Just finished my first full playthrough. This is by one of the authors of Choice of Romance (Affairs of the Court), and if you enjoyed that writing style -- intrigue, drama, mysteries, complex plots with great payoffs, and deftly-written characters with a lot of emotional veracity -- this will be exactly the kind of Choice of Game/Hosted Game you're looking for. In comparison to that earlier work Study in Steampunk is a tad more predictable if you know the basic outlines of the most popular Sherlock Holmes stories, but there are still a lot of other unexpected elements thrown in, and the characters are really fantastic. For me this is the most important point: I tend to judge CoGs on good characters and good roleplaying choices. This is a game where just about every time I wanted to say X to a character or respond in Y way to a development, there X and Y were exactly on the menu, which tells me it's been well thought out in a way some games just aren't. It's also got a pretty good length to it -- some Choice of Games may leave you feeling wanting despite a superficially impressive word count, but this one is truly long and substantial. This is the most enjoyable CoG I've played in years and I really can't recommend it enough. The only real flaw in my mind is the lack of ability to play as female, but don't worry, you can still romance men if you want ;)

This game is probably my favourite Choose Your Own Adventure game so far. It's got drama, action, deep and heartfelt relationships, mystery-solving, and lots of intense and even painful moments. You play for the highest stakes, definitely. I also cried a lot.

Enter you, yet unnamed male protagonist, stumbling back into your old life after surviving a harsh partly robot/mecha war between your Empire and another country. There's plenty of choices to make -- be a faithful soldier, become a traitor rebel, pursue forbidden magics, and pick someone to give your heart to, if you want.

+ The general atmosphere of the novel (Victorian steampunk)
+ Lots of murder mystery solving
+ Great "buddy cop" story with your partner in crime
+ Layered story with political intrigue, including spies and rebels
+ The magic system that's introduced
+ Action! Drama! High stakes!
+ High replay value
+ Save points (!)

- Predictability, even if you're just a bit familiar with the stories this game borrows from (Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper, etc.)
- No skip option for replay purposes
- ???

Sure, I might be biased because I have a weakness for Victorian-style mystery solving and steampunk, but this game really got me invested and involved up to a point where I was genuinely nervous what would happen if I picked a certain choice. The stakes are quite high, and your choices have a huge amount on influence on your relationships with other characters, various story elements, and also on the endings.

10/10 would play again

A beautiful combination of Steampunk Warzones, Sherlock Holmes' greatest Adventures, great power, great responsibility and - most importantly - you. I'm not even finished with my first playthrough and my head is already full of possibilities what to choose next time I'm playing it. I won't tire of this soon!

For those who enjoy a well written "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, this is a game/book you must read/play. If you enjoy the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stroker this is a must play. I found the storyline and the characters to be very engaging. There are so many routes that there will definitely be some re-reads of this! This was a pleasant experience and I look forward to enjoying more from this publisher/writer.

I love all the games offered by Choice of Games, but this is by far my favorite. Every choice you make feels like it has weight and impact on the story, while still flowing together to create a whole narrative. The character you play as feels like a real person and rather than making descions based on numbers or what will bring the best outcome I found myself thinking "What would he do under the circumstances?" I just can't recommend this game enough to anyone who enjoys story-based games.

I have played several of the choose-your-own-adventure stories from the "Choice of Games" series, but this one seems to have touched me the most. Like with the rest of the games from this series, there lies an complex interplay of character relationships and political factions that provides a wide array of responses and skillsets to help create your persona. For example, on my first playthrough I played the part of a pacifist medical specialist that chose to partake in the Resistance's efforts to create a more balanced government, but retaining my humanity by saving all my former allies and those that required help. It felt like all my choices matter, and that there were multiple strengths to build your character across is a plus. However, it would have been great for an option to choose the gender of your character, as the game automatically assumes that you are playing as a man, which can take people out of the narratice if using a female persona.

Other than that, the story world of this game is great and encompasses many different morally grey areas. A central focus on the game's lore revolves around a group of people known as "the sun-touched", who possess the ability to drain or give life force to other people. Through this ability, the sun-touched and the vampiric "light-eaters" have created a feudal society at the expense of treating commoners as nothing more than cattle and serfs. On the other hand, your country Mercia has broken away from such worship and have ushered a technological revolution, with all the pros and cons that they entail, with constant pleas for labor reform and unions. In fact, the situation can be viewed as so abhorrent that a Resistance has formed to express the discontent of the working class which amounts to a lot of vigilante justice, sabotage, and outright terrorism. Of course, as the main character, you are one of the sun-touched in hiding, and it is up to you to choose whether or not to develop these latent abilities or master something else entirely. The friends and lovers that you make, the factions that constantly vie for each other's power and influence, will certainly provide enough intrigue to last a good few hours.

As a result, I would highly recommend this game to people who love a good story due to its longevity and cheap cost.

While not quite as thought-provoking or emotionally powerful as Choice of Robots, A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight is still a very immersive and choice-orientated game. An interactive novel, as with all Choice of Games titles, Choice by Gaslight revolves around you and the choices you make. The story changes heavily depending on your decisions, and especially so once you have to make a choice between three (technically four, later on) factions.

Choice by Gaslight does a wonderful job at immersing you in a steampunk world. With giant mechs, passenger zeppelins, a bit of magic (which is prohibited to an extent, and can be used by you either for good, evil, or not at all), and a Victorian-esque setting, fans of the steampunk genre will likely find themsevles right at home. While I feel as though the earlier chapters do a better job at provoking imagery, the game still manages to immerse you later on as well.

Whilst I have only, at the time of this review, played the game once, I can still say that your choices do indeed affect the story, so fans of RPGs will also find a lot to love in this game, which could even be described as a text-based RPG.

Additionally, a main advantage this title has over other Choice of Games titles is that this one has deeper character relationships than even Choice of Robots, in my opinion. While I personally found the romantic relationships rather limited (as far as I could tell, siding with the faction that I did means you cannot have a romantic relationship at all), the friendships- or, perhaps, rivalries- with other characters are deep and make you care about your in-game friends.

Altogether, Choice by Gaslight is an immersive steampunk RPG, that, despite being (almost) entirely text-based, will likely not soon be forgotten, especially for steampunk fans. Overall, 8/10.

Going into this game, I wasn't sure what to expect: it contained several elements that I had seen attempts at in mobile games and the sort, and those games hadn't overly impressed me. Needless to say, I was apprehensive.
Now imagine an exensive 300+ page novel that is all about you and your adventure. That's what this is. It took 10 hours to finish it for the first time, and every choice I made, every flick of my head or slight wording difference kept me alive and exhilerated to the ending. Even the most trivial of choices contributed to crafting my own personal story; a story that touched, and scared me more than any first person shooter could.
If you like fast-paced novels with biting mysteries and high stake choices, this is a game for you.

While I missed having a choice of male or female protagonist like so many of the other "choices" games, I found this to be one of the most absorbing, with a wonderfully realised story and often quite heartwrenching set of choices , I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this story to anyone that enjoys these type of choose your path games.

I've played through once so far, which took about 4 hours, unlocking roughly a third of the available points, though I think I avoided some early possible deaths and poor outcomes so it could be a somewhat shorter game for others. I look forward to a few more playthoughs when I have time, and especially look forward to enjoying some of the darker story lines that seem to be possible.

I admit I wasn't expecting much from this story since I'm not a huge fan of the steampunk genre. How mistaken I was. The web of intrigue is wonderfully woven, and the characters are all vibrant and alive. This is definitely one of the best publications from Choice of Games, and I wholeheartedly look forward to the next story by Heather Albano.