This is one of the most ineptly written things I have ever read. The author's other works are highly rated, so I assume it's more due to inexperience with the genre than anything else, but the fake swear words are annoying, the names of planets and people are thoughtless, crudely generated (example: "Blarfngard", robots come from "Binaria"), and almost literally unbelievable. It reads like a farce or unintentional parody of Choice of Games' titles, and I was very surprised to find out that it wasn't something more akin to "The Naked Gun" than Mass Effect. The "political maneuvering" has more in common with Mad Libs than anything else, given how you're literally presented with a checklist of how to proceed if you want to support one side or another.

Not only that, it reads like an outline that was only fleshed out until the author got bored with the whole endeavour. Not only *that* but it ends on a cliffhanger. I have more objections but my opinion is clear and I want to stop wasting my time with anything related to this game.

This new series... i dont know what to make of it really. It feels far to abstract and pulp sci-fi for my liking. The terms he uses, the world building he has done... it just dosnt work for me. I loved the hero rise series 'a lot', but this new project by Zach is just... well its disappointing.

Story wise its no inspiring at all, and the romance's are simply handed to you, you dont earn them. Far to many muti page narrative dumps, with few choices in between. The whole thing feels padded... with little progress being made. It dosnt feel like anything special happens because my character is one thing or another... at least nothing substantial.

The mechanics for this project are more complex then hero rise, but I don't feel thats a good thing in this case. The stats are presented more as a puzzle for achievement's then as a representation of character development.

The fact this project was designed specificity to run in series has greatly detracted from the quality as it doesn't feel like a complete story has been told... just the beginning. There is no clear beginning, middle, or end... just a beginning, middle, and to be continued. There was no clean or clear cut achievement the main character accomplished to make a conclusion to this first 'chapter'. It just seemed like "Well that seem a good place to stop, time to work one book two.".

Maybe I'm judging this project to harshly based on Zach's past work, but this one has left me disappointed and uninspired. In fact I ended up only lightly skimming and speeding through the final chapter since I had lost so much interest in the choices I was presented. It just didn't feel satisfying.

Take my opinion with a gain of salt though... this story just wasn't my 'thing'. That doesn't mean it won't be yours. Give it a shot if it appeals.

Absolutely the weakest interactive novel from this studio that I've played.

It is more focused on gender issues than plot, and it shows. The Mysterious Alien Being is shown as transgender for no reason at all, with all the pronouns (Hir, Ze etc.) when NOTHING indicates its gender or lack thereof (based off a single short encounter)! We get to know that the main protagonist had "freedom to experience their sexuality without restricting gender roles", that's very profound I think, but boring to mention. I'm to play a game, not entertain in gender studies, thank you. The number of remarks about gender is staggering and off-putting. That's too heavy handed.

Plot... revolves around biggest cliches in SciFi ever. Defend your world from aliens, ok. Standard, but sensible. Go to a planet that holds a mysterious mortal combat tournament between Good and Evil where contestants are from all the galaxy. Now, this is cliche, contrived and childish. There was an old He-Man episode with a similar plot, and it was done better. This is the laziest SF cliche of them all, that allows you to show many alien species and interactions between them without all that pesky world building. Including a map of the planet Versus at one point was a mistake, since the locations made me cringe - single castle, single forest, single range of mountains, single love lake in a shape of a heart... I've read Polish communist children books with better maps than that when I was 8. Either make a good map or no map at all.

We have flashbacks within flashbacks, game mechanics many times rammed in our face, and later, a wonderful option of buying a cheating DLC, forced on us during the actual game in a dialog. Hint: things like that ruin the immersion a bit. Had I wanted to by the DLC I would, now please gently let me play the game I've already bought.

I've enjoyed Choice of the Deathless, Hero of Kendrickstone, Choice of Robots and other games from the same studio. They had good plot or interesting scenery or great character development and often all of those. This one has gender studies instead, and a silly map suited for a children fairy tale, not a SciFi story. And I enjoy GOOD children fairy tales, mind you, but don't you think profound mentions of "sexual experiences not restricted by gender roles" doesn't fit that? Must I tell the author such basics of storytelling, keeping a consistent tone?

Tl;dr; Weak and uninspired, avoid. There are much better games from this studio.

I found this game to be interesting up to the point where they bagan to charge additaonal cash for opening more powers or content in the game play. SO the base price you pay for this interactive story is NOT all you have to pay for for the entire experiance. SOME warning would be nice, before purchasing what I thought was a compleate game. Thought I should post this so some people could know.

It says 123.000 words, of which about 10.000 are proper english.

The unnecessary made up words will make anyone's head spin.

https://xkcd.com/483/

I haven't even made it past the prologue yet, and this is already cringe-inducingly deep into the right side of that graph.

I had to stop when I got to the part where my WorningBird told me to destroy the Blots' mindhearts by blowing up their blacknamel tusks.

If you can look past that, the premise seems interesting enough, but I won't bother going any further.

A lot of text dumps with made up words followed by a choice that usually doesn't lead anywhere. Pretty disappointing.

Also I should mention that in the middle of the game it pulls a Dragon Age: Inquisition and asks you to purchase DLC to gain an upper hand.

I'm having a hard time deciding if I'm going to recommend this or not. I enjoyed the lore and most of the characters but it was disjointed at times and the game was very judgy about certain choices you made in a way I didn't appreciate at all. For example: It pretty much tells you you're shallow for not wanting to sleep with a character who tells you they're packing something other than you might expect (and you can't even outright reject them after this for some reason).

Some of the made-up terms were also very confusing and I felt like there was a lot of characters we didn't get to know properly. I suppose we'll see more of them in the sequel (if I decide to buy it, that is).

It's very cheap, but so are the other COG games. I would spend my money on one of their other games.

Wouldn't recommend at all. The first hour or so is spent on nothing but throwing made up names at you and very abstract poorly explained sci-fi things. The story can't move forward because they constantly try and fail to explain things like some kind of a Communist society where everyone is forced to think and feel the same and everything being made of mirrors as a metaphor...because. It doesn't explain what species the main character is supposed to be, what kind of a planet they are on or anything of that sorts.
It's simply weird and not very coherent. Almost as if this all was randomly generated.
They use made up pronouns like ''ze'' and it comes off incredibly forced. As if they have some sort of a mandatory tumblr propaganda quota to fulfill. Weird pronouns - check. All soldiers are female - check. Men are medics - check. Socialist themes - check. It's another one of these.

This novel was a fantastic read for anyone who enjoys alot of backstory ,which will keep you hooked for hours. I would like to see the rest of the books to come out as there are so many questions i am dieing to find an answer to.