years | Tough (even on Easy mode), but pretty fun. Reminded me of a stripped-down "Age of Empires". I might be coming back to this one to see if I can do better. <br/> <br/>Typo: on the Game Over screen, it says "Restar". |
| May 6 22:01:00 | 24h 58m | Floating Point | Dayum. I love adventure games and mysterious stuff, and the two browser screens gimmick gets full points for originality. Beautiful graphics, beautiful audio, definitely minimalist. <br/> <br/>The only bad things I found were a couple of typoes ("this strange fruit if dripping water"), and <br/> <br/> <br/>SLIGHT SPOILERS <br/> <br/>The ending was a bit abrupt. But I guess you had to end it somehow. <br/> <br/>END SPOILERS <br/> <br/>All in all, one of the most original and atmospheric entries I've played so far. |
| May 6 22:42:00 | 41m 00s | War Zone: Decision Points | Very interesting idea for a game, with tons of detail and an involving plot. Nice work on the ASCII and general 80s DOS game ambience, too. <br/> <br/>I might come back later and see how the other decisions pan out. |
| May 6 23:23:00 | 41m 00s | Theme Satisfactor | When I first saw the set-up, I was expecting a joke game (if a funny one), but once the actual game started, it was surprisingly tricky and engrossing. Good job. |
| May 7 22:30:00 | 23h 07m | Killing Time | I enjoyed this. You've done a pretty good job on the film noir murder mystery ambience. Reminded me a bit of the old NES game "Déjà Vu". The unusual writing style works pretty well. The story isn't hugely original, but you've created a good sense of horror. In game terms, this is solid Twine work. <br/> <br/>Nice way to bring in potatoes, too. <br/> <br/>I must admit I was a bit disappointed to find that <br/> <br/> <br/>SPOILERS <br/> <br/>... I got a "to be continued" message the moment the story seemed to be going somewhere. <br/> <br/>END SPOILERS <br/> <br/> <br/>But that just testifies to the story sucking me in. Nice interactive story. |
| May 8 08:37:00 | 10h 07m | Trapped | I like how you managed to create actual puzzles in Twine, something I'm not very good at. (I like the additional puzzle content in the post-compo version, too.) On the downside, the plot is rather run-of-the-mill, and the writing is very sparse and has some typoes. Still, nice use of puzzles in an interactive story. |
| May 8 18:09:00 | 9h 32m | Fading | I like a good stealth game, and this one has a neat mood and (minimalist) graphics. The writing was very nice. My only complaint is that the difficulty is pretty unforgiving in places. <br/> <br/>A solid entry. The tutorial level is well implemented, too. <br/> <br/> <br/>SPOILERS <br/> <br/>The ending made me a bit melancholy. Good job. (Though I'm still somewhat in shock that the MacGuffin wasn't a potato. Not that this is a bad thing, though.) |
| May 8 18:16:00 | 7m 00s | Blue and Yellow | I enjoyed this. Nice way to create a mood despite the minimalist graphics, and the gameplay itself reminds me of some (good!) shareware games from the 90s. |
| May 11 14:53:00 | 68h 37m | Less | More of an interactive story than a game, but innovative and interesting no less (pun not intended). The narration being in haiku format was a nice touch. I got two of the endings; will probably come back for the others later. |
| May 11 19:20:00 | 4h 27m | What is Dark? | Good-looking, and the central joke is funny enough, but there's not really a game here. And you should really be able to move, even if you meet an untimely death anyway. |
| May 11 19:42:00 | 22m 00s | Drug Hunt | Pretty good game. I like the set-up, and the graphics and audio are good, but the gameplay itself didn't hold my attention for that long. Probably a taste thing. Nevertheless, a solid entry. <br/> <br/> <br/>SPOILER <br/> <br/>Very nice way to bring in the potato theme. A point off for misspelling "potato", though. (Or maybe that was the drugs' fault.) |
| May 12 19:55:00 | 24h 13m | Blue pill, red pill | Pretty decent as a joke/mindscrew entry. |
| May 12 20:03:00 | 8m 00s | Simplicity | This is a very good minimalistic Twine game. Chilling and fairly original plot (at least in this particular medium), good writing, the right amount of branching. I enjoyed it a lot. <br/> <br/>And I hope you're doing all right. |
| May 12 21:55:00 | 1h 52m | Sniff | Innovative concept, nice graphics (I especially like the hallucinations and the Game Over screen), and great audio. The way your breathing speeds up after you hit the snow is a nice touch, and I find the music quite catchy. <br/> <br/>The only downside is that it's really hard. As others have said, some checkpoints would come in handy. Try as I might, I keep dying on level 2. (Clearly, I need to do more cocaine.) |
| May 13 22:39:00 | 24h 44m | Square | Quite a nice little game. Manages to be fun and get me a bit addicted while still being extremely minimalistic. |
| May 14 21:31:00 | 22h 52m | Dungeoneer | This is one of the more innovative games I've played in this competition. The plot is great, writing quality is good to excellent, and the music is simple and beautiful, just the way I like it. While the gameplay change feels a bit sudden, it is a great way to illustrate the process going on (trying to avoid spoilers here). <br/> <br/>The only downside is that the second part of the game takes quite a long time, and is not really that entertaining (though, like I said, I applaud the way it works in plot terms). It could be cut down to 1/4 or so of its current length and still work great. (Maybe you did it intentionally to stop the player from trying to get all the endings through all the endings, for all I know.) <br/> <br/> <br/>SPOILER <br/> <br/>Also, I tried for "corruption" in the "to escape" ending, but no ending text showed up. No idea whether that's a bug or a feature, but still a bit of a disappointment. <br/> <br/>END SPOILERS <br/> <br/> <br/>Despite my nitpicking about the length of the second part, this is a great game. There seems to be an impressive variety of endings; I'm gonna have to come back and check them all out. |
| May 15 20:53:00 | 23h 22m | Minga-Me | The storyline and the way it's implemented in the gameplay are absolutely hilarious. Excellent use of the theme. I love the fourth wall-breaking, the Gideon G. Graves-esque bad guy, various other things I don't want to spoil. The protagonists are quite nice characters as well. <br/> <br/>On the downside, the final boss battle is just too hard for me (and you have to restart from scratch if you lose). I may come back and try to beat the game later, but I just don't have those rhythm skills. <br/> <br/>Also, the graphics, while not bad, are a bit lacklustre (could be put down to the minimalist theme, I guess). The battles seem to be a bit badly scripted: the enemies just seemed to attack one of my party members, and would do zero damage a lot of the time. There are some typoes and other technical problems with the writing (for example, Kaye is referred to as "he" when she levels up). <br/> <br/>All in all, it has some flaws, and the rhythm stuff is ludicrously difficult for me, but the plot and humour are top notch. |
| May 16 21:48:00 | 24h 55m | Depth | A very good puzzle game. Took me a while to figure out how to play, and even then I mostly got through the levels on trial-and-error (I'm not very good at this sort of puzzle). <br/> <br/>Other than the difficulty, I really can't find any flaws. The graphics are obviously minimalistic, but the colours are appealing. The music and sound effects are excellent. Thank you for creating a very enjoyable game. |
| May 16 22:12:00 | 24m 00s | Essence | This is one of the most interesting setups I've seen in this LD, and it works well with the simple gameplay. A beautiful and poetic concept. <br/> <br/>Unfortunately, the gameplay itself is a bit lacklustre: the controls aren't that great, and there's no way of telling when you'll just fall through the floor. Also, there are a couple of slight mistakes in the English ("that is how it lives" doesn't really work, for example). Which is a shame, because apart from those slight errors, the messages are beautifully written. <br/> <br/>In short, there are some issues that could be fixed with more polish, but the concept and mood are excellent. |
| May 17 19:58:00 | 21h 46m | Civil war | I didn't try playing this against someone, but it seems like a pretty fun little digital boardgame. The messages when clicking the wrong square are funny. |
| May 19 19:50:00 | 47h 52m | tequilaJumper | The controls are rather difficult to deal with, but other than that, a fun, difficult vertical platformer. The randomly generated platforms are innovative and provide replayability. I like the way the player is scored depending on how high they got, too. <br/> <br/>I may come back to play this one more once I have more time after the voting ends. |
| May 19 20:27:00 | 37m 00s | Don't paint me, I'm busy | Pretty good, if not all that innovative. The storyline and writing are very funny, and I like Yari. The battles were just challenging enough to keep me coming back when I got beaten. The graphics are nice; my only problem is that the fighting animations are a bit uninspired. Also, the font wasn't very easy to read. <br/> <br/>Apart from those nitpicks, nice work. |
| May 19 21:20:00 | 53m 00s | Deja vu | Very original gameplay, clever puzzles, and excellent mood. Unfortunately, I haven't beaten it yet. (I couldn't figure out how to progress from the level where you climb the wall: I pushed the button, but it didn't seem to do anything.) The music is perfect. <br/> <br/>On the downside, while the story pulled me in, your English grammar needs a bit of work. It's the kind of thing that will come with practice. |
| May 19 22:16:00 | 56m 00s | CHAMELEON RUN | Now this is how you do minimalism! Nearly as addictive as "Robot Unicorn Attack". The music is very good, I like the background, and there's enough challenge here to keep me coming back. Very nice. |
| May 20 21:21:00 | 23h 05m | Gods Will Be Watching | This is a great deal of fun! In the most nail-biting sense of the word. I'm definitely going to come back to this and see if I can beat it. Great set-up for a game, and the graphics are lovely; they remind me of the point-and-click adventures I grew up with in the 90s ("Guilty" and the like). That's high praise. The only thing I didn't like about the graphics is Sgt. Burden's very thin legs. Very good audio. The game itself is excellently tense. <br/> <br/>A couple of typoes and grammar mistakes in the writing. Other than that, I enjoyed this immensely. <br/> <br/>SPOILERS <br/> <br/>I felt like a bastard when I had to slaughter the dog to provide food. |
| May 20 21:52:00 | 31m 00s | climbing 208 feet up the ruin wall | Low on interactivity for a Twine game, but awe-inspiring in terms of writing and mood. (Of course, that's hardly unexpected for Porpentine.) Now that I think about it, I see how the incessant clicking mimics the protagonist's effort of climbing. <br/> <br/>Nice use of graphics, too. |
| May 20 22:11:00 | 19m 00s | Angry Reviewer | Innovative idea, and very unlike most games in this compo, but there's not a whole lot of fun here. Programming is solid (it's missing quite a few words, but I guess that's always going to be the case), but adding up the score at the end would help. Also, it's easy to game the system by typing in the same word over and over. A version that only allowed using each word once would be an improvement. <br/> <br/>By the way, it's spelled "douchey". |
| May 20 22:33:00 | 22m 00s | Samus Regrets | Great concept, and the gameplay and graphics are nice. Unfortunately, once I ran out of ammunition it became unbeatable, as far as I could tell. Perhaps I would have done better if I'd had more experience with the Metroid franchise. <br/> <br/>Great job! |