a second look and full review of "To the City in the clouds."

Hello all,

I have played "To the City in the Clouds." and some of my oppinions have changed about it. Normally on my "Second look," segments, I'll just say what has changed about my views. However, I do not feel that my first review of the game was complete enough so I am going to write a full review now.

Genre: To the city in the Clouds sets itself up as an archeological adventure featuring you exploring a city in the Andes. It labels itself as a supernatural story, yet this only comes into play on certain occasions and many playthroughs have nothing unrealistic about them in terms of what happens. Also, the time you spend in the city is a real let-down, only lasting a very brief chapter.

Writing: This game has you playing as a daring archeologist who wants to know the truth of the city in the clouds. In doing so, you will have to deal with drug runners, collumbie guerilla soldiers, the supernatural forces of the city in the clouds, and typical jungle threats like disease and wildlife among other things I haven't yet seen. The variety of things in the game and how they are described is pretty impressive. The writer also did their research and know of some rather obscure south American and Mexican things.

On the other hand, the game's tone can be rather crasse at times, talking often about behind-closed-door things between students and students or assistants rather often, whether they are referring to you if you go that route, which is an option, or whether it is referring to other characters in the story. They also present several rather sexualized characters throughout the story, with a set of three women who are the love intrests, being there pretty much for a brief and casual affair if you want it, and even if you don't if you make certain choices leading up to that point, and often when you are talking to characters like reporting your findings if you survive the game, there are some major sexualized options there as well.

Asside from the rather intrusive amounts of sex in the story or suggestions of it, some of the character interactions are pretty good, and as I said, the author does their homework and aside from having an unusual number of sleezballs, there's a degree of realism to the story. The game however leads up to the city in the clouds but does not spend enough time there or a meaningful-enough time there to make the lead-up in the story worth it.

mechanics: interesting but sometimes murky. The Choice-ofgames titles often use a mix of words and numbers to display stats. This is one of the first titles I've seen that uses words almost exclusively. The ranks and skills you have in various skills are displayed by often a rather langy term related to the stat in question, usually having a couple for high and low and average. Some of the stats they have for you are a bit strange though, like asking what your spirit animal is, with some rather bizarre choices. I've seen one use of this in the end of the game, but can't trace any others. Also, the game is almost 8 years old. Combined with my relative inaptitude with slang myself if it is obscure and such, sometimes I had trouble deciphering some of the word labels. However, I sort of liked the textual descriptors even so and thus I wouldn't say taking this route is a bad thing, though sthe game shows that one must be careful that you keep it understandable to your readers.

Railroading: A mix of the good and the bad on this subject. On my second playthrough, I took very different paths and found that the nature of several of the chapters in this short game change entirely or almost entirely based on your choices. I chose just to have a brief stop in one place and met someone which drastically changed much of the following game. Also, even some minor choices mattered as the color of a jacket I chose changed something later and something else I did and didn't take also changed the action. On the other hand, sometimes it will ask you questions about what you think or want to do, only to put a brief "why you can't do this" explanation and then shunt you back onto the tracks. This is particularly true when you are actually in the city. So this one is a mixed bag.

Romance: There are a few options, if you want to call what is offered, "romance." You have the opportunity to meet 3 people who are more quick and cheap sexual conquests if you pursue that. If you choose a certain set of choices in the beginning, you even don't really have a choice if you want to get involved with them, but they serve little narrative purpose and don't really add anything to the story. I have however, seen two of the options if you like women, and they are different from one another, with one being brainy and cute and the other being a sort of sexxy tomboy type. However, don't expect anything meaningful, ultimately rewarding unless you like cheap fan service or don't care that there isn't anything that grows from this.
Achievements: This game has none. Now that I have played it enough and seen that the game, while short, has actually a lot of variety, I'm more disappointed about that than I was before, the various personal reactions, methods of getting rescued or dying, and your future career when there are multiple endings actually would encourage replay of this title a bit more.

closing remarks: Actually, I'm moving this title above "for rent: haunted House" and "Choice of the Star Captain" as replay has made me like it more and even made me want to see what else I haven't yet done. However, I would be lying if I said this was a good game. The tone is often unpleasant and crass, there isn't enough time spent in the titular city, and what time there is is heavily locked compared to much of the rest of the story, making your journey rather unrewarding. If you do get the game though, you'll have a few good playthroughs of fun, but if you haven't bought the game, there are a lot of titles better than this, though it is not as bad as I first thought.

Hello all.

Some choice of games news and a bit of a backlog as I haven't been on here enough lately

First, there has been another  hosted game in the mix. Havenwood Crhonicles or something of that sort, Book II. This one is a continuation of your adventures as a detective who is working with an organization the polices magical beings, seemingly vampires in many ways as many of the members are vampires, and is a sequel to the first book in the series. I cannot say much personally to this one as I have not played the first title in this one.

Speaking of vampires, I have some Choice of Games pre-news for you. "Vampires: The Masquerade" is coming to  to Choiceofgames. There will be a release either this summer or fall, one next spring, and another book (they seem stand-alone) in the fall of 2021. If you like that sort of stuff. Keep your eyes open for that one. I'll tell you of the books when they are actually released anyway.

And for those of you who like fantasy, there is a fantasy sale on now for two titles.

First, "fool" where you play as a magic-using clever court jester in a fantasy kingdom is on sale. It's an old, and from what I've heard, reasonably popular title though it is only a year or two old and I'm still playing titles from 2012 right now in my workthrough of all the options.

But there's a new title as well. I've admittedly forgotten the title exactly but "The Squire's quest," "The Squire" or maybe "Squire's choice" has just gone live.

In this one, you play as a young squire who must venture and rescue the royal prince who has been kidnapped by the fairies.

Seems like something I'd like to try.
Fool and the squire game are on sale until May 21st.

Still working through "The Fleet" but perhaps I'll have it for you next week.

sorry for being so absent but I have had obligations that have kept me from playing the books as much as I'd like.

thanks, I have been lazy on getting the news out and I forgot the name exactly and deleted the notification e-mail shortly after I got it. But  yes. "Wayhaven Chronicles: Book 2" is the game I was thinking of.

Hello all,

there are a couple new games to play on hosted games I want to tell you about.

The first of these is AI Aftermath. In this one you play asa  powerful psychic in search of your lover who is destined to fight off mealevolent AIs that threaten to destroy the world. In addition, this game seems like it has a lot of cool weird as it also involves a fairy creature and some other stuff you normally see more often in fantasy things if the description is anything to go by as reincarnation also seems to be part of it.

This one's free with ads if you don't want to pay for it and paying to get rid of them is less for the next week.

We also have "into darkness" where you travel from Victorian England deep into Africa on a race to obtain a hidden mystical gem.  and it seems somewhat based on both "heart of darkness" and some of the ledritch horror that was being written at the same time as the first title I mentioned.

In this one, there doesn't seem to be any romance and in this one you have to identify as one of the two bianary genders.

Unlike a lot of titles, this one actually has some ilustrations in the story, but that probably won't be a big deal for gameplay, though let me know if I'm wrong as I am not going to be playing this one for quite some time.

just thought I would let you guys know.

Hello all,

some hosted games news for you guys. There is a new title out today called "War For Mgincia." This game is the prequel to the "Great Tournament" games as well as "Swamp castle." The game is mostly  a medieval fantasy  kingdom simulator in which you fight off barbarians and use diplomacy, cunning, or brute force to win against other factions.

This game has multiple difficulty settings, lots of achievements, and unlockable modes of play, at least according to the game advertisement.

I am not sure how "The great tournament" or "Swamp castle" are, but this is another entry in their line-up for anyone who wants to give it a try. The game even bosts randomly generated stuff, but I'll believe that when I see it.

you mean "The fleet" or the new title for hosted games?

also, bit of a preview guys. The next one I'm doing is "choice of kung fu" and I've heard good things about it from you guys. I've just gotten started but am eager to see where it goes.

question about Choice of Kung Fu. I found answering things a little differently changes the gender of a character. Wondering what things you answer in the first chapter that make it so your love interests are female. I have one that has made some of the monks female, but haven't found out exactly whether I have accidentally said I was bisexual, whether the game has set NPCs and you just romance the ones you like, or what. Just not entirely sure.

I got one of the monks female and the way I did it was when you battle the thieves at the beginning and it says some of them are women. I basically did the response that said that I wasn't surprised at it and didn't see a problem with it and it turned one of my rivals into a female character. because it said the monastery has a similar outlook and trains both men and women.

Hello all,

more news from Choiceofgames. there is finally part two of War of the gods and you can play that one now as one of three classes trying to defeat the god of death and attain godhood.

It seems pretty standard fantasy stuff but not sure since I hadn't played the previous one.

Also, for those of you who want to celebrate pride month or simply want some games for cheap. They have released a pride bundle with several games that are supposed to have queer themes represented well in them

here is what it contains.

Heroes Rise: The Prodigy
SLAMMED!
Hollywood Visionary
The Sea Eternal
The Eagle's Heir
Heart of the House
Drag Star
An Odyssey: Echoes of War

I'm not sure of most of those, but I have played, Hero's rise: The prodigy and it is pretty good. I've also played part of sea eternal, and didn't like it very much but I think that might have been my error rather than the game's.  In that one you play a mermaid/merman and the game has a lot of tricky political and relationship things that were hard for me to manage, I believe though that was more due to me.

Bookrage's review of "Choice of Kung Fu"

Hello all,

I've had other things in my way so I haven't been able to put down my review of this game but now that I have finally completed it, I can give you my long overdue review.

Genre: This is a game where you shouldn't judge the game by its title, with the name "choice of Kung Fu" it sounds like it is just some beat-em up fighting story. The game description however is very accurate and explains quite accurately the various things you can do in the story such as fight a demon, deal with the foreigners, train in Kung fu, start your own school, and try to earn the right to ask a deep question to the dragon sage, the main mcguffin for the entire story. If you read the whole description and list of cool things, you won't be misled by the story's contents.

writing: the writing in this story is good and solid and really provides a backdrop that makes this game a rarity among the choiceofgames titles. It is not simply a fantasy/historical story that has been transplanted to an Asian setting, but actually works under different rules in the terms of the society and characters as you interact with them. I found while playing that me trying to behave as I thought I should actually offended many of the characters I was dealing with. This was my error, not the game's. Though I'm not a Christian, I was raised in the middle-class, WASP sort of background and though I no longer believe, I tend to extoll many virtues stressed by Christianity. In the East-Asian, Budhist backdrop with their set of values, things like evincing sympathy and pity and even degrees of mercy could be seen as offensive.

For the most part though, the game is decipherable without any research or anything, and once you get it in your head that you aren't in the western European tradition, it is pretty easy to eliminate the "wrong" choices, of which along with things that are dictated by your stats, are sprinkled throughout the game as things that are almost certainly things you should not do.

The characters that I met have a lot of personality and atmosphere, I particularly found Feng quite charming, and abbot Bao was a nice old man too. They really add to the story and are far from just information dumps or things to bounce your actions off of.

There are definite moments of action, such as the battle for the monastery, a battle with a demon, and a challenge from the arch-villain of the story. but there are moments of calm and calculation that evince a feeling of contemplation and are a nice compliment to these actions too such as playing Goh with a ghost, learning poetry, and smoozing it up at a festival as well as making meaningful ethical choices.

One thing I particularly liked about this title was how the European-style enemies were depicted. We in the western world tend to think of our history and culture as normative. This story does a good job of making the Europeans seem strange and odd to the reader, playing the part of the Chinese monk and gives the reader an interesting perspective on their assumptions.

mechanics: This game is pretty good with mechanics, having stats like combat, magic, enlightenment, honor, status, and a list of relationships with important NPCs. A few things like endurance and Enlightenment are a bit tough to manage, but if you play carefully and just make smart choices, you'll be fine. There are 2 or 3 stats though that are Chinese words that I cannot translate, and I never learned what they meant. Even so, These words help in emersion in the setting and I'm going to call them a plus rather than a minus because they are meant to get you in a different cultural mindset than normal.

Romance: As far as I can tell, there are at least two romantic interests in the story, your Rival and Feng. There are probably others but I would need to take some other paths probably to see them. This is one area where the game is lacking.  at least in the road I took (Feng) where my relationship was high, she asked me who I loved, I said her, and she got frisky. Other than that nothing really interesting came from it, but the romantic angle wasn't a big deal for me in this story because of everything else.

railroading: It seems that chapters in this game are pretty set in stone, but there is a lot of choices you can make. When you go for training in the mountains, you won't get to do all the challenges in there on one playthrough. Likewise you can choose or not choose to become the heir of a kung fu master. There are also a lot of challenges at the end of the game where you get to make some big choices and there are tons of places in the game where you make choices that change major aspects of things going forward. The game has set events you will have to deal with, but large numbers of events with many ways to approach them. I am eager to replay the game and try other options.

achievements: after a long drout in games I've been playing, this one really delivers, with challenges related to almost every part of the game, such as the challenges to become a monk, the training exercises of the hermit, successfully navigating Feng's tricks, and defeating every major event in the story as well as achieving the ultimate goal of the whole thing. I got a bunch of them on my first playthrough, but I'm eager to go back and try to earn the others, including a few hidden ones.

Closing remarks: This is one of the best games I have ever played and the good things I had heard about it were understatements. With solid writing, a strong setting, a knowledge of when to make mechanics murky when they actually should be, a wealth of options for dealing with every challenge, and a generous mess of achievements, this is one you definitely ought to buy, It might even unseat Diabolical as my favorite. It only lacks in the romance department and although I sometimes like that in games, it's lackluster performance with what it does offer doesn't concern me. This is one of, if not the best title I have played to date and nobody will be a loser in buying this one.

Awesome I knew you would like Choice of Kung Fu!
Definitely agreed it's one of the best they have and certainly the best free title available.
By the way if you refuse to go to the festival, Feng will give you several other alternatives, though you can't go back and pick a different one if you change your mind.  One of those is courting a merchant's daughter, though I've never done it so can't say more.

Choice of broadsides isn't on the same level but it's pretty good too if you get a chance, and not very long either.