Hi guys! So I’ve read a few of the free games on the site and have been wondering what to move onto next. To get an idea of what people generally consider the best games on the site, I figured I’d get people’s general opinions on a bunch of different things. So, in your opinions, what games are the:
Best Choice of Game
Best Hosted Game
Best free game
Longest game
Game with the best plot
Game with the best characters
Funniest game
Game most likely to make you cry
Game with the most complicated scripting
Best game overall
(It’s okay if you put the same game for more than 1 category.)
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As far as I know, Tin Star is hands down the longest :). As for the others - I still have a lot to read before I consider myself qualified to answer those questions.
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Kind of a difficult question for the best; some are fantastic the first time but the replay is not so good, others maybe aren’t so great the first time but keep you still very entertained going through all the options and hunting down weird things. Here are, in my view, the top five:
Mecha Ace; Deathless; Showdown at Willow Creek; Slammed!; Broadsides
I’d put the first reading of Slammed! (surprisingly, since I don’t care at all about wrestling) up near the top, but replays got a bit painful since it was long and relatively linear, so… hm. I guess Broadsides is my answer for the best Choice of Game, maybe? I’m not sure, that might be wrong, it’s been a while since I played that so it might be nostalgia speaking.
The best hosted game is without a doubt Sabres of Infinity, though some such as Life of a Wizard and a couple of the zombie ones are also very good.
The best free game is Marine Raider. It’s short, but your choices matter, it’s logical and the game is very solid. It used to be my favorite user-contributed one.
The longest is Tin Star, as said above. I haven’t been able to play to the end yet (I restart from scratch when I die and I always get shot to death by this one punk no matter what…) but it’s pretty solid.
I don’t remember individual plots and characters well enough what’s to say the best is out of dozens, unfortunately… I can only seem to remember the stinkers clearly enough to put them out of the running, but I guess it would be too negative to list those.
Funniest game, well, I remember being particularly corny in Slammed! was hilarious even though that’s a long while back. Humor tends to slip out from my mind pretty fast, so only from more recently do I recall that Mecha Ace made me actually laugh out loud from having a certain weapon on a certain mission.
I haven’t cried thus far on one of them, I hope I find one that can move me that much some day though. Probably Sabres of Infinity came the closest here? There’s a WiP that came much closer, but that’s not been officially released: it’s Choice of Rebels, if you want to look it up. Choice of Rebels will probably be the best game around here once it actually gets released.
I remember Choice of Vampires being an utter pain if you looked into the code to see how to achieve some little things and it just leads to a swamp of confusion.
The best game overall for now is probably Sabres of Infinity. It’s really that good. I’m hanging on to this site for the sequel to that and Choice of Rebels, or maybe something else good like a sequel to Choice of Dragons or something. I have to admit that I’ve bought only 1 out of the 4 most recent official Choice of Games titles released (Mecha Ace), and that was only because it shared the same author as Sabres of Infinity.
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I’d say
Best CoG: Deathless. The lore is so unique and the concept is fascinating.
Best HG: Life of a Wizard. The writing is great, it’s addicting, and the replay value is amazing.
Best free: Dragon. It’s an awesome story, and it’s where it all begun.
Longest: Tin Star.
Best plot: Sabres of Infinity. The story iss captivating and your choices really effect it.
Best characters: Way Walkers: University 2 - some are mean, some are cute, some are cool, but they’re all well defined.
Funniest: Star Captain. The sarcasm is priceless.
Most likely to make you cry: hmm…I don’t think there are any, yet (and I’ve read them all.)
Most complicated code: I haven’t looked at them specifically, but probably Vampire.
Best overall: Life of a Wizard.
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If we are talking about the funniest game we have to mention neighborhood necromancer. That was truly hilarious.
Also, I think that choice of Kung fu is one of the most underrated and least talked about games on the site. It was really well put together and the ending was particlarly clever in my opinion.
Thanks guys. I think I’ll play some of the first 3 chapters demos and decide which one I want to finish most.
@Samuel_H_Young
Lol, I know. Vampire was really confusing… Especially how you could only talk to certain people depending on what languages you spoke. I love the story though. 
You may as well try all the free demo’s 
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Best Choice of Game: Choice of Broadsides (I know it’s an early one, but the quality combined with it being 100% free makes it blow the others out of the water in my opinion)
Best Hosted Game: Tin Star. Although Zombie Exodus is a close second.
Best free game: Apex Patrol, or Marine Raider. Both rocked.
Longest game: That’d be Tin Star.
Game with the best plot: I have to say Tin Star yet again.
Game with the best characters: Zombie Exodus - from sarcastic Heather, to lovable Uncle Lou, to that really nice guy who gets eaten in that field a couple chapters in… JimD really does know how to develop his characters.
Funniest game: Tin Star. If only for AllenGies’ unique sense of humor which allowed me to *stay silent* throughout the entire game and confuse the hell out of every single character.
Game most likely to make you cry: Paradox Factor. Holy crap. Nothing says ‘sad’ like living through the deaths of everyone you love over and over and over.
Game with the most complicated scripting: I’m gonna go with Tin Star yet again - although Vendetta, whenever it is finally unveiled, may usurp this title.
Best Overall: Unsurprisingly, Tin Star. It’s an absolute masterpiece! However, as stated previously, JimD’s Zombie Exodus (and the upcoming sequel) gives it a run for it’s money, as does Vendetta’s Rise of a Gangster.
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Best Choice of Game: Choice of the Deathless
Best Hosted Game: Way Walkers: University
Best Free Game: Choice of the Dragon
Longest Game: Tin Star
Game with the best plot: Sabres of Infinity
Best Characters: Way Walkers: University
Funniest Game: Between Neighborhood Necromancer and Reckless Space Pirates
Game most likely to make you cry: Unfortunately, there haven’t been many sad games in my opinion. The one that came the closest was one of the possible endings from Choice of Romance I think. It’s one of those happy/complete endings.
Most complicated scripting: I have no idea. Never paid much attention to it.
Best Overall Game: It’s really hard to choose. There are so many awesome authors who make great quality material. The one I enjoyed reading overall would be between Way Walkers University and Sabres of Infinity
More awesome suggestions. Thanks guys!
And EarnBoogie made me think of another category I didn’t think of:
Best Author
Best author would probably go to Mike Walter, Jaime Leigh or Paul Wang.
… How immature am I that I still snicker when people have the last name Wang?
Lol xD
Best COG: I’d go with Slammed!. Deathless almost makes the top slot but loses out by, IMO, not having a meaningful loss condition.
Best HG: Tin Star
Best free game: Apex Patrol
Longest: Tin Star
Best plot: Sabres of Infinity
Best characters: …hmmm. Slammed!, because I absolutely loved to hate Paul Prototype and Alex Dobbs.
Funniest: Sabres of Infinity. I particularly enjoy Cataphrak’s peculiar brand of snark.
Most likely to make you cry: Um…this one’s unfortunately kinda lacking; I don’t think there’s any CoG that does that well (yet).
Most complicated scripting: Tin Star. *shudder*
Best overall: Tin Star
Best author: So far, I’d say Allen Gies. He consistently writes games that I’d classify as excellent work. However, I predict that after both write a few more games, Paul Wang will be the better writer.
One additional category that informs my decisions:
Best use of game mechanics: Tin Star
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Pretty soon, we should start handing out awards for categories that Rose created. Haha!
@EarnBoogie
Yey! That sounds fun. We could throw in some more categories like best cover art and best cliffhanger at the end of the free demo.
Best Choice of Game: Choice of the Vampire
Best Hosted Game: Sabres of Infinity
Best free game: Choice of Broadsides
Longest game: Tin Star
Game with the best plot: Sabres of Infinity
Game with the best characters: Choice of the Vampire
Funniest game: Choice of Dragon
Game most likely to make you cry: No game made me cry, but I think Choice of the Vampire, Choice of Romance and Paradox Factor have most sad/tragic stuff.
Game with the most complicated scripting: I don’t know how to see the script except on the free games on the CoG website, but It seems Choice of the Vampire is the most complicated I’ve seen.
Best game overall: Sabres of Infinity
Best author: a tie between Paul Wang and Joel Havenstone
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Seeing as how people seem to be having a really hard time coming up with a CoG to make you cry, I feel like mentioning the saddest non-cog IF I ever played. Freaking “Death Song”… @EndMaster is some sort of mad genius I swear. After getting the “best” ending in that game I actually felt shitty for a week afterwards. I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that I played the game it’s a spin off of first (Necromancer) so I knew all the points at which things could have gone differently if the antagonist had just chosen a different path.
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I’ve yet to read Deathless, but here are my top picks. Interesting to see how much variety there is in tastes!
Best Choice of Game: Choice of the Star Captain
Best Hosted Game: Sabres of Infinity
Best free game: Choice of Romance
Longest game: Tin Star
Game with the best plot: Sabres of Infinity
Game with the best characters: Slammed!, Star Captain, Sabres, Tin Star
Funniest game: Star Captain
Game most likely to make you cry: Paradox Factor
Games with the most complicated scripting: Tin Star and Choice of the Vampire
Best game overall: Sabres of Infinity
Best authors: Of multiple games: Paul Wang, Gavin Inglis, Heather Albano, Adam Morse, Allen Gies
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