Awaken your magic and break an ancient curse at this secret school of sorcery! What mysteries will you uncover at the crossroads between realms? House of the Golden Mask is an interactive fantasy novel by Miranda Eastwood, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based, 300,000 words long. The House of the Golden Mask is a school where worlds collide, and where sorcerers from all of those worlds must remain while they learn to control their magic enough to be able to use it safely. You are its newest and most gifted student, learning alchemy, linguistics, the occult, and more. I sat down with Miranda to talk about her upcoming game and work in the interactive fiction field. House of the Golden Mask releases on Thursday, Dec 4th. You can wishlist it on Steam today—even if you don’t plan to purchase on Steam, it really helps!

This is your first time with Choice of Games, but I think not your first foray into game-writing and interactive fiction. Tell me a little about your background and other works.

I’ve been working as a AAA writer and narrative designer for the past three years. Before that, during my graduate degree in English, I made a few interactive “experiences” for post-secondary education. These were all made in Twine, and I wouldn’t go so far as to call them games, but they were the springboard that launched me into making my own interactive fiction.

What made you interested to try ChoiceScript?

I was hitting personal limits with Twine (and the engines I work with professionally). ChoiceScript was a change in pace; even after writing a whole game, there are still new things I’d like to try. ChoiceScript’s got some really sophisticated systems disguised by its accessibility. I’m looking forward to seeing how far I can push those systems in future games!

Tell our readers about House of the Golden Mask—what kind of story are we getting into here?

The way I’ve been describing it is a mystery-adventure disguised as a school of magic game.

You’re coming into a House that just barely keeps up an academic appearance while magicians on every side try to push their own agenda—while recruiting you for their cause. Infighting, rebellion, straight-up betrayal… All of this happening on top of lectures, labs, and research projects. A lot of the story revolves around untangling secrets; every character—including the PC—has their own complicated history.

But the heart of the story is the PC coming into their own as a magician, chasing after their future while being pulled left and right by other characters and their own ambitions.

Did you have a particular character you found yourself drawn to writing most?

The instructors posed a challenge to write because of the uncertain power dynamics between them and the magicians brought to the House. Nakara is at the heart of this conflict; they believe in what they do, and they have the competency to do it, but emotionally, they’re still trying to figure things out. I loved writing them because what pushes them over the edge isn’t an abstract ambition or personal goal, but unrelenting kindness.

Kindness is messy, difficult, and complicated to enact, particularly in a professional/institutional setting. Where do you draw the line between empathy and professionalism? It’s a question I struggle with in real life, and I found it rewarding to explore it in writing.

What did you find most surprising about the writing process?

I was stunned by how fast that word count racked up, particularly in the last few chapters. Writing in ChoiceScript is addictive! I used to see works with a million or more words and think, “That’s impossible. How could anyone do that?”

I get it now.

What are you working on next?

For the short term, I’m currently working on a short essay for an anthology focused on game writing. Otherwise, I’ve been working on a webcomic for 6+ years now (Brain in a Jar, on Webtoon) that I’ve had to put on hold for the past few months, and I’m eager to make some more progress on it over the break!

And, of course, I always have another game in the works. Still early for any details on that, though.