Life in Adventure Review

I have been a fan of text-based games for years and I even remember my first encounter with one was on a page I was linked to through StumbleUpon; I spent hours playing it even when the game had nothing but text and options — no animation, no HUD, not even pictures

Nowadays there are more options, sure, but I still have found it difficult to find a good one. Heck, it is difficult to even find more than a few despite it being easier now, given games have become much more popular and are easier to find. However, I now present to all fans of the genre: Life in Adventure.

I am going to preface this with a warning, in case it isn't common for text-based games to do this: The game isn't riddled with text. There aren't a whole lot of complicated explanations or deep conversations. It is straight to the point, no fillers, just adventure. I am going to be honest,  this kind of repelled me at first. I was used to the intricate type of text-based games where you get basically a book for a story, so when Life in Adventure had me going from one heroic journey to the next, it was a bit strange… but then I honestly just got into it.

So, here is how the game works: You randomise a character or make one yourself by paying two gems, which aren't hard to come by as you can unlock them through the collection of items in-game (more on this later) or watching a quick ad. The character has several customisation options: gender, name, portrait, background, trait, stats, and starting equipment.

As far as I got to see in my five or so playthroughs, the gender you choose doesn't really change anything, unless perhaps I managed to miss all the events in which it did. You can also purchase different backgrounds with gems! The category’s title is a bit misleading as they affect the main story rather than just your past; I only purchased one so far because they are 100 gems each but I quite loved the difference it made. Traits are something your character can have one of and are things like gaining 10% more money on your journey or being able to use magic without magic equipment. Everything else is rather self-explanatory! Aside from the traits and background, you can also purchase new tales, which are side quests that you will encounter at random in your playthroughs, regardless of background.

The gameplay itself is quite fun: You go from scenario to scenario where you will have a few options of what you can do, and most of what you choose will give you some EXP that will fill up a bar at the top. Once that fills up, you get your ending according to the decisions you have made and your alignment. This was all well and good to me at first, but not understanding it very well cost me many runs because I was trying to do everything I felt my character would, which means I continued to be left on a cliffhanger because my story would end much too soon. Unfortunately, this means you have to pick and choose what you should or shouldn't react to and sometimes that means ignoring people or even telling kids to leave you alone; I personally thought it was a sad way for the game to work because I love making a very good, heroic character and them ignoring people in need felt a bit immersion-breaking. There are alignments in the game, too, that will change the way people react to you as well as some story elements.

However, as fun and action-packed as that type of gameplay is, it doesn't come without downfalls. Because there is very little context or story, there is one element that kept getting me killed as a "traitor to the kingdom" because of a misunderstanding. I kept going down the same route thinking what I was doing was kind when, in reality, I was accidentally sentencing my character to end up as a criminal. It could have been avoided had there been more text to explain the story behind the world.

There are options to buy gems within the game so you don't have to watch ads to get them and even a nifty collectibles reward system that gives you a gem per new find: First time getting a certain equipment, first time getting a certain epilogue, entry on the monster journal, etc. This will serve to help players afford some of the things they might want to explore. Although there is a one-time purchase option within the game that adds benefits such as skipping fight scenes, one revive per run, and no forced ads (among other perks), this does not unlock all of the traits, tales, or backgrounds.

Aside from that, I want to mention that the game is best explored by really changing the points you add to your character's stats. The most changes I saw prior to buying the background or stories was when I let go of my obsession of building the characters roughly the same. Most games make it so that you aren't exactly free to be whatever you wish if you want to have an optimal playthrough, but in Life in Adventure it is ideal you explore.

Now onto combat: In this game the combat is simple. You get power points by gearing up with good equipment that you can purchase with the gold you acquire from completing missions or by the rewards of your adventures themselves; these power points dictate how probable you are to win a match against opponents but are not the only factor, as there's also a die involved that rolls from 1-20. If it's less than 10 you lose power and if it's greater than you gain instead. As far as I got to experience thus far, if you roll 20 it's a one shot but I never had the luck against a bigger boss.

The game's atmosphere is really pretty for a text-based game (at least, in comparison to what I am accustomed to) as it has a little animated sequence during battle that lasts a few seconds, a nice HUD, and sometimes even some pictures in between paragraphs to better showcase what your character is witnessing. Even the music is quite pleasant.

Good atmosphere, nice enough writing, fun mechanics, interesting approach to the text-based genre... I love the game and plan on not only supporting the developers when I can afford it, but also finishing all the collections there are to get. My only real quarrel with the game is that at times it feels like the explanations for the options are kind of vague and have caused me to sometimes do something I didn't want or know I was going to do.