TL;DR: A fun run for $5, with good replay value.

I feel like I've got a bit of an obligation as the first reviewer to give more detail than I typically would otherwise.  I initially read Wizard's Choice (and other Delight Games content) on their mobile platform a while ago, so just know going in that the story content itself isn't new to me.  I've also been in touch with the dev team in the past and they've been very responsive, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to support the game here on Steam.  (Also note that my gameplay time doesn't reflect the time it takes to complete the game, which should take you about as long as it takes to read a fantasy novel cover to cover, each playthrough.)

If you aren't aware already, this game takes the form of a book with illustrations and branching choices.  Not a visual novel, but a book, with choices made to affect the outcomes of specific scenes.  It reads like a well-spun D&D campaign, with plenty of action, occasional silliness, and a dark atmosphere.

Delight Games stories are consistently solid, and they typically have a more tactical element to them than other interactive fiction games.  Wizard's Choice is no exception.  This is rooted in the stats that are tracked throughout each chapter, which function as both resources to enable specific choices as well as your final score for the chapter.  Sure, you can spam fireballs to get through things if you want, but ultimately you're going to run out of mana, and once that happens, you're going to have to get pretty crafty to stay alive.  However, the start of each chapter brings your stats back to default so you don't have to worry about whether you're going to mess up the whole book by being trigger-happy in the first few scenes.  

You will encounter situations where choices don't pan out the way you hoped or expected, and things sometimes happen to your character that you have no control over.  Personally, I think this is a point in the game's favor.  You make the best decision you can based on the information you have available and how badly you need to ration your stats.  This approach also ensures that the game doesn't force you to make every. single. choice. for your character.  

There are illustrations every few pages, and overall the UI is simple, but works.  The graphic effects may be distracting to some, but having come from the plain text version before, I find that I prefer the Steam copy.  

"What smart choices will u make to stay alive?"

DnD Adventure: Wizard's Choice is a super well written text based game from the Developer, CCS. Story written by Sam Landstrom.

You play a wizard in this interactive novel set in a medieval fantasy world. Stay alive, manage your spell power, find treasure, and smite evil. Wizard's Choice is a series of RPG interactive novels that will engross you in a story while allowing you to make the decisions that will determine your fate. What will your fate be? Will it be a happy ending?

All 6 episodes are included for 20+ hours of adventure at a super low price. Manage your resources wisely. U have Life, Mana, Gold and Morale. Of course u can spam fireballs if u want but sooner or later u are going to run out of Mana. Then u will have to be pretty damn clever to stay alive. Luckily, at the start of each chapter, brings back your full stats. Earn a score at the end of each chapter.

Pros:

* 20+ Hrs of Addicting Gameplay
* All 6 Episodes are Included
* 12 Steam Achievements
* Beautiful Illustrations
* Excellent Music
* 8 Fonts to choose. Font Size, Screen Luminosity and Scroll Speed without Restarting
* Auto and Cloud Saves: Restart where u Stopped from any of your Devices.
* Available for PC/Mac/Linux.

Cons:

* None that I found

Final Thoughts:

An incredible and surreal journey I have experienced by reading this story. Truly one of the best RPG stories I have ever read. Well worth the $5 price that includes all 6 episodes. On sale for a few more days so pick it up NOW! U won't regret it.

Rating: 4.7/5

This review was submitted for Elite Giveaways, where every game deserves a review.
Follow our Curator.

Appears to be a CYOA with game-book mechanics (like Lone Wolf series), but it plays more like a Visual Novel style game. You are given three choices, with choice A giving a small benefit, choice B giving no benefit, and choice C resulting in a resource penalty, but they all advance the story to the next page. It's all trial and error to find the a path that will not end the progression because of resource depletion. Then, it's back to the beginning of the story again, to try different choices that successfully end of the chapter. How many times are you going to re-read the same first chapter story, recording your previous choice outcomes on some paper, so you can try to access the next chapter. For me, that number was two. The game designers should have added something to help with this boring task - like a save system or in-game record of choice outcomes.

This is a pretty good "choose-your-own-adventure" book, in computer form. The story is well written, and the music and artwork are pretty good. It has a bit less divergence in storylines than I might choose, but at least this way I'm not too worried about missing large pieces of plot. The health/mana/gold resources are a clever idea, allowing various combinations of bad choices before the player loses. The challenge is well constructed, and a player can avoid most of the bad decisions with critical thinking and reading carefully.

On Linux, there is a bug where the cursor renders at a massive size, but it doesn't detract much from the game and frankly I'm just happy to have another linux-compatible game.

updated: 10/7/2022 after i was informed this content isnt appropriate for ages which its writing is geared toward

The writing style is appropriate geared toward for 8-11 year old's a young child's mentality. It will not entertain an adult mind for long. But I've been told the game contains adult-thematic material, so this game may not be appropriate for ages its writing seems to match.

There is only an allusion of choice. This is not a pick your own adventure book where the story changes based on your choices. rather, if you do not make the appropriate choice, you receive a ding to stats and the story continues down the same linear path, even going expressly against your decision, if need be, in order to do it.

If you're familiar with choose-your-own-adventure books, you know that a choice will send you to entirely different pages of the book where the story is entirely different from where you were. That is not this book, and this game's page on steem is deceptive in portraying it as such. For that reason, I must sadly give it a thumbs down; even tho this would be an adequate game for younger kids. especially since the content rating doesn't necessarily match the writing mentality.

If they market this as an appropriate for 9-12 year olds, and remove the 'choose your own adventure' and 'choices matter' tags and related language in the description that suggests these things, then I perhaps wouldn't thumbs down. But then I'd not have bought it. And that's the point, they want to misrepresent this to make sales. if they didn't market it as CYOA & choices matter and told you it's writing style was geared toward kids < 12 yo was like what you'd expect for a book for 12 year old's, they wouldn't get as many sales.

Again, if you're an adult you won't find this content satisfying. It didn't even scratch my nostalgia itch as it is no-choice and all force-you-against-your-choices because they can't be bothered to write different story arcs for the user's choices. I didn't play long bcus nearly every choice I made was the wrong choice and it forced me down the opposite path instead, in direct opposition to my choice.

Reminds me of the books i played as a kid !

Super well written and has a variety of options to customize the reading experience with fonts, size etc.

Can't wait to continue the story.

This is a preliminary review as I haven't finished the game, but the Autumn Sale ends in a few hours, and as I nominated this game, I need this review for my badge. That being said, this isn't really a "Choose Your Own Adventure" game in the traditional sense, in that you don't get choices like "You encounter a man in the road. You can 1) approach him or 2) move to France." This is much more on rails, such as "You encounter a monster on the road. You can 1) hit him with your left fist or 2) hit him with your right fist." Or "You can attack with 1) your dagger or 2) a magic spell of Pointius Daggerius." I understand the benefits of this approach: the author only has to write one story, not 64 or 128 or 256 stories depending on your choices, but it means there's no replay factor unless you're trying to improve your score.

Note, this contains some spoilers.

So, the tags for this game seem to be incorrect. Choices do not matter, except that some insta-kill you. There seems to be no possible change in the outcome of the story. Large parts of chapter 2 seem entirely pointless for instance as whatever you do there doesn't matter. Also, I was promised "play as a wizard", not "play as a demon-possessed vampire". Since I have no real interest in the latter, and since the only alternative to this was not playing the game, I chose to not keep playing the game. Unfortunately, by the time I had gotten to the whole vampiric demon possession thing, I had played for three hours, so over the regular 2 hour refund limit. So if you don't think that would be something you want to play, I suggest not even starting.

This is one of the best games I have ever played.

It has rekindled something within me, I've been spoiled by modern games that I sometimes don't feel like I enjoy them anymore.... but this game showed me I still love playing.

It made me recall the past by making sure not to make a mistake or make a great trade with the mistake, to think twice and sometimes in advance on what my decisions will cost, to balance my supplies and to take necessary risks.

But most of all, despite losing over and over again, to continue and play until the end!

I can't wait for more of your games, and thank you, for allowing me to enjoy a game just like that of when I wsa a kid.

An excellent game that keeps the narrative tension high, the boilerplate background low, and the excitement throughout this excellent 6 volume DnD styled Wizard focused Adventure for the Ages. The only minor negative is a few minor typos inside several of the tool-tips that will no doubt be cleaned up in a future patch or update as an aside to an excellently written and exciting old-school pleasing DnD Adventure game.

You should definitely pick up this game and try it out for yourself.