Undying Fortress

Returned it, not poorly written; but lower scale. Very very very YA style writing. I'll just be waiting for I the Unbroken One I suppose.

Undying Fortress is an expansive, text-driven dark fantasy experience that fully embraces the strengths of interactive fiction, delivering a narrative that is shaped as much by player intention as by its richly imagined world. Developed and published by Choice of Games, the title stands apart from visually driven RPGs by relying entirely on prose, decision-making, and consequence. Rather than offering spectacle, it invites players to immerse themselves through imagination, moral tension, and a constant sense that every choice—large or small—can echo throughout the story. The premise immediately establishes a strong foundation. You play as a former knight-scholar whose promising academic path was derailed, leaving you caught between intellectual ambition and the harsh realities of mercenary life. When the legendary Undying Fortress—an ancient floating stronghold long thought inaccessible—reappears as a looming threat over the kingdom, you are drawn into a mission that could restore your honor, doom the realm, or reshape history entirely. The fortress itself is more than a setting; it feels like a living entity, layered with centuries of forgotten magic, undead horrors, and secrets tied to the mysterious Carrion Mother who commands its corrupted forces. Gameplay unfolds entirely through text, with the experience driven by a vast branching narrative that reacts intelligently to player decisions. Character creation allows you to define your strengths and weaknesses, whether as a skilled warrior, cunning diplomat, shadowy infiltrator, or scholar drawn to forbidden knowledge. These choices meaningfully affect how situations are presented and resolved. Combat encounters can be fought directly, circumvented through strategy, or avoided altogether through negotiation or deception, reinforcing the idea that brute force is only one of many viable paths. One of the game’s greatest strengths lies in its companion and relationship systems. As you delve deeper into the fortress, you encounter a diverse cast of allies, rivals, and morally complex figures, each with their own motivations, fears, and potential for loyalty or betrayal. Relationships evolve organically based on your actions and values, allowing for friendships, rivalries, romances, or uneasy alliances. These connections are not cosmetic; they influence story outcomes, unlock unique narrative threads, and can dramatically alter the fate of both the fortress and the kingdom below. The writing is dense and evocative, leaning heavily into dark fantasy themes while maintaining emotional clarity. The narrative explores power, decay, memory, and ambition, often presenting choices that lack clear moral answers. Aligning yourself with necromantic forces may grant immense power at a terrible cost, while choosing restraint or compassion can close off certain advantages but preserve your humanity. The game rarely tells you which path is “right,” instead trusting the player to live with the consequences of their beliefs and decisions. Pacing is deliberate, mirroring the sense of a long, dangerous expedition into hostile territory. Early sections focus on establishing context and character, while later chapters escalate in complexity and emotional weight. The sheer length of the narrative encourages careful reading and reflection, rewarding players who pay attention to lore, dialogue nuances, and subtle foreshadowing. Multiple endings and radically different story trajectories give the game substantial replay value, as even familiar situations can unfold in new ways depending on past choices and character builds. Despite its strengths, the game demands commitment. Players accustomed to fast-paced gameplay or audiovisual feedback may find the text-heavy format challenging, especially during longer sessions. However, for those who appreciate deep worldbuilding and meaningful choice, this restraint becomes a virtue rather than a limitation. The absence of graphics places full responsibility on the writing—and it largely succeeds in carrying that weight through strong prose and consistent thematic focus. Overall, Undying Fortress is a confident and ambitious entry in Choice of Games’ catalogue, offering a deeply interactive dark fantasy that rewards patience, curiosity, and thoughtful decision-making. It captures the spirit of tabletop roleplaying and classic fantasy novels while leveraging digital interactivity to give players genuine agency. For fans of narrative-driven experiences who value consequence over combat and imagination over spectacle, it delivers a rich, absorbing journey that lingers long after the final choice is made. Rating: 5/10

This is one of the harder CoGs. Choices definitely matter, and it’s absolutely punishing if you make a wrong decision. No saves, so you have to restart from the beginning if you want to save yourself or someone else. It’s tiring but at the same time rewarding, whenever you get through all the grinding.

I've almost exclusively played World of Darkness games from Choice of Games. However, Undying Fortress really piqued my interest, so I bought it right away. And I absolutely don't regret it. This is a thrilling and dynamic story with a dark atmosphere and fantastic ideas. I had a blast!

This was enjoyable, though the primary antagonist tended to seem a bit inconsistent in terms of how your options regarding her are framed. Even so, I got a really terrific ending that I liked a lot. I will say to be careful about the romance routes, I had to save scum after spending most of the game flirting with my goth baddie ex but then later I got the option to kiss my bestie so of course I did but that locked in her romance route (she literally was like "I have always loved you" and I immediately regretted it) so I reloaded an earlier save and was glad I did because my mean goth gf was endgame. Enjoyable ending, interesting story. The climax of the whole story actually reminded me a lot of Dimension20's The Seven, insofar as you're bouncing from one massive illusion to another where your comrades are facing their greatest fears and you need to help them. Anyway it's good.

Interesting plot, writing and system but way too little romance content with females love interests IMO who are also very few and come later than all other male and non binary love interests. Opportunities to flirt with said female characters are not just quite rare but come after like half a dozen opportunities to flirt with all other love interests. Its quite unbalanced. Also it does not feel as if the choices made in previous chapters truly matter in the future ones. There are a few opportunities to make characters react differently through our actions (like impressing the Empress during the first meeting) but those seem rather few. Furthermore there seems to be no influence/affection system for characters other than love interests. So if one does not look some of those or is not nice to them then it likely affects all relationships badly. I like the Standing stat though as it allows to choose which group and not just person we want to be good with.

See my full review [url=https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/allusives-reviews-new-review-undying-fortress/178235/45?u=allusive]here on the Choice of Games forum.[/url] Undying Fortress is a dark fantasy set in a setting that blends elements of European style fantasy with a fresher Asian (specifically Korean) inspired fantasy world. You play as a disgraced former student of the Imperial Academy, now making a living as part of a mercenary company. When the floating fortress that has hovered high in the sky for nearly a millennium comes crashing to earth, you are tapped by the Imperial Crown to lead an expedition inside to discover it’s secrets. What you find and what you do will determine your fate and future, as well the very survival of the kingdom and the people under your charge. Yeonsoo Julian Kim does my favorite thing with fantasy world-building—she lets you figure it out for yourself. You context clues as you go along and brief natural explanations that only give you just enough to understand the current context of what’s going on. It’s up to you to piece it all together and you’re never given a giant info-dump of text about god pantheons, kingdom hierarchies and histories, or all the exact little rules of how magic works in this world. She clearly knows those things, but like good fantasy, the world-building is sub-servant to the story and gets out of the way and stays in the background. What you can construct as the reader is a very Korean-inspired fantasy world, with sliding doors, pagodas, tiled roofs, Imperial Courts, and embroidered robes. I was visualizing something similar to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. On that same note, I appreciated the way Yeonsoo Julian Kim described spells and magic being used in detail, down to the material components the caster was using, to the movements of their hands or body. The fortress itself feels like a real location, loving described to a such a degree by the end of the story you really have a strong grasp of how it’s laid out and how everything fits together, as well as it’s history. Discovering how everything fits together within the fortress, why it exists, why it was flying for all this time, what secrets it holds, really act as a nice mystery to constantly keep driving the player forward to discover more. Impressively, nearly all characters had satisfying character arcs than ran throughout the entire story, even the antagonists. Yeonsoo Julian Kim does the rare thing in fantasy of making no character all good or all bad, but to have them all looking out for their own self-interests and goals with a full spectrum of gray that makes deciding who to side with or against something that really demands thought from the player. The game makes a big deal about how you’re responsible for the safety of your expedition group and you really do feel yourself wanting to live up to that responsibility. There is an impressive amount of variety in the endings, judging from the fact even the ending I got (which I had to choose out of multiple others) came in three very distinct variations. I also didn’t realize how fun it could be to play a pacifist in a dangerous fantasy adventure until Yeonsoo Julian Kim gave me the option to do so in Undying Fortress. Or to look at jewels and treasure and go full archeologist mode by yelling at everyone the fantasy-world equivalent of “It belongs in a museum!” Final verdict, I would recommend Undying Fortress to anyone that enjoys fantasy stories or even just Choicescript games, as it does pretty much everything right, even to a jaded fantasy reader like myself.

Good