2019-12-28 17:02:23

Just an update. Thanks to some great advice I have gotten from several users, I have decided to put headings at the top of posts that actually contain one of my reviews.

They go as follows:

Bookrage's review of "X"

Where X is the title of the game, and yes, I will put it in quotes and that will be the standard heading for my review posts.

2019-12-28 19:00:10

I'd forgotten how much I loved choice of robots.  Yes, it starts off unassuming enough, but depending on the path you take it can get quite thought provoking.  I'm currently playing that while getting lost in the lore of sabers of infinity.  Has the third book in that line come out yet?  I don't think so, but I've not payed attention to new releases for a fair while. 
It's a simple thing, but there are few things more enjoyable to me than getting to read an engaging story, as well as play a game which makes you feel part of things without breaking out of the immersion.

2019-12-28 19:04:20

several people have told me "Choice of Robots." is good, though I haven't played it yet, but all the good reports have me excited about it.

2019-12-28 21:55:03

@dan_c Nope, the third game isn't out yet smile

Hi, my Skype name is, anr1235, feel free to add me if you wish, i love to make new friends, and thanks.

2020-01-03 17:16:34

Hello all,

I planned to have a review to you guys today but instead have a question.

I was planning on reviewing "Choice of the Vampire" today, but I found that through my weird way of determining what I will play through next, that I'm going to play though this game yet again. I plan to play in a very different way than the first two times I've played it, so I figure I'd actually have a better perspective after yet another playthrough.

My question is, should I go ahead and review "Choice of the Vampire" now, or should I wait until the next playthrough I've started is done. I will tell you guys a second playthrough, while it did not really make the game any better for me, did provide a lot of new information and perspective for a potential review, and my second playthrough was not too different from my first.

I'll wait a couple days or until I get three definite yes or no responses before choosing  whether to review now or wait until I play it yet again.

2020-01-03 18:30:36

i'd say wait till you finish your third play through, that way you'll have a defonite idea of the game.

2020-01-11 13:32:53

Hello all,

Just letting you know that they have just released a new hosted game called "Street Jam: the rise" which is supposed to be something or other about being an aspiring street fighter and trying to rise through the ranks and get fame and fortune or something of the sort.

I'm still on the Choiceofgames line and probably will be for quite some time, but I thought you guys might like to know of this one.

Also, I am approaching the end of my "Choice of the Vampire"  playthrough so expect my own review  in a day or two.

2020-01-13 03:38:37

Bookrage's review of "Choice of the Vampire."

Hello all,

as promised, I am giving you my impression of "choice of the Vampire" from the Choiceofgames series. I am glad I waited for a third playthrough on this one as there are some things I failed to notice on my first two that change some of the views I have of the game.

Genre: This story is very much a southern Gothic Vampire story, much in the style of Anne Rice and her imitators. You live in a secret society of vampires and are in several key events in New Orleans and other parts of the south from the battle of NEw Orleans until the formation of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1870s.

incoming biases: I have a stron gdislike for anything that really romanticizes vampires and I prefer them to be monstrous such as they were in many earlier works of the 19th and early 20th centuries rather than today. Also, despite being a southerner myself, I don't like romanticization of the old south either as I think it doesn't have much to be proud of. The game doesn't shy away from the bad stuff, but there is still too positive a light on some things that happened then as I see it.

writing: the writing is typical for many vampire stories of this sort. However, there is quite a bit of lucivious details and at times, it seems the author is trying to get lust into the story even where it is inappropriate for the mood. When one character feeds in one scene, they have her strip and dance around nearly naked before feeding. This is simply fanservice and does not contribute to the story. Your feelings along lustful lines are often dictated for you and you'll be described as being overcome with lust for many characters, both vampire and mortal, and it doesn't really try to take into account the players' own tastes and just forces your hand. I know vampirism in literature, even the actual classical stuff I like has a lot of homo-eroticism in it, but I would still really like to have more control over that than I did. This is not the only area where this happens, as much of your own dialog is written for you, and in terms too specific for you to avoid feeling jerked around by the story. The story also doesn't give you enough choices and you will often feel your character hurled from one situation to the next, with the game saying you made choices when in fact you are just being led by the ear.

That said, the game's story is actually quite branching and in 3 playthroughs, I got three very different experiences. None of them were great, but  I will say the game has a lot of options.

One of the strangest things I have found in the game is that chapters are not clearly marked. The number of chapters, at least as marked by next chapter buttons, also shifts wildly from playthrough to playthrough depending on which path you choose. Based on the fact I play a chapter a day and like things to be tied up neatly, this sloppy division of the gamebook was particularly annoying to me.

Mechanics: The mechanics in this game are extremely murky. It is often hard to figure out exactly where strengths and weaknesses will come into play. Some of them, such as fighting and agility are pretty easy to understand, as are rationality and superstition, though I feel those last two are rather insultingly named because superstition applies to almost everything religious in the game while reason applies to almost everything anti-religious, while if you look at a lot of the great thinkers in the real world, religion does not equal stupidity, nor does a lack of religious belief protect us necessarily from having superstitious fears or beliefs. (Just watch gamblers of any faith or lack thereof.) Others, such as lore, are not quite so clear. Also, although the game gives you many options to increase your stats, and many of them are quite ham-handedly announced, other points, like when you announce your preferred prey, are not quite as intuitive. It is often hard, except in action sequences,to figure out what is best for your character to do.

railroading: oh my god Yes! You will feel constantly jerked around by this story. On the bright side however, it is a railroad with a lot of switches and different paths. You will always feel jerked around, but you will know you will have some choice into which path you are dragged down.

achievements: Actually a place where this game shines, though that might be partly because it sets the bar so low elsewhere. There are not a lot of individual achievements, but I can tell you that they are a legitimate challenge and many of them require careful play to obtain. There aren't any sat-based achievements such as having your lore above a certain stat or having the anachronism stat high, but there are many that are based on events throughout the story. Some of them are pretty hard to get. I don't have many but I have gotten some rougher ones. Some of them are even cleverly named. My personal favorite is "Edward" which you get for deciding only to feed from animals.

final remarks: This one is low on my list for a reason. It embodies a lot of writing tropes I dislike, the mechanics are hard to follow, you will often feel that you are not really in control of your character, lust is all over the place in your character's mind regardless of if you want it or not or how you invision your character thinking. However, it does have the redeeming qualities that it has many interesting and challenging achievements, and the story does truly branch in many ways. If you are willing to forego the bad writing, this one can be a nice challenge if you want to try everything.

I will say that it improves a little on replays if you try other things, but it  hasn't improved enough to let it rise above "Choice of Zombies" on my list, though at this point, I have played a game that has been worse.

2020-01-13 08:38:14

As I said above, I wasn't keen on this one either  myself, and while I can see there are points where decisions can be made, at the same time, redacting your decisions to force you down one path with no options really got on my nerves.

I'll also say, as someone who is not American, let alone Southern, I didnt' like the way the author seemed to presuppose a knowledge of the period to catch up with their writing.
For example, I gathered that the gang of hood wearing thugs you meet towards the end was the Ku Klux Klan, but I had no idea that I was supposed to be seeing their founding.

I can get that to someone more familiar with the period that would be rather like seeing uniforms with swastikas in 1930's Germany, but to me it didn't have the same significance.
Again, if the writing had been better, if my character had for example had a presentiment that this would be the mark of something else I might have felt something, but as it was the game just seemed to cut off in mid flow.

I'm also not entirely crazy on the beautiful romantic lustful vampire thing either, or at least if the vampires are to have some eroticism, I'd prefer they stay close to the original Dracula and mix that with a good bit of horror along the way.

Actually, I rather enjoyed choice of zombies, yes it's a schlocky zombie horror and pales in comparison to zombie exodus, but it still had it's moments, in particular one of the bad endings is actually a very emotional scene.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-01-13 15:12:44

Dark,

Choice of Zombies is going to be the next title I review. I'm not crazy about it, but it does avoid many of the problems Vampire has with it.

Also, there are two relative final major events of Choice of the Vampire, one being just seeing KKK at work, and another actually meeting Bedford Forest at a meeting when he founds the group.

But yes, if it expects you to play a historical character in this setting, it really ought to have told us more about what was going on.

2020-01-13 15:49:30

Oddly enough with choice of the vampire, you get a lot of historical information about which battles happened where and what congress was doing, but little of it felt relevant to my character. Indeed I think the comunality stat was supposed to be reflective of whether my character wanted to be in the new united states or part of the south, but as all the events we heard about were so wide scale and had no bearing  my character's actual experiences, I just had no idea which was what or what I should be going for.

this is one area where choice of zombies will score more highly I think, because it is far more focused on your character and the immediate situation.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-01-19 15:15:06

Bookrage's review of "choice of Zombies"

Hello all, this week I have Choice of Zombies to bring to you, which is relatively low on my list but above others.
biases: I am not a fan of the Zombie outbreak genre and tend to find it boring, and I promise that will slip into my review despite my efforts to the contrary.

genre: This is a typical horror-sci-fi zombie virus outbreak story, and if you know the tropes of the genre, nothing here will be surprising or new.

writing: The writing in this game is crisp and clear, and also tends to set out the situations in ways that really appeal to the senses and bring the mood of the setting to life. You really feel like you are there and the grim aspects of the story really speak to the reader.

On the downside, the story, for what it is, is not very creative in its content or situations, with one very large exception in one of the refuge locations. Also, although the game's description tells you of you possibly finding the secret of the zombie virus, this is dealt with in a few sentences if you do and your character is mostly passive in that regard. If you've seen zombie outbreak movies or shows though, you've seen everything this game has to throw at you, and you've probably seen it done better.

mechanics: very good! It is usually easy to tell the difference between what skills various choices will rely on when you are figuring how to deal with a situation. This is no better than many of the decently-designed Choiceofgames titles. What is actually quite nice is the fact that your completion of the adventure relies on more than just you. You can have exceptional skills in what you are trying to do, but sometimes, if you don't have help, you'll lose anyway. This incentivizes saving other people and getting them to help you by studying their personalities. From what I remember, there is no actual numerical display of the relationships you have with those you have saved, but I'm okay with that. The game wants you to strategize a bit as a player, so  having to read and make sense of what it is telling you about characters accompanying you, which it does quite well, is something I think that should be praised rather than blamed.

Romance: If you don't like romance in your stories, you have a comfortable time in this one as there is no love story that I know of. I am not even sure it asks the character's gender, but I am not certain on that.

railroading: Heck no! From the very first decisions you make in the game, the game can take all sorts of paths. I have played it twice and have had two very different adventures that barely overlapped. There is a little nudging here and there, but most of the decisions it forces you to make feel natural, and it does so gracefully. It also, unlike the last title I reviewed "Choice of the Vampire" does not write a lot of your own dialog, which is something I tend to find annoying.

Achievements: this game has none, which is a real shame because with the concept of saving people, a running talley of how many zombies you've killed, lots of different events you could base achievements off of and a good basis for stat-based achievements as wel, it really missed out on some great potential.

final remarks: This game, except for the minor problem of no achievements has nothing wrong with it. The mechanics are solid, the writing is okay, and you have a lot of freedom with easily-understood relationships to your stats. However, the story is rather flat except in a few places and I would have to say that despite all of its positives, "Choice of Zombies" is plagued by the problem of simply being a boring story. As I said, in terms of being a gamebook, it has nothing wrong with it, but it also lacks any  real substance that would make it a delight to play, even with its good gameplay elements.

2020-01-21 19:22:44 (edited by Dark 2020-01-21 19:31:14)

Okay, yesterday I ended up stuck in hospital with Mrs. Dark for a good four hours whilst she waited for   Chemotherapy, then radiotherapy (the chemo departmentt was really busy), so basically before getting on to what I think to the game, bare in mind it wasn't exactly played in  a stress free environment, ---- it's amazing how tiring just sitting around in hospital with  your wife can be, especially when your not sure what time things are happening and are waiting for instructions.

anyway, on the plus side, this meant I was able to play through the game twice in succession and take a couple of different routes.
first thing's first, I totally agree with bookrage about lack of achievements, however I suspect this is the first instance I've found of  a mistake being made when porting the game from  a single ap to part of the hole Cog ap, since I am sure I remember when I first played this  back in 2014 or so, there were! gamecentre achievements, indeed getting all of the endings, including the various ways there are for your character to die was made as a selling point of the game, and , one of the more poignant endings actually results from a game over if you get bitten.

I'll also say, the game itself suffers rather badly from being bought out at the same time as zombie exodus. I have heard a rumour that zombie exodus was forced into the hosted games line because Choice of games didn't want a competitor to their own zombie title, I don't know if this is true, but ZE blows choice of zombies out of the water in pretty much every respect.

In choice of zombies, the zombocalypse is often treated as comic, in zombie exodus, your definitely playing with horror and atmosphere. IN Choice of zombies, there is no romance, whilst zombie exodus is one occasion where I ended up playing a gay character not because I chose at the start, but because the relationship she developed with another  lady came about so organically it just worked, indeed whilst I  was surprised, at the same time it was a nice direction to go.

choice of zombies has a sickness/bloodthirst stat which doesn't really  effect gameplay and you can be a bloody thirsty killer if you wish, zombie exodus has a humanity/brutality stat which actually requires you to make moral choices. Choice of zombies mentions gathering supplies but other than one choice  to the ending there is little by way of resource management, ZE has a major resources and management mechanic system
Suffice it to say, this one will always suffer as compared to ZE, and possibly other zombocalypse games out there, (I would say,  still cliche ridden in some ways, dead man walking over on choseyourstory has much better atmosphere and some actual stats and achievements).

As to the game itself, I played through twice, once with a female survivor called Rachel, once with a male survivor called Sean (points again to anyone who gets the joke).
I agree that a lot of this is light hearted, standard fun, though I will say I liked playing to your team's strengths and working out personalities, and the fact  that since the game didn't take itself too seriously, neither did you, indeed that was one reason I  chose to play it again during a moderately stressful hospital visit, since I knew it'd be fairly tame, tomato source splattering zombie carnage.

I will say though, whilst it's focus is modest, it carries out that focus rather well and several sections (such as the gas station mention of munchies),  made me laugh. I was less keen on all the "how do you feel" questions, and the fact that the sickness/blodothirst stat didn't seem to get used, but on the other hand, I liked some of the way you could dispatch zombies relatively easily with whatever came to hand.

One thing which did seem odd to me, though.  though the game has zero romance (well unless you count one disturbing encounter at the church for  one of your companions), if you play a male, you almost universally run into male companions and the little child kayden is a boy, whilst if your female, you almost exclusively run into women and kayden is a little girl.

this seems a bit strange to me. Maybe it's because your companions were always dictated by solo traits, EG Justin/Jenifer being the weedy one, Michael/Michelle being the arrogant one etc, but it might have been nice, and a bit more realistic to change gender around a bit more among those you encounter, indeed this is one where randomising gender of your companions might have been fun, especially with the lack of romance in the story.

Again though, this one was fun, and short enough to look through and get a number of endings and different places to explore, but it does suffer both from the lack of achievements, the rather superficial, indeed at times down right slapstick horror atmosphere and altogether feeling generally light weight, particularly since you actually need to lose to get some of the more emotionally charged moments. Probably more of a game than a book I'd say what with easy zobmie slaughter and a final ending that effects to a totting up of stats for you and your party, though again a shame they mist the achievements to get the most out of those mechanics.

Not bad, and certainly a nice distraction for a hospital visit, but definitely not my favourite, or perhaps not the bes t zombi game out there.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-01-22 15:09:54

Hello all,

Have just completed Choice of the Star Captain, and have added it to the list and ranking in my first post. The review of that one will come in a few weeks. But just wanted to show you where I think it belongs on my personal list if anyone has any desire to see what I think of it in ranking alone.

2020-01-22 20:08:42

Lol, not a fan then big_smile.
I began choice of the star captain, but was a little disheartened when the game forced me into the arsehole choice.
Perhaps I will replay it in the next few days myself.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-01-22 21:08:30

I've still got 2 games to review before I get to that title. I've got Hero's Rise: The prodigy, and 'For Rent: Haunted house." before I work my way up to the choice of the star captain, and I only plan to do about one review a week, and then it will probably slow down as I finish reviewing titles I have actually played all the way through.

2020-01-23 18:31:55

okay, just a little bit of Choiceofgames news for you guys.

Turns out they are releasing another free game today. This one is called "Sky Pirates of Actorious." or something similar, I think I might have spelled Actorius wrong so I provided another possible spelling there.

Anyway, you are there to infiltrate a notorious sky pirate's crew to bring him down, with the opportunity to join him or even take charge if you want (in the advertisement, no spoilers from me alone.) and you use a clockwork companion and your wits to come out on top.

the thing's only 37k words, but as it is the "free or pay to get rid of the ads" thing, not a big deal I don't think. It will be quite some time before I get to it but there is no reason you can't enjoy it now and maybe you can give us some first impressions.

2020-01-26 17:17:11

Bookrage's review of "Hero's Rise: The Prodigy"

Hello all,

I have another game to bring to you today, this one being the highly acclaimed "Hero's Rise: The prodigy," which many people who like choiceofgames tell me is pretty good. I've played it and I'll tell you what I think of it.

biases: I have a particular liking of the superhero Genre.

Genre: This is a superhero game set in a more high-tech future where superheroes are common and many of the prejudices of today are no more. I thought it would be more generic than it was and that I would be able to pick my powers and such, but you have flight and energy powers. That said, within your role it is still a fascinating game. There is one major problem with the genre that bothers me about the worldbuilding, but that will be discussed in the writing section. It also promises intrigues and relationship stuff, and it is something it delivers well.

writing: This game is quite long with 21 chapters, plus an epilogue and prologue, and it gives you a wide array of things to do. The game has its moments of superhero action, but often having to navigate the landscape politically is  better written, and often more interesting, though I admit intrigues and jockeying for position socially are my cup of tea.

Battles are quite interesting, and the author gives you a lot of different cool things to do with your powers, which is one of the benefits of the author choosing your abilities for you when they wrote the story. This means that the game can be much more detailed rather than if you picked things like super-strength, elemental powers, or telekenisis or other common superhero abilities in an introductory chapter.

The intrigues are also quite good and may in fact, be the better part of this story, though the superhero action is by no means bad. The characters you interact with, for the most part, are real and breathing characters and most have distinct personalities, motivations, and methods you can figure out as you play, from the members of the hero group, to your grandmother, to Jenny, your hero agent. Navigating these relationships in the superhero world proved more fun for me than the fights.

There is some sloppy proofreading in places that should've been caught as certain sections of the story, particularly close to the end, have bad grammar and misspellings that even a casual read with voiceover catches, which suggests that more editing was needed. Truth be told though, though unfinished professional works bother me, this wasn't severe enough to really get me upset.

Probably the oddest thing about the game and the only real problem with the writing in my opinion is that  the writer is unintentionally very hypocritical in their world. This is a world where things like transphobia, homophobia, sexism, and racism no longer exist. This is a nice thing to think about until you consider some of the characters. Several of them in their design, engage in stereotypes pretty heavily. Jury is an enormous gay stereotype, and while Jenny is more subtle, she isn't exactly free of lesbian stereotyping either. Processor is a computer that identifies as female and demonstrates that with huge light-up breasts in her avatar, and you see this elsewhere as well though I have named the most blatant examples here.

Also, sometimes the game can give you whiplash on decisions you make in relationships to tell the story. I said I agreed and sympathized with a character's dark secret, but the game had us have a fight and then kept referring to "how bad I treated them" in several future chapters even though my  behavior to this character had been very kind and sympathetic throughout.

mechanics: This game is the first one where I've seen you have to really manage health bars in the form of your health and power levels in addition to the typical rocker stats that increase while others decrease and a few that simply go up and down independently like  your relationships with your various contacts and other characters. I'll admit I'm not a fan of the health bar-like mechanics but I realize that not liking a mechanic is not the same as thinking it is bad, as in fact, it's a very good and creative mechanic that is managed well and offers gameplay that many other titles lack. Admittedly although a lot of stats are easy to understand, sometimes the application of them is difficult to map. However, unlike in many titles, this is not a bad thing. The game is more of a strategy game than most and it wants the player to use their brains and have to think about it. Usually choices, if you make the wrong ones, make sense in hindsight, which I think is intentional and not something to the game's discredit.

railroading: The game has a pretty specific background for you, and although I know the game branches in a few places, there is a degree of progression to it where you are led to several important events in the story. This part of the story does not bother me as it is a complex story that needs to hit a lot of points for a very satisfying climax and some of the tightening of the reins is actually not a bad thing here.

The part that does bother me is sometimes how the game makes you interpret your own actions or the way the world interprets yours. Because of certain emergencies late-game, they make a big deal that "charges will not be pressed," where no realistic law enforcement would question if I killed someone (and I didn't kill anyone) and sometimes the right/wrong aspect of certain actions seems a little skewed in the context of the situation if you really think about it.

Also, sometimes the game will force certain interactions with you despite your choices. I chose to be sympathetic and understanding with a character's dark secret, but the game, without dimming out that choice, made us fight and then kept talking about how I was horrible to this person for several chapters, just to manufacture a reconciliation that really had no purpose based on how I behaved.

romance: This game seems to do things a little differently than I'm used to with other titles. Most titles populate the world with romancible NPCs based on your sexual preferences or essentially introduce pansexual characters who don't make up their mind on what sex they like unless you approach them romantically. This game seems to, though I may be wrong as I have only played it once, have a standard population of characters who have not only sex determined automatically, but sexuality as well. Jury is Gay, Jenny is a lesbian, Black magic seems bisexual if I'm interpreting that part of the game correctly, and it seems based on how things are written, that that is how it works. In one way, it is very realistic as the world exists a certain way no matter how you lean. On the other hand, I admittedly found Jenny the most charming of the ladies in the game which was a bit disappointing for romantic prospects because I was male.

In the romance I actually had, it gets a little steamy and they practically threw my love interest at my head and things went really fast from first meeting to a fade-to-black scene. There is a bit of an in-world explanation for this but it didn't quite sit well with me. That said, I did find the way the character was written charming and attractive even so.

achievements: really good ones. This is the first title I have seen that has  hidden achievements and I'm eager to find out what those are. Also, the game has a wide variety of achievements such as sparing a certain character, getting a perfect hero score by the end of the game, winding up an outlaw, winning a certain award, and the like. Most of them are quite complex and a lot of them are not possible to get on one playthrough which gives this game a lot of replay value.

closing remarks: "Hero's Rise: The prodigy" is a game that merges superheroics and politics, and does both of them well. Though there is some problematic content in terms of some stereotyping, some whiplash from odd writing, and alittle boxing in with a pre-determined, but very good backstory, to date, this is one of the better titles I have played. At the time I am writing this. It is #3 on my list, but it is not far behind choice of broadsides or diabolical in quality and although I have a few small problems with this game, you are definitely not going to regret spending your money for this one.

2020-01-26 17:32:40

Interesting thoughts.
I personally have a strong dislike of the superhero genre myself, ---- powers instead of morality, invincible characters, deus ex solutions, cookie cutter moral choices and the employment of might means right morality as a brief explanation as to why, so it was interesting that I largely enjoyed  the first hero's rise game.
Interestingly enough, when I played through, I played as a bysexual man. I wans't sure whether some of the exaggerated identities, such as Jury being blatantly camp, or the Black  artist were particularly intentional given that all seuperheroes are essentially an exercise in personal identity rit large, so they didn't bother me in and of themselves.
I do remember black magic being a little inconsistent though, also It rather irritated me that when I start the second game, even though I got the best ending and saved everyone, the second game started as if I'd caused a disaster which was slightly irritating. BTw, I also remember seeing a thread on the choice of games forum which said black magic could be male, if the pc plays as a straight or by female.

I also personally actually quite liked the power management mechanics, then again I'm a bit of an old fighting fantasy hack so quite like a bit of rpg strategy from time to time, so long as it's clear that is what is happening.

All in all I did enjoy the first game, which is saying something given that it is in a genre I don't usually like. I enjoyed the characters, mechanics and world, and might well play  again at some point, though I really do wish the transition to the second game had been slightly better handled.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-15 18:00:43

Hi,
SO finally got around to linking my app purchases into the omnibus app, which surprisingly didn't take too long.  But oh my god are there tonnes of new books I've missed, both on choice and hosted games.  It's absolutely insane, and I can't wait to get pulled in again.

2020-02-15 18:03:27

@an C, oddly enough I've been doing exactly the same thing, it's a lengthy process but well worth the time, and also a nice way to look through available titles.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-16 16:29:49

Bookrage's review of "For Rent: Haunted House"

Hello all, I'm back with my review of "For Rent: Haunte House" and sorry for taking so long between releases.

biases: I really like haunting stories but really dislike micromanagement stories.

Genre: this game is a mix of real estate management, humor, and unting story, though except for the real estate management part, it never really goes into depths I would've liked on any of the genres I have tagged it as. There is a big supernatural event at one point in the story, but even then I didn't make the contact with the haunting I would've liked.

writing: This game admittedly can do atmosphere relatively well, with good, often snarky descriptions of NPCs and it has its moments of legitimate funny humore, though in my opinion, most of the time, the humor falls relatively flat and only succeeds at tickling a person every now and then.  This story however seems to struggle for me in what exactly it is trying to be. It has a general cynical snarky tone, but I'm not quite sure of what sort of supernatural story it is going for and it doesn't touch that genre as much as it should to make this a good story. There is a lot more on the "for Rent" than "Haunted house." in this story.  There are however, few grammar mistakes and the the descriptive text is fairly good.

mechanics: the murkiest I have ever seen. This is partially due to  the fact that there are so few of them. There is your relationship with "The crocodile" (your boss) ruthlessness, your tally of money, your work-life balance, and I think another. I've played the game 3 times now and still only have a vague idea how any of them come into play. A character in the game tells you what work-life balance is about, but even with that help I have not seen how it works in-game.

romance: for those who dislike romance, this is a game for you as there are no romantic options whatsoever, this sticks to the main story of trying to get as much money from a property you are trying to lend and there is little else on the side.

Railroading: Among the worst I have ever seen. The game will often give you choices of things to do only to pull you away from them as soon as you select them, even if your ruthlessness or what you think would be an appropriate stat is high. I have played the game 3 times with very different playstyles and I have felt like the choices I made on those 3 times didn't really matter at all. You really feel jerked around as you go through this story and it is quite unpleasant.

achievements: none: but because the game seems so linear and railroaded, I don't think this title actually really suffers from the problems with lack of achievements.


closing thoughts: Currently, this is by far the lowest title on my list, though I am reading through "To the City in the clouds," currently and it is a race to the bottom between these two (though I am very early in this title and think it very well might turn around.) "For Rent: Haunted House" touches on humor, real estate simulator, and haunting story, but all and all, I think it fails at all three things it is trying to do by and large. to its credit however, the humor is better than "Choice of the star captain." and the writing itself is not bad.

2020-02-21 14:58:07

hey guys, thought I would give you an update on some releases.

first, I was on vacation so I deleted the alert e-mail but there are two new titles on hosted games that other than that they were released, I am regretably unable to tell you about.

second, Heart's choice has released "A Player's choice" which is a lesbian romance interactive novel where you play an opera singer in a world of social intrigue and rivalries both on and off the stage. I am not particularly interested in this one so probably won't play it.

Lastly, Choiceofgames has released a new title for free on their main platform, though it is only purchaseable from the omnibus app. It is called "Zip: Speedster of Valiant City," and you play a flash-like superhero who is battling the Sloth and his new evil plans. It's only a 48k book but perhaps it will give you guys some fun. It is completely free, though you can pay to get rid of breaks and ads which also unlocks a new feature to help you win. Until the 27th of February, it is only $3 American to purchase.

I'll have another review on Sunday, but thought I'd let you know of the recent releases.

2020-02-21 15:57:30

I'm loving the Deathless games personally, and Choice of the Cat makes me laugh so much having had cats. Meta-Human Inc has me intrigued as well personally...but I'm running into an issue with the web based games.

Oh and add Congress Wolf to the list of games I like. And Metcha Ace and....and....

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2020-02-21 16:30:07 (edited by Dark 2020-02-21 20:13:52)

I'm not as sure of this new hearts choice game myself, simply because whilst I have no problem at all with same sex romances, as someone who knows at least a little about opera, the idea of an all female opera company just seems like  a rather blatant attempt to pretend men do not exist, and thus appeal to the current social trend towards misandry to me.

Were it a women's only choir I could possibly see that one, but really, what do they do when they need a base or a baritone? Heck, even female tenors are extremely uncommon.

I suppose theoretically they could rescore each and every opera for women's voices, though the thought of a version of Carmen with a female Escamillo (the big, buff torriador who sings the famous torriador's song), is a bit nuts.

Again, were it a different setting, or heck were it a same sex romance set at a normal opera company that would be something else, but this sounds a little too axe grindy to me.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)