A diamond in the rough: Life in an Adventure.

Hello my dear viewer and welcome back to another review, I am as always you most humble reviewer, Delta the Wolf.

Now I will be the first to admit and it pains me to say it even happened, but my recent reviews have been biassed and pious. So today let us witness the return of the humble gentle facade as we delve into Life in Adventure.

Hello my dear viewer and welcome back to another review, I am as always you most humble reviewer, Delta the Wolf.Now I will be the first to admit and it pains me to say it even happened, but my recent reviews have been biassed and pious. So today let us witness the return of the humble gentle facade as we delve into Life in Adventure.

Graphics.

I would hasten to argue that there is no proper way to review Life in an Adventure’s graphics, the main thing we would have to take into context for the graphics art style would be its user interface and art style. So let us start dissecting both, starting with the art style, the art style is rather charming fantasy pixel art, most images and icons in this game look lovely in this wolf’s opinion; However, if you are not a fan of pixel art do not fret, most of the pixel art in Life in Adventure is very detailed, not like the normal 8bit pixelated games you may be accustomed to, making the art pretty unique, especially given the games place as a mobile title.

Now for the user interface, the user interface in this game is rather serviceable, its design is simple yet marvelous, it helps immerse you in the feeling of a fantasy book unlike most choose your own adventure games. There are two modes available, light and dark, this humble wolf would recommend you play the game in light mode as it gives you the feeling of this being a book that you write.. Wonderfully. Outside of that there is not much to say, the buttons look good, just cobblestone on a well maintained road and the font is rather good given the genre, you can also customise spacing and size if need be.Overall in the graphics regard I would give it a 8/10, however, as I have hastened to say, this is up to your opinion. I found the graphics serviceable and fitting which lead to my higher rating, your mileage may vary if you are of differing minds, which we all are.

Gameplay.

Life in an adventure is different from the other factory standard, choose your own adventure games, unlike those Life in an adventure is an actual game. You have stat checks, a randomised pool of side encounters and stories, a equipment system that actual matters, and a lot more, you will not have the same adventures every run, something different will happen each time especially after you get expansion packs, save for the annoying base main story which we will get to later, that ending is a black sheep, but you will at least get other ending slides each run. Other than that we have two more aspects to cover, firstly, this is a choose your own adventure game, as I briefly mentioned in the summary you will be given a lot of options to customise your character (with adventure club* Covered later), but at the core you will be mainly reading a story and choosing options based on it. Now I am not saying the story is bland, far from, unless you are hyper focused on the base main story that is; however, some may find this game play bland, though others, such as me, may find it as good, as the system feels like a lite version of a tabletop game, especially with your choices having an actual impact on side stories.

The combat lacks lustre, roll a dice, if below 10 you may lose, between 11 and 19 you win, 20 you instantaneously win, 1 you instantaneously lose. It is flat. Even I can’t defend it and you dear viewer, especially after my Neverwinter nights review, would probably think of me as a wolf with a bellows.Overall I would rate this section, 6/10, the aspects of choice are fantastic, remarkably better than most games on mobile in the choose your own adventure category; However, the combat knocks it down five pegs, there is a more detailed system in the works, but I have not tried it. So if I am late to the party and that part of the review is outdated, as the new system actually looks good, bump this segment up to a 9/10, if it is good and if it is bad a 4/10 out of spite.

Story.

Oh look, the story segment, now pray tell, what do I always do here? I am kidding, not this time dear viewer.

The main story depends heavily on what intro you get by random choice or by character creation, we will cover all this in due time, but for now let's not make haste as there is plenty of content from the base story and the base side stories.The main story is sadly bland, I will not spoil much as there is nothing to spoil, lets just say that it will force you into a train 90% of the time, even if you avoid it you will be dragged kicking and screaming to the war like a reluctant conscript to Europe, the side content is the gem of this game. Most of the side stories have a lot of options throughout their run and have a lot of options that can affect how they end, especially the paid ones. As I want to keep this review spoiler free for you dear viewer, let's go into the pros and the cons without touching the story.First up with the pros, the side quests are generally well written, despite being Korean there are seldom few translation errors. The side stories, especially the ones you can buy, last exceptionally long through the run. The main stories that you can buy will also give good bang for your buck as they are a thousand times better than the base train main story, they are also generally longer making for a better run as you will get more side stories and more of a story in general.Now for the cons, everything is not without cons. Side stories are handled in a way that the start may occur lets say 5% of the way into your adventure, nice this side story will be the focus, you may say to yourself? Nay, nay my dear viewer, the game is completely random, meaning that this side story may get put on the back burner until 40-60% of the way through, you can have a lot of side stories going to the point of if you are not playing an adventure in its entirety in one session, you may lose more track of the story like most invading armies against the Russian Empire, now there was one invading that managed to go through out of what, 3? So I will give you a 33% chance that you stay on track, anyways we are moving off topic, onto the next con. The paid stories have no true preview, you get a brief description and that is all, seeing as you are paying $5 for main stories you would think that you would want more information for at least the main stories, but no, you buy solely on the description, good luck.

That about ends it for the glaring pros and cons of the story, unlike other segments my dear viewer I will not give a numeral rating. As this is more opinion based than the prior segments.

Monetisation and grind factor.

Everyone needs money, especially indie developers with how long they put into the development of their projects, taking time out of their lives with not much reward. So that being said, how did this developer handle monetization, well let us get into it dear viewer.We will first start out with adventurer guild, this purchase is simple, it is the run of the mill premium. I can’t say much on it, but for $5.49, I would say pass. The benefits are more good if you have a lot of the main stories and traits unlocked, so that you can play a specific story that you want. I never personally found the ads too bothersome. The biggest benefit in this wolf’s opinion is the ability to out right skip or fast forward battles, but if you want to support the developer, go right on ahead, it is a rather fair deal if you look at it as a donation package.

Traits, main stories, and side stories, oh my! So this is the glaring elephant in the room, you can stop staring at it, wait no don’t start staring at the elephant with the gilded grind factor dra.. Woof? cute wolf writing here focus.. Okay enough with humour? Let us continue. Anyways, the issues I have with the stories being paid content I mentioned above in the cons section of the story, in my personal opinion it is not a bad thing that the stories are paid with how much content is added in them. Traits, however, I am more divided on as they seem rather useless being paid, especially with the random chance of getting them or not without the paid version. Do with that information as you will.

Now roll in the elephant and reveal the true big elephant room… the grind factor. Step right up! Don’t crowd! So what is the grind factor in this game? Rather limited, it happens pretty much in the background so you will not notice it, you get a gem for each side story, ending, bestiary entry, and item obtained. There are also achievements that you can get, but I forgot the amount of gems that you get for those, so I will not mention them. The way the system is implemented makes the game rather fair to F2Ps, after a while of playing you will be able to afford some of that oh-so precious premium content, and it wont even take a month like most games.

Overall the monetization is good, it has some flaws, but overlooking these it is rather fair in my humblest of opinions, I would give it a solid 7/10. Highly recommended, but not five stars out of five.

With that abrupt stop I believe I have covered all that I can possibly cover for this game, so as always...

The recap.

The game is rather fair to F2P players, offering a wide range of content at base,  granted the base main story is horrid. The combat system is bad but the game play itself is rather good if you are looking for a true old school rpg / tabletop esque game in a choose your own adventure wrapping paper. While some portions of the monetization system may be bad, it is overall good and yet again free to play friendly so long as you look up a better description of each story.

So as always,

I am your most humblest of reviewers,

Delta, the Wolf.