I was a choose your own adventure kid growing up. Loved those books! Then I got into more D&D ones, that you needed paper and a dice to play. This was way before the days of games you could play on your smart phones. Recently a friend introduced me to the Tell Tale Games company and its line of choice based games. I gotta say they hooked me. I could live in the Game of Thrones Universe, survive in the Walking Dead or even be Batman; needless to say I love games based around my choices. Enter the actual game series Choices by Pixelberry studios.
I will be honest I never would have looked into this series, it, for the most part, looks like High School drama that 14 – 17-year-old girls and maybe some guys would be into. Things like Red Carpet Diaries, Royal Romance, and the Freshman. But for some reason, it kept popping up on my Facebook timeline. So, I gave it a try.
I am a sucker for fantasy so I started that one, The Crown and the Flame. It was surprisingly good. Starts off with a Red Wedding style story and goes from there. I played all three books then tried the cop story Most Wanted. It too was a good story and yes I am actually waiting for the second book. In the horror section, The Haunting of Braidwood Manor was not that great but It Lives in the Woods surprised me. For a teen drama, it was good. Kinda like Riverdale surprised me…..
via youtube.com
I have no idea if your choices actually matter or if the game plays out to the same end either way. I mean a few things do for sure. In each series, you can try some romance. It can clearly change the cutscenes at the end if you choose to pick a man over a woman to be with. But other than the final scenes I do wonder if a smartphone game can be that developed that the end can possibly change.
I have two issues with this series, the first problem is in-game purchases. You are awarded “diamonds” that you can spend on items or extra storylines. You earn these diamonds by finishing chapters. You will never finish enough chapters to get all the extra content. So this “free” game if you really want to play it is going to cost you a bundle since you can buy diamonds if you want. The games are fun but playing the add-ons would really add to it. Second, you can only play two chapters then you have to wait an hour before you can play another. So if you are playing to kill time, this stops you from doing so. Other than that it is a nice little time killer. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised I found a little time waster.
If you were into those choose your own adventure books back in the day, or like TellTale Games maybe give Choices a shot.
