Wayhaven Chronicles: Book One

I’ve purchased 13 COG’s in total and out of all of them this is my favorite. I loved getting to know all of the characters and was drawn to all of their unique history. I would have to say my biggest complaint is having to wait for the next game! I’ve never been so addicted to a COG like this before! I have replayed this game 6 times and there’s always something new I find out! What makes this COG so unique from those in the same genre is that this one has replay value. Generally, games of this nature are boring after the first play-through, but not this one! I’ve been playing for hours and find myself still enjoying the game and becoming totally immersed in the story all over again. I’d say my favorite thing about this game is the romance. It’s not a rushed experience. Your character is slowly building trust with your romantic partner. The main character has four romantic pursuits to choose from. All of the characters are unique and have something special to offer the main character. I’ve done multiple play-throughs making sure to choose a new partner each time. They are all very unique and interact differently. I never felt like the author copy and pasted the same generic dialog for the romantic partners. Every character is special and you learn something new through all of them. I would highly recommend this game to any COG fan.

i love interactive fiction and the number one factor in whether an IF story is actually good or not is its replayability. this one is definitely replayable, with modifications to different scenes based on your choices - sometimes much later in the book, so that you have reason to keep reading instead of just skimming and choosing the answers on your playthroughs. however, this means there's much more time being spent with the writing as a reader and the reason i have to take a star off is because with these replays i've realized the writing isn't as polished as i'd expect it to be given that there is a copy editor listed in the credits. it doesn't take away from the overall game and i still loved the story and the worldbuilding within it, but as a writer and editor myself i would much rather see more sentence flow revision and proofreading for a paid and completed app. the proofreading errors are minimal, the sort i would expect from any published text, though! my issue stems primarily from the reading experience. some of the phrasing and the paragraph structure makes the writing lose clarity; or worse, it jolts you out of the story in confusion until you reread enough to understand what was happening in the scene. these are very minor complaints about a great game though, and i want to emphasize that! i really did enjoy it, and i'm looking forward to future books in the series.

I don’t normally write reviews, but I had to just for this book. I’ve been a big fan of the choice driven stories for a long time. I admit to having just about every book on their list. This book, which by the way I’m glad is part 1, I’m looking forward to multiple entries to this amazing story, is by far my favorite. The way the story engages you and puts you in the perspective of just about every character is really well thought out. Instead of just a one sided perspective throughout the book, you get different ones, allows the reader to get personal with each scene or character. The back and forth between scenes, how some were happening side by side, made every part of the story full. It was like watching a movie, and I didn’t want it to end. I highly recommend getting this book, well worth the price, and highly replay-able. Can’t wait for the next one!!

I have follow through the development of the game since it was introduced and have played the demo more times than I can count. Glad to know that the end product did NOT disappoint. I’ll definitely replay this game lots of time. Aside from the nice pacing of the plot and the variety in choices, I cannot stop gushing over the love interest of the game. The characters are not one-dimensional which have always been an important aspect to a story in every medium whether it’s a book, tv show or movie. The little tidbits while romancing them gives us readers hints of the character’s true personality or personal growth which would be intriguing to explore in the future. It helps immensely that the game is about slow burn romance rather than a fast paced ‘wham! bam! thank you ma’am!’ romance. That said, I definitely look forward to the second installment of the game.

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The plot and concepts of the story are really great, and I found very few grammatical errors. However, it is almost solely focused on the romantic aspects of the story, and it is rather predictable. The style feels a bit juvenile as well. For the most part, you don’t see very much development of other characters outside of their relationship with the MC, which was disappointing since several of the characters have potential to be developed in some interesting ways. In this sense, it also seems sort of self-indulgent and shallow, since all of the characters’ worlds seem to revolve around the MC. It’s a very romantic damsel-in-distress type of setting, with every character either unrealistically fawning over or hating the MC. And we don’t see very much of a reason why the antagonist does what he does. Still, I loved the world that the author created, and would like to see more of that. There are just multiple things that could use more thought and development, as well as emotional maturity.