The Road to Canterbury

This Choice of Games entry appealed to me because of the subject matter a lot, set in medieval times it had caught my eye. A pilgrimage to Canterbury, set in the Canterbury Tales world, I thought some great story telling would be involved. I've played a few other choice of games through before this particular COG game and had high expectations. Although, I can recommend the game as it does have a lot of pluses, like some character development and some choices that do matter, I was left wishing the game had a little more meat to it and had lasted longer. Some of the storylines you go down seem to wash out very quickly. I also have to say it wasn't always very easy to guess as to what choices affected which of your stats. Some of them were down right confusing and I was shocked to see which of my stats went up or down with the choices I made. Most of the achievements for the game are pretty easy and take very little as far as total play-throughs to get them. However, two of them can be...

Story failed to deliver. You're supposed to be this person thats supposed to decide the fate of a war, its aftermath and the lives tied into it by persuading an influential woman to support England or France. Sounds good on paper but the execution was straight trash. You're supposed to be this English born native on a holy 'pilgrimage' to deliever an influential woman to Canterbury where you can manipulate her into using her 'secret' to support the country of your choice. The 'pilgrimage' is a handful of stops at some inns & towns where your nation loyalties are determined by your expression of disdain for one nation or the other. You don't really get to do anything of substance to show your patriotism unless you support Englad. There is an instance where if you support france you can 'help' in an assassination attempt to kill a major english power player but its silly and railroaded so it fails. First you run distraction on your comrades so the assassin can set up and then when its t...

I don't write reviews often, and I believe this may well be my first for a choose-your-own adventure entirely. Please forgive me if it is lackluster as a result of inexperience. That said, this game DID warrant a review and even managed to motivate me to write one. That alone should be a sign to any of my friends who stumble across this. To strangers, I would say "don't trust me, but simply play the demo and see for yourself." This was extremely well written. It wasn't bogged down with too many unnecessary descriptions, but the ones that were used were so well done that I found myself completely entranced in the writing. I actually got whisked away by it, and that's not something that occurs often these days. I've only played a single playthrough, but I very much felt like my choices directly impacted the outcome. There were quite a lot of appreciated nods to history (as well as some hidden gems) without sacrificing the romanticism of it all. That is to say: it was superbly ...

Lets just say its not one of my favorites. Not to say it isn't worth playing. Not sure if its a big spoiler but this game is pretty much about politics. England or France, no in between as far as I could tell. If you like that, then go for it. Me personally nope. The romance options are pretty bland if thats what your into, I tried two options and they end up being the same. Not very exciting or inventive. I have to say I liked the stories told by the characters better than the story itself sadly. And yes, it feels like my options didn't make a big enough impact, so I'm not recommending it.

Let me preface this by saying, it's not bad, but neither is it good. I've played (read?) worse, but I've also read a lot better. I will endeavor to keep this spoiler light, but fair warning, I make no absolute guarantees past this point. The first of my complaints would be the general ease of the game's challenges. I never really felt like my decisions mattered, since it was so easy to figure out what I needed to do in any situation. The story contest, one of the main selling points of the interactive, was particularly simple, and frankly felt detached from the main story. Geoffrey Chaucer was present, but I didn't feel like he needed to be there. Frankly, you could have replaced him with anyone, and they would have still filled the role admirably. His prescence was wasted, and could have been used better. This next one is a pet peeve of mine, and I will admit, likely is me being a little anal. I'm something of a history nut, and while I didn't come into this expecting perfect hist...

Very rarely, after discovering a gem on Steam, do I have to think before writing a review - not just in terms of putting text onto a screen, but how a game made me feel inside after completion. The Road to Canterbury is a very well written, crafted, and intelligent effort. There's love in between the character choices, the details of the world and the research undertaken behind it. Compare this to Fallout 76 - one is a hollow, cash-grabbing, FPS shooter with thin role-playing elements, and the other is a simple black and white text adventure. The latter had more. It had more to it. That's outstanding. It had more depth, more story, more Humanity in it than a triple A title. Perhaps that's a moot argument. How can I compare the two different genres/ target audiences? It saddens me that a game like this will never see the spotlight it rightly deserves. But I hope the author gets the recognition she deserves. As Chaucer himself would put: "For, as you know, no master of a househol...

It's a Canterbury Tales fanfiction gamebook. If this premise appeals to you at all, you'll likely find something to enjoy here. If your favorite character is the Wife of Bath, you definitely will. I personally would have liked more of a focus on the tales themselves, but the whole palace intrigue plot surrounding the Canterbury pilgrimage was fun, and it wasn't as easy to engineer the precise outcome I wanted as it first appeared. This was my first Choice of Games title, and I definitely intend to purchase more.

=== MINOR SPOILERS === 7/10. I played several games from CoG before, and I was highly intrigued by this one. For a start, the demo is really promising and exciting, and made me buy the gamebook. I love Medieval history and the game is very well written, bringing 14th century England to life. That's what made the game shine for me, and why I recommend it, but it's far from perfect. If you enjoy romances and buys CoG games partly because of them, this one is a disappointment. Romance develops too abruptly close to the end, making the relationship seem sudden. I couldn't believe my eyes when, after just talking to a character alone a couple of times before (and a seemingly pious one at that), they were already asking for a kiss. Also: Osric's death is what brings some characterization to a protagonist we cannot decide much on (in terms of background, NOT personality - in the latter's case it is quite good). The final plot twist broke that death's significance by a fair margin. Final...

entertaining and historically accurate (enough) interactive game within Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Entertaining and educational!

The Road to Canterbury is a hidden gem, well-researched and spirited. The worldbuilding and characterizations are memorable and compelling. I'm enjoying playing it very much so far. It offers a lot of replayability and is a perfect way to learn more about the Middle Ages from the inside.