I have to say, that in my 4+ years reading Choice’s Hosted Games, this is far and away the best year of Hosted Games. I have 8 that in my mind are almost must reads and another 3-4 that I think are very good.
Would be interested in hearing other opinions.
What do I think the 8 are? Well in no particular order:
Wayhaven Chronicles
Fallen Hero
CCH2
Last Wizard
Magician’s Burden
Haze Under Windbrooke
Highway Wars
Kepler Colony
I am sure some others are probably deserving of my attention, but it has just been an overload so far and we still have about 4 months to go.
Was thinking the same thing! This year is definitely great for HG and CoG. Man, I haven’t seen so many magnificent gamebooks released in the same year yet!
The only bad thing about 2018 is that wait for the sequels of the abovementioned novels and new wip titles is killing me. Though cog and hg community is a roll on this particular year.
I would think Great Tournament 2 and Doomsday On Demand 2 are two of the outstanding Hosted Games this year as well…
Of course other games such as Fallen Hero , Highway Wars, Last Wizard, Kepler Colony plus others had also been the same outstanding as the above mentioned
It is a joy to lean that there may be further sequel for Fallen Hero, Doomsday on Demand and Kepler Colony… plus a spin-off of Great Tournament 2
I am anticipating further romance with Lady Argent in Fallen Hero and Anne in Great Tournament spin-off, i am still wondering whether Lizzie could be an romance option in sequel of Doomsday on Demand 2…
personally I feel like it’s due to the standard of games going up. If you compare some of the older games to these newer ones you’d see that the base quality has risen. 2019 will make 2018 look like (I say tongue in cheek) a joke by comparison
Hmm, I don’t know. While there are some good games this year, most of my all-time favourites are older. Maaaaybe there’s an improvement on average, but I don’t get the feeling it’s a drastic change compared to previous years.
Maybe not to 2017 since that was the start of the Choice of Game renaissance, but compare Fallen Hero Hero Rise. While both are enjoyable, you can tell Fallen Hero learned and evolved from Hero Rise.
The bigger the company grows the more reach and appeal it has. That means it attracts more talents. As long as they don’t go overboard with any bad policy then logically the products will naturally grow in both quality and quantity
I’m wary of this kind of comparisons, to be honest. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Hero Rise, and from what I heard, the most recent entry of the series isn’t significantly better than the original trilogy. Fallen Hero is indeed excellent, but in my opinion, that’s just due to a better author (or at least, an author whose writing style speaks to me more).
If I wanted to counter that sort of argument, I could say that I don’t think The Fielder’s Choice learned much from Slammed, or that I don’t get the impression that I, Cyborg is a big step up compared to Choice of Robots. Are those comparisons fair? Obviously not. But that’s the same in the other way.
Even when comparing games of the same author, I don’t always get the feeling progress is linear, and that later works will always be better. It can, of course, but it might also be more of a mixed bag. For instance, I feel like Samurai of Hyuga’s best book is the first one, followed by the third. Or that the first Great Tournament is better than the second. All of this are a matter of personal opinions, of course, but the case for ‘newer=better’ is a bit flimsy.
That is certainly your opinion and you are entitled to it, I would argue differently. Choice of Rebels, Choice of Magics, I,Cyborg, Chronicles of Windhaven, and Silveryworld are just a few that have come out in the past 1-2 years that have been dramatic improvements in games. Other than your personal preference, there really isn’t anything you could argue against that. Compare the numbers of downloads, their average scores, what the reviews say, and it’s pretty apparent that game quality has risen across the board compared to older games
Certainly there are exceptions. One of my all time favorite games is the Infinity series, which I feel came out way before it’s time. However, I’d say you weren’t being entirely honest if you said Zombie Exodus was better than Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven
Sure, but (and this is my own opinion) neither Vampire House or Haze of Windbroke were all that good.
I’ve never played Tin Star or Slammed. That said, I’ve never heard anyone other than you right now mention them at all. I’m only saying that to point out that while they may have certainly made an impression on you, it may not be the same for the population at large.
That says more about you than those games, because those two are definitely fan-favourites.
I beg to differ. The games you quote have their charms - though truth be told, I really did not enjoy I, Cyborg - but apart perhaps from Choice of Rebels, they do nothing I haven’t seen before in CoG products.
Again, that’s a personal preference. I personally feel they as stories are much more engaging, allow for more character choice, have less linear “rail roading”, and allow for a better experience. Again, there are exceptions. Choice of Robots is phenomenal and definitely comparable, if not slightly better than Choice of Magics due mainly to the cast. Still, a simple answer is to look at the average download of those past games vs the average download of the current games
That being said, that show that you are not that familiar with majority of the HG/CoG games to make a comparison?
And hope i am not mistaken , your points seem to based on the conclusion of as long as there ia enough of people talk about it and enough popularity , that is the definite answer, if that is the case… then perhaps most of the oscar award winners are block buster movie…
It is fine for one to make a personal preference, but without adequate points and enough evidence than simply making a point based on other people’s view without even doing it yourself simply show that… precisely that is a personal view
It’s all going to be personal view . Personally some of my favorites are from this year, but I have others that are years old from the HG range. (And some of my faves from the HG/COG range are not hyper-popular so it all depends on what you like to read.) If you have a look, there are games this year that did outstandingly well, and others that had relatively poor reviews on the store and everything in between showing a variety of responses. It also depends on what you like to read. If you like superhero stories for example, this year was a good one. We do seem to be getting more HG’s though (and on average maybe the quality of the writing/gameplay is rising,) so that means more chances for everyone to find something they like to read best
For CoG main label games, 2014 is pretty hard to top. Choice of Robots I think remains the best thing yet written in ChoiceScript (Magics is fantastic but doesn’t have quite the same power) while Creatures Such As We is the most literarily ambitious. Those two alone make it the year to beat, and Psy High, Mecha Ace, and Neighbourhood Necromancer are still all on my list of favorites.
2017 does stand up well, in part because there are more games to choose from. Of the ones I’ve played, Tally Ho and Choice of the Cat are stone classics. Moreytown, Superlatives, and Heart of the House are all really good, too. But I’m not sure 2017 quite tops the year of Robots/Creatures.
As for Hosted Games, I haven’t properly played through most of the last year’s crop yet, so can’t give a strong opinion. But with Study in Steampunk and the original CCH, as well as Lost Heir 1 and So You’re Possessed, 2015 is a tough year to beat…
How does that make logical sense? Not attacking. I’m asking. How does my not knowing 2 games lead you to that conclusion?
Considering what’s happening with the Oscars…
In all seriousness, while you can’t derive EVERYTHING from numbers, they paint a strong enough picture to glean important points. Writing and storytelling are subjective by nature. Therefore, there needs to be some level of determination of what is “better” and that usually is with numbers. Otherwise there is really nothing stopping a person from saying “Cat in the Hat” is vastly superior to “Hamlet” or “Romeo and Juliet”
The issue with this is that, again, writing is subjective. As I’ve already said, I,Cyborg was a phenomenal story that balanced what it would theoretically be like to wake up and realize you are a cybernetic clone of you. The characters all felt very real for that story, the “world” (more of a way station) has a life to it. It was a great game.
To you, that might be untrue or irrelevant. You might argue that Vampire House is great because you feel it has better characters (i disagree) or that it allows you a more diverse range of options.
You can disagree with me. That’s fine and you have a right to. That said, to choose to disagree despite all evidence to the contrary is a bit dishonest.
