The Cryptkeepers of Hallowford

Not up to the caliber of it's predecessor by a long shot. Choices didn't seem relevant, no way to improve/ alter stat at all, etc... "severely wounded" in every fight without real chance to fight. Ending made any position you held irrelevant.

Not that great. It was quite a disappointment compared to the first. The story seemed rushed and some of the choices and story didn’t even really make sense. I feel like my hero from the original actually got worse as the story went on. It’s a decent story at best but I don’t feel excited about doing many more plays

The writing is good, and I like the plot. HOWEVER, the lack of achievements disturbs me. That’s been a constant for the genre that I miss. Also, there is very little opportunity for leveling up of skills in this one. NOT SUGGESTED UNLESS YOU HAVE PLAYED KENDRICKSTONE!

This is the first book I read by Paul Wang that I really wasn't into. The infinity books are truly some of the best choice/hosted games they have to offer, but this just doesn't cut it, not at all. For me, it felt like a completely different author wrote this one. None of the characters are really that intriguing, the language they talk in is juvenile and it doesn't fit the setting at all. It honestly feels like a high school version of Paul Wang wrote this. Also, there was that one weird non-binary thing going on with one of the characters (can't remember the name). What was that all about? It felt so random and there was even a part where your character can ask about their pronouns, and it just felt so out of place. The first book in this series was decent, but this one really drops the ball for me. I'll give it three stars just because Paul wrote it and I really like all his other stuff and I know this doesn't represent his best writing ability.

TL;DR: Boring story, boring NPCs, the author is capable of so much better—give it a pass. It feels like something took the life out of Choice of Games in 2017, as each new release has either been average your mediocre. Unfortunately, this game is in the latter category. The preceding game in the series, Hero of Kendrickstone, was an average game, but at least it was enjoyable enough for a knockoff Dungeons & Dragons sort of game, had characters that were interesting, a villain with a clear motive, and had a little bit of replayability. This game lacks the positive factors of its predecessor. None of the NPCs are compelling. The PC initially ventures forth with two characters, both of whom if you’re to be trying their best to be annoying. Then, those people disappear never to be seen / heard from again after the first act. There are two other higher level and PCs which more or less lot in after that. One of them is a man from a foreign land who is somewhat compelling. The other is simply predictable, made more so by the fact that he’s the one chosen to be Choice of Games’ token “non binary” character (In a series where romantic relationships have played almost no role so far) who, distractingly, the author insists on describing using the plural pronoun “they”. Look, you can think what you want about gender roles in society, and certainly you can include anything you want in a game you’re writing yourself, but consider that a fantasy story where characters can be metaphysically different from humans, told in a non-visual medium where communication efficiency is key, calling a singular person by a plural pronoun isn’t edgy, it isn’t progressive, it’s just confusing. And in a text adventure, confusing leads to boring. Boring leads to me stopping the game and deleting it from my phone. The game ended pretty quickly, and they don’t appear to be any big moral choices, unless you want your PC to play the “Snively Whiplash cartoony bad guy” path. Bizarrely, the game ask me during my play through whether I wanted to start a “relationship“ with one of the characters....after the crisis had been resolved. Are you kidding me? Starting a romance in the dénouement??!? Was the game intended to be longer but got cut? The game is all the more disappointing, because its author, Paul Wang, has written two of what are arguably the best choice script games of all time: Sabres of infinity and Guns of infinity. (And you should play those, if you haven’t yet.

My book of mad whispers did not carry on from the first installment what was the point in getting the book if I couldn’t use it again?????

This a great second installment in the series. I highly recommend it for fans of Hero of Kendrickstone and of interactive fiction in general. It’s a great traditional dungeon crawl with modern twists.