An Unexpectedly Green Journey

This is a huge Choice of Games game with a lot of branching.

To me this feels like pure TTRPG. You are an orc, and there are 4 or more stages of your life. (This game branches a ton, so I'll share what happened in my experience and mention others' later).

I started as a baby, and decided to have pure violence throughout my life. By attacking and assaulting other babies, I became a proud young orc.

As a young orc, I gained a 'hub' and the option to do different things like train to be a warrior or a shaman. My hub gained in options as I became a young adult and then a mature adult.

Hub options include getting tattoos, buying magic items, training, meeting with camp visitors, or, the most expansive, going adventuring, which results in a lot of D&D style quests. And D&D/Pathfinder was the big feel for me here, with halflings, elves, dark elves, humans, orcs, goblins, a lich, zombies, a one-eyed orc god. The only unusual thing was a mind-controlling cyclops or two.

There were also war simulators, where you have cavalry, land units, and skirmishers.

I chose violence and power almost the whole game, helping me win tons of battles and kill a lot of monsters. Then, I became king.

Suddenly I can't kill everything personally! I can kill a lot of things, but now I have to negotiate. Do I regret not being nice to the orc god before I became king? Maybe.

It's kind of like Spore, going from cell stage to individual to tribal to society.

There are a lot of chances to help others, which sometimes gives you amazing benefits and sometimes bites you in the butt (I'm looking at you, goblin entrepreneurs).

The difficulty was tuned well for me. There were many save points, and I felt powerful, but at times I had to make sacrifices.

I was worried I'd not have enough time to try all the activities, but ended up circling around and doing a lot over and over again. I didn't experience everything the game has to offer, though, as others have mentioned becoming a demon, and doing different shaman activities, or a quick ending to the game focused on gluttony.

There was no romance, which I didn't really miss (although a few NPCs you meet would make pretty good ROs.).

The writing went beyond basic or perfunctory to be interesting and fun. My life felt epic, and while there wasn't one huge plot arc, each scene was well written and there were many narrative payoffs. The character art was well done, cohesive and fit with the style of the game.

My final ending was pretty great. All in all, this is a good 'meat and potatoes' game for people who like classic fantasy RPGs, gamebooks, or power fantasies.

At over one million words, An Unexpectedly Green Journey has plenty of content which will keep you entertained for a long time. Unlike the traditional linear narratives, this game is more of an open exploration RPG in text form, although there is still something of an overarching plot and a big bad who roams the world.

The writing is smooth and does not get overly wordy, which I like. It packs plenty of action and some humor, although the latter is more of the dark kind and may not appeal to everyone. Your formative years in the game are a little more confined, as you build your stats while getting a slight taste of the world exploration in the game. However, once you grow older, you are ready to explore the world and what it has to offer, while slowly drifting towards a purpose, and maybe destiny. The game does a good job of progressively allowing you more exploration with each stage while slowly nudging you towards picking a path.

There are a few major paths in the game, from being a chieftain, being a shaman, an arena fighter and so on. Of course, you could simply pass the time doing unremarkable things in your orc home, which I suppose can be a valid path too. Some of these paths feel like entire games on their own, with an entire city management system in one of these paths. Still, for negatives, the arena fighter path has a very repetitive and tedious combat system, even with an interesting storyline behind it. My favorite is probably the chieftain path, with a good dose of story and management, right down to an ultimate confrontation with the big bad.

Another note, the game can get tough, in terms of difficulty, especially on first playthroughs. Still, there is a very generous checkpoint system here, which allows you to make saves at different points. Whether you die or reach a good ending, the game will always allow you to load a save. This is an absolute lifesaver, as the lack of saves in most choicescript games has been a source of frustration for me personally.

There were a good number of bugs in the original release, but quite a number have been fixed, and the author also added a substantial bit of extra content by later updates.

There is plenty to explore in this RPG IF, and multiple playthroughs are a must if you want to see most of it. I enjoyed the chieftain route, and I think this game is worth checking out. Still, bear in mind that the content can get dark, so it's not for everyone.