Bacondoneright (ITFO and Whiskey 4 author, curious to see your take on those two), described it as a survival horror game disguised as a romance game.
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Funnily enough, I had my eye on that one a while back! I loved the setting and choices, but kinda forgot about it. Sad to see it had a rushed ending.
I’ve heard about it, of course, but I haven’t read those titles! (Yet.)
Things that happened to me: got mind controlled, got my head chopped off, had one of my sons get assassinated while I could have stopped it, etc.
Yup, that checks out!
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Give them a shot. From what you’ve rated in the past, I feel like you’d enjoy both stories.
I live to please 
.
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You just made my wishlist two titles longer smh. I hope you’re happy with yourself!
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Thanks so much for posting these, it’s really great to read! (And I very much appreciate your kind thoughts on Blood Money, and understand what you mean about the cons - when I look back through Blood Money I always notice how a fair amount of the romantic interactions are pretty hard to access, and these days I give more breathing room for romance and character interactions in general!)
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Oh my gosh, a celebrity 
So happy you like my reviews! I’m working on a review for Crème de la Crème right now, and it is VERY positive. I can see there’s a lot more character interactions in it!
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Crème de la Crème
By @HarrisPS
(10/10)
I gotta say, I am fuming as I write this review. It is so excellent I am honestly mad. Usually, I can crank out a review in half an hour after I finish the game, but I had to spend a couple days ruminating over this one to properly express my sheer delight. Ya see, Crème de la Crème really is the crème de la crème (low hanging fruit, I know). But seriously, it has solidified itself as one of the gold standards of Choice of Games—like, the kind of game that ruined other games for a while me because I keep thinking “well, why aren’t YOU doing this?”
A 440,000‑word interactive novel set in an elite finishing school, Crème de la Crème drops you into Gallatin College, where reputation is currency, social finesse is survival, and scandal lurks behind the stately façades. You’ll navigate cliques, academics, popularity, morality, romance, and a surprisingly dark undercurrent of secrets. It’s elegant and messy, polite and scandalous, structured and wildly branching. It’s also the only game where the prologue alone basically teaches you a full stats class.
Let me explain. Get comfortable; you’re going to be here for a while. Fuck it, we ball.
Pros:
Setting. Right, let’s get the Harry Potter comparison out of the way. Yeah, it’s reminiscent of Harry Potter—in a good way! While there’s no magic (yay), you are sent off to live at a “finishing school.” The setting is gorgeous: an alternate-history Europe with modern social sensibilities tucked under layers of etiquette and expectation. Everything feels richly lived-in—polished floors hiding beating corruption, sunlight with a hint of stormcloud. It’s the kind of world where you can practically smell the parchment and taste the tea. I’m so glad it’s not another high school setting and instead takes place at a college. I find older, adults characters much more interesting than minors now that I’m not a teenager anymore!
The stat system itself is . . . kind of a masterpiece? First off, you’ve got these neat designs: headings that look like cards. But then, you have broad, unique stats. The first thing I noticed was that Powell-Smith has an uncanny ability to understand the passage of time. Sometimes, time just blurts together in other works. But in Crème, the stats screen reads along the lines of: “It is the Prologue. You are early in the winter term of Gallatin College. The Graduation Ball is set for Midsummer’s Day.” Okay, but what else? Your skills—Wit, Poise, Spirit, Flair, and Intrigue—are described as “Unremarkable, Commonplace, Noteworthy, or Exceptional.” I loved how accessible thresholds were. But stats thresholds also go up in difficultly as you continue your school year! I honestly did not know that was even possible.
But that’s not all. Powell-Smith also includes Virtue and Popularity, Grades, Points of Interest, and even character descriptions. And of course—all things matter. Your high Grade (or lack of it) determines your ending. For example, if you want to get into a top university, you’ll need an A. End up with a D? Well. Getting a career might be tough for you. Also, getting too low of a stat in Grades/Virtue/Popularity gives you an emergency scene in Chapter 4??? I was super impressed when the game called me out for being a loser no one liked. I didn’t know choices were that reactive.
Inclusivity. Okay, not to sound like a MAGA nutjob, but the mention of “inclusivity” or “diversity” in works (even CoG/HG) makes me 
I find a lot of time diversity is very heavy handed, I suppose. Think of *Dragon Age Veilguard’*s monologues on how Oppression Is Bad, Actually™. It’s hard to describe, but it’s almost as if the author themselves is uncertain with how to deal with, for example, being transgender or bisxual in a fantasty setting. So characters act like fanfiction-y walking stereotypes of how “I am a normal person like you!” But I am delighted to see inclusivity written in a natural, subtle way. For example, I choose to be a cis woman. To my surprise, I got to choose how I presented: masculine, feminine, or neither. There’s also little things: you can choose not to drink at a meal, to have a peanut allergy, or to be lactose intolerant. In Crème, these topics come about naturally. It makes sense in-game to discuss not being interested in sex.
We have to talk about the romance options (ROs). For all my preaching about well-written storylines or stories that make you think, I’m a sucker for a good romance. And yeah, when seeing the options for Crème, I was cooked. First, although each RO is gender-selectable, each character felt like a real person. I didn’t get a feeling that X “felt” like a dude or that Y “should” have been a woman. Second, each RO has their own little arc. Third, the ROs themselves are diverse. You have a polite genius, a troubled rebel, even freakin’ royalty. But it’s not just their personalities—they all react differently and have their own little quirks. It’s difficult to balance such a large cast, but I was honestly surprised by how much character development there was. For example, I thought Max was just an annoying prankster, but they turn out to have a heart of gold and is fiercely loyal to their friends. Blaise is portrayed as the enemy, but they honestly have a super believable motive. YOU CAN EVEN HAVE A POLY ROMANCE. A poly romance that doesn’t have any weird power dynamics, just based on three people loving each other. Common H.P. Smith W.
My ranking of them:
- Auguste
- Rosario
- Blaise
- Hartmann
- Karson
- Freddie
- Max/Delacroix
- Max
- Gonzalez
- Delacroix
- Florin
Romance is handled deftly, most likely because the inclusivity is baked so seamlessly into the world that it barely calls attention to itself. Characters mention offhandedly their two “fathers” or “mothers.” You can choose your level of experience during sex, choose to be aro or ace (and the game actually lets you talk about it!), kiss early start things slow, and even have an aro/ace character. A large part of the game is about getting engaged for ~status~, but you can even have a marriage of convenience or a friendship marriage, even when you’re not aro or ace. Like, H.P. Smith did not have to do all that. But they did!
A character’s realistic yet funny reaction to an ace player:
Max looks intrigued. “That’s…gosh. Do you do anything, then? Not that I’m trying to pressure you,” she adds quickly. “I just don’t know if I’ve met anyone like that before.”
The branching … holy hell. This thing branches like it wants to win a forestry award (do those exist? Just go with it). There are completely different societies you can join, rival schools, sneaking, scheming, being noble, being messy. You can manipulate people, lie, string people along, cheat, get confronted for cheating, propose, get turned down (SO embarrassing), be downright evil—it’s all there, and it all fits your character’s personality and stats.
And the writing. The writing. It’s lush and warm and razor-sharp. Characters pop with so much personality that even minor side characters feel like they could anchor their own 300k-word spin-offs. I unironically got invested in the teacher love triangle. Also, there’s a lot of wonderful descriptions about fancy clothes.
I 100% the game on Steam.
Mixed:
The narrative is mostly slice-of-life but there is a major mystery plot line with major stakes. I loved this—it kicked the story into another gear—but to some players, it may be viewed as too random.
Pretty light on worldbuilding. Obviously, the worldbuilding is carried by the characters, and I’m sure there’s scope creep. While the player does information on the rival school, a bit on other nations, to me, the history seems a bit fuzzy. There’s also spirits, but no religion, which I think is always cool in a setting.
A minor quibble: LGBT romances are accepted. However, marriages are viewed as necessary. We know there’s a nation that has royalty. So I was wondering how children worked in this world. I believe some characters spoke about being adopted, so is there any importance of “bloodline?” Is there a government-sanctioned adoption center?
Cons:
If I had one critique: the ending moves fast. With a cast this good, you almost want two or three additional chapters just for reactions, consequences, and post-marriage life. But even then, the endings cover so much ground—marriages of convenience, real engagements, no engagement, personal triumphs, social disasters—that it’s impossible not to feel satisfied. I wished I got more reactions from my friends and parents about that super crazy ending that changed my life! But I mostly got short letters, making the ending seem hand wave-y. Did no one else care I turned out to be a brave hero who did super awesome things?
Some ROs have less screen time. The three ROs from the rival school are—dare I say it—bolder and more “exotic” than the player’s steady, normal school cast. I liked them better, anyway. But because of the distance between the two schools, you don’t get to talk to them as much. It’s especially a bummer if you romance Auguste because of the you-know-what. There’s not as much time to get to know them, so while I loved Auguste, our engagement felt rushed. I would suggest maybe a pen pal system? Choose who you get to write to every month or so? Or options to think about them more.
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Lords of Infinity
By Paul Wang
(10/10)
Woof. If I wasn’t a mega fan of Paul Wang’s work before, now I am. Lords of Infinity is a monster of ambition, an epic, sprawling saga that blends deep political intrigue, moral complexity, and the relentless weight of legacy into one of the most ambitious text-based experiences I’ve played. Actually, one of the most ambitious games, period. This is the third book in the Infinity series, and it is a step up from the two previous books in so many ways. You were once a soldier, once an officer, and now you’re a lord! A lord of a rather small barony, sure, but a lord nonetheless. Of course, you can’t spend your time happily growing cultivating your land; a bitter political battle between two factions drags you to the Capitol. Your prize for surviving two wars is, essentially, responsibility. And the moment you think you’ll get to quietly fix your roof and plant potatoes, the political powder keg in the capital drags you straight into the heart of history. Not to mention there’s a rather large empire with their eyes on your little nation. You have the power to change history. What will you do?
Pros:
Writing. Again, Wang’s writing is terrific. In Sabres and Guns of Infinity, the prose often felt clipped, almost militaristic—short, precise sentences that mirrored the mindset of a soldier or officer under constant pressure. There was a steady, sullen tone, perfectly suited to the battlefield and rigid hierarchies. I did like it! In Lords of Infinity, that changes dramatically. The prose becomes elegant, almost literary, without losing the sharpness and clarity that defined the earlier games. Not only does he manage to track your idealism or ruthlessness, but both flavor traits have just beautiful monologues or lines on power, or honor, or duty.
Choices that actually matter. Gosh. Your choices will literally make or break a nation. You can side with an upstart Duke trying to reform the kingdom or the young Queen, the first female ruler. And if you side with one side, you can also act as a spy and betray them. The text always reacts to your choices, big or small. You can even decide which club to join in your free time, or what skills to improve, which leads to great replay value.
Moral complexity. It’s hard to make two sides equally viable, but here, I agonized over my choices. Of course, it’s easy to put a modern persona and side with the Duke and his reforms. He’s a charming, charismatic figure, more so than the Queen (though I love her too). But you are allowed to have an opinion about each side. Just because you side with the Duke or Queen doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. Each side has its pros and cons. You can fight for justice and still commit atrocities, or uphold the system only to realize how rotten it is. Even a “good choice” forces you to live with the fallout of your ambition, compassion, or cowardice. You just have to do the best you can.
Worldbuilding. There’s a timeline history, maps, and character indexes in the Stats Sheet. And in-game, there’s more on society’s view on baneless and women, a lot of political and economic talk, etc. You actually feel like a lord living in this universe, trying to survive. One of my favorite scenes is where you’re dining with royalty, an ambassador, some fancy generals, and two fantastic female romance options. You get a chance to express your feelings about women being soldiers—and my answers had the table of men howling and pounding the table. Excellent stuff!
Length. Plenty of bang for your buck!
More romance! There’s more romance scenes, including a path to agree (or not!) to an arranged marriage, if you’re on the Estate path. You can even choose to have a romance with a man (though it’s not very long). It’s still a slow burn for Katerina and Welles, but for Welles, you can confess, at least. Katerina pls I love you…
New gameplay mechanic: house debt/estate management. This builds off the debt mechanic from the last book. If you choose the Estate path, you’ll have to balance your expenses, estate upgrades, tenant loyalty, tenant contentment, and tenant rent. Every choice about what to repair, improve, or maintain on your estate affects your finances. Overspending can leave you vulnerable to crises, while underspending risks tenant discontent or reduced productivity. If you ignore your tenants, their dissatisfaction can snowball into political or economic problems. Conversely, attentive management can earn their loyalty, creating a foundation of stability and power. It’s super cool.
Mixed:
Quite heavy, in tone and in content. I swear, Sabres and Guns weren’t this dark, were they? I found the two previous entries to be brisk, gripping readers. While Infinity is also as gripping, there’s a lot to unpack in this bad boy. There’s a lot of worldbuilding, a lot of grey area, and a lot of “well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.” On my first readthrough, I struggled to understand exactly wtf was going on politically, so this is probably not the best entry for someone just reading for fun.
Cons:
Too much branching? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel like there’s too much branching. My biggest quibble is choosing between managing your estate or going to the city. To me, it was pretty much a given you should go to the city: all the political threads are there, all the important characters are there, you can get wealthy there, etc. But you’ll be missing out on quite a lot of the estate management content, and vice versa. I don’t see why we couldn’t spend summers at the estate or something. I’m a person who only plays through games once, maybe twice, so my reaction to all the estate content I missed was “bummer, wish I could’ve seen it all in one go.”
While the ideals of either the Royalist or Wulframite path were solid, I feel like the narrative leans slightly toward being a Royalist. I say this because both the main romance options are staunch Royalists, the Queen is more interesting than the Duke, and a vast majority of the cast, I believe, are Royalists as well. The Duke’s side doesn’t really get any cool characters to prop him up.
I feel like stat checks were much tougher than in past entries.
Super slow burn romance. I’m going to be so real, half the reason I’m so invested is because I’m waiting for my marriage and children to Katarina. Even though romance is not a main part of the story, there’s just a lot of longingly gazing into each other’s eyes. I NEED a domestic happy ending ASAP.
I’ve been waiting for The Winds of Winter for years. I don’t want to wait for the Infinity series to be finished for years either 
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I’m absolutely floored by this lovely review, thank you so much - it’s made my day! I ended up forgetting that last week was Creme de la Creme’s sixth birthday, but what a wonderful thing to wake up to!
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Fun fact! I did these! I do a lot of the stat and chapter headers for CoG, and I have been doing them for a decade now.
I’ve been anticipating your review for Lords of Infinity for some time now, and waking up to it and a review to CdlC (the start of a series which absolutely gives me feelings of inadequacy when it comes to writing romance) was a fantastic thing to wake up to.
Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.
As I may have mentioned before, I got a lot of criticism of my earlier work for being too linear, so I kinda took that to heart and started putting in a lot more branching later on. My last two games (this one and A Time of Monsters, are you going to be reviewing that one too) might just prove to have been the point where I overcorrected.
A lot of this actually lines up with what I put in my own post-mortem about two years ago, so I think we might be on the same page here - not that it’s necessarily helped me get better.
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Did you try out the route where you stay on the estate? While not as politically empowering, it does show that even fixing your roof and planting potatoes is hard when the political powder keg in the Capital is blowing out.
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Whaaaaaaaaaaaat!!! That is super cool. That’s one of the little things I look for in a work. Even though the stats page are usually pretty similar, a nice heading can really make things 
pop. You are a true Renaissance man
Listen, CdlC is enough to give anyone feelings on inadequacy with writing romance. But you have your own niche too!
Of course! I wish I picked it up when it first released, but when the next discount comes around, my money is yours! (Literally.)
This was such an interesting read, thanks. We actually do have the same points, nice! For the next title in the Infinity series, I imagine the branching would be the same, if not more LOL. You’ll have to make a Royalist/Wulframite with all the variables of the previous books… Yeah, let’s stop there! Always nice to see ya
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YES. After getting medals and surviving countless battles, I was looking forward to living a Stardew Valley-esque life . . . restoring my estate, planting turnips or something for the months ahead. And still, I could find no peace! Bandits attacked my idyllic home, and my people kept talking back to me, etc. I’m not sure which path has the most struggles tbh. I won a war for these spoiled folks, and noooooo one is thanking me for my service smh
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“An’ it’s ‘Tommy’ that, and ‘Tommy’ this, and 'Tommy, ‘ow’s your soul?’
But it’s 'thin red line of ‘eroes’ when the drums begin to roll.”
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Love at Elevation
By Steve Wingate
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (3/10)
All right. We’ve had too much positivity in this thread. So congrats to Love at Elevation for being my least favorite IF I’ve ever read by a landslide! You know, I’ve never felt skeeved or annoyed when reading in a video game, especially an IF romance. But there’s always a first time for everything! Love at Elevation isn’t offensively bad (or maybe it is?), but it’s definitely not good. Usually, I can say “this isn’t for me,” but this isn’t for anyone. The premise is neat: you move to Colorado in an attempt to find love and happiness. But in reality, it feels like a visual novel that wanted to explore grounded realistic, adult romance, but ended up feeling like a weird blend of wellness retreat propaganda, awkward character writing, and sex-first relationships that never emotionally clicked. I wasn’t offended. I wasn’t charmed. I was just vaguely confused, mildly uncomfortable, and deeply uninvested. This game wants you to care about its characters, but it gives you so few reasons to. I also found the author’s tone to be incredibly jarring in its criticisms of the player.
Pros:
Technically sound writing. Grammar, punctuation, formatting is all clean. The prose itself isn’t terrible, and the pacing is readable. You can tell the author knows how to write; the issue lies more in what they wrote, not how they wrote it.
Beautiful setting. The backdrop of mountain life in a Colorado town is nice. If you squint past the odd tone of the characters, there’s some cozy potential in the idea of small-town community, nature hikes, and fresh starts. It feels like it wants to be relaxing and grounded.
Not a terrible short story concept. The core premise works as a short, one-off novella about a person moving to a beautiful town and navigating romance. It’s why I bought it!
Decent sex scenes. If you’re here for the spice, it’s not bad. They’re not groundbreaking, but they’re competent and decently paced. The sexual writing is one of the only areas that feels consistently confident.
Cons:
The romance options are bizarrely hard to like. I tried. I really did. But every love interest felt more like an awkward person I was being forced to tolerate than someone I actually wanted to get to know. Rae (I picked all female ROs) is described as intense, almost rude, which didn’t quite endear me to her. Kaysha is sweet but seemed very insistent on her work and was late to our dates. The ex is … a clingy ex. The “hippy healer” is a “doctor” of alternative medicine, which is a big turn off for me, sadly. Flawed characters can be great—but these aren’t “flawed and human,” they’re “flawed and grating.” Instead of building chemistry, the game keeps nudging me with a soft “But… don’t you still wanna have sex with them?” No, actually. I actually want to like them first. and instead of growing to love them, I felt like I was dragging my MC through a set of awkward therapy sessions with people I barely liked.
On our first date, the Hippy Healer is fifteen minutes late, with no explanations or apologies. You then catch them checking someone out? And the narrative tells us they slept with that person??? They know you know, and there’s no reason to call them out on that??? Hello??? Dawg, what am I doing. My date just eyefucked someone else and pretended it didn’t happen. Worst first date in IF history.
Forced hippie-town lifestyle. Now listen, I don’t have anything against hippies; I’m just not one. But you will pick between fitness, wellness, or activism. (These three things are also not my interests lol.) You will hike, meditate, do yoga, and pretend to be into holistic medicine. You will love coffee and bookstores. A romance option is even someone studying alternative medicine. The game has no real room for skepticism, sarcasm, or being anything other than a crystal-waving 4/20 bro. If you’re not on board with pseudoscience or new-age vibes, your MC will still act like you are. Roleplaying options are extremely limited; your character is pre-written with one worldview, and it’s aggressively hippy-dippy. Your character will always have a positive attitude alternative medicine. Don’t think meditation is helpful or worthwhile? Too bad, your character will still meditate. It’s one thing to be railroaded; it’s another to be railroaded in a contemporary romance genre with slightly controversial content.
The games take a strange attitude toward romance and sex. In fact, they are two seperate meters. It’s an interesting idea in theory—inclusive for asexual folks, and roleplay a friends-with-benefits scene. But for some reason, you are forced to choose between the two. Your flirting options are “I want to settle down with X” or “I want to jump their bones.” Well, what if I want to do both? It was hard to engage with the story when I didn’t care about the “romance” side of the romance. Sex and love don’t have to be synonymous—but they should at least feel related. What if the more I love someone, the more I want to have sex with them? This mechanic was too binary.
Just some really bizarre tone in dialogue and character reactions. This writing honestly made me feel judged and insulted. For example: “Kayshe accepts your decision. As you make dinner and talk, she keeps looking at you as if she thinks she’ll be able to talk you into sex later on. You’re not keen on that happening—or on Kaysha thinking it, either. It’s making you uncomfortable, in fact, because you don’t feel it’s helping to rebuild the trust that you need to rebuild something after your misunderstanding. Maybe that will come later tonight, you hope. And if it doesn’t, then maybe prospects for you and Kaysha aren’t as rosy as you’d like to think.” I don’t love the idea of an RO “talking you into sex later on,” but that’s realistic to some people, I get that. But on a date with her, another RO comes to chat. I was perfectly polite and accepted her number as a friend. However, the narration says: “It says something about you that you let yourself be chatted up while on a date.” I did what now?
Some other things that irked me below the cut (warning: long!):
She circles around you, observing the way you hold yourself. “I used to work in the financial sector,” she finally says. “I analyzed companies to see if they were worth taking over, wrote hundred-page reports that people only read the first two pages of. Then one day my body said no. Everything stopped. I didn’t have a body anymore, all I had was a mouth to talk with and hands to write with. I’d let my whole body become a machine to feed the part that made my living . . . . I gave it all up. I found qigong medicine, working directly with people’s energies, and I didn’t look back." Mom, come pick me up, I’m scared.
“It seems like you’re only interested in sex,” she says. Huh? That really comes out of nowhere. “Is that such a bad thing?”
“The only part is, yeah. It’s hard to have a conversation with somebody like that, because sooner or later every conversation comes back to sex. Sometimes it’s just the look in your eye. I’m trying to have a real conversation and you shoot the bedroom eyes at me.” She looks at you condescendingly, as if you’re a weak person that she’s trying to lift up into self-confidence.”
Oh, fuck off lol. Did I get slut shamed in a GAME? Some lines are so weirdly condescending.
All romances follow the same structure. No matter who you choose, your dates hit the same beats: same activities, same friend drama, same emotional arc. There’s a recycled feeling to it all. It felt like relationship speedrunning, and not in a fun way. No matter who you’re with, the story plays out the same. The “rival” who tries to sabotage your relationship shows up regardless, with identical dialogue. Everyone’s problems start feeling interchangeable. It makes your choices feel cosmetic.
The Ex plotline was also … underwhelming. I had no idea why we broke up, why I would even get back together with them, and our first in-game interaction is them being clingy and aggressive. Yay for toxic exces, I guess. This game is weird, man.
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Props for pulling this game out of the pile, I have literally never heard anyone say anything about it, and I like to think I’m fairly well versed in the catalog. Genuinely had to google it.
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L M F A O. Your comment shouldn’t have made me laugh this hard. Yeah, I mean, I had no idea why I purchased this a couple years ago tbhhhhh. A good sale, perhaps? I also don’t think I’ve heard anyone discuss it either 
Well, ya know what? Creating a game is a hell of a feat. So there’s that!
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I remember it because one of my Minneapolis writer friends, way back in 2013 or so, was speculating about pitching CoG a “Choice of the Hipster” game. Nothing ever came of it, but when I saw Love At Elevation pop up in the publication queue, I wondered if it was going to fill that niche. Never picked it up, though.
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Oops. I hope I haven’t just dissed your writer friend so honestly in front of you
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It totally did. I remember trying the demo and going “Bwahahahaha, I am an authentic gluten and lactose free, new-age-spiritual vegan hipster! 
” Wasn’t compelled to actually buy the game though, and by review it seems I saved myself a cup of matcha almond milk latte.
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