Horror Game Review: 331 Oakmont Drive (Yunakitty, Choose Your Story)

Posted on October 2, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Before I review this game, I have to give a shout-out to the community at Choose Your Story. I play a lot of online interactive fiction games and I spend time on a lot of different gaming sites. Some of them are good. Most of them are not. However, the games at Choose Your Story have been consistently good and enjoyable to play and read. The games follow the Choose Your Own Adventure format and it’s obvious that most of the writers put a good deal of effort into their stories. The community, as well, seems to offer up constructive criticism and really, the entire site feels like an antidote to all of the terrible things that you usually come across online. Whenever I play some overly long Twine game that was written by someone who clearly gave more thought to their background music than to actually coming up with a decent storyline, it makes me appreciate the work being done at Choose Your Story.

As for 331 Oakmont Drive, it’s an enjoyable horror storygame that is perfect for the Halloween season. You are a college student who, along with your friend Sophie, makes extra money cleaning other people’s houses. You have been hired to clean 331 Oakmont Drive but you have a bad feeling about the place as soon as you arrive. Do you stay in the house and do the job (you do need the money) or do you immediately try to leave? Either choice will take you on a different journey through 331 Oakmont Drive. This game has several endings. Some are happy, most are not. With many rooms to explore (and try to escape) and many macabre fates possibly waiting, this is one of those games that can be played over and over again. The game is entertaining, it’s well-written, and some thought was actually put into the story. It’s a game that will get you in the mood for the Halloween season.

Play 331 Oakmont Drive here!

Game Review: American Outlaws: The Dillinger Gang (2017, by Will 1 1)

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

The time is the Great Depression and you are a lawyer who has had a terrible run of luck. You’ve lost your money, your home, and your wife. Sent to prison for a pretty crime, you befriend the legendary outlaw John Dillinger. When you are both released on the same day, it’s time to get back to doing what Dillinger does best, robbing banks.

American Outlaws: The Dillinger Game is a choose-your-own-adventure style game, in which you are a member of Dillinger’s gang and an associate of outlaws like Baby Face Nelson, Red Hamilton, and Homer van Meter. The choices start out simple. Do you accompany Dillinger on his latest robbery? Do you head to Indiana with Dillinger or do you instead decide to join Baby Face Nelson’s gang? The choices start to get more difficult. Do you run when the cops show up? Do you fight with the cops? When a member of the gang orders you to shoot someone, do you do it? The game keeps a running tally of the number of gunfights you’ve taken part in, the number of people you’ve injured, the number that you’ve killed, the number of banks you’ve robbed, and the amount of money you’ve made. Depending on the decisions you make, it’s totally possible to make it all the way through this game and retire without having killed or even injured someone. It’s also possible to be such a viscous outlaw that even Baby Face Nelson wouldn’t mess with you. The longer your play, the more money you can potentially make but the more money you make, the more likely it is that you’ll commit a crime that will make it impossible for you to safely retire. You could end up the last member of the Dillinger Gang. You could also just as easily end up getting taken down by the FBI.

It helps to know the history of the Dillinger gang. That saved my life at least once. In fact, it’s really not difficult to survive the game. The sensible decisions are there and easy to make. But why be sensible when you’re hanging out with John Dillinger and there’s more and more money to be made?

This is a good game because every choice really does effect what happens to your bank robber. There are no throw-away choices and who your outlaw turns out to be really does depend on the decisions that you make. Because there are so many different outcomes, this is a fast-paced game can be played again and again.

Play American Outlaws: The Dillinger Gang.

Game Review: Get There On Time! (2024, Leticia Fox)

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

You’re awake! Your day has just begun! Can you get there on time!?

Get There On Time! is a game that I think everyone can relate to. Each day, you wake up. You are determined to get there on time. Where is there? It doesn’t matter. You just have to get there on time. Can you do it?

Get There On Time! is short and simple. It’s a game in that you are given a selection of options but, just as in real life, some times it doesn’t matter how many options you are given. This really is more of an existential joke than a traditional game, with each choice leading to the inevitable punchline. But it’s a joke that everyone can relate to.

Click here to play Get There On Time!

Game Review: Re-Election Campaign (2024, by Orange)

Posted on January 5, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Re-Election Campaign is a Choose Your Own Adventure-style work of Interactive Fiction. You are Jesse Jordan, the mayor of Cougar Valley, Washington. You have been mayor for the last four years and you’re planning on being mayor for the next four and for a long time after that.

But first, can you win reelection? Getting more votes than your friend Bob shouldn’t be a problem. But what about Marie Eckles, the wealthy reform candidate who keeps highlighting what a terrible mayor you’ve been? Do you do what you have to do to raise the money to out-advertise her? Or do you just challenge her to a duel? Or do you do something that is potentially even worse to secure your victory?

I don’t want to spoil the game but Re-Election Campaign has so many options and so many different outcomes that its one that you really do have to play over and over again to get the full story. You can either play this quickly for fun (and I enjoyed seeing what would happen whenever I made an obviously bad decision) or you can do a deep dive and discover just how crazy things can get when politics and power are concerned. I really enjoyed discovering a new aspect of the story every time that I played. It takes more than a few run-throughs to really discover who Jesse Jordan really is. Nothing is what it initially seems and I actually was taken by surprise when the truth was eventually revealed. Well-written and frequently very funny, Re-Election Campaign is one of the best IF games that I’ve played in a while.

Click here to play Re-Election Campaign.

Horror Game Review: Weird Texts From An Unknown Number (2023, Mark Sample)

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

When you get a weird text from an unknown number saying that all of your secrets will soon be revealed, you assume that it is your brother Matt, pulling another stupid prank while traveling around Europe.

But what if it isn’t?

That’s the question at the heart of Weird Texts From An Unknown Number, a short but creepy Interactive Fiction game in which how you respond to the texts can lead to five completely different but equally disturbing endings.

This is a short game that can be played in under five minutes but, because each answer leads to an entirely different ending, it is also a game that can frequently be replayed. I found myself replaying this well-written game several times because I not only wanted to see every ending but also just how bad things could get the for the main character. The answer is very bad. The lesson? Some numbers are best left unknown.

Play Weird Texts From An Unknown Number.

Game Review: Sidetrack (2023, Andi C. Buchanan)

Posted on May 7, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

In Sidetrack, you are a teenager who walks the same route to school every day. Every day, you walk past an abandoned subway station. Today, though, you see that the station is suddenly open and you decide to explore. From the first station, you can take the train to as many or as few locations as you want. Each location has a different feel to it. The first station that I visited featured people who were made of wood and I had to exchange my money for wooden coins. Another station was full of friendly spiders while another had biting fish. Exploring each station brings the chance of finding something that you can use to enhance the experience your experience at another station. You can visit and re-visit all of the stations as much as you like but when you finally decide to return home, the experience is over.

Designed with Twine and featuring stations that were created by guest authors, Sidetrack is about as pure of an Interactive Fiction experience as you could hope to have. It’s a story that lasts for as long as you want it to and that goes where you direct it to go. Well-written and intriguing, this is not a game where you have to worry about getting stuck because you picked the wrong verb or you missed a step in solving an intricate puzzle. This is a game that you experience like a surreal but unforgettable dream. Take the journey and see how many stations you can explore.

Play Sidetrack.

Game Review: Amnesia (1986, Electronic Arts)

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

You wake up in a hotel room in New York City. You have no idea how you got there. You have no idea who you are. And you have no clothes.

So starts Amnesia, the semi-legendary text adventure game from 1986. Amnesia was Electronic Arts’s attempt to challenge Infocom’s domination of the text adventure genre. To write the game, they brought in author Thomas M. Disch. Disch came up with a twisty and complex story where each choice often led to unexpected tangents. The game featured a detail recreation of Manhattan, one that you could experience only if you could figure out how to find some clothes and get out of the hotel without getting arrested. Of course, even after finding something to wear, it’s probable the many players decided to go ahead and marry the mysterious woman who claimed to be the main character’s fiancée. Those players found themselves suddenly whisked off to an Australian sheep farm, where they lived out their days happy but unsure of who they actually were. For them, the game ended quickly but without many answers. Others, however, braved the streets of a virtual Manhattan is search of their identity.

Who are you? Throughout the game, there are clues but they’re not always easy to find. There’s a large collection of eccentric and bizarre characters who can help you or hinder you. You have to avoid the police who want to arrest you and the people who are trying to kill you. Of course, even if you defeat those assassins, the game also features random encounters with people who will ask you for directions and who will shoot you if you give them the wrong answer. This feature was actually something that EA added to the game to punish anyone who had borrowed the game disk from a friend. The game originally came with code wheel that you could use to determine which streets intersected with each other. If you bought the game, you would be able to give people the proper directions. If you didn’t buy the game or, if you’re playing the game in 2023 at the Internet archive, you would end up making a random guess and hoping that it didn’t lead to you getting shot by a tourist.

(Fortunately, there’s an online version of the code wheel.)

Even if you die, the game doesn’t necessarily end. You might find yourself waiting in Purgatory. After a certain number of turns, Charon might approach and ask if you’ve figured out your name. If you give him the right name, you can move on. If you don’t know your name, Charon leaves with a promise that he’ll return in another thousand years.

Amnesia is a challenging game. It’s also a frequently frustrating game. Thomas M. Disch was an author and the game reads like a long and dense novel. There are times when Disch seemed to forget that the point of Interactive Fiction is that the player is supposed to have complete control over their actions. At the same time, Amnesia’s descriptions are so detailed and many of the events are so unexpected that this is a game that benefits from frequent replaying. And the game itself is so difficult that when you actually manage to accomplish anything, whether it’s getting out of the hotel or finding a place to sleep or even giving someone the right directions, you feel as if you’re the greatest player alive.

Or at least you do until the next puzzle comes along.

Play Amnesia.

Game Review: Conflict (1990, Virgin Mastertronic International, Inc)

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

In 1997, after the Israeli Prime Minister is assassinated, you are appointed to take his place. It is up to you to lead Israel and to keep it safe. It won’t be easy because there are enemies all around. Not only do you have to deal with America continually pressuring you to surrender the West Bank and not increase the size of your army but Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan all border you and could be either strong allies or potential threats. It all depends on the decision that you make.

Conflict is a political strategy simulator where the goal is to be the last country standing. The only way to ensure that Israel is safe is to make sure that the governments around it either collapse or surrender. That does not necessarily mean that you should go to war with these countries. Though that is an option, it’s sometimes easier to covertly support an internal rebellion or to wait for those countries to go to war with each other. Along with the countries bordering you, you also have to deal with Libya, Iran, and Iraq, three countries that can be manipulated to go to war with the rivals on your border. If you do not want to go to war with bigger and more populated countries, it is sometimes best to just wait for those counties to collapse on their own. Another solution is to develop a nuclear arsenal and use it on your enemies but that will not only earn you the enmity of the United States but there’s also a chance that it could cause the end of the world.

What makes Conflict so challenging is that each game is randomized. Sometimes, you’ll start the game with none of your neighbors acting aggressively towards you. Sometimes, Syria and Egypt will both be aggressively pursuing their own nuclear programs and sometimes, they won’t. If you start the game with both Syria and Egypt threatening to invade you at the same time, you might as well give up and start over because there’s no way that you’re going to survive. Just as in real life, so much of succeeding in Conflict depends on getting a few lucky breaks.

Along with the role of chance, another thing that stands out about Conflict is what a pain of the ass the United States can be. If you do anything to defend your country, the U.S. will condemn you and possibly even declare an arms embargo on you. (Again, a lot of it has to do with chance.) If you call out an air strike on the nuclear installations in Egypt or Syria, the U.S. will get upset despite the fact that you really don’t really have any other option. Losing the race to be the first to deploy nuclear weapons in Conflict usually means losing the game. After I played the game a few times, I realized it was pointless to worry about how the U.S. felt about anything. Instead, I had to do whatever I had to do in order to survive.

Conflict is a challenging game. There is a way to win by declaring war on everyone but you can also win by being a peaceful neighbor and never attacking anyone. Of course, both of those approaches can also lead to you being led away to be hanged by your enemies. Conflict can be frustratingly difficult but that just makes it all the more rewarding when you do win.

Play Conflict at the Internet Archive.

Dracula vs. LBJ: Who Would Win?

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

For my final President Elect simulation of this year’s horrorthon, I decided to see what would happen if, in 1964, Dracula had been the Republican nominee against LBJ. I had already discovered that Dracula would have easily defeated both Frankenstein’s Monster and Jimmy Carter in a presidential election. Would he be able to do the same with LBJ?

In the real world, LBJ easily defeated the Republican nominee, Barry Goldwater. LBJ benefitted from public sympathy for the Kennedy family and also from a brutally negative campaign that portrayed Goldwater as being a war monger. Johnson won 61% of the popular vote and he carried 44 states (and DC). Goldwater won only 38% of the popular vote and carried only 6 states (5 in the Deep South and his home state of Arizona). At the time, Goldwater’s defeat was portrayed as being the end of the Republican Party. Instead, Goldwater’s losing campaign set the foundations that would later lead to election of Ronald Reagan in the 80s.

How would Dracula have done against LBJ? Would Dracula, with his superb speaking skills and his hypnotic magnetism, have been able to defeat LBJ despite the incumbent’s strengths?

According to President Elect, LBJ would have still won if Dracula had been the nominee but the election would have been much closer, as far as the popular vote was concerned. During the simulation, Dracula was such a strong candidate that LBJ even debated him twice. Dracula won both times but LBJ was still able to hold his own. If LBJ had made a serious gaffe during the debate, the election would have turned out differently. It was a risk but it was a risk that paid off for Johnson.

The first results of election night tells the story:

Though Johnson easily won the District of Columbia, the rest of the states were much closer. Dracula did well in the South and in the west. Johnson did well in the North and the Industrial Midwest. It was Iowa that put him over the top.

In the end, Dracula carried 18 states while Johnson won the other 32 (and D.C.).

(In President Elect, the Republican states are colored blue while the Democratic states are red. It took me a while to get used to it too.)

Against Dracula, Johnson still scored an electoral landslide but the popular vote was much closer.

So, if you’re ever wondering which President could have defeated Dracula, the answer is Lyndon B. Johnson.

And Ronald Reagan. But you already knew that.

Dracula vs. Jimmy Carter: Who Would Win?

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Earlier this week, I used the President Elect simulator to discover who would win if Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and The Mummy ran against each other in the 2024 presidential election. Dracula won easily. The Monster carried D.C. and that’s it.

Then, I decided to see what would have happened in Frankenstein’s Monster had run against Richard Nixon in 1960. Nixon won easily. Even though the Monster received more votes against Nixon than he did against Dracula, he was still only able to carry two states in the Deep South, Georgia and Mississippi.

Today, I decided to see how Dracula would have done against Jimmy Carter in 1976. I set up the simulation with the same economic and world conditions that Carter, Gerald Ford, and third party candidate Eugene McCarthy were debating in 1976. The only difference is that I substituted Dracula for Gerald Ford. No longer would Ford carry the stain of pardoning Nixon. Now, it would be Dracula. Again, I gave Dracula high score for his speaking ability, his personal magnetism, and his ability to stay cool under pressure. I also made sure that Dracula’s campaign platform represented his authoritarian politics.

In the end, Dracula’s platform didn’t matter. Watergate didn’t matter. The economy didn’t matter. Dracula wiped the floor with both Carter and McCarthy. Carter challenged Dracula to one debate. Dracula blew him out of the water. In real life, Carter narrowly defeated Ford after Ford lost their debates. In the simulation, Dracula dominated the election.

On election night, Carter got one piece of good news when he won the District of Columbia.