Reviews by ChanceOfFire

Undercover Agent contains pretty much everything you’d expect from the genre. It does not do anything outside the box, and is as standard as can be.

As far as plot and writing goes, you’re an agent for a government agency tasked with taking down a mysterious weapon. With the usual infiltration and espionage missions, there is little originality here. The spy genre isn’t really my thing, and with little here I haven’t seen before, it was hard to stay engaged. The writing is ok and pretty easy to follow, which is a plus, but a small one.

The stats (I believe) use fairmath, so reaching the higher levels can be tricky. I dumped everything into combat and IT, and ran into a few areas where I didn’t have the right skills to beat the available checks.

Like many other CoG (and some HC) games I’ve played, the romance is pretty throwaway here too. That said, I did like this one better than a lot of the others. There’s some flirting and affection, and the ROs role in the plot makes them better suited (in my opinion) to be an interesting RO.

Ultimately, this spy game doesn’t do anything wrong, but it doesn’t do anything right either. It’s up to you to decide if that’s your thing.

Despite the low word count, this game actually feels pretty long for something well under 100k words. This western title is no match for the 1.4 million word Tin Star in terms of the quantity of content, but still manages to punch above its weight.

It’s a strong story with a good mix of investigative work and action. I mostly dumped my stats into sweet talking and shooting, while leaning more towards sweet talking, and I think it worked out fine. There is a health system, but I’ve always ignored paying a visit to the doctor, and still managed to make it to the end (although I had to check the stat screen to notice that every part of me was hurting). There are a good number of choices on dealing with different groups and taking different actions.

Romances feel underdeveloped though, and that’s me being generous. I had some mild (me being generous again) romantic encounters with a few characters, but it didn’t amount to much. The stat screen listed some characters as my sweethearts, but it felt pretty meaningless.

Overall, I think the title is still pretty solid, even if it’s on the short side.

Like Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck, we find ourselves back on a pirate ship. In terms of plot, this is a little shorter, with only one major mission. After an… unorthodox recruitment process, you join up with a group of pirates who want something from a group of aliens. Of course, you could attempt to side with them or stick with the pirates.

There is a fairly straightforward stat based system over here. However, a good part of the game’s challenges comes from math questions and logic puzzles. At one point, I even got a couple of data analyst interview type questions, where I’m shown some patterned shapes, and need to pick the next one which belongs in the formation. Most of these questions are multiple choice and weren’t too difficult for me (save one which I just guessed at random because the question wasn’t very well written). However, something so logic-based just didn’t fit the vibe of the game. While there’s no excessive violence here, I started the game as a thuggish character doing rough stuff, and it feels more than weird that I’m now answering math and logic questions from some random aliens to please them. I don’t mind having these kind of questions in general, but the game uses them very heavily and it just feels inconsistent with the game’s tone.

The plot is pretty short and straightforward, with a fair bit of choices around a peaceful or violent approach. There is also a mildly interesting RO whom I romanced. However, there is little to explore in this setting as much of the plot is focused around a single mission with the aliens. There are also some choices around getting to know the crew, but it’s hard to make this meaningful with such a short plot. Writing is ok for the most part. I don’t think I saw any issues.

Honestly, I feel that this game could have benefitted from a longer plot, maybe with two or three connected missions to explore the world. There are some good parts here, such as the stat system and the relationships with the crew. However, it’s tough to make this work on a shorter plot. As for the puzzles, that’s one thing we could have less of. Multiple choice math questions get tedious after a while.

It’s a pretty engaging premise. Finding fame and fortune on the all-women opera, and finding love as a female character, romancing other women. Unfortunately, there are considerable problems with the execution which prevent the good ideas from getting off the ground.

The setting is interesting and the prose is evocative, conveying the atmosphere and the elegance of the Opera world and the city. There is plenty of romance and flirting, and the sexual content is mostly tasteful and well done, offered in good doses throughout the story without feeling excessive. The writing and descriptions can be a little heavy for causal readers, but I was largely able to follow it.

However, this game has its weaknesses as well. A lot of the characters and ROs just do not feel very deep in terms of personality. Apart from their well… physical attributes… which the game is happy to tell you about, a lot of the female characters don’t feel very distinct in terms of personality, and I eventually picked the lady with the nicest sounding name, because what else? The romance is fairly well executed and quite easy, with flirty encounters with each potential RO before you decide whether you want to say yes. The game also acknowledges your previous relationships (potential or decided) which is another nice touch. However, it was often hard to see how the current romance candidate differed from the previous one, personality-wise.

In terms of the story, there are quite a few interesting encounters, ranging from an escape from the cops to dealing with a difficult Ambassador. However, the plot does not thread these scenes together well, so it often feels like I’m jumping from one place to another without knowing why.

I liked the idea behind this, but the weak plotting and character writing really hold the game back. The romance elements are good, but these really needed to be paired with stronger character personalities to work. But, if you’re just looking for some light erotica and romance, you’ll find it here.

I pretty much stumbled upon this one by accident on IFDB.

It's incomplete, and likely forever cancelled. Still, it's extremely cute, with fairy tale JRPG vibes. It's short and pretty much ends when things are about to get exciting, but I still had some fun with this.

As with Jazz Age, I wanted to give this game four stars. However, I’m (sadly) giving it three for the same reason.

You’ve just gotten a new job as a nanny at Brimstone Manor. The story is actually very interesting and engaging here. I enjoyed getting to know more about the family, making friends with the toddler and the family dog (both of which carry their own dark secrets) and getting to learn of the battle between angels and demons. This is really good stuff, and I liked it.

However, the problem comes again from a lack of romance. I picked my RO very early in the game, and confidently picked all choices bringing me closer to him. However, while there are a very small number of steamy scenes (not strictly sex scenes), there seems to be little in the way of romance here. The ending chapter also has a choice where I choose to stay with my RO, but otherwise gives weak indication that there is a romantic relationship going on. Again, it wouldn’t be a big deal under the CoG label, but it just feels self-defeating under the Heart’s Choice label.

Thus, I’ll give the same recommendation that I have given for Jazz Age. If you want a good story, come here. If you want romance, you might not find it here. But… you’re playing a Heart’s Choice game for the romance, right?

Back again with another itch game from the Interactive Bonbons writer.

This one is pretty simple gameplay-wise, but with the same technical wizardry from the last two games. Again, there is an interesting use of styles, custom layouts, sounds, emojis and so on. Interestingly, the shotgun uses a train emoji.

It's pretty simple. Here, you walk around a 2x2 room, scrounging, resting and eating while waiting for the zombies to show up. Once that happens, you can attack them.

It's a survival game with gameplay broken up into different waves. You'll simply have to beat the current wave of zombies to reach the next level. It's not a very deep game, but it's pretty good as a short proof of concept and also feels more polished than the farming sim.

But after playing two other games from this writer, it's perhaps harder to wow me with all that tech savvy now.

While snooping around itch, I found out that the Interactive Bonbons writer actually has a few choicescript games up there. Well, I’m off to take a look.

As with Interactive Bonbons, there is plenty of tech savvy here. This game was written in choicescript, but the use of custom styles, sounds, emojis and the overall display really shows how a choicescript game can look creative and great. Seriously… I might want to get my hands on whatever custom styles.css file this game used.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is just a grind. Day by day, I’m picking up feed from the barn, walking to my livestock and feeding them. If I forget to feed them, they fall sick and require medicine to get them back in health. Then, after feeding them, I butcher them one at a time, so that they can feed me instead.

After some time, the animals decided to spice up the party by breaking their own stalls, requiring me to spend time fixing them. Navigating the barn in choicescript is also pretty tricky, and a map could have helped.

I ended my playthrough stuck in an infinite loop, where I was unable to leave a stall. (All other options were disabled, and the ‘leave’ option returned me to the same screen.) Buutt… I got to enjoy the technical creativity on display so I guess that’s something. :)

Earth is a penal colony, where all sorts of aliens, or mythological creatures to us humans, are sent to serve their prison sentences. Honestly, with all that advanced technology, whatever alien government out there would be better served finding a barren planet out there to transform into a prison. Maybe with actual prison facilities, life support systems, or whatever.

You're a parole officer for these alien-monsters, making decisions on whether these monsters had been on their best behavior and deserve to go, or whether they need to spend more time in the slammer. Honestly, with tons of delicious humans right around the corner in this 'prison', it seems like a recipe for trouble. Life in a penal colony is probably pretty boring after all. I would be surprised if they weren't thinking of ways to handle the monotony.

To nobody's surprise, some of these monstrous folks are out there causing trouble on Earth, so it's up to you to deal with them.

Minus the absurd premise, the story and writing is pretty entertaining. There was one decently interesting RO who works with you on missions.

I messed up a ton of checks during the game, and got my clearance decreased until it became negative. Still, I managed to beat all the checks for the final battle, turning my fortunes around and ending the game as a top agent.

It's a fun adventure if you're able to get over the premise. Seriously, what makes you think these alien-monster-prisoners won't be tempted to cause trouble?

Dawnfall is pretty tough to rate. It features an interesting setting and somewhat strong writing. The ending scene explores some interesting themes of loyalty, betrayal and sacrifice.

However, the prose is as heavy as a tank, with a lot in the way of length and detail. There is plenty of lore, special terms and worldbuilding which the game wants to convey to you. But in this regard, the game basically throws you into the deep end from the start and keeps you submerged there for the entire story. I was pretty much running the CPU in my brain on overclock mode throughout the game, just to digest the thick and heavy prose as well as the content within. For casual readers or someone who wants an easy read, I can’t recommend this.

There are a couple of stats in the game. I was mostly sigils, sigils, sigils everytime I saw a stat check, and as far as I can tell, it seems to have worked.

Romances are a tricky thing. You can romance everyone, and there’s even an achievement for it. I got it on my first try simply by picking the romantic options whenever they came up. There is also a final romance scene where you have the option to talk with anyone (and everyone?) for a final romance scene, but I decided to stick with one person at that point. Some characters are in polygamous relationships and will insist on it if you try to suggest otherwise, but at least they’re upfront about it. (For the record, I’m not strictly opposed to poly relationships, just that it’s not my thing.)

Romance scenes appear to be mild for the most part. I always picked the “romance and sex” options, but didn’t see anything very explicit.

It’s a good title, but it feels really impenetrable to casual readers. As a romance game, I’d rate it as okay. The strength of the game comes from the worldbuilding, setting and storytelling. But you’ll probably need brains of steel for that part.