A Wise Use of Time

This game had an exciting and interesting story while many of the choices were impactful, and only a few felt forced or railroaded, but these were few and far between. As such, I liked the game enough to play through it twice, and the lovely romances enhanced the experience further. (8/10)

I don't know how but I always manage to get the most frustrating endings out of these games. So either having good endings require too many specific choices, or I'm just bad at it. Either way, I'm salty, will never play these textual adventure games again, and will not recommend them to other people.

Ignore the time, it is not accurate. (left on)
However, i own all the choice of games, and this is one of my favorites. I had a great time playing it once and i cant wait to play again. There was only one other game i played that made me want to rush back to it.
Well written, good characters and a fun story!

I'm surprised by the amount of positive reviews, as this is one of the weakest CoGs I've ever played. The plot lost me very quickly, at some points it moves way too fast to be enjoyable, at others it drags terribly. At least one really impactful choice is taken away from player (basically games decides for you, even if you disagree and then criticize you for decision, that wasn't really yours to begin with). It opens up really strong, but then gets worse with every minute. Also, writing (especially during first interactions with your roommates) goes to "obvious and bad exposition" territory.

Sadly, I cannot recommend it.

i enjoyed it alot. the only thing i dislike is how abruptly it ends, i get no sense of accomplishment or anything like that. it just ends. It feels like the writers got bored of the story and ended it before you could reach a conclusion.
i would happily have payed 5 euros more if it was 5-6 hours long instead of only 3.

I usually like these types of games but this one just completely disconnected for me early on. After you have been introduced to your powers suddenly your just forced to tell your room mates about it because "It could strain your relationship in the long run if you didnt, you dont have any choice"

Yes lets tell my impulsive room mate with a gambling addiction that I can stop time. That will never end poorly.

YES I HAVE A CHOICE DONT TELL THEM.

I found it very very hard to continue after that.

You have a few starting options, including your career path and a mystery you can choose to pursue. The story starts off right when your powers first activate. You have no idea what this is and you just go from there. You can be as evil or as good as you want. Become more powerful or just live an ordinary life.

Pros:
-Lots of choices and options, not too much text.
-Stopping time is pretty awesome. Writer adds little details that really make you feel you're there.
-Can't talk about my favorite parts, too spoilery. But the author creates these really terrifying moments.
-Much longer than most CYOA stories.
-Good replay options and mysteries to uncover.

Cons:
-Needed more action. The story can get too focused on everyday life, rather than this amazing ability you have. Although you can spice it up by using your ability recklessly.
-I made a heroic choice early in the game and didn't think much of it. But the author assumed I wanted to play as a hero and kept describing all these heroic deeds I did in my downtime, without giving me the choice again. I would have liked to have the choice in this CYOA game, rather than someone assume this is how I wanted to play.
-Would have like more puzzles and gambling opportunities.
-Gambling was very disappointing.
-Too much time spent on the boring characters and not enough time with the interesting ones.

Overall
-When it's good it's great, but there's times when the story just doesn't seem to move in the direction you want it to. I still think it's worth playing though.

A game from Jim Dattilo, the author of the Zombie Exodus Series. And sure I recognized Dattilo's signature : a really well-written story with clever humor and a lot of little details that don't go forgotten but are refferenced to along the story.

There are varitey of choices and the ending differs slightly based upon your choices but the core of the stoy still remains the same. The choices do have a lot of varying and text though and that's a huge plus. Every time everything is well-described and the narration take its time in order to be immersive.

The characters are interesting and all have balanced interactions but I do feel like the romantic side stories are lacking depth in Dattilo's work. Don't get me wrong, the little and brief romantic scenes are nice but there's no text to really develop the emotional link between the characters. If you romance someone, ther'es just the same text as if you were friends plus some bonus minor text to describe you move along with them and a brief tender dialogue and that's it. Though there was a similar lack of depth in the romances of Zombie Exodus (especially at the ending where the romance is just refferenced to whereas there could have been a dedicated scene to it), there was still more to romance developpment than here.

That same lack of depth can be seen with supporting characters or even the great villain. Thats does'nt really decrease the overall quality of the story but it does leaves you with an impression that there could have been more. The lenght of the story is actually above average but because the narration is immersive and has quality in details I feels like other aspects has been rushed in order to stay in a certain range of words objectives that the author had.

Still, Jim Dattilo is a great CYOA author who cares a lot about his community and I just love his works.

I chose not to tell my roommates about my powers. Then the game was like, "At first you didn't want to tell them, but they pressed the issue, and you gave in and told them."

Obnoxious, but tolerable.

Later, another character criticized me for telling them, saying that I had put myself in danger.

Fuck that.

I get that Illusion of Choice is sometimes the most practical way to go in games, although a Choice of Games game has less excuse to use it. But if you're going to force me down a path, don't try to make me feel bad about taking that path. If you do, I'm going to avoid that path the only way I can - putting down your game and never playing it again.

A Wise Use of Time presents you with a fascinating story seed, and makes for a decent single playthrough, although several of your character's actions feel forced, out of character, or as though you had no good options. Multiple playthroughs, however, reveal little variance, often ignoring or contradicting the player's choices.

I would put A Wise Use of Time in the middle of the pack as far as the Choice of Games products go. I played it through twice. Too many of my rather divergent choices led to the same result for my liking. In my second play-through, I'd intentionally set myself up as a much greedier and self-absorbed character and yet I ended up the City's Guardian and was told I'd been using my powers during downtime to thwart criminal activity when I really hadn't acted in ways that would make that likely, including stealing a case of money from an armored car!

The writing was solid and I did enjoy the game. It had the right number of supporting characters but some of them were rather dull and I didn't feel much rapport for. Barring a nuetral rating, I'm going to recommend this product as it met all my basic criteria/expectations for a CYOA game.

I typically enjoy CYOA games, but this one just wasn't for me. I forced myself to play to a conclusion, where I died, though I'm not really sure what I did wrong. The stat mechanics, though much more simplistic, weren't as intuitive to me as most Choice of Games titles are (Heroes Trilogy, Hero of Kendrickstone, SLAMMED!); sometimes you can use your powers with no or very little ill effects, others you'll do something that seems much simpler and generate a huge amount of fatigue. I basically focused on the powers all the way through, learning more about them and trying to get better at them without overusing them, but I suppose it's possible I was too cautious.

Though I never attempted any of the romance options, I suspect there's likely a lot of content there as is typical of CoG games. Overall, if you're REALLY itching for a CoG style CYOA, this is pretty inexpensive and you might like it, but as for me, I'd say to give this one a pass.

The touting of this product claimed that there was so much written content for this, that it could go in any direction.

It didn't.

You have three choices of lifestyle, and two out of only three attributes to choose from. You always start with the same job, live in the same place, and are always stuck helping your two roommates even though you might decide not to like them or talk to them at all.

I think I paid less than five dollars, but for some people, it's about "how much enjoyable time will I spend with this," and I was done, 2 times through, after about 400 screens of reading (2 hours).

Regardless, there were very few misspelled words or bad punctuation. But all-in-all, it seemed like just another software designer's ego-flex.

~Pozzy Thump

Nearly every chapter in this story begins with a summary of all the things your character has done since the preceding chapter (while you had no choice in the matter). And surprise, the character's behavior is completely at odds with the choices you made previously. I kept choosing low key options preferring discretion, only to be told how, in space between the chapters, my character had used his power to fight crime, or saved someone who was about to be injured, or skipped out without paying a bill. It was so disjointed, considering that when I had the opportunity to make similar choices, I had chosen the opposite behaviors.

Either let the player direct the character's behavior or you do it. A mix of both leads to inconsistency.

I have to say, I'm relitively surprised by this title.
I've never played an interactive novel before this one, and I'm deffinetly trying more soon.

I got about four hours out of a single playthrough, and I rather enjoyed the story. It's a very interesting take on the ability to stop time, and it seems to me that it can go in a number of ways.

I didn't get a whole lot of the romance, but maybe that's because I didn't try as much for a single character.

One point I enjoyed was the character creation, and generally being able to create a believable backstory and feel like a full-fledged person.

I'd also like to touch on the actions you can take: they're fun.
I honestly couldn't help but indulge my inner kleptomaniac and swipe some things while time was frozen, and it was fun.

I whole heartedly recomend this to fans of powers, and the idea of a regular person getting the ability to stop time.

I have always been a big fan of Jim Datillo since his release of "Zombie Exodus".( Which I reccomend anyone to pick up if you have available funds) What draws me to Jim is his style of writing and choices that he presesnts his reader, however I feel "A Wise Use of Time" sadly fell a bit shorter than I would have expected or liked. I am not going to say that I didn't enjoy it becasue I clearly did, it just didn't feel like it had that big of an impact on me compared to some of his other work. The characters in all of his stories are phenominal and the situations he places you in always feel real, and this can be said for this game. But in my opinion of where this game falls short is consequence. I didn't ever feel like I was doing something wrong or that a choice I made could alter the story heavily in any way a.k.a there wasn't a breaking point for me. Another issue would have to be the fact that although the characters were very well made, I didn't feel a real connection to them compared to some other reads. It also didn't have me yearning for more after it was over or during it to be honest. It was a slow ride that I went through and like a decent book I only picked up whenever I saw fit.

My review however may be slightly biased becasue I am comparing this work to "Zombie Exodus" which is a completely different setting. There really is nothing wrong with this peice especially if you are into the "Choice Adventures" so I would reccomend it, but I personally just felt slightly disappointed in it. I just don't know how to share my thoughts on this piece of work correctly, so instead I will leave it at a rating. 7.75/10

P.S. He has a current sequel to Zombie Exodus in the works right now. This makes me as giddy as a school girl, also
Jim-Senpai notice me.

I would like to start out by saying that i enjoyed many of the "choice of game" novels in the past.

Obviously to enjoy a text based choice novel you must be okay with reading walls of text. The choice that they offer in their novels is really top notch though. Small decisions effect paths you can take later down the road.

It is well written and gramatical errors are very seldom and when they do occur do not detract from the overall meaning of the piece.

I also like the very easy to read menues that allow you to keep track of relationship statuses/ attributes/ and even morality.

My personal favorite "Choice of Game" project besides their "Choice of Robots" which was also stellar. The story is exeptional and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Overall i would easily recommend this to someone who enjoys text based, choose your own adventures. Choice of games has done exceptionally well again. Very cheap and offers high replay value. Gonna go dive back in. Great game!

I'll preface this review by saying I love the "choice of games" series and CYOA novels in general. As a standalone CYOA game, I believe that it performs admirably especially when accompanied by a suitable youtube mix (I recommend most epic music ever by HDSounDI). While as a whole, the text was uniformly above average, there were certain sections where I thought that the choices presented and the outcome that results were disjointed or even directly contrary to what I chose. These moments only occured twice, yet it was the first time I've ever encountered an event like that in any of the choice of games series.

When comparing this title to previous choice of games I couldn't help but to feel a little disappointed. While the obnoxious use of weird pronouns evident in the previous title "Versus: The lost ones" was not present, the choices presented seemed less meaningful. Directly prior to playing this I played "Choice of the Deathless" and when I finished that, I felt a deep sense of contentment; a belief that the choices I made in the novel shaped how the story unfolded. Sadly, I did not experience anything similar to that when I finished this interactive novel. In fact, I had barely any sense of closure from finishing this, which makes a certain degree of sense due to it being the beginning of a new series but was still quite disappointing.

Due to my profound love of this genre, I would still recommend this game, yet if you are just getting into the choice of series, I would advise you to play choice of robots or choice of deathless first as they are much stronger novels. Following that I would play the greek hero story, then Versus and the heroes rise trilogy. Once you finish those and are still aching for more, there are a variety of text adventures on their website which can be bought easily using google wallet. Basically, what I'm saying is play their other games first, and if you need more then come back and buy this.

TLDR: Yes, but only if you are a veteran to the Choice of games series. Otherwise go buy choice of deathless or choice of robots. They are much better uses of your money and time.

I personally loved this game, every choice and action I took felt like it had some long term meaning. Interesting romance system that I still haven't fully explored after several playthroughs. I would reccomend this game, especially while its on sale, to anyone with the patience to read pages of text.

8/10 as far as text based CYOA games go.

It's rather short and there are so many different ways to learn the same story elements, it feels like choices aren't as important as in the other "choice of" games. I felt a lot less involved with characters and the story than normal, and things just felt rushed. It's not a bad game, but it might be among the weakest "choice of" games I've played, so I can't recommend it unless you've finished all their other games, and just "need" to play a new one.

It's rather short, compared to my favorites from "Choice of Games" and a bit too fast-paced. Never once had a feeling that choices or stats actually changed anything (except for relationship, obviously). But it is an overall nice story. Grab it if you like a nice read, but don't expect anything amazing like the, I dare say, masterpieces that "Champion of Gods" and "Samurai of Hyuga" were.