Unnatural

Unnatural is a CYOA (Choose your own adventure) novel, written by Sam Kabell and published by Hosted Games.

Just a warning, this is a bit more of a rant than a review, but I do cover important points on the structure of the game and address what exactly I feel is wrong with it and why. I would like to provide my feedback/review.

Let me start with the basics here: this CYOA novel is 285,000 words according to the store page. It's a decent length BUT the game starts with a scene that sees the MCs family all killed off. This turns out to be a nightmare from past events. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, however, this nightmare is repeated in detail (and obviously always the same) several times throughout the book. That alone will cut the overall word count down by a fair percentage, unless, for some reason, the repeat isn't included in that statistic. But it doesn't end there...

Throughout the novel there are sentences such as "You ignore him, reaching out and turning on the lights. and go and turn on the lights.". Now, I doubt I need to point out there is a full stop, followed by a lowercase letter and the sentence is just a repeat anyway. There is so much of this everywhere. Another example: every single time you prep for a mission, you are asked to pick a gun and ammo, there is then a long sentence about how you check your gun, make sure you have the correct ammo and slip it into your hip or arm holster (whichever you pointlessly picked earlier in the game). Subtracting this, the word count decreases again as there are at least four missions you have to do.

The timeline is so messed up. MC is required to go somewhere with Lakota (a teammate) via an aeroplane. They are escorted by a team from unit alpha to the airport. While there, the MC claims to feel the presence of a person intent to do harm but says nothing until they are on the plane with Lakota. He claims to have noticed too and said he already informed unit alph about this. You see the team running back into the airport - the scene just ends there. MC is at their destination for several weeks and yet, when they finally return, they receive a mission that requests they go back to the airport as backup as unit alpha was killed there. I was very confused about whether this was the same team or not; surely it couldn't be as they would have been killed at the airport weeks ago when they and the assailant were there, no? No! It reads to be the same team murdered by the same guy with harmful intent. This was so bizarre that I couldn't even begin to make logical sense of the decision to do it like this. I had no choice but to mark it down as yet another careless mistake in planning out the story.

More inconsistencies are in the stats screen, it even states "You two are dating.". How? I've barely ever spoken to the guy, no one has mentioned romance or even flirted; nothing! It just decided to tell me that my character is apparently dating someone. I can only assume this is tied to the rapport percentage I've built with them instead of any kind of plot flags as the related achievement had yet to be unlocked either.

Honestly, I have never been this frustrated trying to get through a CYOA novel before. Every mission plays out basically the same: You and your partner arrive, you wander around a bit, find your target and in literally one sentence, the action is already over. What? Why? This is the perfect chance to actually add thrilling sections into the novel and it's bypassed completely! Completely!! The after-mission reports aren't any better. It's just crazy - Crazy how lacking in any content this story is! There's nothing: no details, no explanations, no time to get to know the members of your team better, no world-building, no character development. I am so flabbergasted by how empty everything is. It is drier than a stale cracker, and I'm not being overdramatic here either. The reason why it frustrates me so much is because the basic idea is interesting; yes it's nothing new and unique but I thought it would be something I could really sink my teeth into and enjoy, yet at every turn, there was only disappointment and so much of it!

I was okay with the fact that the beginning of the game was short and fast; it allowed me to see my character at different ages, pick how I want to shape her early on and grow. It may not be everyone's cup of tea but I thought it was interesting. What I didn't expect is that the rest of the novel would flow mostly the same. After college, you join the Supernatural Response Team and get a mission that's over as quickly as it starts, you then pick what you want to do for the next week, exercise, study, etc. this is described to you in two or three sentences and it's time for the next mission again: repeat! Why wouldn't the author use this time in between to allow us to meet and spend time with our team, learn more about them, form bonds or even actually learn more about the supernaturals, how to fight them or even why they are all so hostile to begin with? There is so much missed opportunity in this entire novel!

Overall, the entirety of Unnatural, with all its inconsistencies, repeated words, sentences and scenes felt like it was a rushed story without any thought, passion or care being put into it. I'd read something like this and assume it was a very first, basic draft of the script, not a "finished" title that I'm expected to pay for. It may not be very professional of me to say this (so it's a good thing I'm not a professional reviewer), but I'm honestly shocked the author was allowed to write and publish a second, follow-on book to this title without being told to come back and tidy this one up first. Seriously, what exactly is Hosted Games doing over there? I was under the impression they checked through the books they received and sorted them ready for publishing, e.g. proofread them; if not, then why are people even giving them their stories to publish and allowing them to take a cut of their sales? Because Hosted Games is a known CYOA publisher? Do they think they will not sell any copies if they don't throw it at a company that has been around for a while? I just don't know; I really and truly don't know anymore and honestly, I've lost some respect for this company. If anyone would care to educate me on any of the above points and try to change my mind, please do!

In short, No, I'd not recommend Unnatural to anyone for any reason! It drew me in with the promise of a good supernatural read but barely even made it off the starting line!

Good

Found the story incredibly interesting and the ending was not what I was expecting. The characters you meet are great, but I didn't feel that it made a difference who you took with you. And there were some characters I was like 'wait who is this? Do I know them?' and they weren't in the stats menu so have no idea (though I may have missed them from earlier on).

That said, I'm interested to see what happens in book two!

It's unfortunate I cannot recommend this game, as it does have an interesting concept and a decent replayability factor. The framing of the story as a TV series is an original thought, and the game does offer a lot of choices and variation in aspects such as handling missions, the MC's development, and which characters are present or not.

Sadly, all these nice things are overshadowed by the game's poor writing. It reads as if written by someone not used to writing - it's understandable, but not engaging or enjoyable. Some passages end up sounding weird or downright silly. There are also punctuation mistakes, namely missing commas, throughout the entire game. This being a text-based game, all of this becomes impossible to ignore and ruins the experience.

We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty

Writing within the realm of the mainstream reduces your problems by a small degree; You don't have to think too hard on how things work because the facts of the realms are already so well-established across many other works. The set-up in UnNatural was so interesting, I was sure this was to be a truly different, exciting experience.

Alas. Here's a rundown of how scenes are written after your MC gets to university.

Someone: "MC, we're gonna go in this together! Isn't that fun?"
MC: "Yeah! Anyway."

*MC gets into something super horrible*
MC: "Oh no! Anyway."

Someone: "MC, I love you since the very beginning, I never wanted to hurt you, [someone pouring their heart to you]"
MC: "Cool, samesies. Anyways."

Someone: "You're gonna do this thing or else!"
MC: "Oh my! Noooooooo. Anyway."

Everyone reacts at the whims of the author. Though this is technically true, it doesn't lend any credence to the idea that the characters are living, breathing people. That the author decided to establish this work to be read like a "TV show" cannot be used as an excuse for how bluntly this is written. The few actually descriptive paragraphs sprinkled here and there tells me the author does not lack the skill for storytelling. This work simply comes across as hastily written.

Typos and formatting problems aside, this work has so much potential if only the author takes a deep breath and admits that this is nothing more than a very rough outline of the plot. Truly, a waste. Don't bother with this one, honestly; Wayhaven Chronicles hits the same beats that UnNatural only grazes past. Perhaps, if UnNatural had been narrated properly, it could have stood side-by-side with Wayhaven Chronicles as one of the best supernatural CYOA games out there. Alas, this game only made me feel like quitting midway and starting a new Wayhaven game for the umpteenth time.

Update April 28, 2022:
All the recent game updates broke the game.

I’m trying to restart the game after playing it once, and all I’m getting is a blank page where the text normally is. There are a bunch of pop ups like you’d get with the achievements, but they all say “The game has updated. Restarting chapter.” But nothing is happening.

I should be at the end of the game and could click the restart game option, but nothing on the options bar on the top of the screen works.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the game doesn’t help.

Old review:
If 13-year-old me was going to write a Supernatural fanfiction had I started watching it back when the show started in 2005, this would probably have been it, just without the SCP Foundation and Department 19 elements.

If you want to play another obvious fan game by the same publishers but written by someone with seemingly more writing experience, try A Study in Steampunk.

It's an alright game. There's a few sections here and there where its writing is a bit butchered. Some little tidbits here and there with punctuation could be fixed but overall it's pretty fun. Not the greatest CYOA in history but not the worst. In a few of the earlier sections there's "You're That Guy, Metal Gear" moments which, although pointedly displeasing are not the end of the world.

7/10 gud game would buy again.

One of my new favorites when it comes to the Choice of Games, whether they're made directly by them or a third party. Unnatural has a great feel to it that reminds me of "monster a day" shows like X-Files or Grimm.

The only part I find that hurts in the story is the world building. It's a bit lacking in parts and doesn't pull off the feel of a modern fantasy world that great. A solid story either way.

This one could have been a real gem of a game. Its got all the right makings for it: A nice long time line in the game for the character to grow on the player, and as a person, A large cast of interesting characters to get to know over time, A believable story world to live in, Internal and External dramas to resolve or succumb to. There's even Game + mode, where you can play again and use codes you have earned from previous play through (s) to make your next character even better.

But instead its more akin to a diamond that was cut wrong, its value diminished greatly from what it could have been, even though there is still no denying that whats left is the broken pieces of something beautiful.

At times the writing is poor enough to make you struggle to read it. There are moments when the writer doesnt respect the choice they just gave the player, forcing them to do something they were just given the option to refuse doing. There are other moments when your character is just forced to go some place, whether they want to or not, and some of those really interesting chracters you get to know and like and maybe even LIKE turn on you in such a way that there is really no way you can like them after that, and in subsequent play throughs you of course already know you cant trust them and it just bums you out.

Ive honestly played through this game several times, and each time it just leaves me with that subtle feeling of disappointment. It just barely misses the mark, but its still a clear miss. All that said I would still buy a sequel if there ever were one to this game, because I really got attached to the MC and I wanted better for them, than the ending this game provides.

3/10-Not so great
As far as I know this studio allows people to use their software and then helps them publish the game, which is awesome and I applaud them for giving people the chance to put their work out there. I hope the author is open to constructive criticism, and applies it to their next work, because I would totally play this game without the problems that is has as of right now.

Great:
-Story: the ideas and scenario presented have potential. If it were redone with better technical writing skills, I could certainly see myself enjoying it a lot more.
-LGBT inclusive.

Not so great:
-The grammar, punctuation and spelling need a lot of work. If you are the other I recommend getting an editor or two and going back to the drawing board.
-Sometimes an error would happen where I would make a choice and be taken to a seemingly unrelated page, and got confused.

Not much to say other than it was a good idea but just so damn boring.

I play a lot of CYOA games, but I couldn't get through this one. It started off promising, you play as a child and progress into your teens and adulthood. This lets you increase your skills, establish your character, and sets up some story events later on. But once you join the SRT it just gets too weird. There's a lot of new characters thrown at you, a bunch of stuff happens all at once, things and characters radically change, characters do not act rationally, newer characters and concepts are constantly being introduced. It felt like the more I read the fewer choices I had.

There's a lot of missions to go on, usually pick between a couple options each time. There's a right way and a wrong way to complete them. Picking the right weapon, partner, and way to handle the situation will keep you alive. There's also downtime to increase your stats and progress your personal story. The monsters you're up against are your standard vampire, werewolf, golem, ghost, fairy, those sorts of things.

Most characters have big secrets, that really change the story once revealed. You don't learn these secrets by skills or logic. They're just thrown at you, just takes all the fun out of playing a game.

Overall:
I just wish it were a more cohesive story. The author tries way too hard to surprise you with twists, rather than reward you for playing a good game.

I really enjoyed this game. I bought it as an "urban fantasy", not realizing it had a "Horror" tag. The horror, while not kid-friendly, is pretty mild. For a CYOA game it has a surprising amount of replay value: Tactical team or CSI tech? Shadow or Azure powers? And that's not counting that you get a choice of 3 missions each time your character "deploys" as a member of the Supernatural Response Team (SRT). Plus the usual variety of romance options. Kudos to developer "Sam Kabell".
My only gripe is a relatively small one: My version of the game (Mac) had a number of bugs in it. Nothing game breaking, I have completed it twice already. But it can make for some strange reading: one page said I found no survivors in a werewolf lair; next page she is resting in the hospital and will make a full recovery. Anyways, it is supposedly the start of a series but the ending is still satisfying if that sort of thing annoys you. Recommended.

I think Unnatural could have been an enjoyable game if it had been given the chance.

Its problems are not game-breaking, but there are just so many typos, missing quotation marks, missing fullstops, commas etc.. Lines were repeated; I chose one option, but later my character acted like I had chosen another one; At another point I was given two options, I chose one, but the game showed the results of both. The entire game is a disorganized mess with problems like the ones I described above. I don't know how they let it be released in such a state.

On another note, I'm either extremely good (or lucky), or the missions are just plain impossible to fail at. The cases you take on in the game are beyond boring. The companion you choose to take with you doesn't seem to make any difference. The gun you choose also doesn't seem to matter. Sometimes you choose the option to do this or ask that, but nothing helpful ever comes out of them, they're empty choices that make no actual difference in the end.

Your knowledge of certain creatures also doesn't matter. You can ask your partner during missions what they know about the creature you're hunting, but usually they know next to nothing and offer you no useful information. But even if they did give you some useful info, the enemies are often defeated with either your special powers, or the gun you have with you. Thus, memorizing or looking up the weaknesses of supernatural monsters from the codex is not only pointless, but also a waste of time unless you're just interested in reading some text that will never be of any use to you in-game.

TL;DR - I wouldn't recommend this game. But if you still want to buy it after reading this review, then at least wait for an update AND a sale. The game may not cost that much when compared to other CoG/Hosted games, but I just can't bring myself to recommend it to anyone in its current state. The game is far too ambitious for its own good.

This book is a mixed bag, to an extent, so I will break this into Pros and Cons.

Pros

I really enjoy the story, it is well writen and the world/lore is very detailed and consistant. As a tabletop gamer and wargaming enthusiast, this alone makes the book a worthwile read, but others may not get the same level of enjoyment out of it.

Good NPCs. Every NPC that the players deal with regularly are well written and interesting. There isn't a ton of details and backstory, but that actually helps. The author gives you the right amount of info without bogging you down with anything unnessecary.

Cool Powers. I like the way the author handles the players powers and his description of them. It is no only well thought out, but well exicuted in a narritively presented way.

Cons
Typos. So many typos. Spell checker exists, please use it, then get a proofreader.

Many stats feel arbitrary, with no real consistancy with how they work. In many other areas, there is no way to figure out how they work or what they do. Others end the game at a very low number (despite raising them at every opertunity), yet are able to do what stats in their 60s do. It is simply inconsistant.

Dead end decisions. It seems there are many choices that lead nowhere. No mater what, you cannot break the orb. You cannot find the secret room in S.O.S no matter how high your awareness or Shade abilities, your Soul power never goes beyond 15%, you cannot protect from being shot if you tell people about your true nature no matter how high your shade is. It feels like a lot of choices are "Gotcha" choices.

Modern Politics. This is a hard one to write. I play these games to get away from the modern world, not be reminded about it constently. I get it, gay and non-bianary people exist, this is common knowledge. However, homosexuals are about 1-3 percent of the population and non-bianary people are less than a percent of a percent. We are talking less than 1 in 10000. Yet, 4 out of 7 of the romancable people are Bi or Gay. There is a non-bianary teacher in School Daze, telling people it is normal to be non-bianary, which it isn't. Worse, that teacher is shown to be completely one dimensional, their only defining characteristic is "HEY, I AM NON-BIANARY!!!".

Conclusion: Buy it for the story, it's worth it. Seriously. The author will learn from the issues with this one and Season Two will be even better!

A good fun game, if a few tiny bugs in the code.. Already played through once and can play again benefiting from the new game + codes to give my second play-through and extra edge.

If you've done any of these multiple choice text adventure novels from Choice of Games and others, you'll know what you're getting into with this. Just keep in mind there isn't much apparent variation that has a significant effect. This has a story to tell and you'll be able to Bioware some choices where you get a personalized tale, not necessarily wildly different ones. At least from the options available it did not seem that way.

The setting is fine. It isn't anything amazing, it isn't particularly enthralling, but it's always fun to experience a modern fantasy universe. It lacked a bit of oomph as far as the monster encyclopedia goes though. The world of magic is introduced and then everybody seems to be fine with the status quo, and monsters as a whole were just bloodthirsty creatures so it took away from most morality issues you might have had when they say certain monsters are shoot to kill. The twist and basic setting for the more interesting creatures was interesting if a bit oversimplified and close to Christian mythology. Which I guess works if the author didn't want to create his own mythos. Which is understandable for a Choose your own adventure.

The characters are almost non-existent, at least in my playhrough. You have a job, you get to pick your partner for missions, and there is barely any dialogue option between your partner and yourself to get to know them. More often than not these stories should want me to care about my colleagues, particularly in dangerous missions, but it just felt like a day at the office with Bob and Linda, let's go on a work trip.

The story is very bare bones, but it keeps you engaged enough where if you aren't a particularly picky reader and want a nice distraction for 4-5 hours, it's a decent enough one.

Look at the end of the day, this isn't my favorite Text Adventure novel, but it's not among the worst either. Very middle of the ground. But for 2-3 bucks and 4 hours of enjoyment, I can safely say it's worth a play if you've exhausted other titles you're more interested on. Hell for 2-3 bucks, it's worth a play at any moment you're interested in a distraction.

It was really fun, for being the first part of the game, and I unlocked two plus codes on my first playthrough so that was interesting. I ended up having Denise a cured lycanthrope sleep with me and rest next to me in my ending.