Reviews by ChanceOfFire

Another cutesy VN entry. You wake up, and fumble through your morning routine while preparing for your next appointment. The writing is sweet even if the story is the short and simple type, and there is plenty of nice art and music to go along with it.

As far as interactivity goes, you have a list of activities you can pick to perform in any order, with the occasional choice to go along with it. Replay value is light, as I think you'll need to do every activity to proceed, but one playthrough was already entertaining enough.

Note: There is quite a bit of coarse language in the game, despite the previously mentioned cute vibes.

Note 2: Self-control is important. Do not add too much butter when baking.

With strong writing, an interesting setting and plenty of content, Apex Patrol is another strong entry in the HG line. This title is one of the oldest games in the library (I remember when it was $1 on the iphone app store) but still remains a great game even by today's standards.

The writing is strong, providing interesting descriptions of the sci-fi world and raising the suspense and thrill during missions. Unfortunately, like Tin Star, the prose can get very heavy at times, but this isn't something I'll take a star off for.

There is also a pretty solid stat system where you decide your ship's upgrades and so on. The stat screen is a bit messy to look at, being all text, but again, this wasn't too big of an issue.

I did pretty well on my first run, completing most missions successfully and defeating the main villain right at the end. In sum, this was definitely a fun adventure, and one worth taking a look at.

Silent Gear is a mixed bag. There were some parts which I think were good. The missions, skill checks and ability to select loadouts. This part was pretty fun. Failure is possible in missions, but the game thankfully has a checkpoint system to prevent lost progress.

That said, the writing is very rough, and while the story is fairly interesting at first, it later goes off the rails, and the ending just felt unsatisfying. I'm also wondering if the final parts were rushed, since it's heavy on choiceless pages of text without the usual action gameplay.

There are a couple of minigames, some of which are optional time-wasters and the rest being combat sequences. These are mostly ok, although the combat minigame feels very luck dependent.

The first few missions provide a solid gameplay experience, with the ability to make tense choices and item decisions. That said, the story starts breaking apart towards the end, and the writing is another issue. Still, it's a free title, so you might want to give it a try if it appears to be your thing.

Imagine you’re playing a choicescript game as well… some elite spy. While walking around your spy headquarters, you find a computer terminal and use it. You have the option to look up different email messages on the terminal, shown as choice options. Now imagine if you took out that inbox surfing segment and turned it into a full blown choicescript game. That’s one way I’d describe this game in terms of design.

The Spy and the Labyrinth is not your usual choicescript title. In this game, the story is largely told through a series of documents. There are choices, but all these are simply choices of which document you’d read next. Things will tense up towards the end, but the ending itself feels very abrupt.

I’m really not sure how I should be rating this. I’m all for trying new ideas, but this is one idea which just didn’t fly for me. Reading a story told through a bunch of documents just wasn’t fun, and a game where every choice is to select the next document you read isn’t my idea of a fun choice. The game is certainly more well written and competently coded than many shovelware HG titles, but this is one of those titles which (I suspect) will satisfy its intended audience but leave everyone else scratching their heads.

Honestly, the first few pages will give you a good idea of what you can expect for the rest of the game. You can always give the first few parts a go and decide if that’s your thing.

I'm still giving this a four star rating, but of the four books by the writer, I think this is the one I liked the least. IFDB should allow users to award 3.5 stars or something.

Mage Elite takes place in a setting which blends fantasy and sci-fi elements. The main enemy is established pretty early in the game. As with other titles by the writer, this has some management elements, including a turn based system where you decide what activities you'll undertake for the day. There are also a couple of optional minigames, although those didn't appeal to me as much. (One minigame from the Grand Casino of Fortune makes a return.)

Stats use an opposed system (which I dislike), although I was still able to clear most checks. The writing and lore are both solid, although the plot gets messy at times. There are also some cool maps, but the little details are harder to see on an iphone screen.

I still liked this game, just not as much as the other short titles by the writer. If you'd like to try a sci-fi game, this is perhaps still worth a look.

A short quest to find treasure in a forbidden city, with an array of riddles standing between you and your final goal.

Well, you'll get two types of challenges here. Some are riddles, which can range from easy to fiendish. Others are dice rolls or coin flips. Still, how this works is that the game allows you to input a dice roll number or coin flip outcome of your choice. That said, don't rush to type a six on that dice roll just yet. Bigger numbers don't always mean success, so you might as well leave it to chance. The stat screen has a dice roll and coin flip function if you need it, but using it is optional.

It took me a couple of tries to beat this, and the lack of a save system or checkpoints means that you'll have to start over if you hit a bad end. Still, this was pretty fun.

The writing was fairly good, even if the game was short in terms of a single playthrough.

Hints for the last two puzzles: (Spoiler - click to show)If that last riddle is giving you trouble, think of something with nine lives. Remember, *knowledge* is important.

I played The Race a long time ago, finishing the game in third place. (Somewhere between a good and bad ending.) Recently, I decided to try picking it up again for another round, and ended up in third place again. Interestingly, I was still able to remember the solutions to some of those puzzles all those years ago.

The writing (minus some annoying fourth wall breaking) is fairly solid, and goes for a more minimalistic style, rather than the wordy approach which is more common for choicescript games today. You pick a partner, and have to complete a set of stages with sufficient speed to avoid getting eliminated at each round. The puzzles here can get challenging, and randomly tapping and picking options isn’t going to get you to a win state. You will need to think about how you will complete the puzzles, and the threat of failure is real in some areas. Not to mention, the game can be pretty cruel to players who try to explore at times. (Spoiler - click to show)Getting robbed :(

It’s good for a playthrough or two, to try to see how well you can do. Folks who like puzzles in choicegames could try this out. You could probably beat the game in less than an hour, but it’s still a pretty solid experience if you want the challenge.

There is apparently a hidden subplot in the game, but I’m not sure how to reach it.

Note: This review is based on the choicescript release.

The Ascot gives you two choices, yes and no. Well… there’s always a third choice, but I’ll leave it to you to find out what it does.

The story is largely linear if it doesn’t lead you to a game over or retry. There isn’t much of a plot, although the final boss and the method to defeat it was somewhat amusing. To get to the best end, you will need to select the correct yes and no options to bring you there. Still, even with failed attempts and all, this shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes or so to complete.

I’m not sure how this felt as a parser game, but as a choice game, it feels limiting. You’d probably want to take out the final boss for some laughs and try to resist the Call To Adventure for more laughs, but otherwise, that’s all I can say.

Note: I am writing this review from memory. It has been a while since I played this game. As of this writing, I do not know if there is anywhere online to play this game, as dashingdon no longer exists.

Working in a cafe in Paris, you discover the Urge, which seems to make people romantically drawn to you. Much of the plot is around getting to know the different ROs who are drawn to you, and finding out more about them. While it is mostly a lighthearted romance game, some parts can be dark and violent, so be warned. Rather interestingly, the story later reveals that the urge is connected to a very controversial romantic practice. (Spoiler - click to show) Love Locks.

If I recall correctly, I romanced the assistant working at the cafe. There was plenty of romance, including a romantic trip to another country, and a fairly explicit romance scene at one part. The game also goes through various famous locations in Paris, another touch I liked.

As a romance game, there aren't really any stats here, but you will need to keep track of your relationships with various ROs. In addition, there are also plenty of customization options for your character, basically name, gender and physical attributes. Hey, it's a romance game.

This game was originally submitted to Hosted Games. I am unsure what happened, but HG ultimately did not publish the game. The author released it on dashingdon for free, but did not migrate the title with the recent closure of dashingdon, so it no longer appears to be playable unless someone had saved a copy.

A powerful space empire threatens your existence. You can choose to resist them, building your defenses and deciding how you wish to direct wartime efforts.

After the introductory chapters, most of the game is spent deciding how you will allocate resources in preparation for battle, and whether you’d like to focus on something at the expense of something else. The actual war has much less choice, and the game instead largely narrates to you how the battles go based on decisions made. Still, I managed to obtain a victorious ending on my first attempt, although it certainly wasn’t without cost. That said, I did make a few decisions which I felt would increase my chances of winning, at the cost of something else to my empire, but I’m not sure if the ending acknowledges the latter in some way.

There were a few star maps, which were nice to look at, but it was hard to make out the little details on my iPhone screen.

The game is short, but the writing is largely solid, with a heavy focus on prep and management.