Life of a Wizard

Genuinely amazing. I've played for about 70 hours and there are still options I haven't chosen / unlocked. Can't remember how much this game cost, but it was worth every penny.

they should call this game life in mediocrity. having tried many titles from hosted games, i hated them all this one included. the ambtionless pansy writers IRL seem to not personally want to succeed or be anyone important since it is obviously reflected in their writing. they HATE power fantasy or ANY role where the protagonist leads the plots or winds up on top and ends up feeling little more than a tool.
not to mention a lot of offensive woke and feminist role/plot dynamics and dialogues dominating most of the overall side content found in them as well. many, you are expected to either be female or gay to get much, if anything out of the love interest arcs. whatever the guys do get is almost always pretty bad.

here, like others i will mention later, your mc will ALWAYS be a pawn of an npc. stuck in support mode. never a leader, king, boss, ect. you just stupidly get used by an assigned master and be forced to push them up in the world instead while acting like it was in your best interest. this one's no different. as usual, no power fantasy allowed. writer pretends to let you have 'freedoms' to change things.
examples. lets you be evil. but you do nothing with it. gain support of people, but you can do nothing with it. makes you gain mastery of magic power, but you can do nothing with it. can pointlessly screw a princess, but can't marry her? CANT BE KING IN ANY WAY, WHY?! just put stupid kid on throne? else, discarded at games end as nobody with nothing to show for it, or forced to 'conquer' and empower stupid king variant instead of yourself. or 'golden age' conquer's non evil same thing.

other games, same flow

tale of 2 cranes

heroes of myth--queen slave.

i the forgotten one

turncoat chronicles

lost heir--LI's don't really care about MC. your forced to do all the legwork with barely any motivation from them, or they just throw themselves at others with greater expression and unforced desire in comparison to the player's version. writer would rather pair them off meaningfully with better arcs with each other, in the story in their head than remember they were supposed to be making the game for US.

Wayhaven. -- dommy mommy LI. don't want her? game kills you. rather, she does. seriously.

Life of Space Captain,---simp half the game, 2 LI's 1 gross alien, other is a condescending joke fling, outshined by npc's, given cap title too late, piss ending.

Lies under Ice ---you are dismissed after 2nd term, die a nobody someone else rules enjoying what you built.

VERSUS: The Deathscapes---tons of matriarchal feminist sh++.

Vamp Masquerade games ----always a fledgling pawn slave who can't play for power.

Stars Arisen---girlboss feminist female power dynamic bs love interest alert.

Choice of Viking--- wanted to like this but only 1 LI is gross old lady to your 18 YO guy, but YOU are still in charge in game, even tho SHE thinks she is.

A Study In Steampunk--yeah..ok. i guess i should just play a girl then, right? plain jane LI, yup how they describe her, tosses you later. unavoidable. forever alone. but LI for gay/female is a MAIN character and doesn't.

Crown of Sorcery + steel (yeah, UR not getting anything outta this)

Fate of Storm gods, choice of magic, blood money.

Choice of Rebel---you ARE a leader, but LI's are terrible and seem to prefer hooking up with other LI's over you.

Pendragon Rising---THIS IS NOT ANYTHING LIKE KING ARTHUR. everyone hates you , mc is spineless, cover art shows a girl arthur, story paints you as a peasant slaving for no benefit while others snatch everything up around you easy. can't enjoy this.

Life of a Mobster.-- MIGHT be the only one to sorta get it right but they make it so hard and make you simp for others it may not be worth it.

there are more, but by now you get the idea. consider this more an overall review that saves you time/money.
so if you are like me, and actually CARE about an unobscured, important protagonists, with good player control and MC relevance to the plot, expecting to have been given a good, interesting role and story options for your inevitable end, you will be disappointed.

TLDR- hosted games is plagued with woke, god awful love interests with minimal content, unspectacular plots with useless throwaway protagonists with no willpower, or personal drive. And players are left with only illusions of choice with npc's forcing things ahead without having any true power of choice (ironically) at all, topped off with terrible, uninspired, limited possibility endings for you character.

This game felt rushed. While not terrible, the story is told from the perspective of an older you, and each recollection happens very quickly. You never have time to care all that much about anyone, and each event is over so fast it barely feels like it had time to get started. For example, you fight a dragon and get back home in just a few minutes worth of reading. And yet, the game has many exciting skills and plenty of choices that use these skills to great effect, so while I don’t think the game is all that great, it doesn’t deserve a negative review. It’s fun for a playthrough or two. (5/10)

Extremely bland and boring. There is no character development, and the "characters" are all extremely shallow with next to no interactions being available. It is no exaggeration to say that the "characters" are only mannequins with names, that's it. It is also in no way, shape, or form an RPG because it forces you to focus on things that wouldn't fit the "wizard" you're going for. For example, want to feel like an evil necromancer? Too bad, as being evil has no real consequences and the game doesn't ever branch off into slightly different paths to make it feel like your choices meant anything. Honestly, it's probably one of the worst text-based games I've played.

I won't say this story is bad. It's not bad, but it is lacking. The choices don't feel important, the story doesn't really branch a lot. It's a story I'd read through once, but would not feel inclined to go through multiple times. It's not too expensive, so if you want to give it a try go for it, but don't have your expectations too high.

Life of a Wizard, You should pick this one up. 3 bucks is cheap and the story within while a little short is a classic RPG adventure. What skills you choose to invest in matter and each playthough will be diffrent depending on what you pick and the choises you make also effect your skills and personality.

How will your life as a wizard turn out? The choice is yours.

For the cost and if one wants to kill a short amount of time it is worth it. The downside is that there is very little interpersonal dialogue with NPC family members, romantic partners and fellow companions. What it boiled down to for me after the first play through was just seeing how many of the final achievements I could check off.

There are a lot of options and you may end up playing it multiple times to figure out how to get different endings, and that is exactly what I like in a game like this. You have to be very thoughtful in how you approach skill improvement in this game.

I highly recommend it as a text based game.

Well done interactive fiction story, where your choices (not random dice) determine the "Life of a Wizard"

Not the best of this genre of game. The writing is decent enough but.. I don't know, it never picks up speed. Every thing you reach is basically a situation with little connection to what was before. You get a few choices that are generally just 'what do I have stats to pass this with' more then any kind of RP choice - you'll usually only have 1-2 choices available and all they do is flavor how you pass the encounter. Just.. honestly never managed to care about what was happening or any of the characters. There are a few romance options but they don't actually come up. You just pick them and then they're mentioned once or twice in passing. Just.. yea, meh

Interactive Fiction should still be quality fiction--you can't throw some stats and choices in there and expect people to overlook terrible prose.

Being brief, since I value my time and yours:
A couple of hours history, highly repeatable and with many variety of choices.
You can choose your decisions and accept the results. No long prose or high literature writing, it is a quick and practical narration making the experience based in your choices (which are a lot of them) and your skills that build up during play.
Get it in sale for sure, and full price if you will like to feels like a mage biographer (and yes you can be good or bad...)

Don't go into this expecting any fleshed out characters-plays more like a planned board game. If you like stats management then this game is for you, but it didn't work for me.

You start off as a child growing up in a small settlement. You'll define your personality and start building up your skills. Eventually you go to the academy to study magic. After that you'll form a band of adventurers. You go on many adventures, I lost count after 14. The adventures are pretty quick, but can have big impacts on your stats. They let you travel all over the kingdom and immerse you in the lore. Finally you'll use everything you've learned to do some kingdom building. This involves many solo adventures.

Pros:
-9 types of magic. You can fully master at least 4 of them.
-12 types of knowledge. You can fully master at least 8 of them.
-8 factions.
-Excellent inventory system. Many chances to earn and spend gold. Can acquire and craft unique items.
-Can name, choose gender, choose race of most companions and romances.
-Set in the same universe as The Lost Heir Trilogy. You play in the Kingdom of Daria.
-You will play again, the other paths you can take are worth it.
-There's another story unfolding as you build up your character. You'll be brought into it a few times and have big impacts.
-Felt a lot longer than 130,000 words.
-You're constantly making decisions. There isn't a lot of text in between, but it doesn't skip on lore and story.

Cons:
-Your companions, romances, and child have no personality. They mainly just serve as stats: you're girlfriends name is Sally, she is an orc. Some also give a boost to faction rep.
-Sometimes you're missing that one thing you need to complete an adventure.

Final Verdict:
-The one negative that really stands out is almost all the characters have no personality. They're just stats on your page. BUT otherwise it's everything you could want in a CYOA: tons of stats, decisions, and consequences. You can truly become a legend and you will want to play again to experience the different paths. It's worth full price.

I've been a fan of Choice of Games and Hosted Games for sometime now, having played them on both phone and PC. Life of a Wizard is one I enjoyed particularly much. While it's quite a standard story, i feel it's a nice mixture of drama and comedy. I can't recommend it enough. Buy it now...

is a fun game chouseing your story trying to get all achivments in a fun challagean way go get it and play it when you still can

sorry for my terabal spelling i 14 with some problams when i was born

Another Great Text-Based Choose Your Path Game!

By Mike Walter, the author of "Life of a Mobster" and "The Lost Heir" trilogy. Three works that has a lot of point in common, quality being one of those point. Well-written, well thought, a lot of statistics taken in account and a lot of specific event tied to how you developped your character.

Some negative point being : 1.despite the numerous choices, in the end the outcome might seem similar 2.I think Mike Walter is a great plot and story writing author but each time he doesn't make fleshing out his character a priority, in those stories (which are great) you barely have the time to get to know the protagonists like the romance or the main side-kicks. It's not that there is nothing about them, it's just the minimum. 3.the end always seems to come a little too fast except maybe here in life of the wizard where the end does come abruptly as usual but there's just nothing else to say actually 4.the stats system always makes you feels you have to restart and change some choices to make it less roleplay and more "optimal gameplay"

For the good points Life of a Wizard does actually gives more of an impression of clear path and choices than other works from Mike Walter and the end is a lot more tailored to your choices too. That game feels a lot like you writing your own autobiography in fact.

Now for the bad points compared to other games from Mike, I feel that one a litte bit more neutral. Like... the theme is magic but the tone of the narration is so neutral that you're not transported in the magic, you just happen to read about a magical World. Another thing that bothered me if the story is really neutral that's not the case of the main character who I feel a lot more unrelated to than in "Life of a Mobster" or than in "The Lost Heir".

For example, I didn't succeed in reading it in one go. The first time I just stopped in the middle and though the story is believable there's no real plot to immerse you in the story and it's more like a lot of small stories gathered to make a big one and of course that is completely intentionnal because you essentially read through the adventures of a wizard and his party of adventurers but that just feels less personnal than usual. The dungeon and dragon feeling is kinda nice though.

Overall Mike Walter is one of my favourite CYOA so far and once again I could see the cleverness of the writing in Life of a Wizard. I didn't read through it so easily but once I told myself I would finish it I enjoyed it quite well and changed my first impression to a positive one : Mike Walter really has a knack in designing choose your own adventure games. This time maybe more than all other times the title of the game says it all.

This game is really fun! It's like a single player D&D game. I've only gotten a few of the achievments, but there are A LOT. Totally worth the buy. 10/10/

This game is a little different from other CYOA games because on "show vs tell" this goes all the way into "tell", and it's not a bad thing.

It's very easy to get into and pretty short. Yes, you can expect to live 80 years of your life within an hour or two, which often amounts to each decision moving you one year further in life.

Yes, you won't find captivating characters, unique story or catchy prose here, but the game accomplishes several important things which makes me recommend it:

• You have a lot of choice, and it always matters. Most of your decisions will be carried for the whole duration of the game, while some early choices unlocking branches in endgame storyline;
  
• It's short, engaging, and you won't ever be bored reading long passages with nothing happening;
  
• Most importantly, you really get to feel as a badass wizard. Each storylet has options that makes you feel awesome and powerful (if you trained the necessary skills or have the relevant items).
  

• Get bored with other CYOA books and prefer short-and-to-the-point prose;
  
• Enjoy choice and consequence above all else;
  
• Prefer games with huge amount of character customization and creating a hero that you can really feel as your own;
  
[*]Want to feel what it's like to be amazing and powerful wizard.

While I commend the author for trying a different approach - namely writing in a style of someone writing their memoirs rather than an "as it happens" account - this effort really fell on its face for me, as it also didn't really engender fondness for any characters in particular. TL;DR - you go through 80 years of "your" life in less than an hour, and the pacing reflects it.

Alright, after playing it for several replays I can finally write this review.

First of all, the pacing of this game/story is so damn fast. Like, all the characters you met, even all the love interest you can have, feel so damn flat. You'll have almost no love to anyone one of them, and if they die you wont feel any sadness at all. Character interactions is limited, with the game focusing more on the 'Events' of the whole thing, and not in the good way. Character development is limited, barely one at all. You can become evil and good with almost no consequences whatsoever, though I need to look this up more for more assurance.

It has the same 'Make your MC friends yourself' type of setting. It can be interesting, but the fact that all the characters you made have no sense of a human being at all. Or, more specifically, the story did not focus on interaction and choose on quick, large event spot light. And it's not interesting at all.

All in all, it's a barely passable story. However, I won't give it a recommendation. It needs works, and too damn short for my taste. As someone who had played a lot of games like this I can tell that this game is not good.

Edited: You know what? Since some guys still don't get it that numerical score can be personal score, I'll just delet it and tell you that this game is not good. Not worth the money.