Reviews

Review by Onewing all reviews by Onewing

Good: You included a game I suggested!
Bad: I ran out of Tylenol. 
Do I really care about the old lady?
Comments:
It?s a text-based game! I can?t really call that?ASCII art. While there are some fun mini-games, I?m just not thrilled by this game.

Overall: It works, that?s got to count for something. I dub you 2!

Artisitic: The train at the beginning is kind of good, but I?ve seen better in the other TINS games? The blur affect when the help screen is nice. Gotta say another 2.

Technical: Little ASCII, so you get 1/2 point there. Help screen(s) is good, two points there. Game engine works, ? point there. That?d be a 3.

Genre: 3. Nothing else to say, really.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 3

Review by Lenman all reviews by Lenman

I really liked the story approach, so you actually know *why* you should even bother to try to stop the train in time. But on the other hand, time is hindering the gameplay - if you really want to be as fast as possible, you will just repeatedly play the simplest games (arrows/alphabet) until you stop the train. There is no point in playing any of the harder games from a 'genre' point of view, so I will give 3 points for genre.

From a 'gameplay' point of view, the minigames are entertaining for a while, but some of them are just not challengin enough to be fun (that is, if you are not a toddler). The temporarily entertaining ones are not what I would call 'addictive' and get boring after a short time. That makes 3 'overall' points.

The artistic part... The graphics are limited to the (nice, btw) train image on the title screen, so I will only give 2 points.

There is a good help screen for every game and the ASCII art looks nice. The technical part was well-done, the game is well-programmed and runs well. Well, I will give 4 technical points then.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 2 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by miran all reviews by miran

Quite an average game in all respects. Some of the minigames are actually fun but others are almost annoying. The ASCII art is minimal but nice - I like the train :)

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 2 Genre 3

Review by guilt all reviews by guilt

A nice li'l collection of mini games... Tried my hand at cows and bulls.. was very confused apparently that i ended up losing it everytime :) The game is ascii art, and i like the way it's garbled up when you lose :) very very retro!

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by Darksoll all reviews by Darksoll

I love minigame-based games. This is one of them. you have to stop a train before something rally bad happens....
in order to slow down and stop the train you have to play some minigames. they are simple but fun. There are five minigames, some of them are kinda confusing, but they're right. The ASCII art is ok.
Well, i don't have much to say about this game, i liked it, i think it's cool, but something rally unfair happened first time i played. i read the story("an elderly lady..."), but while i read the story the time was passing, so i lost about half a minute reading the story, and that's not fair, not fair at all.
regardless the game is great, and i like it.

I think this game would be better if: mmmm... a menu would be fine. timer should start first time you press home, this way is not so unfair ;-). and another thing that allegroids seems to always forget.... MUSIC. I don't like to play games in silence, please add music to your games!!!. Believe me, it's easy ;-). Just download a MIDI from any commercial game, classical music, tv-series or whatever, any music will do!.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 4

Review by ahuillet all reviews by ahuillet

A very interesting game.

The requirements are fulfilled : the theme is indeed time, there is a train, a help screen, and some ASCII art.

Now about the marks :

Time was correctly used but not in a unusual/original way. The train is a central part of the not-really-existing scenario.
This gives us a 3/5 for genre.

The help screen is here and does its work, but it could've been improved, as could the whole game interface. The ASCII art is nice though. Therefore I'll go for 3/5 as artistic mark.
Technically, this game unfortunately only deserves 2/5.

Overall, the game is an average-good TINS entry, and can be distracting for one hour or two. 4/5 as overall score for the consistency, and the great idea of minigames.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 4