The Yawhg
Initially, when I first heard of this game, I just figured, “hey, this looks kinda neat but I’m not paying $10 for it becuase I’m a lousy cheap-ass.” It looked like a cool concept to me and if it looks like a cool concept to you, then you’re perhaps in for something of a treat.
Now, when I first played it on my own, I wasn’t particularly entertained. I mean, yes, the different story paths were somewhat interesting and the various different endings were kinda cool but I wasn’t really absorbed into it. It was just something I used to make a good 45 minutes pass by one day when I was feeling bored. Then, while with some friends the other night, I decided to pull it out because we all needed a game to play and this just so happened to be multiplayer and seemed like a nice change of pace from the usual stuff we always tend to play (e.g. Genital Jousting, Jackbox Party Pack, etc.) What I didn’t expect was for us to keep playing over and over again for several more hours, as we found ourselves unusually entertained by this strange little game.
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
The Yawhg
The Yawhg is a quaint little game. The premise is simple, you control up to four characters in the weeks leading up to a great disaster known as The Yawhg. Nobody knows the Yawhg is coming, and you can only command your characters so far in that you pick an activity for them to complete each week.
Your characters will gain stat points for the activity you choose. For example, chopping wood increases strength. But random events will also happen, so while chopping wood you might meet a dryad, and they’ll ask you to dance. If your character has a high finesse score, you can impress the dryad with your dancing and receive a reward.
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
Choice of the Deathless
Oh this takes me back to the bygone days of D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) choose your path adventure books without the ability to look ahead or flip back in the book and make a different choice. Engaging story where what you choose makes a difference and has definite repercussions. Excellent character development of every character throughout. If this were just a novel it would be worth the read.
Story: Play as a new hire lawyer in the prestigious demonic law firm of Varkath, Nebuchadnezzar and Stone. Old friend, new colleagues, magic wards, demonic litigation, depose a goddess, punch a dark god in the face, have a girlfriend or boyfriend or no one at all what ever you prefer, you might even manage to pay off that student loan. Play nice, play nasty, be good, be bad, it is all up to you in the quest to make partner in your law firm hopefully without becoming a living skeleton, literally.
– Real player with 14.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Choose Your Own Adventure Interactive Fiction Games.
I know that I’ve chosen that I don’t recommend this game, but it’s not terrible; in fact, I enjoyed parts of it. But this game isn’t as good as others in the genre. Choice of Robots, for example, is a much better game.
This game lacks a few things:
- consequences for actions- many of the “paths” lead to the same destination. There are plenty of fake choices in this game, and the stats have seemingly no bearing on your character’s ability to succeed in this game. In fact, as I write this review, I’m realizing that the stats are virtually meaningless in this game. The author doesn’t seem to know how to integrate the “Choice of” mechanics very well.
– Real player with 13.0 hrs in game
Diabolical
Diabolical is an interesting game. The first time i played i found it very amusing. The reason i can’t recomend it is because the game makes you think that your choices matter when they really don’t. In all “Choice of Games” games there is a certain level of railroading, in some instances it’s almost unnoticable and not to much of a problem. However in Diabolical it goes way too far.
Now i will be discussing some SPOILERS from this point onwards so read at your own risk.
Most main character will survive untill the final act no matter what you do, making your choice irrelevant. There’s a chapter in which your character has the option to kill another character, Even if you choose to kill him, you won’t since your character got a change of heart suddenly. the worst offender is the ending, now i won’t go into too much spoilers but let’s just say that what ending you get is dependant only on your last choice, a.k.a. no choice up untill this one matters. And there are a lot of options for the ending so you better be reay to replay the game at leadt 8 times to get them all, even though you already know how everything will turn out regardless of your choices.
– Real player with 34.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Choose Your Own Adventure Choices Matter Games.
There is a very blurry line between “Choose your own adventure” games and “interactive light novel”. At this point you probably are a bit confused, so let me dissect the issue; In a “Choose your own adventure” game you are the main character, your choices make your personal out comes and paint a picture with the brush of your psyche: the game is a sandy beach and you the castle building child, each castle is different, yet all are clearly castle inspired by medieval architecture. In “interactive light novels” however, this is not the case; these games are more of showing you a(n) (almost) linear story, yet allowing you to be a part of the story, getting you attached to characters based on your actions, not to mention letting you feel the impact of the story first hand instead of the second hand method of traditional novella. Yet these two are not completely isolated from each other, rather they represent a spectrum of possibilities for games to exist in. Examples of games that heavily focus on only one side are: “Long Live The Queen” and “Monster Loves You!” for “Choose your own adventure” and “Zombie High” by Delight games llc for “interactive light novels”.
– Real player with 12.1 hrs in game
Fox Spirit: A Two-Tailed Adventure
A cute choose-your-own-adventure story. It’s not super long, which means you can replay it a handful of times to try to get different ends. Has some RPG elements for the choices—some adjust your stats, some test them, some appear to be just flavor. The writing was pretty good, both in the sense of the words being smooth/well-edited and in the sense of having character arcs you can influence. It also does a VERY good job guiding you on the options for important choices—much better than some RPGs where what you choose and what the character actually does sometimes have very little relation.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
A wonderful magical story about Kitsune. It sticks close to the traditional image of the magical foxes of japan, and gives you a lot of possible ways to direct the story, whatever your heart desires. I played it multiple times to see, what would have happen if i decided diffently on different ocassions an it was worth it. The story is not short and catching. If you love Kitsune and/or the stories about them, I can absolutely recommend.
– Real player with 9.4 hrs in game
Heroes Rise: The Hero Project
I recommend this adventure right off the back because if you played Prodigy, then you will want to continue “your” story. It took me awhile to get used to the writing style in these stories, as it doesn’t feel exactly like a “choose your own” kind of story. Some of the reactions from “My” character feels closer to watching a character, instead of controlling myself. This adventure takes you into a reality TV show for superheroes, though I’m not sure I would want any of these heroes saving me.
One of the biggest issues I have with “my” adventures up to now are the romantic options. Maybe spoilers, but the romantic choices suck. At least, during my adventure they have. I think the writing overall was better then the first story, I wasn’t pulled out of my adventures as much as I was in Prodigy. After seeing where Prodigy took the storyline, I was extremely curious to see where the next adventure took me. I’ll be honest, I was a little disappointed with a reality show setting, but after finishing the adventure I can at least see why it was chosen.
– Real player with 46.3 hrs in game
Here are my thoughts and feelings about Heroes Rise: The Hero Project. (Spoilers ahoy)
The Good
The story is even better than the last one, with twists and turns that will keep you guessing on your first time playthrough. It has a feeling to it that really gets you tense and pumped up for what happens in the story.
The characters have varying types of personalities and most have semi-realistic personalities.
The Bad
Even though the story is better this time round it has even more problems than the last one. While the first one felt linear it wasn’t glaringly obvious, unlike in this one. Never before have I felt that the choices I made had no impact to the game. Everything I did just felt like poking a wall, it changed nothing. No matter what you do you will ALWAYS get as far as the final eliminations and all that changes is how the ending starts off.
– Real player with 21.9 hrs in game
Mecha Ace
So let me get this right I have max perception but I can’t see the Death Star, let alone powering up? (ENDGAME)
This game has someone that did not do any basic research.
The enemy sets up an ambush but you can ambush the ambush by having the enemy leave their ambush that has cover for them to walk into a hail of bullets from your ambush.
Ambush… take a drink.
When you are returning to base you about to be ambushed (take a drink) and after you kill the enemy your commander yells at you for defending yourself in war. (wAiT WhAt???? O_o)
– Real player with 39.0 hrs in game
TL;DR WISH THIS GAME WAS LONGER, MORE IN DEPTH. 7/10
This was a nice story, and definitely worth the money. But this isnt the first time I’ve played choice of games product (life of a wizard was awesome) so while I enjoyed the story, I was honestly a bit, unsatisfied. There wasnt enough depth in this game.
Spoilers
Any stat that goes above 4 (starting 2) ensures that you succeed every related option.
And with the scarce amount of stat increasing/decreasing choices, this results in very limited dimensions for character ability development.
– Real player with 24.1 hrs in game
SLAMMED!
Slammed! is an interactive story based in the world of professional wrestling. You don’t need to know or understand professional wrestling, although some terms are crucial to understand (ie, the concept of kayfabe) and a quick google search every now and then will help as you go along. At its core though, this is a story about your journey and the personalities that you interactive with - the wrestling is the backdrop for the most part.
The story’s pacing is excellent, and the blurring of the line between real and kayfabe (which is broadly the same concept as the “fourth wall” in acting) is really well done. The quality of the writing, purely from the point of view of the storytelling, is also excellent. For me, the best example of this is the section that features the “promotional video” for the grand finale, where the writing got me genuinely pumped up for the big climax.
– Real player with 30.7 hrs in game
This was pretty cool.
I know nothing about wrestling, yet this was entertaining and I wanted to see what would happen. I got so angry a couple times, not having a clue about how much of a show everything is so people screwed my char over - though things resolved well so I didn’t feel bad for too long.
I did spend half the time googling wrestling moves and frankly I had no clue even after seeing the moves on what stat they were focusing on. I focused on strength because it seemed the easier one to spot but I screwed up big time on a couple fights. So if you’re clueless about wrestling, it’s still an entertaining game, exciting even, but be prepared to feel like you’re tossing a coin for some of the choices.
– Real player with 25.2 hrs in game
The Grand Lord
I have tried the game only for two rounds yet I’ve already discovered some very surprising outcomes from different choices. The endings I’ve got is quite general thus I am really intrigued by the other possible ones for I’ve gone two opposite directions by being good and mean. The dialogues involved are quite interesting and the great colours are used as an indication for status. Recommend it!
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
Really enjoyed the game. Very funny and makes me want to beat all the endings as it’s very re-playable. Really glad i gave this game a shot, 100% worth giving it a shot
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
The Hero of Kendrickstone
So far an awesome read, better then I expected. I don’t read a ton of books, but this seems like it was written by a really good author with lot of details and that it’s not just some novice author trying to make a quick buck.
Listen as I read chapter one aloud and see some of the choices I make and how those affect the story, even early on in this video: (More chapters are found on my ‘Zaxtor99’ YouTube channel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I65p5V00F4
The game doesn’t have a “save” option in the menu, but it does generally save your progress and the next time you open it, will be right where you left off. One time I opened it however, it was a chapter behind where I left off last, but it was easy enough to just click all the same choices as I had from the previous play to get back to where I was last.
– Real player with 51.0 hrs in game
This was the first interactive story I’ve ever bought and oh boy was it worth it. It took me several days of reasonable reading rates to get through a single story-line, and from the choices to be made there are more than a few meaningful replays to be had.
The story is compelling and the writing was solid; it’s certainly worthy of a printed media. I think my favorite part was that the story also kept track of your inventory such as weapons, armor, and gold, which lets you buy things and perform better.
– Real player with 22.2 hrs in game
The Lost Heir: The Fall of Daria
The game is well-written, offers plenty of choices in plenty of aspects; there’s many different classes you can choose to be (Wizard, Bard, Druid and so on), you can choose to be good or evil, to become more like your hated enemy or to reject being like him. There’s a bunch of likeable companions - which you can romance if you like, and those romances are rather well done as well. All in all, a game worth it’s price.
That said, there’s some risk that you’ll end up frustrated in the beginning, for the risk is that, because you don’t always know what stat increases your choices will lead to, or if it’ll be enough - your first characters will likely end up… Lacking in several aspects - my very first PCs back from when I played on the CoG site were so lacking at the end that I didn’t bother saving those for the sequel. Keep trying though, for it is certainly possible to end up with a character powerful in several ways at the end - and even if you you don’t, that is not necressarily fatal as the game can be lenient enough even to a PC that is lacking in several ways at the end.
– Real player with 49.6 hrs in game
Let me tell you, I had my doubts of this game in the beginning and when I saw it on steam for 4$, I was hesitant.
I like my gameplay within games and the graphics too, but this game exceeded my expectations and placed a golden pedestal within my heart and mind for one of the best text based rpgs!
I love this game and the second with the heart and love of a true gamer, reader, book writer, and lover of romance and strife within a good story.
So excited for the third, this game is a 5/5. Everything you expected from a text based game, I am not dissatisfied with this game and look forward to the finale in a year.
– Real player with 25.7 hrs in game