Choice of Games and Hosted Games Recommendations -- Consolidated Thread

General
1

Is there a list of the free (I take it that it’s advert-supported and not free-free) Choice of Games on each platform? And a similar list of of Hosted Games? I sometimes recommend games to people and when they’re asking for free (as opposed to demo with IAP to unlock the full game) it would be nice to know which ones I can suggest.

If you were to recommend a game to someone completely new to interactive fiction, which game(s) would you pick, and why? Would these be different games to those you’d suggest to someone who likes other interactive fiction?

Which games would you suggest to someone who enjoys other gamebooks of the more number-crunchy combat type, and is looking for something similar to that experience?

(This is a continuation of the discussion.)

20 Likes
2

I get why you are asking and I’ll start looking into it right after this, but honestly, CoG games are mostly cheap enough that when I recommend a game, I don’t mind paying for their first game, it’s less than a subway sandwich after all and then they get the game they want to play ^^

Edit
Free games on all platforms unless stated otherwise
Choice of the Dragon
Choice of Broadsides
Choice of the Vampire
Choice of Zombies (with in-app purchase for aditional class)
Choice of Romance: Affairs of the Court (pay on chrome webstore, I assume it’s because you get all 3 parts there where as you have to pay on the other platforms after completing part 1)
Creatures Such as We

Edit 2
Hosted games:
(I haven’t played these games, but there is no obvious paywall at the start, thus this at least cuts down on the games to check for pay)

Silent Gear (pay on Chrome Webstore only)
Burn(t) (pay on Chrome Webstore only)
The Sons of the Cherry
Apex Patrol (Pay on Google Play only)
The Race
Dead Already?
Mobile Armored Marine: Mission to Far Hope
Zebulon
Zombie Exodus (pay on Chrome Webstore only, but appears to be a multi-part story with pay for later parts)
Dilemma
Marine Raider
Imprisoned
Land of Three Classes
Paranoia
What Happened Last Night?
The Nightmare Maze
Popcorn, Soda . . . Murder?

6 Likes
3

For somebody who has never played interactive fiction, I would start with the heroes rise trilogy.

The reason being is that it’s super linear; and when you’re first getting into game books, having something where you can see step by step how your actions effect your stats with out hidden variables changing things gives you the basic grasp of how game books work: choices change stats which effect what you can and can’t do.

Heroes Rise for all its flaws shows that better than most games.

There’s also no way to really fail, sure you can get a “bad” ending but it’s forgiving of mistakes with the legend system reduction for deaths instead of forced restarts, and there’s nothing that makes me want to quit more than getting really close to the end of a game and then failing for no reason (Tin Star when I got eaten by lions cough cough)

For somebody that likes interactive fiction in general I recommend choice of robots and creatures such as we are. Choice of robots simply because of how many options it has! I still haven’t gotten all the possible outcomes and every time I replay it I end up with a different result. It’s also interesting in the fact that “failing” doesn’t always result in a bad outcome.

I really liked that Failing your company gives you totally different paths that result in happy outcomes and that you could get a robot arm after a bad event. Hahaha.

You also get a lot of value for your money!

With creatures it’s so well written.

It’s also a way to talk about how we relate to art, and is more about deep thought then stats. It’s a shift away from what we think about with typical games and more about the writing and thinking. It’s a good bridge to show the hidden variables idea, that what you say is tracked even if it’s not directly shown.

For hard core number people

Tin Star.

Not robots though. The wonky way you gain stat points in robots would probably drive a hard core stay builder nuts.

Although in all honesty I would tell a big numbers person to get the sorcery series from Inkle. Also 80 Days because that game can hinge on your money management in frustrating ways.

There’s not a CoG that I feel really does stat building in a hard core meaningful way. Which is fine! I feel like that’s not the reason to play a game book, but, even with Lords of Aswick – which is super stat heavy – FairMath played havoc with character builds.

7 Likes
4

@NMNighteyes What platform?

I think Jason said that some of the games are free on some platforms and not on others. Vampire’s free on the android, Necromancer’s free on apple, for instance.

@Shockbolt Thank you! That’s some great suggestions.

I was asking about the more hardcore folk, since there’s frequently people saying, they like Sorcery, or 80 Days, and looking for other suggestions. And Lifeline now too, I guess.

Since I’ve not played any of those games, it’s tough to know what to suggest.

I’ve been suggesting Creatures Such As We to those who like Lifeline, mostly since they’re both interactive fiction with space elements, and no obvious stats.

5

Life of a Wizard, from the perspective of someone with sort of moderate experience in RPGs and stat-building in general, seemed a pretty straightforward stat-building game with lots of variations in endings and lots of interesting paths and achievements. I enjoyed stat-building the party, too. The RPG-playing friends I’ve known quite liked it. Now to dangle Daria and Kendrickstone in front of them…

The battle scenes in Trial of the Demon Hunter, particularly in the new version with dramatic revisions and much tighter writing (though I say it who shouldn’t, since I edited it), seems like it’s the most satisfactory in terms of straight-up, old fashioned RPG battling. You fight monsters, with stuff. And strategies. And it’s turn-based without being unreasonably lengthy. But again, I’m no RPG expert.

I tend to introduce people who are new to IF to either Dragons or Broadsides, depending on whether they prefer fantasy or something more like (more or less) everyday life with a historical bent. Those games are too short for a new player to get completely overwhelmed or lost. I find that especially true for the types of people who pick things up for ten or fifteen minutes, and then wander back to them later the next day. Both games are free. And they’re fun and well-written, with interesting choices that have pretty obvious results. Besides, they tend to get a reaction and then people will remember, especially with Broadsides’ world-spinning option.

I persuaded my sister and her husband to try Dragon, which they liked, and then Broadsides, and then dropped them into the deep end with Tin Star and Robots. They’ve started showing the games round to their SFF and gaming circles too, which is brilliant.

I find my friends over, say, age forty struggle a little more with the concept of interactive fiction on a screen. Maybe the experience is unique to me, but mostly they just want to talk about how it WORKS, how could it possibly work, how could you write it, why doesn’t your head explode, etc. ( : And this is why, in my third game (if the time comes), the main character is going to be a grandparent…

I also find that some people are put off because there aren’t too many games that are real-life scenarios. Most of the games seem to have either some element of fantasy/sci-fi, or they’re not modern, or you play some kind of spin on a spy or assassin. I’ve had several people ask me if there were any life sims, or office-based games, or dating or school games, based on present-day reality without any supernatural or sci-fi elements.

4 Likes
6

"

mee too. I aways dreamed with games were the unique objective consists in raising a child and see the adult she, he will became, based soleny in the moral dilemmas and the kind of chooses you did about his/her development…

Or a game were you quit our (boring) job with your friends/love interest and open you own bussiness (some aewlsome Mcool bussines by the way, like Silicon Valley or copenhagen Suborbitals). And feel in your skin the sufering, the sorrw the glory and the shame of an true startup business.

Seems that in order to see this kind of game, one must learn to code in choicescript… ¬¬

1 Like
7

I think that this is an absolutely fantastic point. Actually it’s so good it likely needs its own thread. Personally, I’m more into fantasy/sci-fi than I am into more realistic games…

Hmm okay I say that but I have played this sort of game before. Ciao Bella, for instance, is a life sim about a woman named Elena, with a very strong, utterly mundane, plot. I think it’s about Elena waiting for her boyfriend to propose, or something, trying to get on better with his family. You need to juggle stats, balance your work and personal life, and complete the goals for each of the episodes.

Supple’s another game where you play a woman who’s trying to juggle her job, gain a promotion, and perhaps have a romantic life. I do think it’d be great to see something like either of those games in choicescript. I think it’s be certainly doable.

Actually come to think of it I played a whole bunch of casual games, back when I was playing them, and many had mundane plots. Admittedly there was generally other stuff to distract me and the plot was generally just icing.

Was Volunteer Firefighter in this category? Every time I’ve tried to list others I seem to get it wrong and find out SURPRISE MONSTERS or something.

@Nahim_Kerman If you need help learning to code, we’re all here. If you think you can write something, you should do it.

2 Likes
8

Oh, you’re right, I’d forgotten about Volunteer Firefighter. Sorry. Maybe a few of the older Hosted Games were present-day mysteries, too, although those might have been more along the assassin/thief/spy style. Oh, and there was the gem stealing one, too, Black Cat, but again not an everyday sort of scenario. And Firefighter… It was interesting, but I felt like it was more of an interactive educational exhibit than a game in some ways. Nothing wrong with that, just not what people are thinking when they ask about realistic life-sim games, necessarily.

I usually do prefer fantastic elements too, though. That said, I just played [Black Closet][1] and enjoyed it, and I think a similar style of game would transfer well to Choice Script. Or something similar to [Love and Order][2], or any modern life, story-based sim.

And I know, right? SURPRISE MONSTERS seems the way of Choice Script, sometimes.
[1]: http://www.hanakogames.com/closet.shtml “Black Closet”
[2]: http://www.winterwolves.com/loveandorder.htm

2 Likes
9

In my opinion if your really just came here by texting “text base zombie games” (that’s how I got to know COG) you should try out zombie exodus the prologue is free and even if your new to interactive choice book games trust me you’ll be intrigued by how the choices vary and how imagination plays a key role in how fun and detail the game was my first cog game to play and it was the first one to intrigue me the most in how descriptive it was.

10

Well…

My first experience with a CS game was Heroes Rise, because it was promoted on Steam- I never would have found CoG otherwise. When another was released on Steam, I learned that ‘Holy shit, there are more of these!’ and came to check them out. As my first experience, it was amazing.

Now, the games I would recommend the most, from those I’ve played, are TinStar, ZombieExodus, and Way Walkers. Although it depends on personal tastes in genre, too, and there are many others of good quality. Shoot. Buy 'em all. lol They’ve got more re-readability than an ordinary novel, though tend towards less description.

1 Like
11

thankyou! maybe i try to code something someday. It must be fun! also choicescript is very round when comes to simplicity and practicality of an code.

My two only trouble is that i’m not an native english speaker, and do not know if an story wrote by me would be legible by the norma culta of the english standarts…

12

@FairyGodfeather I checked all of the games through this site by opening it in “play online” and see if it has an obvious paywall at the first screen which most of them does…
I then opened the ones without a obvious paywall in every single shop offered through the site.
I then mentioned the ones who were pay in one shop and free in another like Choice of Romance which is free in apple and google shop, but you need to pay on chrome webstore.

Thus the ones I’ve mentioned are free to play on CoG site with the play online feature and free in every available shop unless mentioned otherwise…

13

Mecha Ace what I’ve heard on steam it’s something more than Gundam but that’s their opinion but anyway is me ha ace good??

14

If you are into gamebooks and choose your own adventure stories I think you would love The Fire Gate.
It is an RPG strategy turn based game that we at Thousand Realms have developed and it is very fun to play.
It can also be played online with your friends. Here is the download link if you are interested. Download for free goo.gl/usvxYB

We hope you like it! Give it a chance and send some feedback if you want to! :slight_smile:

15

Let’s see…

  • New user :heavy_check_mark:
  • First post contains link to some other part of the internet :heavy_check_mark:
  • First post posted in a thread that doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the topic of the post :heavy_check_mark:
  • Bad English :x:
  • No real coherent story :x:

Hm. Possibly not a spam-bot, but checking just in case. Could you (@TheodoreSt) confirm that you’re an actual human being? (Just a concerned fellow forum-goer trying to keep the this place nice and tidy :wink:)

Since your doesn’t have much to do with the topic you posted it on I’d recommend you to create a separate thread in the General category for it instead. If you do, please add some more information about the game and the story, because right now there’s just not enough information to tell whether it would be interesting to check out your link or not. Oh, and try to make sure the link actually works. (That it doesn’t do so might be caused by the forum software though. Not sure. It’s been a while since I’ve been new to the forum. :wink:)

Good luck.

16

What are the best Choice Of games? Both official and hosted? I like the concept of basically all of these, but I’m looking for the games with the most freedom and malleability, with the biggest amount of paths and endings. Nice little touches and good writing are an appreciated plus. Thanks in advance!

17

If you are looking for freedom and multiple paths, stay AWAY from Heroes Rise. (But don’t think Hero Unmasked! Is part of that. Unmasked is a really really neat game)

Recs? Heart of the House, Study in Steampunk, Tally Ho, CCH.

5 Likes
18

It really depends on what genre you are looking for. Some stories even though a bit linear are quite good like Samurai of Hyuga series.

But if you like freedom and such, I second Tally Ho and Heart of the House as well.

4 Likes
19

I would recommend Tally Ho! from Choice’s official catalogue and the Samurai of Hyuuga (trilogy) from the Hosted Games’ roster.

For older stuff, A Study in Steampunk, Slammed, and Mecha Ace! Tin Star, and Zombie Exodus if you’re into zombies.

8 Likes
20

I totally forgot Mecha Ace. I feel bad since this was one of my first HG game. :cry: I do recommend it as well as Hollywood Visionary. =D

I would recommend Versus series as well.

3 Likes