2020-11-15 15:40:44

Hello all,

Just here to let you know of the latest release, and from a few things I've heard this might be worth looking into.

"Jolly good, Cakes and Ale" Has been released and it is a monster in terms of length, containing 1.2 million words. I imagine that is for the widely branching story they seem to be advertising.

Anyway, this title is a stand-alone sequel to "Tally-ho" which I've heard good things about but have not played. You play a disgraced noble and you work in the "Noble Gasses" social club for everything from heists to pranks to boxing and a lot of other things in this self-described comedy of manners. Your servant is there to get you out of trouble and you are set to meet a very wide range of folks from writers, to criminals, to other members of your wacky family, and the like.

this game seems a lighthearted game of escapades and schemes as you navigate an odd 19th century society game with lots of wack and crazy capers and disasters along the way while you try to manage the club, your public image, and your family.

2020-11-22 19:38:40 (edited by bookrage 2020-11-22 22:09:18)

Bookrage's review of "Treasure seekers of Lady luck

Hello all, It has been a bit since my last  review, but I have a new one for you guys this time. This one is the space sci-fi, golden age-style space piracy game "Treasure seekers of lady luck." In this one, you play someone who has wound up among a crew of very unique space pirates and adventurers and must decide whether to work kindly with the crew, work grudingly with them, or even betray them to the authorities.

biasses: first, I have not played extensively in this game and I know simply from all the grayed-out options that I have not explored anything close to the full potential of this game and I will try to keep that in mind going forward in this review though a second opinion  down the road if I play this game again. I do like this sort of game though and like golden-age sci-fi games.

genere: When this game gives itself out as a classic space-sci-fi game that seems to resemble golden-age sci-fi space pirate adventures, it isn't lying, though there are a lot fewer individual capers than you might expect for a 99k-word game. I know I have not explored the full extent of the game but when it talks of the things you do, the things I was not allowed to do as a player because of choices I made indicate that most of the stuff the game talks about in its advertisement are really there. I will tell you the way you get to be a number of sexualities in this game is rather intriguing, but more on that when we get to the romance section.

Gameplay: This isn't quite the same sort of game as many games in the Choiceofgames line, there are few real stats and you simply have an area of expertise and your success in the game is more determined by making smart choices as a player rather than working with a wide array of skills and traits such as cunning or vigilance from Choice of the Dragon. USually each hapter, with a couple exceptions has a sort of puzzle where you move around a location trying to gain access to a particular location or accomplish a particular goal in a certain location, being able to move freely between parts of the location back and forth without being trapped in a sequence like in many games. This is the most noteworthy and highest point of the game, though the puzzles get a little redundant after a while and by the time you've reached the second one, you already see a pattern. You have instead of managing skills and what you are good at, will more have to work with the money you are given to buy supplies and use them wisely as well as avoiding personal harm to yourself, and sometimes organizing intrigues with or against the Crew of the Lady Luck.

Characters: The characters on the Lady Luck are certainly unique, though they are not well-executed in that uniqueness. You have an agnostic scholar who is too alloof to properly gage, a mimic that is really hard to manage socially as I tried to be really nice to her only to do more and more damage to our relationship as we went. An over-sexualized scince officer with super-attractiveness traits (more on that in "Romance") And characters that are uninentionally characatures all around. The exceptions I would say are the captain and the religious insect security officer. They have some degree of depth. Your interactions with most of these characters can be rather exaggerated as well and the social aspects of the game are not very realistic or engaging despite relationships with the characters of the game being a major part of the story.

Mechanics: The mechanics in this game are among the most straightforward I have seen in Choiceofgames. You have a collection of   equipment you can buy at different points in the game, your relationship with the crew members, both individually and as a group, a position among the crew, your area of expertise, and a couple simple questions like gender and name. These stats, unlock and lock various options as you play rather than unlocking and locking success options if you try to do something. If you are good at science, you will be able to do most science things automatically. It is easy to navigate your stats in this game.

Romance: There is a romance option in this game, but it is executed so poorly, I wish there wasn't. First, I will say what is cool about it. There is a crew member that because of their unique species, appears as the gender of whatever the observer preers and this race is very interested in romantic companionship. That is something I had yet to see Choiceofgames do and I applaud this game on the uniqueness. The rpoblem arises with the way it is mentioned. Almost everything this character says is either sexual in language or the game mentions the closeness of this character thrills you or their voice (they change pronouns based on how you see the character)  send a surge of warmth through you or something of the sort. It is heavy-handed and ubiquitous enough that it is painful. I would much prefer a game with no romantic angles than the one they offer here.

Railroading: You seem to go through a set path to some extent, and I have only played the game once, but the  number of options I was not able to take, often  showing the reasons youccould take those options which show a lot of things I did not do but could have. Although I magine I would involve myself with the same sorts of capers, I see a lot of different ways this story could go and I might have to eat some of the words of this review if I play again.

achievements: There are lots of courses of action to take in this game and doing something like making it through the game without being hurt or something might  the hazards in the game or getting different endings either individually with characters, working without using gadgets, or something like that should've been rewarded and such with achievements but the game sadly has none. It really needs them and would've benefited from them.

closing remarks: "Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck" Prmises to be a golden-age of sci-fi style space pirate adventure, and in terms of genre it delivers that. It also has very easy-to-follow mechanics and a new way of solving puzzles as a player as a main aspect of gameplay. That is to its credit. The Characters, monotony of the puzzles, and weird character interactions make this a lackluster game. "Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck" is by no means a worthless adventure, but it is by no means a hidden gem of the Choiceofgames lineup and for games I have played regarding space, definitely beats "Choice of the Star Captain" but is nowhere as good as "The Fleet"

2020-12-04 16:51:10

Hello all,

still forging through games though not sure when I'll have another for you, but thought I'd share some news.

HostedGames has just released "After the Storm," which is a 185k word speculative adventure about you trying to put the world back together and survive after the climate crisis has done its worst to the world.

You can try to build a better society, make a super-cure, a super-crop or just simply becoem a tyrant among other things with the options common to many survival games of postappocolyptic settings.

This one doesn't seem bad though, so if you want, give it a try though I won't be getting to it for quite some time.

just thought you guys should know.

Bookrage.

2020-12-05 15:08:10

I tried to launch this one, but it jsut said loading for like 10 minutes and never did.

2020-12-05 19:25:04 (edited by Speakertest 2020-12-07 05:01:11)

I had the same problem, but weirdly enough I just turned Wi-Fi off and enabled airplane mode and it loaded fine.
Well I guess now it won’t work even if I do that. I bought it and tried to play but it just does the weird loading thing.

2020-12-06 11:12:26

that's weird. I'm having the same problem with the newest game. no matter what I do it won't load

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

2020-12-07 20:50:49

ok, i tried it again today after leaving it for a day or 2 and it worked perfectly.

2020-12-18 17:21:07

Hello all,

choiceofgames has released another title for their main line. This one is called "The luminous underground." In this one, you've been awarded a contract by a seedy subway company to clean out the subway of ghosts in a strange magical world. With your rainbow guns you need to clean out the tunnels, deal with local politics getting in your way, make money, and deal with your rivals.

There do seem to be a few features they mentioned such as a forest of crystaline trees in the underground  and such, but a lot of it seems to be inspired by Ghostbusters. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, it just seems to be a major inspiration for this one.

it's on sale until Christmas eve, so if you want it at a reduced price, head out and get it.

The thing is 660k words, so you've probably got a lot of content to deal with.

2020-12-23 16:34:58

just a quick update from me for this holiday season. I've heard some good things about "in service to Mrs. Claus" and Choiceofgames just announced that it has gotten a major upgrade and a bit of an expansion.

Just thought since the game was so popular and a lot of people might be in the mood for it that I would share the news that just got released.

2021-01-08 19:14:21

Hello all,

Just letting you know that a couple more Hostedgames titles have been released.

The first one I believe is called "Relics war" or something with relics. It is a swashbuckling 1930s adventure in the vein of indiana jones. The Nazis are seeking six incredibly powerful artifacts all over the world that could tip the scales in the upcoming war if you don't stop them. You have to get to the six artifacts before they do.

The other is "Brothers' war" where you play in pre-Christian Ireland as the disgraced son of a Irish Chieftain as the vikings and other thereats invade the land. You have to figure out how to regain your honor, join the vikings, or seize or earn the throne of your clan.

It is described as a historical-fantasy game so there might be supernatural aspects to it.

Just thought I'd let you guys know of these new releases.

2021-01-10 04:02:21

That brothers one actually sounds pretty interesting.

2021-01-10 04:17:12

from what I've heard "Relics of the Lost age" (actual title) is pretty good while Brothers' war is a bit of a disappointment, but keep in mind I'm giving this information based on hearsay and can't confirm or deny my friend's opinion though they gave some good reasons for liking one and disliking the other.

2021-01-12 16:44:03

My reason for disliking the brothers war are as follows:
You make a major choice, or wlel, it scemes that way at one point, then, a chapter later, it ignores that choice completely.

2021-01-12 20:19:40 (edited by Dark 2021-01-12 20:40:52)

Okay well I finally decided to get back to the cog titles.
It's odd, I sort of forget about them  for long periods, then dither about what to play next, then can't decide, then go back to forgetting big_smile.

However, today to stop the dithering I just decided to play hero's rise, the prodigy which was next on the list.

I did play through before in 2014, and remember enjoying the game more than I expected, since I am really not a fan of the super hero genre.

I enjoyed it more than expected again today, albeit that might be because I didn't take matters quite as seriously.
The writing was relatively clean,  albeit rather fulsome and overly self-agrandising in parts (though that's all part of the super hero genre).
I liked the strategic mechanics in managing your power levels and health while making decisions. Npcs felt a bit thin, but I did at least get the impression that these were people who would react to what I did, indeed in general the game did a pretty good job of creating a situation which both felt very urgent and threatening, and one where where you mostly could fail at things but get through in the end. I finished with a legend score at 50, though looking at the perfect legend guide I'm not %100 sure where I slipped up, although I'll save that for a replay.

I also got the idea that while the game was essentially structured as a series of challenges and that events couldn't deviate too much, these were challenges you could succeed or fail at, and had to play to your strengths to accomplish, so while it's slightly more game than book, at least it is an interesting game.

I didn't have as much of an issue with stereotypical characters that bookrage mentioned in his review, either because I took a lot with a pinch of salt, or whether it's because super heroes are inherently an excessive projection of identity anyway, some characters like Jury, The diva and Madam vice I did find rather in your face and annoying, but how much of that was intentional I don't know.

I only have two really major issues with the game, the first is the "how dare you not tell me something which I didn't know you knew, therefore I'm mad at you!" a trope which just frankly annoys me in fiction anyway since it seems to just exist to make the main character into a winjy arse.

The second, is the romance with black magic. Maybe it was that my lady and I mistakenly read a really terrible romance together recently, but even though the writing here was reasonable, so many of the tropes this relationship employed from instant mental connection having to avoid all that boring getting to know people thing, to some blatantly trite moments, like black magic's lingerie, her resemblance to a famous actress of your choice and that rather cringe worthy moment when she cooks you junk food after making love, just felt a bit to obviously wish fulfilment fantasy and less character connection.

The moral dilemma with blackmagic's plot was an interesting one, although I'm afraid as someone who has an incredibly disabled sister, I know where I pretty much stand on that one, although interestingly enough when I played the game in 14 I still tried to maintain a relationship with black magic, where as now, with that hole thing feeling less than critical to me, I pretty much broke it off, largely because the relationship here just didn't work for me.

Actually, it's sort of interesting that my feelings about this relationship changed such a lot after! my own rather story book and fairy tale romance, though why this is I'm not sure.

apart from that though, the game was fun. Not best of the best, but easy going and just nice to go through.

also, helpfully enough, I was able to import my savegame this time (one reason why I never seriously continued with the series) so I might go on to the others, since while I'm not crazy about super heroes, this was nice for some light relief.

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.)

2021-01-12 20:42:58

@164 I understand what you mean about Black Magic, but I must say I enjoyed this chapter very much, although not in the true love  sense. I always thought that while the main character may or may not be earnest in wanting to build a relationship with her, Black Magic herself is kinda using the main character here and tries to get him on her side, making him not able to refuse her wishes. So I interpreted the whole wish fulfilment stuff as exactly what she wanted to achieve. This gets even more noticeable in the next Heros rise book, where you can potentially see a different side to her character.

We are pleased, that you made it through the final challenge, where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place the device on the ground, then lay on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Assume the party submission position or you will miss the party.

2021-01-13 07:48:11

@Targor, I do know you see more of Black magic in the series, it was just how adolescent this one felt, even if it was relatively decently written.

I'd have actually been interested to see what happens if you play a character attracted to guys and Black magic ends up as male, just to see how the scenes played out. Actually, since I played a man the first time around, I was nearly tempted to play a lady this time, though decided to play a man either way.

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.)

2021-01-14 14:48:32

I like your observations on the game. Black magic was a little forced, but Madam Vice didn't bother me so much. I'm more willing to tolerate over-the-top personalities in supervillains. Mdam Vice for me was supposed to be super-slimy ultrafemmenine.

Jury was probably my least favorite character. Though I was also annoyed by the way Processor chose to identify and mark herself as femmenine was to give her avatar huge glowing boobs.

I also hated Victin as a character because his slimy politician role was so forced. Oddly one of my favorite characters in the story in terms of how well she was done was Prodigal, she was probably the one that felt most alive to me, though Jenny was all right too. But probably for me Prodigal was the most real despite the fact she is a vindictively-obsessed supervillain with the single-minded desire to ruin your life.

2021-01-14 17:02:12

Again I didn't really take prodigal any more or less seriously than most characters in the game, indeed I sort of got that the hole monologuing villain thing wasn't supposed to be taken seriously, or maybe it was that the hero's "tragic past", and the character who played into it was rather blatantly a super hero origin story I don't know.

For me at least, most of the characters here seemed more there just to prop up the story than people I really got connected to, which was why the death of one character and betrayal of another didn't bother me as much, and why I just tended to roll my eyes at most of the preachy moments or in your face characters.

I think I gave it a 7-10 on the rating scale, since I did genuinely enjoy a lot of it, the tactical fights, need to play to your strengths and relationships, the reactions of characters, and the way that the game really did take the journey of having a lot of things fail or only just succeed, only to work out at the end.

It was rollicking good fun as a gamebook, though not the sort of thing I'd care for over much if it were a novel.

Now I need to decide whether to go straight on to hero project or try something else first.

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.)

2021-01-14 18:50:50

I've been told that the Hero Project is best in "The Prodigy" and the later books are more platforms for the author to politicize, but again, that is just what I've heard from others. I'll still play them when I get to them, the same as the choice of the Vampire sequels, but I've heard the first one is the best.

Right now, I'm slowly working through "slammed," which is a pro-wrestling story. I'd like to hear what a pro-wrestling fan who has played the game thinks of it because I know my review is going to be lacking a bit as I am not a pro-wrestling or reality TV fan which are prime aspects of this story.

My lack of knowledge on Pro-wrestling is so great that I know I am missing a lot of the concept of the game. I'm playing it sensically but I know I'm missing a lot of the nuances and references.

2021-01-15 11:34:38

I liked all three Heros Rise books very much. I think the second one was my favorite, but it's a close call.

We are pleased, that you made it through the final challenge, where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place the device on the ground, then lay on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Assume the party submission position or you will miss the party.

2021-01-15 19:00:40

One of my favorites is that archangel gang fight and crime game, i honestly forgot it's name by now. I really hope that the series will get a second book.
It's a  nice change of pace from horses and swords to guns and fast cars, although I would like something involving horses and guns xD.
Choice of the cat is another neat little game, I still to this day find out new things, I sadly never got all of the endings, the music career one is really something I want to achieve or check out what might happen with that naibor of theirs.
There is also that new indiana jones type game, treasure hunter in the 30s, haven't really checked out more than the description yet.
And something with mechanical mechs in a mideevel age, does sound like an interesting concept.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2021-01-29 16:33:33

Hello all,

still working through "Slammed" slowly but surely, but I'm not here to talk about that.

after over a month, the Choiceofgames line has a new entry under the main line, This time, it is one called "Fate of the Storm Gods."

I thought this might be a sequel or something in the line of "Champion of the Gods" or "Exile of the Gods" but this seems to be different.

You play the role of a Weather builder, one of the benevolent beings who controls the weather when humans arrive and tell you that the antithesis of the Weather builders, the Weather eaters, have been unleashing negative weather isasters mercilessly over the land.

along with that Bloodthirsty Homonculi of the weather eaters have been causing massive bloodshed.

It is up to you to rectify the problems, or take advantage of them, while growing your power and guiding the growth of your own Homonculus.

You can save the humans, play for the gain of yourself or your own side, or even I'd imagine join the weather eaters as one of the romance interests is one.

This seems more unique than I thought it would be, but it will be a very long time before I get to it. So if anyone tries it out and likes it, let me know. In fact, let us  know if it isn't all that good too.

2021-01-30 17:20:20

I'm currently playing through this one and so far i've been enjoying it.

2021-02-22 00:38:24

Bookrage's review of "Slammed,"

Hello all,

due to things that have come up I've slowed down even more on my playthroughs, but I finally finished "Slammed," and have to say this one both impressed and frustrated me, but we'll get to that.

genre: This game is about the on-stage and off-stage life and drama of a professional wrestler dealing with something that happened in their past with an old rival, their attempted rise to the top of the pro wrestling circuit, and the politics of a reality show and later the association as a whole. The game portrays itself as this and you get exactly what it promises.

Biases: I am not a fan of either professional wrestling or reality TV. I also know as I write this that I have barely scratched the surface of what appears to be an enormous gamebook despite playing throughh it all the way once.

writing: The game has a very interesting multiple viewpoints writing style, along with your actions backstage, how you are seen on-stage, and the technical descriptions of your fights, the game also bookends many chapters with blog posts about your career or the actions leading up to or just concluded in the story to both deliver exposition on things you aren't directly involved in and also to give an outsider's perspective of all the drama. This is a very effective style and I found it really cool.

The characteers are also well and alive in this story, whether you're dealing with the zen aragoance of Solitary, the nosey reporter sportscaster thing Madison Rio has going on, the no-nonsense stuff with the savvy Alex Dobbs, or the utter pain in the neck assholism of Paul Prototype, these characters give you good reason to love, hate, fear, or admire them. As with most reality show folks and pro wrestlers, they have a big image ego thing going on and you see that a lot, but this game is about the cutthroate politics of pro wrestling as well as what happens in the ring and how they run together. The characters I encountered were excellently crafted and their personalities are much more developed than you generally see in a choiceofgames title.

mechanics: murky, but really only for me. I think my trouble with some of the mechanics was due to personal stupidity and not the game's fault. Sometimes directly applying heat, favor, and such was an issue, as was cape-fab whcih is apparently your over-the-top nature. For the actual wrestling stats, they are pretty straightforward, and in the game, sometimes they give little hints as to what a decision means, though when they didn't, I was generally at sea. When it wasn't spelled out, I wasn't sure what skill was being used and was generally wrong when I tried to predict the consequences of my actions. Some of this is because I'm not sure sometimes what certain wrestling moves were clasified as. Also, the game has a lot of twists and turns built in that you can't avoid so you're going to be surprised from time to time.

romance: it is almost certain there is some. I was asked in an early decision what sort of people my character liked and there were a number of cuties in the story. I however, played a massive heel both on and off the stage and so I didn't make many friends. I can't say exactly where this goes as I have played so far.

achievements: oh god Yes! the game has 70 different achievements in all. I did very well in my first play though I did not get the best ending an donly finished 17 of them. Most of their point values are very small, with most being 10 or even 5-pointers. That said, these achievements tell you exactly all the cool things you can do in the game and this, above everything else, tells me I'll be writing a revised review down the road when I take another path.

railroading: the events are pretty scripted, but it's clear that this is a massively-branching story. You have some pretty set tracks of events, but you get to switch down the branches as you go. I imagine if I had been a nicer person, or had focused more on forming allies, more on my wrestling skills as I mostly focussed on social and image skills, or made different choices where my strategic choices were either good or bad, I would be having a very different sort of story than I had. The achievements back me up here and I'm sure there is a lot of content I have not seen despite the fact that my game took me quite a while and the chapters are fairly long.

closing remarks: I think pro wrestling is really stupid, and I think reality TV is even stupider, however, in the case of this game, the ratings don't lie. This game has an almost perfect rating and it deserves it. I put it only at #6 as of the time of the writing of this because of some confusion I experienced from lack of knowledge when playing the game. This is a definitely good option though and it is definitely worth the playing.

2021-02-22 10:07:17

@Bookrage: Yeah, Slammed is one of my all-time favourites from Choice Of GAmes. It's just such a great story with such awesome characters.

Greetings and happy gaming, Julian

If you say you never lie, you're a liar.
Oh, and #freeGCW