The Game of Fourtune

This is quite a long game, so firstly I will say in my opinion, it's worth the price. I'm around halfway through the game at the time of writing (updated review at the bottom!). The character writing shines in this game. The characters all feel multifaceted and unique from one another, even in such a large cast. And the overall premise of the story is a cool idea. I feel like its potential is being explored well, with many different possibilities for what could happen inside and outside a death game. I wanted to specifically mention the many rounds of games that the characters play, which is a big part of the story. Some of them feel like solving a puzzle by trying to analyze them and make the correct choice, which I have enjoyed. So far they feel varied enough that I haven't gotten tired of them. Overall, the writing is engaging to me. I have played other games that felt needlessly wordy, or where I just wanted to skip ahead to the good parts...for the most part, this game doesn't feel like that to me, it doesn't feel like a slog. Instead it has felt like sitting down for the evening to continue a long book that I keep wanting to come back to. A downside is maybe the ability to freely choose which route you go on. It's a cool idea in theory, but there were some big reveals that I felt would have been much cooler and more effective if I had played the game in a different order. Still, this hasn't ruined the experience for me. So far different reveals are distributed between routes enough that I don't think I will run out of things to theorize about. I will update my review once I finish the game, but I'm enjoying it so much so far and wanted to leave a review now since it's going to take me awhile to get to the end. EDIT: Finally finished the game. I loved it a lot, it has definitely turned into one of my top favorites. I still agree with most of what I said above. The character writing truly stands out. I ended up liking characters that I hadn't previously liked. I thought the story was explored so well. I thought the ending was quite satisfying. I did run into a few points where I wanted to just skip ahead to something more exciting, but thankfully that didn't happen too much. So overall I thought it was great, I'm super happy that I played it.

A wonderful game with a wonderful cast, and of course lots of wonderful games! having followed the game since it's very demo and early access releases, it's amazing to see it finally completed. I was a big fan then and am even a bigger fan now. I loved the characters, games, and story!

6/10. Game is worth a pickup but is far from the likes of 999 or, more recently, Zodiac Trial, which it shares a similar setting with. The game starts off slow and remains slow throughout a majority of the game. The reader (and ingame characters) are very quickly informed that physical repercussions within the game do not carry consequences. This removes the element of danger or urgency which makes visual novels in such settings so gripping. Character development is weak. While each character has their own ending (and thus the opportunity to flesh out their personality), this develops in a disjointed fashion. This flaw is perhaps caused by how early and widely the game's flowchart branches. For example, ending A gives person A a full and developed personality. However, once the player finishes this ending and starts on person B's character arc, person A's supposed rich personality does not continue in its development - it simply stops there as though person A's arc was isolated and non-compounding. This makes for a bland cast and the fate of the characters inconsequential. Choices in this game are inconsequential. This is not an issue in itself, and many extremely successful visual novels are linear. However, the developers could have, instead of giving the illusion of choice, fully embraced the linearity of their visual novel. For example, having had certain character paths remain locked until prior information is obtained or other storylines are done. This would have allowed the plot to develop incrementally and in a fuller fashion. Overall, 6/10. I enjoyed the read and laud the effort.

The game is entirely set as a visual novel with a Zero Escape-esque flowchart. You will need to work your way through 4 games up to 16 different endings, and certain key choices set you onto whichever path - and some other choices kill you flat out. The writing is pretty good, and depending on the order you do things in you'll be left with more questions than answers. That said about the writing, while they've been making fixes over time, there's still some really odd moments of grammar that happen. It's especially noticeable the further you get on particular routes. All that said, if you're looking for a game of choices and different endings to work towards, then consider giving Game of Fourtune a shot. You can check out my (in progress) playthrough on YouTube for an idea of how it goes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGG8_9Thpy4Ks1ZiZwN6i7plKSovMqZda

A really enjoyable game that's unfortunately a bit under the radar. The game is very similar to Zero Escape or general Zero Escape like games, so I'd definitely reccommend this for anyone looking for something that falls in that category. Positives: - Long game time (~50h for me) - A lot of different death games which are (almost all) very enjoyable to read. And with a lot, i actually mean a lot (about 40-50). The shortest of them take about 10min., while longer ones can even take longer than an hour. And may even have multiple paths in them. The amount of work for these games is insane. - A interesting set of characters that all feel different - A lot of choices - Nice ingame sprites - Interesting story - great scriptwriting - At the end, how to get remaining CGs and achievements is actually highlighted in the flowchart, which i found positively surprising. That way one doesn't have to search for guides or just randomly try out things Negatives: - The flowchart can be almost completely explored from the beginning and i felt that choosing certain routes sometimes spoiled things from another route. I personally think there should have been some more story locks, but maybe that's just my opinion - From my personal opinion, a lot of the CGs don't look that great - or at least the characters look kind of different from the ingame sprites. I wished the CGs would be a bit closer to the ingame sprites (at least for some of them) - The story is pretty good, but it's not absolutely amazing. There could have been a bit more twists in my opinion. A lot of things were kind of predictable (and they are even more predictable if you choose specific endings first)

I came into this game, hoping to find some kind of hidden gem of a death game. I'm sorry to say that isn't what I ended up finding. First of all, this game is...long. Absurdly so. I did not expect to get a 56 hour game, and admittedly, I should have checked some of the reviews' playtimes. But this game takes a very long time to play. Given there's 16 routes to go through, plus everything else, it ends up being a lot. However, paradoxically, despite it taking a long time, not as much happens as you'd think. I'm not sure how to phrase it, it's like the plot is rushing from game to game, and yet it's still meandering at the same time. Certain interactions end up being shallow, and not that interesting, leaving me to focus on the overall plot. Which is...fine, but there's a lot of issues with it. I'm not going to spoil anything in this review, but it feels as if the game doesn't have a very mature take on the story it's trying to tell. It hints at larger ideas, but explores very few of them. This is a grey plot put under a very black and white lens. It certainly doesn't help that certain conclusions are contradictory, damning some characters for much lesser actions than what people they support have done. The characters are an extremely mixed bag. Don't get me wrong, I like Clyde and Devon. There's a number of other characters in the cast that I enjoyed as well. But rarely do any of them feel fully explored to their natural conclusion, and the plot seems to think certain characters are more interesting than they actually are. Certain characters get a lot more focus than others without the game actually realizing it, and I don't feel that the writing ability is able to carry what it's trying to do. Some characters that I love are thrown side by the plot, some EXTREMELY harshly, while there is at least one character that I truly despise that the game seems to hold up as its darling. The antagonists in this game are barely explored at all, leaving the conflict as...weak, despite that being the main motivation for a large portion of the cast. It's bizarre to me that there's better games, able to be played much more quickly than this one, that are deeper and have better dialogue than this. it achieves less in more time than its contemporaries. While the game goes on tangents, in a Zero Escape-esque way, they're only sometimes compelling. The gameplay also leaves a lot to be desired. In this game, you will be "playing" well over 50 different games. Many of these games are VERY shallow, and worse, many of them are very blatantly stolen or ripped off from other sources. All of these games function roughly the same on your end, picking VN choices. It's a Renpy game, after all, and there's not really much in the way of strong gameplay. Some of these games are interesting, and more are interesting in theory, and I won't say that I didn't have fun with certain ones. But it just ended up being way too much. I wish that they'd been able to hone in on a few good games with more compelling gameplay, than a large swathe of different games of varying quality. It's a visual novel, I get it, but there's other visual novels out there that at least break up the novel portions with something to keep the mind fresh, like Danganronpa's trials and cases, or Zero Escape's escape rooms, or Your Turn to Die's point and click adventure puzzles. This game really needed something fresh gameplay wise like that, so I could better engage my brain. I feel like I could only engage with the games on a certain level that left me longing. There's also more nitpicky things, such as the wrong music tracks playing in certain times (certain "game explanation" segments just flat out had the wrong music playing for no discernible reason), as well as numerous art flaws that make the game visually unappealing at times. I'm not going to be harsh, I know how hard it is to get a good art team, but there's a number of styles in this game, which end up visually conflicting at many times, and not all styles are created equal. It also doesn't help that they seem to have misspent their CG and background budget, as certain backgrounds get reused to an absurd degree, while other backgrounds get a single use. It lets SOME moments have their own identities, but the more reused a setting or background gets, the more muddled the scenes that involve it get, making things all over the place. I don't mind that backgrounds were reused, I just believe they could have spent their CG and background budget way better than they actually did. The sprites are also questionable. While I won't doubt a certain visual quality, every character gets a single pose, and nothing more. Sometimes their arms and hands may move, and sometimes they have different expressions. But it's not very appealing to look at, multiple poses would have kept things more visually interesting and fresh, but instead, the game has to rely on making someone's sprite grow whenever they're talking, which looks...incredibly strange when it happens. Funnily enough, this game also shoots itself in the foot structurally. The key, foundational problem with this split path visual novel game is that it's a VERY BAD split path visual novel game. While they have a very limited understanding that a story can't be told in ANY order, even if the format of that story is through multiple timeline...well, I'll be vague to avoid spoilers, but there's a narrative element that's constant throughout this game that repeatedly, and effectively, spoils many moments in other routes. If you're unlucky, you can have a MASSIVE portion of the game's events spoiled to you if you play routes in the wrong order. Worse yet, the worst possible route to start with has a very high chance of being stumbled across, as it's roughly 25% odds to encounter, given you only make two VERY early choices that set you on that route for good, with no splits before the end. This killed the game's tension for me, as well as the fact that the game follows a very rigid formula. Once you've played two or three routes, you'll quickly pick up on this formula, and every route after that becomes painfully obvious, with an outcome that's been decided well before it happens, killing most of the tension. Ultimately? I seriously cannot recommend this game to anyone. There are far better visual novels out there, and there are far better death game visual novels out there. $25 may theoretically be good money for this game, given that equates to $0.50 an hour, roughly, or even cheaper, these were not good hours. It's a shallow game that takes way too long to get to the point, and it doesn't have much to say on its own, being creatively bankrupt in many areas. This game has both bored and infuriated me to the point that I've felt the desire to do something I've never done before: create a video essay complaining about it. Maybe if I get to that, I'll be able to articulate my thoughts better than in this review. But for those looking at this game to give it a try: if you're really, REALLY curious, see if there's a playthrough on YouTube, or see if this game is on sale. I've warned you about what you're getting into, this game has a lot of glut to it, without much to give to the player in return. I do not see what the other reviewers see in it, this is far and away not worth your time.

Nice Visual Novel of death game/detective mystery genre. Quite long and event-heavy, but never boring, graphomaniac or character-dead like some other titles (Sekimeiya, I look at you). Still, not without problems (and without any actual gameplay aside of choices), but as "clean" VN it's probably best western title of year which does not use erotics or pornography to get more sales from teenagers. Pros: - 16 players + goddess Bell + bunch of flashback persons = all quite unique, standing out characteristically-wise and design-wise (if they are shown graphically). On start I had some problems with remembering names and professions, but addition and filling of profiles menu solved that easily, especially after few big updates to them. All main heroes are round and have their own moments or even evolution of character after specific events in specific routes. They are also diverse not only in gender and behavior, but also age, ideology and experience - much like Zero Escape or Umineko, which are more grown-up (to some extent) than Danganronpa or Higurashi. Cast and their stories are best thing of this visual novel. - Many-many different games, ranging from death-inducing adaptations of tabletops or Mario Party minigames to sadistic challenges of physical and mental fortitude of participants. You never really know what awaits you, one time you play animals surviving in some sort of tundra, other time you play card game in casino, then you race for your life, etc. - Helpful flowchart to navigate in all this mess, which becomes more and more useful with new updates from devs. - Bell breaks fourth wall sometimes... no, it's not a spoiler and it's not something DDLC-like. You get tutorial about flowchart and profiles from her and also she comments on most good endings. It also helps to give this visual novel some "flavor". - Great music. Jeff Penny really kills it with cool Ace Attorney and Zero Escape vibes tracks. - Quite a lot of CGs to go with story, some games even have their rules present in funny and well-designed way. Cons: - Despite mostly good work of all artists, some translations between BGs, sprites and CGs are quite... problematic. It's much better than blurry sheety photoshop images from Zodiac Trial for example, but it's not much about quality per se, but divergence between images of persons during different CGs and sprites. I understand that artists were to be busy and much more expensive to hire for making all CGs in same style, so it's sorta of small con, tolerable because because of indie dev. - Final endings are lacking some sort of fanfare or unique vibe to them. They feel like just another deadly game of sorts. To be fair, most mystery visual novels or ADV games are having exact same problem. - In same vein, some story threads feel somewhat unfinished and left for adressing in possible sequels/spin-offs/incoming epilogues (there are two in current version at moment of review writing). - Because in this setting magic is present, some feel of "Deus Ex Machina" (literally!) is unavoidable Vary: - Personally game felt somewhat paradoxical due to mix of "sterile" feel of VLR or Gnosia, but also "uptune" feel of Danganronpa or Umineko. There is not much blood, in CGs or such. There are descriptions of people dying in unexpected, creepy, even funny ways, but without some graphics to go by sense of conflict similar to DR's execution scenes is gone. But it may be my inner sadist, masochist or dentist to ask more blood for sake of it's own satisfaction. - VN feels... "too american"? Characters discuss things in not-metering system, mention US states like it's common knowledge (for them surely, for reader from other countries though...), most show great knowledge of poker rules from heart and mention gun safety like they were all teached of it during their childhood. Not without some self-irony, but still. - Some achievements are way too "guide dang it!", which also complements variety in how each mini-game could unfold. - Enjoying this VN is question of how much you like balance between unique story and parade of references to other titles. - Longivity. I have spent nearly 60-64 hours on this VN (time here + one and half of route in itch demo). If you are not maniac or fanatic of VN-type of storytelling and/or "death game" genre, you should really question yourself - do you want to spend few days of your life time on reading cool story with great characters, but made mostly for very specific type of reader with very specific preferences and knowledge of titles? Buy this game only if your answer is "yes".

[H1]Fortune Smile Upon You[/H1] An excellent visual novel, with extensive route branching, a wonderful cast of friends and foes, and some serious writing chops. I was surprised by the legitimacy and grounding of a lot of this content given the supernatural elements of the plot. This is still an independent visual novel, gameplay is achieved by making choices rather than full fledged minigames, but it's a spectacular example of what VNs can do. Hard to hold 'the type of game we made' against the studio, especially since unique gameplay for each game within the plot would be rediculous to impliment. Looking forward to what comes next!

The character writing is great, the overall plot is compelling, and the games themselves have plenty of replayability given the amount of branching in them. The only real complaint is that going through certain routes early on can end up spoiling you on other routes, and could remove a lot of suspense from the story.

Long review incoming. [b]TL;DR[/b] This is definitely worth playing if you like a story with a lot of interconnected story routes and/or death games. Just recognize that it had a small team and budget and will be a bit simpler than heavy hitters like The Nonary Games or Danganronpa, and you'll find a fun and charming game with a well executed story. [hr][/hr] [i]Note:[/i] I originally played the game demo from itch.io, so my full playtime to completion is not reflected. It should have about 10-15 hours additional added. Most of these are for full completion of the game, with about 4-5 hours spent getting missed CGs and achievements, viewing optional bad endings, and checking alternate dialogue paths. While the premise of "death game" is pretty familiar to VN players, The Game of Fortune definitely puts its own spin on things and overall does a good job of carving out its own identity. I won't spoil plot details, but I will say that each of the cast of 16 has a full route to themselves, and each one does a good job of building them up. You may not walk away loving or respecting every character, but in every case you will come out understanding why they are the way they are, and how they fit in the overall narrative. I very much enjoyed watching the full picture come together playing through each route. Some plot points did feel a bit obvious to me, while others were definitely effective twists. A big worry with a cast size this big is that some characters will end up feeling unimportant, or their connection to the overall narrative feels contrived. I think that is mostly avoided here. Some characters are certainly less important overall to the greater narrative, but all of them still have a part to play and there's no cases where I feel like a character shouldn't have been there. I definitely recommend reading through the epilogue chapters. I will say, this is a pretty traditional VN in that all the alternate paths and puzzles are purely through multiple choice options at different points in the game. This doesn't bother me, but someone hoping for more involved puzzles or mini-games (like in The Nonary Games or something similar) won't find that here. That said, there is a lot of flexibility in the choices. I've been surprised at multiple points where I thought I messed up and would get a bad ending, but I ended up being able to salvage the situation by making better choices later in the scenario. There's a lot of unique dialogue, and sometimes even unique CGs, that you can find by making different choices. You do have a flowchart available to you, that also provides summaries of each node, and a notes section that populates as you play. Definitely big quality of life features that some VNs miss out on, very glad to see them here. After you fully clear the game, you even unlock the option to show hints on the flowchart for where you're missing CGs and achievements, which I loved. If you're not into that, you can turn of the hints. Almost any criticism I could leverage at the game really just comes down to the fact that this was a very small development team on a limited budget. Keeping that in mind, I can forgive most of them. The developer has also been good at doing regular updates to the game to fix bugs and issues with grammar and typos. I don't know if it would be possible, but one improvement that would be cool to see, is some way of tracking all the bad endings you unlock as well as showing how many more there are too find. It might be tough to implement without doing some work to avoid the flowchart getting super cluttered, but I think it'd be a cool addition! Overall, I had a lot of fun reading through this! Especially with this being the developer's first game, and given the size and budget, I'm very happy with the end product! A full length VN with over 16 major characters and quite a few supporting characters is an ambitious project, but all the routes were good and it managed to stick the landing on the true ending, weaving all the plot threads together in a satisfying conclusion!