So far I’m doing well with points in Learned, Swift, and Ingenuity
4 Likes
Not necessarily. It felt like Might and Charm had the most common options for passing a skill check. There are opportunities for all the skills. Learned and Ingenuity are probably the second most used skills. Even with swift and rugged as my first two skills I focused on, I still got a positive ending.
9 Likes
Heart of Battle
By Fay Ikin
You focus on your fight, pushing the old hunter’s spear out of your way with the hilt of your crossbow. You’re far too fast for her as you fire a bolt at close range into the join at her inner elbow.
She shrieks, dropping her spear to clutch at her other arm, and falls to her knees.
I’m a sucker for the romances in Choice of Games, especially when there are gender variable options. Some tend to believe that it limits personality and believability in characters that it can just flip, but I tend to view it as proof that personality isn’t equal to someone’s gender. But, I also realize that someone’s actual sex can affect my attraction. This often leads to certain games feeling like they may end up lacking replayability for me because there is really only one or two romance options I’m actually interested in following to completion. As a heads up, I did participate in the beta testing for this title.
General Story:
You wake up to find yourself in the middle of an arena battle, slowly regaining fuzzy memories. After the bout, you learn that you were taken in by overseers of a gladiatorial prison. Do you attempt to grab glory, escape your captors, or take over? Will you find love? Bloodlust, or just regular lust?
Most people coming into this looking for a romance novel will be pleased. The characters are distinct and likeable. It also hits highs and lows in the story that consistently made me wonder if it was about to end, before continuing on for more chapters. Rising points and peak climaxes (no pun intended) occur within each chapter, and kept me engaged throughout. Spiciness rating seems deserved for some routes, but some of the routes seem pretty tame in comparison.
Format and Typos:
Readability is very high. Actually came across only one typo, and reported it.
Game Mechanics and Stats:
Opposed pairs determine personality, and standing within Ghrel Arena. Are you respected and trusted by the overseers? Skills are just percentages, and I found it pretty varied. It never seemed like any of the specific skills were better for ‘winning’ than others.
Replayability:
There is a decent amount of replayability, essentially being able to end up in a few different places in the epilogue depending on choices made near the end of the story. Each of these epilogues will focus on what you are doing, and then a small vignette with your romance option choice to end the title. Most people will probably be able to get three or four plays to see everything they want.
Dislikes:
- You spend a lot of time outside of combat for a gladiatorial story. This makes some sense considering it is a romance story first and foremost, but the start makes it feel like this is going to be a heavier focus.
- Epilogue is kinda sparse with details about things you may actually be concerned about. Did you help the AFMC or the LC? How are they doing with or without certain leadership? Did the Captain turn out alright?
- Spoilery dislike! It feels like the story was 100% written for Terez to die, because of how much it seems like his story intertwines with yours in the beginning but how little he actually means to the story after his contract is purchased if he doesn’t die. It all flows better if he did die, and that makes it seem like a choice a player made makes the story worse.
Likes:
- Power imbalances and consent seem to be a super strong focus here, and it bypasses some of the more uncomfortable issues.
- I really liked the dynamic of being able to be a character who is wholeheartedly against all of what is going on, and being able to be someone who was just interested in winning glory, especially as that is represented in the romantic options.
- One of the few games where I, an unabashed goody-two-shoes, really appreciated the options to be more brutal and vengeful. Certain characters made it easy to hate them.
22 Likes
Talon City: Death from Above
By Eric Moser
“It is,” you respond. “I think you want to see if this owl and his plucky assistant can do what the Guardians have thus far failed to accomplish.”
“That’s me!” Concordia warbles in delight. “I’m the plucky one!”
As I continue this series of reviews, I am learning as much about my own opinions and what I can deal with in favor of the quality of a title. Even in the face of something I very much dislike, I have to spend a good while determining why I dislike it. Sometimes, even… I start to understand why the mechanic was put in place to begin with.
General Story:
In the avian justice system, the Hunters and Feeders are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The Guardians, who maintain the Tenets and investigate crime, and the Callers, who also seem to investigate crime and represent their clients. These are their stories.
DUNDUN
You are an owl lawyer who is trying their best to win their first case and pay off your vulture debtors. Your life gets ruffled when your client mysteriously disappears and it appears there is a murderer on the loose. It’s up to you to find them, and learn more about the world of Talon City and the Tenets of the Sacred Bark. Can you survive this noir thriller and make a little currency in this bird-eat-bird world?
This theme and execution are almost perfect. There is a wide immersive world here that is created around you, while you still focus a little bit on your specific place within the system. This may also be one of the best examples of how to feed lore to a player in a simple way, even though there is obviously a deep complex world. There are moral quandaries of Feeders vs Hunters and what sort of responsibility someone with almost a serf-ish setup with someone they may view as not much better than a potential meal.
There are multiple characters, but if you are like me you’ll find yourself attached to maybe only a few because of how little you end up interacting with some of them. But, honestly… you don’t need much more than the promises of a hummingbird. They are pretty special.
Format and Typos:
Readability is high. There are a few typos, but most errors seem to be coding issues with either incorrect percentage stat changes, and a few instances where the wrong stat was checked.
Game Mechanics and Stats:
Opposed pair personality will change up your character’s view on specific situations, but the major mechanic is the weighted randomized rolls. A d6 is rolled to check your stat by checking if you roll your skill number or lower. No matter the level of your stat, you will always have at least a 17% chance to fail as you can’t get a skill to 6. Every check will end up checking three things… One of two specific stats (out of 5), or a ‘Stroke of Genius’ which is a limited auto-success depending on difficulty, or a specific item that can be used once to bypass the check. Each success equates to an ‘experience point’ which is a bit of a misnomer, this is actually a currency to pass ‘boss fights’, the amount required depending again on difficulty. A bad run of luck could lead to situations like mine, as reticent as I was to use ‘strokes of genius’, where it took three different attempts to ever get past the first ‘boss fight’.
This all culminates in a very confusing, and difficult game that both frustrated me to no end and also likely created the suspense that made a lot of the story worthwhile. Frustrations were that it really didn’t feel like my character was good at the things I wanted them to be good at because luck would determine I wasn’t.
Replayability:
Replayability is a little inflated by how difficult the game can end up being if you try to play on normal or higher difficulty. The epilogue does include some major flavor changes based on your personality choices up to that point. There is one romance option, but this mostly flavors the story and isn’t really the focus.
Dislikes:
- 0.0772% chance. That is the chance that I would roll a 5 on a d6 5 times in a row. That is what happened when I needed to roll a 4 or lower for my first two reads that ended in failure. I appreciate the attempt to do something different with mechanics, but it’s very hard not to feel a little like the mechanics are at odds with the idea of what your character is supposed to be good at.
- The major twist is subtly foreshadowed with an air horn.
- I believe that the Feeders opinion should have been represented with an opposed pair of Feeders/Hunters, because any stat represented by only a growing percentage makes me believe it is bad to be low.
Likes:
- Suspense and a very real danger lend a sense of desperation to this title that I don’t think it would work without.
- The theme and execution of the story are absolutely amazing. This title moves at an exquisite pace and carries the mystery forward almost perfectly.
- I want a hummingbird assistant, and I will destroy anyone who threatens them. That’s a hummingbird promise, and those are special.
27 Likes
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about what you’d think! Whew!
There’s not usually so much overlap, I swear! But I had to throw your MC into an uncomfortable position! (but honestly this made me laugh out loud)
Anyway, I’m thrilled you enjoyed it. I knew it was a risk writing something so different. And maybe I should beg people to please please please play on Easy Mode the first time. 
12 Likes
Third in the rankings! Congrats, man!
5 Likes
No secret that I really enjoyed it. I think you might have been a little better off titling the modes something similar to what I’ve seen before. Easy = Story Mode, maybe. A lot of my frustration just revolved around the luck, and how often I died to the vultures during my first times through.
Thanks for the wonderful story and as the end card asked, I definitely want a sequel with ‘Single Crow Lawyer’
11 Likes
The crow would definitely be in a sequel! And they are sexy, if that helps! I kept all of the spicy moments in my back pocket!
And yeah I will definitely think about the mechanics. I like them but there might be a way to mitigate the luck a bit, maybe with “tiered results” that prevent total failure in situations where your Stat is at a certain level. Much to ponder!
8 Likes
The Day After Ever After
By Matt Simpson
You interrupt, eyes bulging as you stare intensely at your uninvited guest. “I SAID. I WANT. A PONY.”
Sometimes you get a diamond pony, and sometimes you call it ‘Piss-for-Brains’, but you end up naming it “Butt Stallion”. This is generally seen as a good idea, but sometimes people don’t take it seriously.
It is a real pony made of diamonds, okay?
General Story:
After marrying your ‘one true love’, you set about ruling the kingdom as the Prince or as Cinderella. Is it blissful matrimony? Can you balance duty and family? Is that man holding a dagger and a manifesto behind his back? Is that noble looking at me with sexy eyes? I mean… it’s good to be the Monarch-to-be, right? Right?
There is a reason I referenced Borderlands above. Borderlands is written with comedy in mind, and leans heavily on popular culture and meta references to reinforce the humor. Borderlands 2 and Tales from the Borderlands were a master-class in this, but Borderlands 3 seemed to have lost something of the polish that made the laughs roll on. This title feels like it takes a lot of the comedic cues from that style of writing, with a bit of a different theme.
This is a modern, almost Avenue Q-esque take on what happens after the credits roll in a Disney film. What happens when something like a fairy-tale meets real world problems? What if almost every answer is a quote from pop-culture? You’ll run the gamut of Princess Bride to Futurama to Supernatural. If you are familiar with Into the Woods, you’ll have a pretty good base to start this title from.
Format and Typos:
Readability is high, and I’ve not seen a typo in the paths I’ve taken.
Game Mechanics and Stats:
You have opposed pair personality types that shift by just a couple of points at most here and there. Are you kind, or cruel? Couth or uncouth? The game also tracks multiple characters and their relationships with an ever changing quote about their like or dislike of you. Certain thresholds can trigger good or bad events, and you may never even see whole sections of the game unless you meet those thresholds, positive or negative.
Replayability:
You can expect at least two or three plays depending on your continued romantic choices and state of the kingdom after your machinations and ministrations have played out. Even though you are married, there are a few other romantic options and the justifications to maybe be less than faithful is provided mid-story. There are a few story-ender death scenes, so make sure to keep everyone as happy as you can. Or don’t.
Dislikes:
- Personal dislike that many won’t have much of an issue with, but there is a lot of fourth-wall breaking in the story, and even more referenced in the stats page.
- If you are against infidelity and can’t really separate yourself from your character, you might have a reduced amount of replayability.
- A lot of the humor depends on the reader being familiar with a wide-swath of popular (and some obscure) media. It might not age as well as other titles…
Likes:
- Rapid-fire pop culture references, especially in dialogue options, trigger the dopamine reward system in the brain.
- Humor really does remind me of Borderlands and is fairly masterful at the irreverent.
- I love the Avenue Q-esque parody take on the fairy tale, making this almost seem like it would fit well Off-Broadway.
22 Likes
It’s funny that I have had my humor compared to Borderlands a few times, but I’m not all that familiar with that, given I only played the first installment many years ago.
Based on your personal distaste for fourth wall breaking, I think you will like The Parenting Simulator more than this one. Toaster, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing you won’t get to that one for a year or more.
In any case, glad I could moderately amuse you, and thanks for giving it a go!
12 Likes
In my defense, I wasn’t going to use those four dollars on anything else…
5 Likes
Yeah, I get a lot more Borderlands 2 from the writing and set-ups. I did enjoy the title, and as a former ‘Into the Woods’ high school cast member, there was some nostalgia in there.
I can’t wait to get to some more titles!
7 Likes
Crème de la Crème
By Hannah Powell-Smith
You’ve seen the Gallatin College banquet hall in grainy photographs, but little could prepare you for this spectacle. Three crystal chandeliers hang from the high ceiling, sparkling with light. Portraits of previous Headteachers line the walls, along with a bronze plaque stretching nearly the height of the room listing the prefects of years gone by. The earliest date is several hundred years ago.
I had a hectic day at work this week and decided I’d treat myself to some fast food on the way home. Mostly it’s comforting to know I’ll easily be able to eat, get into some comfy clothes, and not put too much effort into my evening, while still enjoying it immensely.
If you bundled all of those feelings together into an interactive fiction title, for me it would undoubtedly be Crème de la Crème.
Disclaimer
I am a Patreon supporter of Hannah Powell-Smith.
General Story:
Uprooted from high society in scandal, your parents send you off to a finishing school to try and claw back into the graces of the elite. As you meet potential suitors, you’ll find yourself studying, partying, and trying to land that perfect engagement. Explore extracurricular activities, both sanctioned and not, and try not to run afoul of the mystery hidden behind the glamour!
There is something almost eerily lilting about this story. You spend quite a bit of time just in this slice of life, flirting and studying; but every once in a while parts of a darker story flicker at the edges. You can honestly get right up to the reveal, and have glossed over enough of the foreshadowing to still be a little surprised at the outcome.
Format and Typos:
Readability is very high, and I’ve not noticed a typo on multiple trips through the title.
Game Mechanics and Stats:
Your demeanor is tracked by opposed pairs, while most other visible stats are percentages. You’ll balance keeping your grades, popularity and virtue up as you go throughout the academic year. These will be used to determine how well the faculty, staff and student body interact with you. Part of the hidden stats actually determine your personal influence on your classmates… for example, does Max lean hard into the party life or become a little bit more of a steady revolutionary?
Replayability:
If you went by just the amount of times I’ve played this title, this may be the most value I’ve ever wrung out of almost any piece of entertainment. Now, that’s in large part to it essentially being my comfort game, one which I know like the back of my hand for the most part. There are multiple gender-variable romance options, poly options, alternate ending paths, epilogue choices that can vary your situation with your chosen partner and altered states for the entire campus itself. There is a lot of variation in the title at the end.
Dislikes:
- I’d have liked more time in the epilogue with our chosen friends or partners. It feels quaint, but too quick.
- You can be a right bastard, and people will still treat you like they care for you after blatantly betraying them after the ending. Something as simple as ignoring you might have made this flow better.
- Enemy/Rival to Lover in this title leaves me feeling a little bit cheated in content. It makes sense, given the circumstances, but still…
Likes:
- So many different romantic options, all distinct, inclusive and worthwhile. Everyone from a fencing prince to a pauper on scholarship.
- The author is amazing at writing this warm, enveloping prose that always feels like there is one or two strands of shadow floating through.
- The game almost plays like a high society puzzle game, where you balance your own prospects versus trying to find your own place within the world.
30 Likes
Thank you so much, that’s absolutely made my day! I totally agree about some of the responsiveness of characters in the epilogue - by the time I got there I was pretty tired and had so much ground to cover that I didn’t end up exploring reactivity to players having been mean as much as I’d have liked. (I’m at the same end-ish stage in Royal Affairs now and am keeping that very much in mind, giving lots of reactivity from friends and loved ones about potentially dodgy things you’ve got up to! 
)
25 Likes
And thank you. I really enjoyed my ‘ample’ time with Creme de la Creme, and am eagerly awaiting Royal Affairs.
11 Likes
@Eric_Moser I fucking love Talon City. It’s the best game CoG has had in a while, in my opinion.
I just hope we get more courtroom drama in the sequel. I know after crafting all those damn HELL tests you have the mind for it! 
11 Likes
Skystrike: Wings of Justice
By E. Chris Ambrose
You sink lower, letting your shadow merge with those of the trees, buildings, and clouds. A long skylight protrudes from the roof, like a miniature greenhouse, emitting a fair amount of light. Somebody’s in there, no doubt. A single car sits in a spot right up close to the building, with the license plate “XCELL.” Seems like Berhane is in there, too, and he may be in trouble.
There are a lot of table-top roleplaying games that I’ve made characters for and never played. D&D is the prevalent system that people actually play because it’s the one that is most collectively known. It is super easy to sit down and tell someone to imagine a Tolkien-esque world and roll up an elf. Much less so to ask someone what caste is their Solar Exalted, for example. The Champions TTRPG is one of those games that you’d think would be a lot easier to get people to settle into. It is literally just a TTRPG representation of the comic-book characters we already knew. I’m pretty sure my first character was just faux-Wolverine.
General Story:
Take to the skies as Skystrike, a hero with mysterious origins returning to your hometown. Can you protect it, and your identity, from those who would do you harm?
Part of the reason I brought up the Champions TTRPG is because this feels like a solo adventure being run through that system. The story is straight off a GM’s table, and is presented in the same format. It feels like someone is narrating the story to me, and I’m choosing my specific actions. The only thing missing is the die roll, honestly.
You are pitted against another super-powered individual, and an organization designed solely to investigate unlikely occurrences. Think X-files, but for supers. This all sets up for what seems to be a super (ahem, no pun intended) exciting story that would intertwine the RatKing’s plans and the Director’s machinations, but almost none of it really seems like it is the focus. Each separate direction the story goes in feels like it weakens the potential for the rest.
Format and Typos:
I couldn’t find any overt typos or coding errors. But some new additions do affect readability a bit.
I had thought that I was not a fan of some of the new portrait art, but this title confirms it. I understand that the content of the art is subjective, so I never wanted to use it as a negative; but what I can do is say that the way the stats screen is laid out and the use of images making every page at a minimum twice as long as it needed to be really hampers format and readability. For example, before meeting the person in charge of your sanctuary, you can see all of your skills on average on the website. After meeting them, I can only read my name, a few options, and no numerical stats without having to scroll down. And I have a pretty big screen, so I can’t imagine what it is like on mobile. An option to turn off images would do wonders.
Also, any game with multiple stats screens should have the ability to access every page from the first screen. I didn’t even know there was a ‘third’ screen for stats (partially because I stopped wanting to have to scroll down the Community page).
Game Mechanics and Stats:
Opposed pairs cover personality styles, and skills accumulate based on choices throughout the title instead of just at the beginning. You’ll need to manage your cover, maintain your health, and try to keep to the personality of the character you’ve created. There are also accumulating stats for different parts of your investigation. How well do you know your enemy? Plans, habits, powers?
Skill checks often include personality gates (so, if you decide to bust in and fight; but you aren’t quick or bold enough, it can fall flat even if you are an extremely good fighter). This feels somewhat right simply because it is a reward for sticking to personality, though sometimes I like the ability to choose a different path without having to devote my style to that from the start. For the humor and style, grades of success and failure (and maybe just included personality types in the responses instead of being the success or failure) might have worked a little better.
Replayability:
Replayability is pretty good. Most superhero interactive fiction relies on different powers and abilities, but here you are Skystrike and you have Skystrike’s powers. What is different is your origin, your business, and the multiple romance options within the title. This is a game that relies on failure to provide exceptionally different epilogues, so you’ll want to spend a few times going through the title blind. Make some mistakes, and the story will seem much different.
Dislikes:
- Not a fan of how the portraits are presented and used in the title. Breaks up readability, and clouds the stats screens usefulness. More options to hide them, or put them in their own section of the stats screen away from numerical values.
- Is this our universe? Real life superheroes are brought up, but it’s never confirmed if they exist in the world or as media. They are referenced, but you are considered to be an oddity, so I am assuming it isn’t. Just a little bit of immersion breaking.
- If you play well enough, RatKing almost never seems to be a big and competent threat. You never get blindsided unless you specifically seek out failure.
Likes:
- Really does feel like a solo campaign run by a GM. They may have handed you a pre-made character sheet, but you can do what you want with them.
- Origin story and character set up was interesting.
- The investigative story and accumulating stats allowing for what are essentially counter insights helping you win in the end is a really interesting idea, especially because you might know everything about the organization but nothing about your enemy and their true powers.
23 Likes
Apex Patrol
By Allen Gies
The results are decisive. The source can be found in a white dwarf system farther out on the frontier at C7-6E. A survey ship swept through there eight decades ago and found nothing but a solitary star and irregular planetoids in elliptical orbits around it. Nothing important otherwise, and yet now there clearly must be.
Indeed, if the math is right; that something must be the star itself. Something has happened to it. Something that has made its mass appear to abruptly vanish.
Soft sci-fi like Star Trek is often filled with humanoid aliens, nose ridges and slightly off words like ‘phasers’ and ‘masers’. These sit alongside other explanations for why space-faring craft don’t need supply chains to support hundreds of crew, or how to achieve light speed travel.
And honestly, I still eat it up.
General Story:
You are a captain who has boldly chosen to go where other captains haven’t gone before, at least in this universe. Can you figure out how all of these anomalies are tied together, keep your crew alive, and face a relic of your past to save the Earth?
This is an episode arc (maybe one of the movies) of Star Trek and it is fairly unabashed in presentation. And it works. The words are made up, but they slot in well enough that any soft sci-fi trekkie will have no issue following it. Worlds are in danger, and you have to decide if you are following the prime directive or abandoning it to help. Do you risk your redshirts for more information that might help save millions, or do you keep them safe to try and make it through the ordeal?
Just a heads up, you never actually name yourself. Closest you get is choosing the name of your ship.
Format and Typos:
Decent readability, no typos. Lots of short paragraphs and dense words hurt it a little bit.
Game Mechanics and Stats:
So, I really like how stat picking works here. You select what your ship and crew is good at, so this will inform the remainder of your choices and strategies. The weird thing that made me a little more favorable is that at the end of the first chapter, there is a random bonus to your ship. Some people may not like the loss of choice, but I enjoyed focusing on shields and engines only to get a bonus to my captain’s personal ‘Guts’ and ‘Masers’ skill. Most checks are based on your stats (are they higher than 2, equal to 1, or less?), and sometimes distance can affect strategy in ship-to-ship combat.
Replayability:
For a (relatively) bite-size title in length, there is going to be decent replayability. You can focus on a different ship setup, and different choices within each of the arcs. Deaths can occur early based on your choices, and there are no romance options. The title plays quick enough, and enough dialogue changes that you’ll get a fairly different feeling each time you play through. I can see most people getting about three full plays, barring any early deaths.
Dislikes:
- Lots of analogue words and no glossary. Trekkies and scifi fans will be able to parse it, but it might have been nice for others.
- Readability takes a bit of a hit on certain pages, with walls of dense text.
- The epilogue was presented in a very dry way. I would have liked a little bit more story, and less stats.
Likes:
- I really enjoyed that the length of time and order of missions can affect their outcomes.
- This is almost a pure fanservice to Star Trek, and the somewhat blank Captain is perfect for idealized self-inserts.
- The action that occurs in the space combat and boarding sequences is well done and engaging.
17 Likes
Hey, all. Want to get your opinons on the impending release of the Point du Jour DLC for Belle de Nuit that is scheduled for release on Thursday. Personal policy says not to give priority to DLC release, but this is being defined as a full sequel as DLC. Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven follows this same format. What is your opinion on giving it priority?
- Review it - (Point du Jour is a full sequel, even if it is just DLC)
- Don’t review it - (Point du Jour is a DLC)
0 voters
4 Likes
If it is truly a sequel, don’t let the delivery method be an issue. Just treat it like you would any other release. Although I guess you would need to review the original first, right?
Some sequels just makes sense as DLC, because they would not be able to stand alone as a story. When I do The Grandparenting Simulator, it’ll definitely be DLC since playing the first one is something of an imperative.
10 Likes