Cliffhanger: Challenger of Tomorrow

Just finished it today. Here are my thoughts: Elements I adored: The writing itself. Wow, William sure can turn a phrase! I really enjoyed how he described the action, the settings, etc. You can tell he’s put his work in strengthening his craft. The richness of the world. Talk about a fully-developed universe! I can’t imagine how much mental energy William put into world-building for this game, like seriously I can’t imagine. I’d conservatively estimate that one could spin off an entirely new game from any of over 100 references he makes to different individuals, settings, ideas, phrases, etc. I kept thinking, “Oh that’s a cool premise!” “Oh that is a really neat idea!” The tone. I knew I loved the tone just from reading the Prologue. I even loved the little commercial snippets between Chapters. It really made reading this a memorable experience. The MC. My MC was awesomesauce; I felt like I had a rich backstory and wasn’t just some newb young person. Elements that I didn’t enjoy as much: The number of characters. I just found the dozens and dozens of introduced characters as overwhelming. I know this type of pulpy story is going to focus more on action and a fast pace, both of which I liked, but I feel like the story almost totally sacrificed character development at the altar of action and plot. Honestly, I didn’t care about a single NPC because I didn’t get to know anyone in any substantive way. There was a lot of telling versus showing. There were a lot of info-dumps about lots of places, people and things, many which were rarely, if ever, mentioned again. Many times I felt like the story was telling me things instead of my character experiencing them. And many of these paragraphs were loooooong. IMO, the story would have been stronger with fewer characters and fewer locales, and more dialogue and character development. Overall, I would recommend “Cliffhanger,” especially to those who love action and tons of MC-customization, and I’d rate it a 8.0.

I can see what the author was going for and why most people might like it. It has fast cuts and keeps the cliffhangers coming nonstop. It also plays to the spy-fi superhero crowd. What I found jarring was that too much of a good thing turned it terrible. The characters just kept being introduced non-stop. Every few pages, a couple of new characters and factions are introduced until the whole thing becomes a mess. A first draft with potential. Probably needed a firm editor to step in.

Honestly, I'd recommend this just for the fact that somebody actually understood Casablanca and wrote Rick and Louis the retirement they deserve. I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to throw a Nazi through a propeller... and that's really just about my only complaint. And was probably the result of my choices. The pacing can be a bit weird, and it drags a bit around the 2/3 mark, but it perfectly delivered the globetrotting two-fisted Nazi-punching dieselpunk pulp adventure I was promised. And the Rocketeer jet pack as optional equipment. Other things worth mentioning: The breadth of some of the choices is kind of shocking. It looks like some of the scenes have extremely high variability, though I've not replayed yet to see. (My play time is wrong, it's only ~6 hours.) The skills system actually makes sense, which can rarely be said for these games. And there's a really interesting global resource mechanic, in addition to the usual stat/personality combination you see in these, where your choices change the state of the world (e.g. degree of freedom of the press) and these can later come back to help you.

如同作者说的一样，复古未来主义风，科技点歪了喂。主角设定是个特工，不知道为什么玩着玩着就开始想要播放Mission impossible的主题曲。作者会在中间插播30年代的那种广告，还挺搞笑的说实话。文笔还是不错的，有一种Indiana Jones的感觉，一边冒险一边打nazi

Really good really gay

我得说我才刚完成了第一轮游戏。 首先我非常喜欢作者的写作风格，有趣的设定，通过一些我们熟知元素的组合，加上部分科幻幻想，形成了故事里独特的世界。每个章节之间的广告是我比较中意的部分，还有章节结尾总结，我几乎能听到它们以老电影旁白的语调读出来。整个故事是一个影片一样的故事情节，一步一步引导主角到达故事结尾。当然我希望能有更多的参与度。 有一些不太满意的地方我不得不提，故事里身为主角的你有一个团队在你身边，甚至需要招募一些形形色色的帮手，可惜的是我并没有通过剧情很好的了解他们，剧情中MC和每个单独角色直接的对话和互动很少，使我很难深入了解一个人物。 就我的第一轮游戏来看，似乎并没有什么浪漫路线，可能由于是我对游戏简介中第三条错误的理解，总之我仍然会在接下里的游戏中继续进行更多的尝试。 还有就是关于游戏中MC的属性数值，它们变动很少（现在我猜测，可能是因为zeta射线的关系，在故事开始时我们的MC已经成长的足够强大了LOL） ，这和我其他玩过的text-based游戏不太一样，以至于我一直以为还在整个故事进行的前期。 PAST,PRESENT&FUTURE和FRIENDS,FOES&SIDEKICKS下的数值，即使是我完成游戏了，他们仍然只有很少的变化，通常在其他同类型游戏中， 他们的增减是很显而易见的。 总的来说我还是很喜欢这款游戏，它是一个吸引我去读的故事，我觉得作者是找对创作方向的，我很期待之后会有什么样的作品：） 以下是通过翻译软件的评价，因为我英语很烂但还是想为其他人提供参考。 The following is the evaluation by translation software, because my English is POOR but I still hope to provide references for the others. I have to say I just finished my playthrough. First of all, I really like the author's writing style and interesting settings. Through the combination of some familiar elements and some science fiction fantasy, the unique world in the story is formed. The ads between each chapters were my favorite, and the chapter summaries, which I could almost hear read out in the voice of an old movie narrator.It's a cinematic storyline that leads the characters step by step to the end of the story. But of course I would like to be more involved. There are some places i am not satisfied I have to mention,that in the story as a leader you have a team around you, even need to recruit some kinds of help, it's a pity I didn't know them well through plots.Direct dialogues and interaction plots of MC and each individual characters are very little, it's hard for me to understand a person. From my first through, it didn't seem like there was a romantic route, but I'll continue to try more in future, probably because of my misunderstanding of the 3rd one of the introduction. Also regarding the stats of MC's in the game, they didn't change very much (now I'm guessing, probably due to zeta rays, our MC had grown strong enough at the beginning of the story LOL), which was so different from other text-based games I've played that I always thought it was early in the story. For PAST,PRESENT&FUTURE and FRIENDS,FOES&SIDEKICKS, even after I finished the game, they still changed very little, and usually in other games of the same genre, their increase or decrease is very noticeable. Overall I like the game a lot, it's a story that appeals to me to read, I think the author is on the right track and I'm looking forward to what comes next :)

13/10 game lets me be OP and bully nazis

I highly recommend this adventure to anyone who enjoys getting into the heat of the situation and calling all the shots! Its an amazing tale that takes not only history as we know it, but legends and myths we have all heard about, and spins them into something at once recognizable and yet completely new. You will constantly be making choices while confronted with situations that are utterly familiar, in settings that remain completely relatable, while obviously not being the from the world as you know it. Its a high adventure romp that none the less still has the Player making some tough moral choices. Best part imho being that even though the "story" is to be continued in another book, This story wraps its self up nicely. Every plot point gets resolved, in a way that is very satisfying. For anyone looking for a downside to this, the only thing I could think of would be that there really isnt any romance routes to speak of (or some how i never managed to find one.) This was a bit surprising, as the other CYOA game the author released here on Steam did have LIs to get involved with, but they were not very in depth. I had hoped maybe this game would have seen an improvement in the writers ability to handle them, but alas as far as I can tell they just opted out on that front. (if in subsequent play throughs I discover that I had just missed them somehow I'll edit this review accordingly) All in all I still think this is one of the best releases I have read this year on Steam, and if your into Action Adventures as well, you will not be disappointed.

This was a fun read. Good story and a vibrant world. Playing the Mc was also quite enjoyable as the choices given made me feel like my character truly deserved their status as such a well known figure, i.e, they made you feel powerful and competent. I did find however, that some choices are just glorified next page buttons. Which isn't a bad thing most of the time, as long as the immersion isn't broken but some you could clearly tell the text you got immediatly after was meant for any choice you had picked. I know there's limitations but I think a sentence or two would've fixed these situations. Nevertheless I don't think that's big enough of an issue for me to say it breaks the whole game.