Reviews by ChanceOfFire

As with Undercover Agent, I’d describe this game as solid and functional, but nothing spectacular.

Ratings War takes place in a cyberpunk setting, although this has little impact on the plot and story. Apart from your own upgrades and tech, we see very little impact of cybernetics on other characters, and the setting doesn’t seem much different from Los Angeles in 2015. As far as I can tell, it’s largely an excuse to give your character some fancy powers for the sake of the plot.

After a few painful scenes where your character is literally and metaphorically beaten up (including getting canned from your old job), another news company offers you a job, some fancy tech and another chance to prove yourself. This takes you through a few investigative segments where you talk with a few witnesses, before you slowly enter the belly of the beast, where the plot thickens and another round of beatings (literal and metaphorical) await. Minus a few parts which didn’t add up or felt contrived, the entire crime ring plot is fairly interesting, with a good number of twists and turns.

I ended the game by trying to pick some option between telling the truth and selling my soul to the villain, and ended up with a moderately good ending. While the some of the final scenes felt a bit messy, I still left satisfied.

The romance interest in the game was something which I surprisingly enjoyed. She was a fairly likable character, even if not an extremely deep one, and this was one part which I actually liked.

Overall, it’s a solid entry, just not a particularly exceptional one. If you like investigative journalism stories, this might be your thing. But if you’re here because of the cyberpunk tag, you should probably look elsewhere.

Life of a mobster is an interesting beast. Unlike many choicescript games which let you pick your strong and weak skills, before putting you through a gauntlet of skill checks where you pick those you dumped points in, here, you pick a few skills, and are put through skill checks where you try to raise them. Beating a check raises said skill, and as the story progresses, these checks get harder, so constantly beating checks and raising your skills is a must. Other games by the writer also use a similar system. It’s still a pretty fun system, and a good break from the ‘usual’ way of doing things.

Despite the genre, this game is no GTA. The story and writing is actually quite lighthearted, in contrast to the sometimes violent and brutal crimes you get to perform. The skill system makes for a pretty linear story structure, although there are a good bit of choices here which can change how the storyline plays out. Despite the linearity, there is still a sense of choices having an impact, as you get to decide which characters live or die, and so on.

Most for the characters are fairly interesting, and there is also a fairly solid selection of RO characters.

There are also options to buy personal equipment, homes and so on, which adds another RPG element to the game.

There are multiple endings in the game, each of which puts you through a gauntlet of skill checks (or storyline decisions) to determine whether you get to achieve optimal results for said ending. All in all, this is a pretty interesting romp, with a good bit of choices and consequences.

ITFO is not your typical fantasy medieval tale. It’s a game which explores the difficult realities of the medieval world, as well as the brutality of war. The game touches upon some really dark issues, such as the deeper psychological consequences of the harshness of the setting on the player character’s mind.

All in all, the writing here is strong, going into deep detail on the medieval world around you and its impact on the people who live within. Playing this game really allowed me to feel the grim reality of the setting. There are also some battles in the game which do a good job of conveying the nature of warfare which take place in the setting, and which allow you to strategize and determine the best way to win.

It’s set in a largely patriarchal society, although you get to play as male or female, with the game detailing the differences in your formative experiences and how it eventually brings you to the current point in the story. There are some romance options, and while romance isn’t a very big part of the game, I enjoyed it and liked the characters.

The game is largely linear, although there is some branching at critical points in the story, including a very important one when you reach the end, where you can decide to play along with your given role, or seize power for yourself. Still, it’s more of a linear tale than a branching sandbox.

The story and writing here is definitely one of the strongest I’ve seen, and I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, I recommend taking a look.

It’s a pretty straightforward short game, but with an interesting premise. In this aero steampunk world (we really ought to have more games like this), we play as an undercover cop of sorts, working with the outlaws, trying to remain undercover and feeding regular reports to our handlers.

The stat system here is pretty standard. You pick your strong and weak stats, and decide how best to deploy them during the game. There is also a basic shopping and inventory system. I was able to buy most of the items available, and I think they mighhttt have helped?

Apart from a few relatively fast paced missions, much of the game is spent choosing binary options to bring you closer to the pirate leader or maintain your mission as an undercover cop. Speaking of which, there are a lot of two choice options in this game. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but I believe CoG does encourage writers to aim for at least three choices. The game doesn’t really suffer for that, but the ‘at least three choices’ rule could have made things more interesting. The plot and writing in these sections also feels somewhat barebones, although there is a bit more excitement when the bigger missions are in play.

You have a (what else?) choice at the end where you decide whether you’re going to reveal your true colors and arrest your former comrades, or decide that being among the pirates has truly made you one of them. I chose to stick with my original mission to blow up the pirates from within, although I think I botched a choice at the end and got a pretty bad ending. All in all, it was a solid bit of entertainment for a short game, although the experience felt really compressed. I think a longer word count could have helped this title here.

The superhero genre isn’t really my thing, yet for some reason, I decided to try out this short superhero story.

I was definitely surprised, and impressed. The writing is the game’s definite strong point, with plenty of color and character. Scenes carry a good mix of humor and action, and it was definitely entertaining to read.

The story is also pretty solid, even if largely standard for the superhero genre, as you work your way to take out the big bad, while dealing with a bunch of lesser villains along the way. There is your love interest, your sidekick and plenty of the usual tropes. Still the strong writing is able to carry all these elements here and make them interesting to read.

The stat system is pretty standard, except that here, you have a consumable stat, juice, which you can use whenever your regular stats aren’t up to the task. Juice was handy in saving me a few times when I was confronted with some skill checks I would likely have failed, so I did like the system. I managed to beat most of the checks in the game, and used juice to save the day whenever my stats weren’t up to the task.

At 50k words, a long play time is certainly one thing this game can’t offer. Nevertheless, it was a very fun game for what it was, despite the short length.

I first played Choice of the Petal Throne when it was first entered into Introcomp. It did fairly well there, winning third place. I did enjoy what little there was, since there was a severe shortage of good choicescript games at that time.

Now, I’ve returned to revisit the game. Unfortunately, those experiences haven’t aged well. The worldbuilding feels very heavy, and it’s not very well explained to the reader in general. I found myself losing track of the setting pretty quickly. The plot and characters, on the other hand, have little in the way of depth and also end up being uninteresting in their own way.

There is one romance interest which started out fairly interesting, but started to feel flat as the story went on. I ended the game by asking for marriage, but it also felt pretty forgettable.

The game feels fairly long for the wordcount. Unfortunately, the problems lie elsewhere.

I have little knowledge of the Tekumel setting, and if that describes you as well, you might be hard-pressed to enjoy this game. The writing is solid for the most part, but it’s nothing which can save the weak plotting and characters.

All World Pro Wrestling leaves little to the imagination when it comes to the sexual content. The story, from the beginning to end, is filled with plenty of not-so-subtle sexual innuendos, BDSM concepts and the plentiful nudity and sexual content on display. It pulls no punches when it comes to spice level. Perhaps Extra-hot might be an understatement.

Generally speaking, the story and writing is solid. It’s well-written while not being hard to follow. There are a lot of characters to choose from, and they are mostly interesting, although some could use a little more depth. The stat design is also solid, and I liked the way the game is upfront about stat changes. The avalanche of sexual content from the beginning to end MIGHT be off putting to some folks, but YMMV.

There are some interesting characters, but the cast might have been too big. Less characters might have allowed for the story to focus more on each of them. Anyway, I picked someone I liked, and managed to complete the romance at the end.

If you’re ok with the spice level, this is a pretty good entry in Heart’s Choice.

I’m generally a free spirit when it comes to romance… but come to think of it, a female gender-flipped version of this game would be really really hot.

The premise is interesting. Your task here is to don your invisibility cloak and harvest the tongues of the dying, tongues which contain their memories. The story presents some interesting choices and conflicts throughout. However, this game also has substantial weaknesses.

The writing can get long-winded, and there are plenty of infodumps throughout which serve to expand on the game’s lore, but do so in a heavy-handed manner. There were choices to express interest in some characters, but I don’t know if there were actual elements of romances as I couldn’t find them.

The ending is sudden and really makes you go WHATT? Things were starting to tense up, and I was expecting to see more action. Instead, an ending screen just shows up out of nowhere.

There is a genuinely interesting concept and idea here, just that the execution is a miss.

Events and parties in 20s London! You play as a novelist, enjoying the glamorous lifestyle and going on misadventures with a bunch of friends. Meanwhile, a gossip column is publishing dirt on your friends, and happens to know some things which should have been a secret. It is up to you to figure out who's leaking the juicy stuff to the infamous rag.

Honestly, if you read the way the game description is worded, you could probably figure out who the culprit is. (Probably not intentional on the writer's part.) That said, I actually liked said character the most, and went on to romance them from the start, while role-playing a loyal and blinded-by-love character. There wasn't any kind of intimacy that I saw, although I'm not too sure if other ROs have more intimacy on their routes. Still, the romance and character interactions are strong enough.

The story and writing is solid, even if the plot could use more excitement. The stat system didn't work for me. There is a large selection of stats in play, but some felt like they had a lot of overlap with the other, in terms of meaning. There were many choices in the game where I was struggling to figure out which stat was tested, or if something was even tested at all, and ultimately just picked at random. A more focused system with more distinct stats could have worked better here.

Minor note, headers in the stat screen are sometimes much closer to the bar above than below.

It's a solid game in the writing and romance department. I didn't see any intimacy, not even at a mild level (maybe it's in another route), but that's a non-issue as the romance elements are solid.

This was a surprisingly strong entry. The prose paints a beautiful picture of France, as well as the mystery and intrigue within your life as a spy. There are interesting characters. The plot packs mystery and surprises. Also, it’s pretty good as a romance game, with a good number of romantic scenes, as well as little bits of affection here and there.

I romanced Charlotte on my first playthrough and didn’t leave disappointed. She was probably the most well written character in the game, although the others are also fairly good. The romantic elements with her are also good, and the game elegantly weaves together your business and romantic relationship with her.

Stat wise, the game is pretty straightforward. I dumped everything in Duelist and Chaleureuse, although I overwhelmingly relied on duelist, and I don’t think I was ever in a situation where I couldn’t beat any of the offered checks. There is a pretty annoying bug however, where the game repeatedly awards me the achievement for having a high skill level in these stats after every chapter.

The prose is good, but it also might be a bit heavy for casual readers. I noticed a very small number of typos during my playthrough, but nothing major.

The font for the chapter headings fits the setting, but it’s pretty hard to read. Additionally, they look somewhat awkward in the stat screen as the headers are physically closer to the bars above.

Either way, minus a few minor flaws, this is a solid entry, both on the story and romance front.