Interactive Horror Stories
Story-wise, it’s pretty decent. The game offers a variety of stories to read, and I am a fan of CYOAs. For the horror genre, it does an okay job. However, there are a couple issues I have with the game, keeping it from being a great game. There needs to be some serious proof-reading in all the stories. They are littered with mistakes. Then the lack of sound is odd, really odd. There are some random sound effects in the game that feels more jarring than fitting (just because it’s silent for the majority of the game). Why the dev chose not to add any boggles my mind.
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Adventure Games.
Stories had quite interesting themes, I really enjoyed reading through all of the endings. They were a bit predictable since I watched too many horror movies but nonetheless I would reccomend it for any horror story lovers! It’s also free so why not give it a try If you are into the genre? I was also glad the experience mostly consisted of just text over an image (except the oujia board story) because It would be a lot more scary If It had jumpscares in the form of popping images according to the way the story had progressed. But It’s safe to say there’s none of that! The text alone is enough to creep anyone out especially If you are reading it at midnight like me haha
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Mainland
It’s a short tale of a lone explorer on a hopeless quest.
It’s a story with a well-defined ending that defined ending-philes won’t like.
It’s an experience on rails that you can’t fail, so if you hate not being able to kill the protagonist by doing dumb things, don’t play this.
More a book than anything else, it’s not about the guessing game of a gameplay, but more about stirring compassion to the narrator’s ugly luck and bad decisions; we’ve all been there at one point or another. In a sense, it could be seen as a metaphor where you may end up guessing the right actions in life, and it’s still not enough. Things happen, and efforts are lost, as we don’t grow younger and perkier.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Adventure Games.
Short free text adventure.
Yes, it’s free, but is it worth your time? The plot consists of a handful of short scenes that lack a point. You lose a telescope and go retrieve another. You go exploring but don’t find anything. You see danger approach but nothing happens. You cauterize a wound and pour whiskey over it (waste of good whiskey), yet stay sick. And in between all this, diary pages that flash you back and make time and equipment skips: now you have candles, now you don’t; remove shoes and jacket, but removing pants is “a flawed plan”, even with a leg wound. Wet your hanky in the ocean and use it to combat sunstroke? Unthought of.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
Echoes of the Fey Episode 0: The Immolation
For one of the few visual novels that I’ve ever played, it’s actually pretty good!
There is a particularly sassy douchebag character in there that’s fun to give an annoying voice to.
Cool character designs and interesting little animations and a little bit of it’s own voice acting.
Overall, I’d be looking forward to playing the next episodes if this is your cup of tea.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Adventure Games.
This game is short and simple. It’s a prequel to Echoes of the Fey - Episode 1. It recounts how Sofya and Heremon (from episode 1) became friends and how Sofya gained her powers. This game would be a good introduction to the series, as it’s free to play.
Since I really enjoyed episode 1, I was glad to see the story’s beginning in episode 0. This was also an interesting use of the Unreal Engine 4.
I definitely recommend this to anyone interested in episode 1, but is unsure of whether to buy it.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Spellbound Spire
Can’t beat free. Must try if you have the space for it.
There needs to be an MMO that uses this sort of non-euclidean design. That would be something else. Should experiment more with different patterns on the floor, spirals, wavier paths, you know? so you could have different environments that have different feels, and you would know which one you were in just by how the “terrain” changes (terrain meaning, how you’re traversing around you play-space) there’s a whole world of potential for new and interesting level design and it really would be a WILD multiplayer experience… not THIS game specifically, just the concept. you see someone on the other side of a fence, strike up a convo, but they’re miles away in the game world. Again, this game is single player, I’m not talking about Spellbound Spire, I’m just raving about how cool it’s core concept is.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Disclaimer: Got a free key pre-release. I am not affiliated with the developer in any way. I will also keep the review spoiler-free.
for tl;dr - scroll down
Spellbound Spire reminds me a bit of Anti-Chamber. The game uses clever Teleportation and Projection to trick you into thinking you are in an impossible (non-euclidean) space. There is no combat. Just puzzles and alot of thinking outside the box while being trapped inside an ever-changing box.
You only have playspace locomotion. The whole game plays within a 3 by 3 metre space. No Teleportation (besides the obvious coded ones), no smooth locomotion. Just your feet to carry you through the game. I like that! To prevent players from running against walls all the time, the game lets you configure the size of your playspace. That doesn’t change anything in the game environment itself. Instead, if you change your playspace to 2 by 2 metre, you will be transported 3m ingame for every 2m you move physically. I hope that explaination makes sense. I played in 2,5 by 2,5 metre mode and it wasn’t nauseating. I can imagine that, especially with new VR players in small playspaces, this could cause issues because of the dissonance of physical and virtual movement.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Angel Wings
This VN is brilliant.
Male or Female,, Female is Yuri.
Your selection at the beginning picks your path.
There are 3 or 4 House mates, well 3 or 4 and the Owner,(who you can also end up with),, sometimes a couple can pop up in other parts of stories that they are not part of the main story and live elsewhere. ie; I went in Jimmy’s and Jei was serving, though she was not in main story.
The stories are VERY good and, at times gripping, painful, sad, Happy. Some have ALL emotions through them.
From the cute and sweet Nuri to the Hyper fit and Hot Seola. The Smart but Daft Hyedong to the rough and Fun Jei,, The Prodigy Yeojeong to the Brooding Artists Chaeng. They all have stories and ALL are Love Options (In Yeojeong’s case you can end up with her sister Yuri), the Choice paths determine Who is in the Main story. Y is a very difficult person so I never did get on with her.
– Real player with 198.4 hrs in game
🌸 🌸 🌸 [Graphics] 🌸 🌸 🌸
[⭕️] Leonardo da Vinci’s Level
[⭕️] Perfection!
[⭕️] Beautiful
[⭕️] Good
[💮] Decent
[🖼️] Acceptable
[⭕️] Bad
[⭕️] “Blyatiful”
[⭕️] I don’t know what I’m looking at
(💮: Objects/Models) (🖼️: Environment)
–———————————
⚔️ ⚔️ ⚔️ [Gameplay] ⚔️ ⚔️ ⚔️
[⭕️] Masterpiece
[⭕️] Very good
[⭕️] Good
[✔️] Acceptable
[⭕️] In the nutshell
[⭕️] Please don’t
[⭕️] Garbage/Rubbish
–———————————
🕹️ 🕹️ 🕹️ [Control] 🎮 🎮 🎮
– Real player with 36.7 hrs in game
Burn Me Twice
This game was absolutely stunning. Some mention the “glitchy” graphics. That part did not bother me in the slightest. The story kept me interested the entire time, and when I wasn’t playing the game, my mind was turning about how I could get to the next milestone, in the game. The atmosphere of the game is stunning. The music was my favorite part. I would purchase a soundtrack, to this game, for sure! The sound effects were also impeccable. I did have to wait for a bug to get fixed: I was unable to complete the last part of the game; I won’t go into detail, but it was an issue with the “bone zone”.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Nice little game that left me wanting more.
It seems to be heavily inspired by the Phoenix Wright series, similarly splitting gameplay into investigation phase, where you hunt for clues and evidence, and trial phase where you present what you’ve found in court. The major difference is that the trials are rather simplistic in comparison - unlike PW, there’s no witness interrogation, and the evidence pool is much smaller. On the other hand, investigations seem more involved - it has Zelda-style gameplay (sans combat for the most part), where you explore an open world from a top-down perspective and solve puzzles. There are unfortunately only two cases to solve (plus the actiony final sequence), and the first serves as a sort of tutorial, so it’s easy and straightforward. The second one, however, is pretty good, with a few somewhat challenging puzzles to solve.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Ishmael
Ishmael was a weird experience, I’m still not sure how to feel about it.
First of all, I didn’t like writing, it wasn’t immersive for me at all. Tho English is very good, I didn’t notice any typos. The whole atmosphere seemed so distant, so alien. But then I actually thought that maybe it’s how it should be ‘cause the world described in the game really IS so foreign to me.
It’s the shortest novel I’ve ever played, just about 15 minutes long. We learn the story of a young Palestinian boy. The way children spend their free time playing outdoor games with just stones and sand wasn’t one bit gloomy for me. That’s practically how I spent my childhood growing in a Siberian village—playing snowballs, making snowmen, snow huts in winter, hopscotch or a great number of other games in summer. I actually believe, that time was great fun without computers, internet… But in the game the boy is bored. I didn’t feel related. Of course, when it’s war, occupation, death nearby it changes everything significantly.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
a boring game with a very bautiful purpose.
i’d like to reward the purpose, ‘cause there is a deep meaning in this game, unfortunally, it’s not touching as it should be.
it’s actually pretty dull(even if short), it ’s just a glimpse of daily life for a child, used by the developer to make you understand how people see war, and how people are raised up to bacame soldier in middle easth.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Emily is Away
SPOILERS
If you’re expecting more than one ending, this isn’t the game for you.
To be honest, I wish we had a more complex review system, like stars or something. Although my experience was negative, I don’t completely dislike it.
The biggest upside for me was seeing how people’s status pages change over time, as their lives go on.
What frustrated me is that, in the end, your choices don’t matter. And it’s not just that you don’t get to be with Emily. For instance, you have the possibility of making her date Travis instead of Brad. When I entered this ‘route’ I thought something would change, but it turns out that even though Brad and Travis have different stories, they are exactly the same. The dialogues about them don’t change, except for the name.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
I want to preface by saying I really enjoyed the game interface, graphics and sound effects. They were quite nostalgic. However, having to press keys to type the sentences became a hassle after the first playthrough.
My sole reason for not recommending this game is Emily, or rather the dead end that Emily consistently pushes you into. In the beginning she is probably a good representation of a moody, angsty teen that we all once were on MSN with deep lyrics in our messages. Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter whether you’re indifferent or a supportive friend - she will claim to have once had feelings for you but not any longer. If you hook up then she accuses you of ‘planning’ it and says she was ‘vulnerable’. Please forgive me for trying to plan a nice weekend for you to help you get over your break up! As for the vulernable comment, I don’t get the feeling that the protagnoist (i.e. the player) did anything bad (e.g. purposely plied Emily with alochol or pressured her to get physical). Therefore, despite saying she might fancy you, she decides after hooking up that it’s your fault you hooked up and she doesn’t really like you after all. If you don’t hook up with her, she says she wishes you made a move because she did like you, but doesn’t now. Throughout the game, Emily seems to make everything someone else’s fault and I really disliked her after the first playthrough, but came to hate her after the second and third. Honestly, I wouldn’t have continued talking to her after the first year.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Fighting Fantasy Classics
I don’t usually write reviews, but this game definitely deserves higher rating.
It targets a niche market; namely the (former) fans of the Fighting Fantasy books. Whether you just read them back in the days or still own them, there is so much joy in rereading them. This new digital format is more convenient than the original paper copies, without weakening the strong nostalgia you can experiment.
A lot of the bad reviews come from people discouraged by the arbitrary difficulty. It is true that more often than not, it is impossible to distinguish the path that will give you the key item from the one that will lure you into an unwinnable journey. But this was the well intended design of these stories, and despite the differences with current gaming standards, Tin Man Games made the right choice and kept faithful to the source material. I still find it exciting to start the whole story again, explore different places, make better choices, trying to find the missing items or crucial knowledge that I need… By the way some of the puzzles are still very good and require some thinking (the carved stone door in Bloodbones!). Difficult enough for a grown man who eats his vegetables.
– Real player with 47.6 hrs in game
And I deleted my long review, just as I was almost done. I really god dang hate then I lose all my work. Short version, I reccomend this product completely.
As of this time, I have only played the free offering, but it’s a faithful reproduction of the book, to the point where I feel that if the others are of this quality, don’t feel any need to get the physical books, as long as I have this as an option instead. It’s not the high end work of the Scorcery video game version, but this is very servicable, and true to the source material, which is all you need. Plus, I really appreciate that I can do up to 3 rerolls of the dice. I want high stats when making a character, dang it, so I appreciate not constantly restarting because of one bad roll.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
DARKROOM
DARKROOM is a mystic novel. You wake up in complete darkness and you don’t know where you are or how you got there. Yet, there is someone else in this dark room.
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Atmospheric visual novel with elements of horror.
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Try to find clues in your memories.
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Find out who is here in the dark room with you and how they got here.
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Answers which at first sight seem obvious may lead you away from the truth.
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Great pixel art graphics.