Gamebook Adventures: Infinite Universe App Reviews

38 add

Worst in the Series

Tedious, overly verbose and badly written. Long stretches of dull, trope laden text interspersed with occasional "choices" that dont seem to affect the overall story arc much at all. Author tends to use this smug tone that makes it clear he believes hes a much better and wittier writer than he actually is. Read a couple of times, then got sick of experiencing sudden, seemingly arbitrary deaths, and gave it up. Too bad -- would like to see this series expand to include some *decent* science fiction. Too bad the first entry in that category turned out to be such dull, irritating twaddle.

Great Game!!

Another fabulous game from gamebook adventures! I really hope they continue with more games because Ive run out and I would really love to play more. Pros: great story, wonderful music, and will leave you wanting more. I am definitely not a futuristic type of person, but I have to say that they still made the game enjoyable! Cons: for the players/readers of the previous books(like myself), its a futuristic setting, and thus no tie in with the previous world All in all, great game, highly recommend it, replayed it several times.

Doesnt seem to be universal

I bought the full thing on my iPad but it didnt show on my iPhone. I also died and cant seem to use the "Part 1 Skip" feature I had unlocked. Also there should be an option to turn off the normal background music but leave the battle music. The normal BG music gets really tedious but the battle music helps enhance the sequence like it would in any RPG that has a separate "battle screen" (I.e. Final Fantasy, Tales of series,etc.) Not mandatory but would be a nice touch.

Pretty fun though not perfect

This gamebook was pretty fun and the mind-bending time-travel aspect was different. The writing was inconsistant, however. There were some long tedious and overly verbose parts in the book I didn’t like. Also there were way too many clichés for my taste. Btw, the really long chapter five was too dull for me. I want scifi not plain old ordinary world, but maybe that’s just me. Pros: I love the table-top rpg feel to the game. The realistic dice are cool, and I like how I can turn the dice animation off if I’m trying to rush through parts I’ve played to retry certain points in the game. The dice look cool for a scifi game. The art is really good in this game and I love the collectable pictures and awards throughout the game. I like that it’s pretty easy to go back to an early bookmark save and try a whole new approach. The different difficulty levels are really great. I want to play on Novice next so that I can use the 50 bookmark saves and really explore all the different choices in the game. I love that I can use and fight in a vehicle in the game. Please make more use of that in the future. The rpg game rules are simple and easy to get into for the most part. I love how I can turn off the boring and repetative music and listen to my own movie soundtracks instead. (I’m a big soundtrack geek. Haha) Cons: Writing is not up to the quality of previous games. It’s way to verbose and poorly written in spots. The scifi tropes just seemed too cliché to me and the game world left me a little in the cold. I’d like a more imaginative game world itself. Also I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the old Lucas Arts humorous adventures, but the humor in this seemed to fall flat, at least to me. I guess it was just very cheesy. The music was really dull and too short. It repeats too much. I think ambient background sounds to give the mood and music cues in important scenes and battle music would be better. Either that or have different music in different sections and make it longer so it doesn’t repeat so often and more pleasantly ambient. The skill system is a great addition but the implementation was a little clunky. But I’m sure you’ll work out the kinks in later games. Btw, I kept receiving awards allowing me to buy skills cheaper, but there didn’t seem to be a way to get more skill points and buy new skills. I think that the whole skill system could be more streamlined and user friendly. Even despite all these flaws I still enjoyed the game and it has a lot of replay value. And seriously, for $3.99 (I love the new price model, btw) I still feel I got my money’s worth. I mean I blow more than that in a single trip to Starbucks so it’s worth it. Please keep more scifi games coming but I’d like to see a more hard scifi story, or else a little more epic space opera setting with a little less attempts at the cheesy humor. I love humorous games but the jokes in this fell a little flat, or at least they did for me. But keep the games coming! For anyone interested in this kind of choose your own adventure/rpg gamebook, these Gamebook Adventures are my favorite. And they have a ton of replayability. But keep the games coming! For anyone interested in this kind of choose your own adventure/rpg gamebook, these Gamebook Adventures are my favorite. Btw, for those that are afraid it’s too hard and that you die too much, you might try playing on novice level. You get 50 bookmark saves and it makes the game a lot easier if your just interested more in the choose your own adventure part.

Engaging, but tedious

I liked the way the book started, and the choices it presented. As the story progressed however, I was dismayed to see page after page of writing, only to press one button to "turn to 245" where the flood of words continued. There were sections where I had no choices to make for a long time. Unfortunately, the ending left me unsatisfied. Many things were not explained, and it felt extremely rushed and abrupt. I thought I was going to start another chapter, but alas, the game was really over. Pros: Good start to the story, interesting world. Cons: Too verbose, leaves you with an unfinished feeling, you dont get attached to your character or other NPCs, and several more issues. Overall, I cant wholeheartedly recommend this one, but if you catch a price break, you might want to pick it up and see it for yourself.

ok

alright, i went against the negative reviews and tried the free version. i found it intriguing enough to pay the $4 for the full unlock. firstly, to the people who say its too verbose..its a freaking book! you are supposed to read! i bought deathtrap dungeon from the other developer and i find there is not enough text, i am aware that is not the developers fault but ian livingstones because he wrote the book in the 80s i just didnt remember it being so short when i owned it in print lol. i still love deathtrap dungeon its my favorite one. however, other reviewers do have a point, but its not that its too much text its more that its too much text in between the choice points. there are lots of spelling and grammar errors and i do see many cliches and the book itself even tries to be self aware having your character reflect on how cliche it is. i can overlook those because it really is kind of a cool concept. where my gripe lies is that for a book that advertises "you control the story" you feel really helplessly not in control of the story at all. most choices go like this choose a,b or c. a= you die b= you die c= the story continues or choose a,b or c a= lose stats go to section D b= lose an item go to section D c= go to section D and more often than not instead of a choice its a random roll that decides where you go next. i can overlook that too because the skills and the combat can lead to varied results. the combat system is interesting. pretty much if you get a crappy roll you miss and do no damage and if you get a great roll not only do you hit but you do massive damage because you have to roll huge numbers just to hit ...which works the other way around too. its way too easy to die because the enemy need just a couple of good hits and its over. i do like a challenge and i have only gone about halfway but (spoiler alert) i find it frustrating to get helplessly entangled in unfair justice systems even if it is part of the story lol. i give this book 4 stars it loses a star for being too linear. i recently discovered that this developer acquired the rights to the fighting fantasy books which is probably why the other developer offering them is saying that their license is about to expire. i am looking forward to the release of fighting fantasy : blood of the zombies but i think these are too high priced..i know its only a dollar difference but i think these should be $2.99 maximum, i would buy all the other 7 if they were $2.99 each but as it stands this one is probably the only gamebook adventure i will buy. this is only an opinion but its a digital download you dont have the overhead costs of printing books and you would probably get more sales.

Worth The Buy

Bought the full book. Its hours of fun. Id like to see more decisions though. Also might be worth trying to get under the 50mb cap. I wanted to buy this a fair bit ago and had to wait until I was near wifi.

Not very good

Extremely wordy, and an overly complex plot with no actual narrative function. Not at all what I expected, as a result I regret this purchase.

Eh...sorta disappointing

I loved many of the previous games, but this one was kind of meh for me. I do love the fact that there is a free read mode, and if it could be incorporated in the earlier games I would be a happy girl, but this game was very wordy and there werent many fights or changes in scenery. It was hard to stay interested. My favorite so far has been the Spider God game, it was very well executed and hopefully future gamebooks will follow in that ones footsteps.

I couldnt put it down.

It wasnt a classic work of fiction. It wasnt a quick arcade game. It was a game book, a book that pulled me along, eager to successfully/interestingly complete all of its chapters. The writing could be better and the mechanics still feel rough, but I just bought all the rest of Tin Man Games apps because theyve got the core down.

Whos talking in the conversation?

Writer does not give you a sense of who is actually talking. With two people conversing its very hard to follow a conversation without "said Joe". A question came up about a guy named Kane. I have no idea if I the character was asking the NPC about Kane or was the NPC asking me about Kane??? "Kane told me that I did, before my memory got erased." ...said who? Who is speeking? Who just asked that question? Me the main character, or the guy the main character is speaking with? ...And if its the main character talking, he just said he lost his memory so how the hell would he know of Kane!? Sloppy

A nice offering by Tin man

Most of Tin mans books are in the fantasy genre this is the first sci-fi Ive seen and I really enjoyed it. The story was fast paced and very original. The action started right away in this story and will keep you interested to the end. I highly recommend this app for those who enjoy sci-fi and those who enjoy gamebooks.

Favorite

The best gamebook and its long so it lasts for a long time.

Long and enjoyable

This is the the second GA game I have played and it is by far the better of the two. I would say that I have gotten about 5 hours of gameplay out of this with one play through. There is a ton of reading and not as much action, but the story is awesome and it was hard to put down. I would recommend this game to anybody who grew up reading goosebumps choose your own adventure!

A few innovations, but ultimately a drag

Congratulations to the author for trying a few new things, like a skill system and vehicular combat, and for playing with gamebook structure and time to good effect. However, no one wants to read a story about an unambitious sap whos lead by the hand through an endless 70s sci-fi backdrop, and then modern-day Australia, then back, listening to dull characters spout exposition that never really makes a reasonable plot.

Surprisingly Deep

As a longtime gamebook fan, I was especially surprised by how intricate and enjoyable this book was. Its plot is deceptively deep, and there were a number of interesting sci-fi ideas to wrap my mind around. It was a bit lighter on action than other gamebooks, and it was difficult to get a handle on the pacing ("Am I almost done, or do I have another couple hours?"), but its a long, satisfying story that Im happy to have in my (virtual) collection.

There is no IAP! Yay!

Thank you devs! Contrary to what Apple says, the Dev removed all IAP in favor of the premium model. Great choice! So buy this with confidence. You get the whole thing. Dev, you need to print that in the app description at the top! This game is great and the writing is excellent. True Sci-Fi. Great job!

Fantastic

I agree with other reviews - this game has an incredible depth to it. Ive played nearly all the Gamebooks by Tin Man Games and this is my favorite.

  • send link to app