Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale Reviews

I loved Tally Ho, and this surprised me by being even better. It was even funnier and has a more interesting plot. I was very surprised when I reached the end of this game, after seeing their was over a million words I thought it was going to be much longer, but that means their will be a huge amount of replayability. The Fitize romance was amazing and I loved her, Maybe not quite as much as Rory yet, but we'll see by the end of the series. I will defiantly buy the next two and can't wait.

I must say that I loved Tally Ho, so when I saw Jolly Good I was delighted. But nothing prepared me for this game. It's AMAZING. I have never laughed so much reading, the story is fun and well written, the characters are so full of life and personality, the choices are difficult to make because you want to know what will happen in the other choices, so I must say: terrific job to the writer. Really, you're awesome. The oportunity to see the characters of Tally Ho again in a new perspective was very entertaining too. The way that the chapters are divided is a new format for me, and I'm used to choice of games format. First I got a little confused, because you can play the chapter you just finished again or continue the story. For me this cut a little the flow of the tale, but at the same time was a good oportunity to try new choices again without needing to start a new game all over again. Overall an incredible game, and I'm waiting anxiously for the next ones.

This choice-based novel game is a standalone sequel to "Tally Ho!" It's not necessary for you to have read and played through that one to understand this story, but there are a few recurring characters and minor plot-points that happened in "Tally Ho!" that come up from time to time in this game so it would help a little for you to play through that one first to get the full experience :) You play as a Lord/Lady of High Society who is recently the subject of scandal which can be of your choosing, you find yourself lacking a servant to help you sort through your life that recently gone downhill because of the aforementioned scandal as your last servant left unhappily. The story builds from there as you employ a new, dubious and rather forward-speaking servant (you get to choose the gender) and they will help you rebuild your reputation, this is by joining one of Societies well-known social clubs (which also comes with it's own slew of challenges to tackle) full of colourful and interesting characters. You can build relationships or destroy the trust of well-founded clubs, it really is up to you as to how you play the game of which route you wish to take. Be a civilised, gentle Lord/Lady, or be an outspoken, scandalous, thrill-seeker or even be somewhat in the middle grey area of a sarcastic cynic or snobby gossip. Your personality is to your choosing! The thing I enjoy about this game is that your choices really DO actively affect the story and your relationships to the plot and characters, this gives a real sense of responsibility and the drive to want to do well. But you can always replay each chapter to change your decisions should the outcomes not be in your favour, this I did in a couple chapters a number of times to explore what would've happened if I'd have chosen differently (and also to see if I could get a better outcome). This really helped in gaining achievements so it's a handy tool to take advantage of. The DLCs of course will help you with stat points and achievement unlocking more easily, but I never bought this game with that in mind, I purchased this because I liked "Tally Ho!" and just wished to have another good read. I enjoyed this game so much, possibly because as a Lady of Society I felt I had more impact in my choices than I did as a maid/lady-in-waiting to a spoiled Lady of High Society in the previous game (it did honestly get a bit tiring three-quarters of the way through in "Tally Ho!" where I had to keep cleaning up everyone else's messes and a lotta characters made things more difficult than it really needed to be). The writing is very well-written of this game, with clever quips and humour running throughout, I wasn't nearly as exasperated with the characters in this story compared to "Tally Ho!" and I grew to really love them all. I laughed aloud often and found myself smiling a lot at the interactions of the characters and what they said. Sure, some of the situations in the story can be a little over-the-top at times when compared to every day life, but then that's the charm of this story. It thrusts you into scenarios, sometimes out of the blue and you need to really think on your feet what it is you want the outcome to be. The only thing that was a slight negative and it really is a minor thing, is that this is but the first-part of a story, "Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale" will eventually be followed by a sequel "Tea and Scones", this I didn't discover until the very end of the game, which took me by surprise. It made me sad that I'll have to wait to finish the game, but I am looking forward to the sequel at the same time. I really hope it'll be just as great as this one was. Overall I give this 10/10, definitely worth reading through if you enjoy being more of an active player in a story than the usual fly on the wall protagonist.

I've played through to several different endings and many different paths (though most of my playtime is the game sitting idle), and this is an extremely fun, very well written game with a ton of variation. As others have said, this is the first story in a trilogy, and as such does not reach a firm conclusion, a fact that the game itself lampoons, but I really did enjoy the journey and look forward to future installments. That said, this is another game that highlights how poor COG's save system is, or rather how it doesn't exist. A game with as many variations and complex storylines like this begs for multiple playthroughs, but the lack of the ability to save your progress when you've completed a run means that you will either have to play through it again multiple times when the next game comes out or wait until the entire series has been released to play through all three games as many times as you'd like. Probably a minor quibble, but I get the sense that a lot of people who really like these games, like myself, play through them multiple times to uncover as many scenes as possible. But that's an indictment of the system as a whole, Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale itself is a really excellent experience and if this kind of text adventure is your thing and you can't stand to wait until future episodes are released, I can't recommend it highly enough.

I'm enjoying this one. I've only read the first few chapters so far so do take my review with a grain of salt but here is my take. It is a spinoff of another Choose Your Own Adventure Book called Tally Ho, though it isn't a direct sequel. If You have played that, you can get a good idea of what this one will be like. You will have loads of wacky adventures with tons of wit and general humor that I enjoy. You play as a noble who is recovering from a nasty scandal, causing your reputation to plummet and your finances to dwindle, so you join a club of well-to-do individuals to get your reputation back. If it is anything like Tally Ho, then I will enjoy this one greatly.

This is a very good CYOA game. It has interesting characters, well paced story and interesting choices. Two gripes i have with this: Ending(if you can call it that) is quite abrupt, one moment you are reading then games simply says "This is a good place to stop." and ends. While i understand it's part one of a trilogy i still expected some form of conclusion not just "I'll tell you later" The other one being is (at least for me) is determining which stat affects which choice. I personally would like if there was an option to add stats which are related to the choice at the end of it.

After reading Tally Ho (which is excellent!), i have to say that I am quite disappointed with Jolly Good: Cakes and Ale. Firstly, because it is UNFINISHED. It is the first game in a three-part series. An Information that you are hard pressed to find on the store page. Secondly while at first the game seems to make more frequent use of monies, giving it some actual value, I can't help but feel that a lot of options are set up in a way, to entice you to purchase the DLC to receive extra funds. Seriously, for some choices i am not sure if you CAN even have enough monies by playing regularly. Lastly I just didn't think the characters could measure up to Tally Ho - i certainly felt more drawn in and connected in that one, than i did in Jolly Good. Overall it feels like a slightly worse and more anti-consumer version of Tally-Ho. At this point, I would not recommend it - perhaps once it's actually finished.

I played it with the cheats DLC. That--combined with an in-depth description of what each stat meant--for me fixed all the issues I had with "Tally Ho" (it being ambiguous what some of the stats meant and which stats were being checked for the various choices, to the point where a lot of it was blind guessing and trying to strategize was pointless). Being able to just myself high stats really helped me to be able to enjoy the story, instead of trying to predict the often counterintuitive outcomes or figure out how a certain choice may vaguely relate to a stat There were a lot of choices, and they almost all had a significant impact on the story, so there's very good replayability

To get the one part of this game that really disappointed me out of the way first: I feel like the marketing wasn't clear enough that this truly is the first part in a three part series, and that there will be multiple plot threads that will only get resolved in later parts. Think of it less like Ace Attorney, where there are only a few major plot threads that carry over from each game, and more like the When They Cry series - each episode is "complete" and all, but you're definitely not going to be getting the fully scope of the story until it's all out. It's not as if they falsely advertised this game, though, at least not to my knowledge - it's more about vagueness. It's also possible that it has more to do with my own expectations. So it's not as if I'm saying this as a knock against the game inherently - more as just an advisory. If you're the kind of person who doesn't like watching TV shows until they're finished, I'd recommend waiting for the entire series to be complete before picking this one up. That aside - absolutely loved it. I feel like a big improvement this game has is... well, the only way I really know how to talk about it is to compare it to Tally Ho! I was among the many people who felt annoyed that the game consistently forced us to try and aid Figs and Mopsy (no matter what we did, the painting would still end up in our possession. no matter what we did, we still had to help Figs sneak in, etc). I feel like that sort of plot structure isn't present in this game (although I've only done two play throughs so far, so it's possible it is there and I'm just not noticing). As always, the writing in this game is by far the best thing about it. I mean... it's all writing, duh. Lot's of fun turns of phrase that have made me chuckle out loud. Definitely recommend if this style of game is to your taste!

Tally Ho is one of my favorite cogs, and this is a delightful sequel. If you like Tally Ho (or, if you haven't played Tally Ho but enjoy goofy hijinks, quick-witted dialogue, and falling in love with your valet), then I highly recommend this. I'm sad to have reached the end, but I'm eager to play it again. To get into specifics: First, I liked the romantic interests so much that I had a very hard time choosing between them on my first run--I was totally convinced I would go with one, but then fell for another, and that thought process was so nicely portrayed in the story itself that I stopped in the middle just to think about how lovely it was to have this problem at all. Second, I do think that if you're very invested in winning at a choose your own adventure book, you might not have the best time. I failed at just about every single turn. But the "failure" routes were still fun, and they reflected what might happen if my main character had actually been running around in this wacky universe. (It did feel different than Tally Ho, where I felt like I was able to succeed in different ways. In this one, I felt like I found new ways to mess up every time I restarted a chapter. But, again, it was still fun!) Third, the writing itself is just, like, really good. I laughed out loud multiple times, even while completely sober. I sent one out-of-context quote to my friend and that was enough for her to look the game up on Steam. I'm sitting here, spending way too long trying to write a nice review when all I want to do is play it again. Just, like, give it a try.