Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

This Fallen London exceptional story is pretty good.

Fog has encroached on London, and out of it steps a bizarre foggy figure that walks around your house, using your stuff and playing chess a lot.

As you investigate this disturbance, you learn more about a cult and a conspiracy that draws in some of the strangest features of Fallen London: (mild spoiler) (Spoiler - click to show)unusual biology and the Elder continent. Emotionally, this game deals well with a certain kind of loss without becoming too maudlin.

Unlike most exceptional stories, this has some very different endings that can be hard to achieve. If you're really invested in one outcome and don't want to pay money for a reset, it's worth looking up or getting advice online.

This is the only game out of Choice of Games 123 existing titles I've played that I'm giving 3 stars to. Most titles are the result of years of work and careful oversight by a large crew of editors, copyeditors, testers, etc. that result in a game that is at minimum polished, replayable, descriptive, and having some kind of emotional impact or good interactivity, which are the criteria I judge games by.

This game is the smallest game made since Choice of the Dragon, is experimental, and is buggy. The size is due to it being one of the free (with ads) mini-size games available to anyone playing on the omnibus apps. Unlike the other mini games (Zip! Speedster and HMS Foraker), this one seems like it was written to be me small, with a new kind of gameplay not seen before in Choice of Games.

As an experiment, I'm not sure the game works. It has some randomization (so, for instance, going to the stats screen and back can change what day you're on). Each day is a journal entry, presenting a choice with yes/no options. These are either 'what faction do you favor' out of 3 possible factions, or 'do you try this beneficial thing that checks which of your stats are good' or a combination of the two. In this way, it kind of reminds me of Amazing Quest, a controversial tiny game entered in the 2020 IFComp.

If any of the three factions hates you, you die. The game is supposed to let you restart that day, but a game-breaking bug instead sends you back to the beginning of the game, leaving some of your stats intact which causes a couple more errors.

The randomization and binary choices make the game pretty difficult, with the bug rendering the game permanently in 'hard mode'. I did get to an ending.

I enjoyed the character Lookout and the two different machine animals I had on different runs (a copper snake and silver wolf). I love all the rest of Marquis's games, so I enjoyed getting more lore here about Empyrean, and the captain's mysterious locked room reminded me of Bluebeard, one of my favorite characters (I've sometimes considered Duke Bluebeard's Castle my favorite opera).

So, while this has many redeeming features, I can't give this 4 stars due to the fairly severe, easily reproducible bugs and with my dissatisfaction with the interactivity. But I think Marquis can handle it, as he's an amazing writer with some of the best games out there (like the Vampire Masquerade game).

I'm also looking forward to his next Pon Para game!

Grand Academy of Villains is a game I first played years ago. I found the writing funny and the class interesting, but I wasn't satisfied with the ending because I found it abrupt.

Now, after playing through essentially every Choicescript game, I realize how high-quality the first Grand Academy game is in general, with lots of valid choices and good writing. I still think the ending has some issues (with some stat checks that are too high, imo), but overall it's one of the better games.

This game builds on that, but in a way some people disliked. Grand Academy 1 had very different endings depending on your choices, but this game funnels all of those towards one 'main' choice.

I know several people were unhappy with this choice, but I saw the complaints before I played, and wasn't surprised or, really, disappointed, since this game is all about multiverses and changes in reality.

Anyway, this game was fun for me. There is a big competition all year between houses (Thriller, Horror, Sci-fi and Fantasy), overseen by an outside group. In addition, a powerful new student with destiny enters the school.

The writing in this series is exceptionally funny (if you're into parodies of both academia and writing tropes), and stats are generally clear. I do think, though, that the game suffers a bit from stat checks that become progressively more difficult, meaning that the chance of you failing during the finale is high.

Another small problem is that, due to numerous options, each option gets less time. At one point I had a choice to impress people with my grades despite never going to class and not having any grades (i.e. my grades were listed as 'unknown'). I had plenty of time to spend with my 'nemesis' (this game has both normal romances and nemesis similar to romance but with hatred, kind of like that homestuck thing), and my current romance. But everything else seemed fairly stretched or thin. Again, though, this was only due to the large variability in the game.

Some people have said in reviews that 'your choices don't matter' which isn't really true, the writing is extremely variable. However, there's an art to making it clear in writing that your choices aren't important, and I think that wasn't communicated properly here.

Overall, very glad to have played the series, and would rank it in the top 20 at least.

This game is the end of the Hero Project duology, which comes after the Heroes Rise trilogy (and has connections to (Spoiler - click to show)the author's Versus series).

I've really enjoyed Zachary's other games, but felt that the last game, Redemption season, was a bit more constrained. This game takes that further.

In this game, you take on the final episodes of the Hero Project reality show while dealing with a new independent city-state in the wilderness made up of former enemies trying to make a home for minority superheros.

I had an experience early on which really soured me on the game. In the previous game, (Spoiler - click to show)I followed Loa's instructions to the hilt, believing that she could save us. But she had said before that if I didn't win the Hero Project, the earth would be doomed. And the game also likes you to be consistent and to help your sister. So I had to choose between helping my sister and losing the project (thus dooming mankind). It felt pretty harsh. I tried to get some insights from reading the choice of game forums to see if there was a way to still win, but I couldn't find anything helpful.

Beyond that, though, (an issue which probably would have been just fine in the long run), this game feels like 80% reaction, 20% action. Over and over again, you're told what your hero does, and what other heroes do, then you're asked:
Did that make you feel:
-excited?
-scared?
-determined?

Or, someone will give a speech, and then the game will say:
In your heart, you think:
-All superheros should work together
-My type of superhero is persecuted, so we should stick together
-I don't care, as long as my sister is safe.

And these two interactions are what most of the game is. What drew me to Sergi's earlier games was the exact opposite: more action, more dramatic-feeling choices.

The high points of the game for me were seeing my old main character as a respected and powerful superhero, and the last chapter. I enjoy the character of your sister, Jelly Kelly, quite a bit, and your main character's power set is pretty cool.

Overall, I wouldn't have finished playing this one if it weren't connected to the overall Sergiverse. But it's one I wouldn't skip if you have played the other games, as it ties up a lot of loose ends.

This is a somewhat controversial game, but it was only able to achieve that controversy by being popular in the first place.

The author had an earlier 3-part series called Heroes Rise, that focuses on a superhero getting powers, beating their first enemy, going on a reality show, then becoming an influence on the whole nation.

This game is a side story with a new protagonist, a hero with a very clever power: you are an animal/human hybrid, but the animal you're mixed with changes every day.

The focus of this game is different from the earlier series. Your character is a representative of several persecuted minority groups (the animal hybrids, those with uncontrollable powers, and another one I can't remember). The main themes of the game revolve around the treatment of these minority groups. Also, your sister's powers are killing her, and a mysterious benefactor has offered to cure her in return for several unnamed favours, to be collected.

The focus on the minority groups has led to a lot of reviews and forum posts describing the game as having 'too much politics', which is usually a dogwhistle for alt-right people who don't like LGBT representation (which exists in this game; there are trans and non-binary main characters).

However, I feel like there are some issues here, but not with the content itself, rather how it's presented. The first Heroes Rise games were all about action, but this game is largely about reaction. Instead of picking what you do, frequently you're told what you or others do and then given the choice of how you feel about it. Quite frequently choices are forced on you, and you can go several pages without a choice, more often than the earlier games.

I believe that if the game had been rewritten to feature more action and choice that the number of negative reviews would have gone down a lot (except for virulently anti-LGBT people), because a well-written game can handle all sorts of diverse politics. For instance, the Heart of the House prominently features a nonbinary main NPC with non-standard pronouns, but you see a lot fewer negative comments about it.

The Sea Eternal had a similar issue, I believe, where you were frequently told what you were doing and what you thought, and I think that it just doesn't make for an enjoyable game experience. And I think it's possible to have games with strong pro-LGBT messages that give you freedom of action and feeling: Howling Dogs, Birdland, With Those We Love Alive, and Tally Ho come to mind.

Another thing that may have dinged this game's popularity (although it's still a very popular game, just not as much as the other games by this author) is having forced failures. There are situations in the game where you have to pick between 2 very bad outcomes, and Choicescript games that do that tend to suffer.

However, I've noticed that those same ingredients that are drawbacks as games (reduced interactivity and forced failures) can also help make your overall story better. It's no coincidence that the Nebula writing award nominated games tend to sell poorly: they all tend to have tight, railroaded stories with lots of failures to build up a big character arc.

Anyway, I did like the overall story of this game, I'm glad I played it, and I look forward to the next game and the eventual crossover with the author's other series.

Alana Joli Abbott is a prolific Choice of Games author, having written Choice of Kung Fu (a very good game), Showdown at Willow Creek (very short but fun), and Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts, which I felt had good ideas but less exciting execution.

Also, I had previously played another pirate game (by a different author) from choice of games, "7th Sea: A Pirate's Pact", which I thought was fun but that didn't highlight the exciting parts.

This game, for me, improves on Abbott's other games and on the other pirate game, because it's fun. It highlights all the best parts about the pirate life. We get ghost ships, flamboyant and treacherous captains, refined but insidious Crown operatives, sea monsters, owning a fleet, getting a hook for a hand, etc. Very little time is spent on the trivial or boring.

The stats are great, too. They're clear to understand, you have many opportunities to increase them, and they're clearly differentiated early on.

There are some things I didn't like too much. I tried to get a haunted ship at the beginning, but failed too many checks in a row and lost miserably. But the game handled it with optimism and reassured me as the player that things would be okay despite my setback, and that gave me the confidence to keep playing without retrying.

I'm not sure exactly how much branching there is; the way it's written and the wordcount given makes me think you largely experience the same set of events each playthrough, but the game offers you a lot of freedom in your intent. And there is definitely some branching; I completed the entire game without finding the identity of one of the people in the relationship bars (probably because I refused to work with the Crown at all).

Overall, lots of fun, can recommend.

This is one of the shortest choicescript games sold by Choice of Games. Coincidentally, at 72,000 words, it's longer than any parser game I've written. But in the world of choicescript games, it's fairly slight.

But it uses that time better than most short games. You have a variety of stats that are clearly differentiated from each other during the first chapter, different factions to support against each other, a resource (money) that can be used for many things, etc. There also is a play between supporting science and supporting the wild countryside.

But each thread is somewhat underdeveloped. You play as a sort of private investigator with a single case: finding a missing young woman. This case will take you to the houses of the rich and poor and to the Ute indians, which seem to have been researched fairly well (at least, the relationship between them and the settlers is similar to what I've seen in histories from that time and area).

There's only one case, and romance options only have a few opportunities to interact with them. Your overarching goal evolves a lot in a few short chapters, making the game lose focus.

Of all the < 100K games, though, I'd put this down as one of the best, along with Choice of the Dragon and Choice of Broadsides. I just think that a length between about 200K-400K would have allowed more space to to develop the core ideas.

The one other thing that keeps me from completely recommending it is that the game frequently puts you in spots where you have to pick between using stat A, using stat B, and running away; since there are several stats, this means you often just have no luck.

This game is well-written on the line-by-line level or even scene-by-scene but doesn't know what it wants to be. It starts out seeming like a promising kid's fantasy, then changes to a bit older (you're told that all the patrons at the science society are hot and get divorced all the time because of it), then into more slapstick comedy, with some magical adventure thrown in.

The main thrust of the game is that you saw mermaids as a child and want to join the Marinological Society to study them when you are grown. You need to pick a patron to support you (and the game informs you that patrons are often romantic partners), then you go to the island to look for evidence of mermaids.

Parts of it were actually pretty great and/or funny, while other parts were a bit more weird. Instead of skills you have only opposed stats, and once you pick a patron if you want to please them it determines a lot of the choices you have to make.

There were some big choices to make near the end, and I ended up alone and sad, but at least I kept my promises.

This one was hard to review: didn't like it at first, liked it a lot more near the end, but not sure about it overall. So I'm going over my 5 point scale in hope it helps me.

+Polished: I didn't find any bugs or typos, which is normal for Choice of Games.
+Descriptive: The game was certainly descriptive and vibrant.
+Interactivity: There were a lot of options to fiddle around with: your sound, your relationship with your frequently-annoying brother, whether to sign with a record label or not, going solo. The ending was somewhat abrupt but fit in with the rest of the story.

Some people have pointed out that a few key points are forced on you. In one very late game move (involving relationships) (Spoiler - click to show)you find yourself in a relationship with a famous artsy person. This wasn't a problem for me, as I was pretending to be Paul MCcartney the whole game, playing bass etc., so I was fine dating 'Yoko' and splitting up the band by going solo. I suspect that a lot of the choices I made worked out for me because it was the 'ordained path'. A lot of the reports I had heard from other people seem to confirm that (for instance, the game seems to favor your brother).

+Emotional impact: I had fun. I disliked it at first but grew to like it.

-Would I play again? I feel content with my choices, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of wiggle room, so I'm not sure I'll revisit this one.

This game has a little bit of history, much of which I don't know. It's a sequel to the original Choice of Broadsides, a navy battle game, but by a different author, Paul Wang, author of some games I enjoy quite a bit (mostly fighting games).

The original game was low in wordcount but long in feeling, spanning an entire career in the navy by having quick narration and choices that could affect months or years at a time.

This game is longer than the original but feels shorter. It is a 3-chapter game that essentially retells a specific part of history of the War of 1812, as described by the author at the end.

I believe it is related to the free games Zip! Speedster of Valiant City and Sky Pirates of Actorius as being commisioned by Choice of Games as shorter games to offer free on the omnibus app. I may be wrong there.

I think that the reason this game feels shorter is that it reads much like the intro to a longer game. Like I said in my review of Zip! Speedster, both games feel like instead of being constructed small from the get-go, it took a larger setup and shrunk it. There are very few possible changes to stats, and the plot arc seems to start slow and never really take off.

I saw a comment on Twitter by Dan Fabulich that suggested the timespan in-game can contribute to a feeling of length in a game, and I think that's true. This game takes place over a couple of months and covers the lead-up, action, and denouement of a single action.

In any case, the historicity was fascinating, but I don't feel this game succeeded in its 'small package' design. I do enjoy the author's writing quite a bit, though, and as a game free on the omnibus app and relatively short I feel that any fan of history should try this out.