I’ve played about 7 CoG games so far, and have found 2 that I really love and have replayed repeatedly, namely ‘Life of a Wizard’ and ‘Way Walkers University’. I was wondering if anyone could recommend more games like these. The particular things that I like are
a) having a lot of reactivity – many of your choices have an unexpected impact later on (not just by fiddling with a statistic, but by changing plot details) – and especially
b) having different scenes turn up on different playthroughs depending on those choices. This includes both branching (if you attend X, you miss Y) and scenes you only see under certain circumstances
c) Having a lot of different statistics you can try to min/max on later playthroughs, and goals that depend on doing this well (e.g. the Golden Age in Life of a Wizard and a certain late tough fight in Way Walkers University).
By contrast, the other games I’ve tried (Metahuman Inc., The Lost Heir, Mecha Ace and Choice of the Star Captain) seem much more linear. I haven’t replayed all of them, but they all seem as if you are likely to be taking a very similar path and seeing mostly the same scenes on a second playthrough. (The text in the scenes might well change a bit, but I find that’s relatively hard to notice because I am generally skimming the text at that point.) I find having a lot of text in between meaningful choices is also a minus for replayability.
Anyway, I’d be grateful for recommendations!
thanks,
M
Edit: Gah – didn’t mean CHoice of Robots! Deleted it from the list. I think I was muddling it with something.
Choice of robots is super branching and replayable.
Starting a company vs. not is a HUGE branch
Plus you have the three ending branches
And there’s lots of differing text in the military path
Winning vs losing the war is also a huge branch
Also the ROs make a substainal difference in the text later on.
My robot said different stuff at different points based on its stats.
Lost Heir also has an insane amount of flavor text. My good playthrough was vastly different than my evil one and the second game is just like branches galore where lots of previous choices matter.
Sabres/Guns of infinity are both focused heavily on tracking lots of different variables that have huge impacts – but really you should give CoR and Lost Heir another chance first. They’re both best when you play them through multiple times and appreciate just how different you can get.
@Urban. Gah! Didn’t mean Choice of Robots – sorry. I think I was thinking of Mecha Ace (choice of giant robot…). I’ve never played Choice of Robots… I’ll pick it up now.
@Shockbolt: thanks! As I said, I will pick up Choice of Robots now.
With Lost Heir, I think the problem I had was the sheer amount of text between choices. It was fine on a first playthrough, but I’m not sure I could face wading through it again. My impression is that the author was criticised on the fact that the characters in Life of a Wizard weren’t fleshed out and consequently added a lot of text in each scene.
I guess that I should clarify that having a lot of different endings isn’t something I’m that interested in if I have to work through almost the same material to get there. It’s having the journey differ that makes it replayable (for me), plus I guess having the puzzle-like aspect that comes from having a lot of stats to juggle and having your choices affect the stats.
In every mission you can succeed or fail, it will impact the ending later.
Some missions have branching objectives.
You can choose to fight pirates/terrorist or eldritch abominations, and it will impact every missions and the ending (example: you will get different dialogues and different decisions).
Several scenes you can choose to bring different persons and it affect the dialogues.
You can choose to play as a mage or normal human.
Mage got magic options, but it will hurt your character.
Normal human can raise their stats more quickly.
Fair warning. The sheer amount of text between choices in Magikiras might be even worse than in The Lost Heir. (though I have to admit that I’ve never played the latter)
Choice of Robots is insanely replayable.
Life of a Mobster, if you enjoyed LoaW you’ll enjoy that too.
Magikiras, you can change many things and each Choice effects a lot of outcomes but be prepared for massive walls of text.
Lost Heir, a lot like an RPG! Be wary, it can be a very hard game.
Little bit vague in my descriptions because I’m feeling lazy.
Someone already mentioned Study in Steampunk, but I really have to recommend it too. Even though you can only play as male, it’s insanely well-written, features my favorite love interest in COG games (Finch), and it has a LOT of choices.
I also recommend Champion of the Gods, Tin Star, Slammed!, Choice of the Deathless, Choice of the Vampire (at least 1, never played 2), Affairs of the Court (although in order to play past the first game you MUST end up with the king/queen), Magikiras, and Community College Hero.
For unfinished WIPs, I recommend Team Zero, When in Rome(though sadly it seems that has been abandoned), Children of the Gods, From Ashes We Rise, and The Seventh Heir of Ophaesia. I also recommend Guenevere, though like Study in Steampunk, you can only play one gender.
Oh yeah, Affairs of the Court, too! I love that one. Like RedRoses said, you have to pair up with the monarch in the first book in order to move on to the others, but other than that, you have a lot of different options.
I loved When in Rome, and it’s a real shame it’s been abandoned. I’m pretty sure the author was almost done, but oh well.
I just wanted to thank everyone who gave me suggestions. I’ve spent Easter Monday playing Choice of Robots and Study in Steampunk, with 3 playthroughs each. I’ve enjoyed them both. They haven’t tickled my mix/max instincts as much as the other two games I mentioned (e.g. trying to max out all your magic skills in Life of a Wizard is a really challenging and satisfying goal which took me 8 replays or so), but they are definitely well worth getting.
I’m pretty sure the author was almost done, but oh well.