Reviews by MathBrush

This is definitely an unusual Choicescript game. You are a psychic that steals bodies, and you're caught in a war between two psionic organizations.

In a way, it contrasts with Jim Dattilo's A Wise Use of Time. Both are Choicescript games where you a human with an exceptional power (in that game, stopping time; in this game, possessing other people with your psionic powers).

The time stopping game worked really smoothly but had fairly dull uses of your power: taking a break before work, keeping a kid from scraping her knee.

This game shows off all sorts of psionic powers in amazing and creative ways, from the first chapter to the last. The aspects of having and using an awesome personal power really stick out.

Storywise, it worked very well for me, one of the stories I've most enjoyed in the game. And, having played a lot of Choicescript games with weird choice sets, I felt comfortable picking a path through much of the game.

However, I see this game down by mine near the bottom of the sales charts almost every week. Why?

I think a lot of it has to do with the inherent failures in the game. One thing I learned from playing and writing parser games is that no one will ever find a puzzle where you have to die to proceed, because dying is perceived as failure and people will UNDO to win.

But there is no UNDO in choicescript, and most games provide no saves. Every game is in hardcore mode. So when the game pulls things that feels like failures, you either have to accept that your whole run is ruined or restart. And if it happens more than once, you might as well give up.

There are several times in this game where you have to either go against some major principle you have or lose much of your skills. One major choice can completely reset one of your opposed stats. Often the game will tell you you messed up or did everything wrong.

I think that this 'fighting against all odds' improves the story, but it makes the gameplay pretty grim, and I believe that has contributed to the low sales of the game.

This game has faults, and I don't think I can recommend it for a pleasant experience, due to the above issues. Content-wise, it has strong profanity, moderate violence and optional sexual encounters. Despite these things, it satisfies all 5 points of my 5 point scale (being polished, descriptive, has good interactivity, emotional impact, and I would play again).

I received a review copy of this game.

This was a fun game, and I thought about giving it a 5, but it has a few issues. But it's not that bad, and if the subject matter interests you, I'd go for it.

In this game, there are 20,000,000 or more 'moreaus', or sentient creatures resembling mammals which are the result of genetic experimentation. They are second-class citizens.

You, an ordinary citizen, have a rude awakening when your building is bombed. You have to navigate between two gangs, the cops, the press, and a ton of people (both human and moreau) who are very attracted to you.

I enjoyed the game overall, but it does have its problems. Pacing is one of them. In the beginning of the game, a bomb goes off so you stand outside of your apartment. That event takes up 3 of the 10 chapters just by itself. There's just not a lot of meat to the chapters, with only 1 or 2 significant things happening in each (but with each event having a lot of detail).

The characters are both expressive and generic in a weird way. They were memorable and distinct in my mind, but don't really express themselves strongly about things and don't have much backstory.

The stat gains and checks are reasonable (although there seemed to be a lot of 'cunning' checks which isn't a listed stats) up until the end, where as others have said it gets really hard. I died, but the epilogue was just long enough to be satisfying, especially as my death fixed essentially every problem.

This game contains explicit sexual scenes, strong profanity, animal-type violence (all of those in moderation) and many mentions of both drug use and suicide.

In this game, you play as a 'thrall' (a member of a servant caste) in a community where gryphon riders are trained for war against wrym riders.

One day, a gryphon mom rejects a small egg. You hatch it and raise it, which is against society rules.

Most of the game is about hiding and raising the gryphon, with a slightly smaller chunk involving the aftermath of being discovered.

The game has a very small number of stats for yourself (with several more once you get a gryphon), but manages to be fairly confusing with the stats. It's pretty hard to know which stats are being tested when.

The game itself is oddly toothless. It sets up some worldbuilding but doesn't do much with it. There is tension between 'thralls' and 'keepers', there is a war, but what is actually going on? Everything is so vague. Are you 12, or 16, or 24? (That may have been answered somewhere, but it's hard to tell). One second you can be what seems like a highschool kid, and another you can scare a guard by saying you've killed people. The wyrm riders are different from you, but how? Do they speak another language? Wear weird armor? You are in the wilderness for months. What does that do to you, mentally and physically?

Nothing really gets answered. And like other reviewers here and elsewhere have noted, there's not really a climax; you kind of wander around until the end, with the ending final scenes very similar to scenes from the middle of the game in terms of tension and result.

All that said, the best parts for me were the ones interacting with the griffin and training it. In that respect, this game reminded of The Last Monster Master, but with less systematic training and more individual personality.

This game was pretty good overall, but had some sticking points.

You play as a Broadway theatre owner in 1849. You mingle with many historical figures such as Horace Greeley and Herman Melville.

The main challenges are to balance the demands of the people with the demands of the elite; to work with the mayor and the real government or the Know-Nothing gang; to befriend or destroy Hamblin, the rival theatre owner; discovering a supernatural mystery; deciding what kinds of plays to run; and handling romances.

I thought the opening chapter was fairly boring, but by the middle I was invested in the story and found it entertaining.

Stats were a mixed bag. It was very confusing telling the difference between acting and showmanship, between authority/negotiation/producing, between streetwise and notoriety.

The game very frequently forces you to make choices then pick why or how you do it; I was writing down every time it happened but it was too frequent. It's especially jarring since these forced choices can directly contradict your play method. For instance, (Spoiler - click to show)I worked with Ned Buntline and the gangs from the start, with no interest in the 'fancy' part of town. But the game forced me twice to confront Ned about things, and forced him once to attack me, despite us doing everything together and me keeping his secret. Similarly, you are forced to accept a possible spy into your midst, you are forced to rescue an attacked news person, etc. The effect of all of this was to feel a lot less in control of the story. Of course, it makes the overall narrative tighter since the author is in control of most things you do, but it was frustrating.

The stats are very meagre, as well. After the first chapter, I had only 3 skills which were above baseline, each by only a single boost for a total of 3 boosts. If I had chosen differently, I could have boosted only 2 skills with the other boost going to an opposed stat (which could later be erased by other choices). The author solved that by making essentially every choice in the game winnable if you have even a single boost in a stat, but made it more difficult by obfuscating which stat helps with what.

Overall, though, it was a positive story experience, and made me interested in early New York.

This game is, I believe, by an author who has achieved some success in traditional publishing, and I think it shows.

This is a war game in a futuristic setting, and most of the game features tactical missions and decisions like advancing, retreating, calling in strikes, and broadening out to politics in general.

You are a brand-new commissioned officer sent to the planet Cerberus to deal with rebels and deal with a vaccine distribution that people are suspicious about (this was written pre-covid).

The stats are easy to understand at first glance, but become more muddled and confusing as the game goes on. For instance, 'diplomacy' and 'charisma' are especially difficult to distinguish, and there is a frequently-reoccurring set of choices that don't seem to correspond to any stats (essentially being cautious, being reckless, or being in the middle).

Especially confusing are options related to 'mission', 'honor', and 'leadership', as I thought I had those pegged at the beginning but they become increasingly obfuscated over time. I ended up with all less than 60% and no matter what I picked, the people I talked to laughed at me for my presumption at thinking I had honor or supported the mission.

As other reviewers have noted, there is failure baked into the game in ways that are indistinguishable from player failure, so even if you're doing everything right it feels like you're losing.

On the plus side, there are several romance options. For mine (the dropship operator), things progressed really quickly at first and then we were an established couple the rest of the game, having 4-5 more scenes together after becoming close. This felt like an unusually high amount in a good way.

Overall, the line-by-line writing was good, and I think any war buffs are definitely going to want to try this one out; it's near the top tier of CoG games for dealing with things like strategy and tactics.

I purchased this game with my own money.

This Adventuron game combines high-quality art with fairly interesting puzzles to make an entertaining game. It's about 30 minutes long (for me) and features a lot of location art and a pretty big map.

It's not huge, and I generally knew what I needed to do. I felt like several times the implementation got in the way; this isn't too unusual with Adventuron games, not because it can't be programmed in, but because many Adventuron authors emulate an era where 'smoothness' wasn't as valued. (although looking at the author's itch page, they mentioned not being able to do more than VERB NOUN, which explains why a lot of my attempts like USE NOUN ON NOUN or VERB ADJECTIVE NOUN didn't work).

The game is definitely a gore fest, mostly through text (the images, even when gory, tend not to depict the bodies themselves). Lots of dead and mangled corpses are described.

You are late to a birthday party and discover a demonic ritual gone wrong. There are multiple endings.

Overall, here is my rating:

+Descriptiveness: The writing is vivid and clear. The cleverness is a good part of the game.
-Polish: see next
-Interactivity: There were some rough edges with interactivity, knowing what I had to do but not getting it able to work which was a bit frustrating.
+Emotional impact: Definitely creepy
+Would I play again? Yeah, this was a great Adventuron game.

I enjoyed playing the Heroes Rise trilogy by Eric Moser before [edit: it's been pointed out to me that Zachary Sergi, not Eric Moser, is the author of Heroes Rise; I would never have noticed without someone pointing it out!], so I was interested in seeing this game. I knew ahead of time that it's a 'mini' game, free on the omnibus apps. designed to be a bonus to whoever downloads those apps (together with another 'mini' story, Sky Pirates of Arctorus by Kyle Marquis).

Overall, I think this game is quick-paced, charming and fun. You play a super-fast hero who is getting old (sadly, their 'old age' is pretty much the age I am now) against an enemy called 'The Sloth'. You're married, but to a person who cheated on you, and there is another romantic option (but not one you are required to pursue). The other main things you can do are getting a shoe sponsor deal, running for mayor, or training your sidekick.

This game was good, but it felt like a regular 100K-200K story that had parts removed instead of being built for a smaller game. For instance, it has well-defined, clear stats and clever use of resources, but the opportunities to build and use those stats are limited, and there are quite a few (I think 6 major skills). Contrast this to the even-smaller Choice of the Dragon, with 2 major stats (although Choice of the Broadsides has 12, so it's not hard and fast).

Another 'big game made small' feature is the numerous story threads that aren't given much treatment: your relationships with spouse, sidekick, romantic option/rival, and the CEO of a company; your background with the Sloth; handling the outbreak of other minor villains; etc. I feel like if each theme got twice the screen time it could have been stronger.

I don't have any suggestions on how to write shorter games (I know a lot of great authors have tried it over the years to varying success). This game wasn't bad, and is free with the app, so if you're thinking of getting into Choicescript games, it's one of the better free options on the omnibus app.

I don't know much about drag culture, although I have friends and family members who are or have been drag performers. This game was a real eye opener for me, and I ended up learning a lot more about things like Drag Race, drag queens, faux queens, etc.

I went back and forth a lot on the rating here. I really don't like the first chapter. It's a huge bombardment of concepts, people, very stylized writing, that just felt like so much. I'm sure it'd be less overwhelming to someone already familiar with drag culture, but for me it felt like I was reading some fantasy book where the author spends the first chapter introducing all the kingdoms and using new words they made up ('and the hrothgus, or town constable, rode forth on his vytnrewr, an insect-like steed). Take that, and make it a sassy drag queen version.

It also ran into Poe's law a bit in that chapter, where I couldn't tell if was portraying drag accurately or mocking it/parodying it, it was just so over the top.

Fortunately, it calms down a lot in the later chapters, and becomes a story about people and what was for me an excellent, compelling mystery, one where, even having solved it, I'd love to go back around and dig in to find out more motives, more background, more viewpoints. The drag queen aspects themselves became more thoughtful, funny, and pointed. The characters were complex and rich.

Another reason I thought of knocking it down a peg is the humor. Not because it isn't funny; it has plenty of lines. But in this fictional world, these are top-tier meme makers, comedians and dramatists putting out their best efforts, and while the author is genuinely funny or dramatic, sometimes seeing the writing and having the audience (or the narrator) say 'this is the funniest thing I've ever had' just kind of falls flat.

But a point in its favor is that the game manages stats well. I always knew what each stat did, had plenty of chances at the beginning to increase them, and basically didn't fail any stat checks till near the end where my particular mix didn't hold up (smart, funny, confident).

Now, I know that makes it sound like the game is 'too easy', but the real game is in strategizing between cooperating vs going solo, investigating the mystery vs preparing for the competition, sabotaging people or helping them when they are potential rivals and potential future judges, and deciding what to do with the seemingly cult-like abbey.

At the end, I felt somewhat uncomfortable recommending this game to general audiences as it has some raunchy and sexual material (almost all in jokes and skits), as well as frequent opportunities for drug use or binge drinking (you are a recovering addict). But I can't deny the overall quality of the game, and I'm putting the mention of those things here so that you can get an idea before you play.

Edit: having played through it now, I can see why it doesn't have a ton of ratings on the omnibus app but has one of the highest ratings. The offputting first chapter may have kept people away, but the solid remaining portion of the game probably led to higher scores. Also, people went out of their way to rate it highly in opposition to a campaign by trolls against the game.

This is an engaging and well-written game where you play a somewhat-wealthy member of the gentry returning to your childhood estate upon the death of your guardian.

Your city has bargained with daemons and weyrds (treefolk) to survive. Everyone lives on the edge with the daemons. Do well, be scandalous, attract attention, and you'll get more magic currency. Do poorly and lose it all, and the daemons come to suck out your soul and make you their slave.

There is a lot of variety in terms of romantic partners and factions to side with. I intend on replaying as I saw tons of material about the daemons but almost nothing about the weyrds (my choice).

I would heartily recommend this game, but I really didn't like the narrative direction regarding one of the possible romances.

Your childhood friend is recently married, but they hit on you, and the game encourages you to have at least an implied affair with them to generate more scandal. If you press, she hints that her partner is okay with it. Later, even when I was engaged to someone else, it pushed for us to be together, saying that your partner would understand.

I get that they're going for polyamory representation. I'm not completely opposed to a certain form of polyamory: my ancestors in the 1800s were polygamous, and I think that was fine. But this is offputting, even with 'modern' polyamory, which is completely about trust. I met the husband later, and he seemed 'chill', but she could have plied him with a fake story about you; and later, you are encouraged to be with her without your spouse knowing (you have a 'feeling' they'll be okay with it). If you look up anything about polyamory, it only works with everyone's explicit consent. What's in the game is just cheating, and it's pushed on you multiple times.

Honestly, I find that pretty gross, and for that reason I'm not recommending this game in general. The rest of it is pretty great.

Edit: Narratively, I have no problem with games allowing you to bad things, as it makes your choices more real. I don't like it telling you in your own voice that this is okay and that you kind of want to do it.

Honestly, I got into "text-based games" with paper-based Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks and fantasy CYOA books. Even years later, that stuff really appeals to me (like the Sorcery series, the parser game Heroes, the twine game Tavern Crawler, etc.).

So when I say I love this game, that's the background I'm coming from. This reminds me so much of the 'intelligent weapon' rules from AD&D 1E, where you'd have a legendary weapon with intelligence that has a benefit and a drawback, etc.

You find an intelligent magic sword and swear an oath to train in swordsmanship. You find a mentor and start attacking monsters, eventually coming to the attention of Demorgon (with a name very similar to the AD&D 1E demon Demogorgon), as well as several others.

The stats are generally easy to understand, although each fight seemed to have an option to attack quickly, hide, or defend, and that didn't seem directly connected to any visible stat.

The characters are admittedly not too fleshed out. There are about five or six factions, and each needed to have like 50% more text included to be more interesting. I've worked in the last year on expanding my own choicescript game, and I think S. Andrew Swann would benefit a lot from that (even 10K more), although I think he's got a different contract he's working on. I was personally okay with this, as the AD&D modules I compared it too have similar levels of detail for side characters.

I was definitely looking forward to playing this. I'm familiar with Swann as author of one of the most popular pages on the SCP wiki (with his name on it, 'S. Andrew Swann's Proposal'), and I'm so glad this wasn't disappointing.

Finally, a lot of steam reviews suggest the ending is fixed for you to win. I wish! I had to replay the final chapter 4 times to actually survive. I'm so glad he added a save feature, which works beautifully. Very happy with this game, and I plan on replaying it.

At 180K words and with a lot of branches, it does feel shorter than some other choicescript games, but satisfying.

I received a review copy of this game.