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Samurai of Hyuga: Book 6 is the spine-tingling sequel to the interactive tale you know all too well. Or do you? Prepare for a role reversal (to put it mildly) as our favorite ronin faces perils unlike any before—including homework, final exams, and love confessions after class, too!

And don’t get me started on the extracurriculars.

Samurai of Hyuga Book 6 releases this Thursday, May 21st. You can try the first four chapters today for free and wishlist it on Steam!

We’re proud to announce that Wizard Confidential, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, Android, and on iOS in the “Choice of Games” app. It’s 34% off until May 21st!

Sling spells and crack the case in a city full of bootleggers, corrupt cops, and vampires. Can you save your partner before a wizard dooms Seattle?

Wizard Confidential is an interactive urban fantasy noir novel by Anthony Eichenlaub, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based, 210,000 words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, fueled by the vast unstoppable power of your imagination.

Seattle, 1927. You’re a private eye in a city drenched in secrets. Bootleggers run speedboats over the border to supply speakeasies and jazz clubs; gangs shoot it out in dark alleys; and the coppers are even more crooked than the crooks. Crime isn’t the only thing lurking in Seattle’s misty streets: there are werewolves, vampires, and wizards. The wise citizen avoids the dark.

Too bad for them that you’re not wise enough to back down – and that you’re a darn good wizard yourself. You crack the cases that nobody else can, and right now, you’ve got some big ones. City Hall wants you to investigate an out-of-town union leader who’s much more than meets the eye. The Dry Squad wants you to help track down a notorious gang of bootleggers before the Feds move in. And you? You want to find your partner, who’s gone missing under circumstances more mysterious than any of your other cases.

But bigger than all those other problems put together is the rogue wizard who’s been popping up around town. Who is he? Why does he always appear just when something major is going down? What does he want? And most importantly, what does he know that you don’t? The city’s future is at stake, and you’re the only one who can save it.

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, or bi
• Solve cases with brains, fists, charm, magic, or good old-fashioned gumshoe work.
• Romance a sultry jazz singer with a family full of secrets; a charismatic rabble-rousing union organizer, or a sharp-dressing smooth-talking City Hall staffer
• Use magic to control the elements, craft illusions, or divine the future.
• Build your detective agency into the biggest one in town – if you can save your partner!
• Bring a labor organizer’s message to the people as a champion of the working class, or bust the unions and ally yourself with the city’s elite.
• Trade bullets and wisecracks with Seattle’s most notorious gangs, bust up a bootlegging ring, or stay above the fray and come out smelling like roses.
• Battle a dangerous wizard for the fate of the city.

On these mean streets, the only thing tougher than the vampires is you.

We hope you enjoy playing Wizard Confidential. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

Sling spells and crack the case in a city full of bootleggers, corrupt cops, and vampires. Can you save your partner before a wizard dooms Seattle? Wizard Confidential is a 210,000-word interactive urban fantasy noir novel by Anthony Eichenlaub; I sat down with Anthony to walk about his upcoming game and the rest of his oeuvre.

Wizard Confidential releases this Thursday, May 14th. You can try the first three chapters today for free and also wishlist it on Steam—even if you don’t plan to purchase it there, it really helps!

Wizard Confidential is your first game with us, and it really fits into what I think of as your brand of fiction: a blend of noir and fantasy. Tell our readers about your other novels and what attracted you to this genre.

Noir has always fascinated me, both in books and movies, so I do tend to pull from it in my stories, whether it’s overt or not. I just finished a reread of Dashiell Hammett’s novels, and I’m still finding that the way subtle aspects of the stories weave together in the end are truly masterful. I love how it’s never a simple good versus evil, but instead a messy struggle of order versus chaos where order doesn’t always win and even when it does chaos is right around the corner.

My previous novel series started with The Man Who Walked in the Dark, and it’s a sci-fi noir about a man who literally walks in the dark because the station’s automated lights don’t respond to him. Don’t worry, he’s figuratively walking in the shadows, too. It’s a story that wraps in an art heist, bitter power struggles between crime lords, and a corrupt church into one big tangled mess of a story. Before that I wrote a series called Grandfather Anonymous about an elderly hacker thrown back into action because he needs to keep his family safe. It leans more into crime and mystery than straight noir, but the ambiguity of the characters lends itself to the noir vibe.

What gaming experiences drew you to taking on the challenge of writing interactive fiction?

I’ve been gaming since the beginning of time, both tabletop and on screen. My first experience with interactive storytelling was probably DMing 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons as a teen. I’d build wildly elaborate worlds populated with interesting, nuanced characters only for my players to stomp all over everything and murder the wrong NPCs. What I loved most about it was transforming that mess into a compelling story no matter what they did, and more times than not I think I succeeded. It wasn’t until 4th Edition that I started getting material published in Kobold Quarterly, which is really what got me into writing.

On the video game side, I think the flexible storytelling of games like Fallout inspire a lot of what I do, but I also draw from things like Grim Fandango and Dishonored. It wasn’t until I read The Bread Must Rise that I really understood how amazing Choice of Games titles could be, and I knew right then that I had to write one.

Instead of a traditional novelistic protagonist, writing a PC so that the players’ experience is customizable is sometimes a challenge. I notice our authors often have extremely vibrant NPCs as a result. Did you find you had a favorite one, in the writing of the game?

One of the things I love about noir is that the romance can often be more bittersweet than it is happily ever after. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade has very real feelings for Brigid O’Shaughnessy, but he (spoilers) gives her up to the police so she can account for her crimes. That hard choice is at the center of the story and it’s critical to the character of Sam Spade. Would I have made that same choice if this were interactive fiction? I honestly don’t know. That’s what makes that story so compelling.

I’m not sure I can pick a favorite, but I think Kai Mason was the potential love interest I enjoyed writing the most. There’s so much variability in how things can go, and their story ties directly into the interaction between the union and the budding airplane industry. Every time I wrote a section with Mason, I got to delve into real-life union history, enjoy creating the variable alternate histories, and spend time with a character that I genuinely enjoyed spending time with.

Folks from the wider fandom and literary world may know you as being part of SFWA leadership and from seeing you at sci-fi centered cons—tell me a little about that.

I’m currently Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and I’ve been a volunteer with the organization for many years. I’m a big fan of how SFWA helps authors at all levels of their careers and I’m a huge advocate for its work in the game writing space. Anyone looking at getting into writing would do well to check out their Constellation series of virtual weekend mini-conventions or their big virtual conference, the Quasars, which is held in the fall. Also, the Nebulas Conference is fully hybrid and has a huge virtual offering, so it’s definitely worth a look even if you can’t get to Chicago in June.

I go to several cons each year. The writer-focused ones I typically go to are The Nebula Conference and 4th Street Fantasy, which is in Minnesota where I live. I also sometimes panel at the Gencon Writers Symposium, but I’m missing this year. I’ll be at World Fantasy Con for the first time this year and ConFusion early next year. I’m a huge fan of panels and have had all kinds of good conversations with other authors. If you ever see me at a conference, please do not hesitate to give me a high five. If I have time to stop and chat, I definitely will.

What are you working on next?

I’m currently writing short stories while I brainstorm some ideas for the next interactive fiction. Short stories let me experiment with different styles, settings, and characters. My short stories range from sword and sorcery to cyberpunk to cli-fi. It’s nice having a breather to write whatever I want when I wake up in the morning.

I had a blast writing Wizard Confidential and definitely want to dive into another big project, but also writing one of these things is a huge commitment. I need to make sure I have an idea that’s going to keep me interested for the next year at least. Fortunately, I don’t have a problem coming up with such ideas. The problem right now is picking which one to write next.

We’re proud to announce that Posthuman: Guardians vs PSION, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, Android, and on iOS in the “Choice of Games” app.

It’s 30% off until April 30th!

Choose from 20+ distinct superpowers! Lead your team of superheroes to the moon and beyond, and stop the supervillains of PSION—unless, of course, you join them.

Posthuman: Guardians vs PSION is an interactive superhero novel by Evan J. Peterson, author of Drag Star!, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based, 300,000 words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Decades ago, legendary hero Adam Atom created the Guardians: an elite force of posthumans to protect the world from those who use their powers for harm. In response, PSION—the Posthuman Supremacy International Organized Network—sprang up. The United Nations calls them terrorists; they call themselves a liberation army protecting posthumans from human persecution.

Now PSION is hatching their most ambitious plan yet—and it’s up to you and your fellow Guardians to stop them. Together with your team—super-genius Pi, teleporter Taikonaut, elementalist Moxie, healer Gilead, brilliant fighter Vogue, and Basilica (who can turn herself 20-feet tall and turn her skin to stone)—you’ll travel to the moon, Mars, and all over the earth to try to unravel their plots. Why have your allies gone missing? Where is PSION’s new secret base? Why is their leader BrainSkull gathering such a vast amount of power—and what is he going to do with it? Is the next Posthuman War on the way?

Expand your powers, train new cadets to join the next generation of Guardians, and protect the world from PSION. But along the way, you might just discover that they’re not the villains that everyone claims they are…

• Play as male, female, nonbinary, or agender; gay, straight, or bi; asexual and/or aromantic
• Choose from over 20 superpowers: shapeshifting, super-strength, telepathy, weather control, gravity-bending, technomancy, energy manipulation, and more! Then level up to expand your powers and discover new ones!
• Romance a supergenius with a tragic legacy; the class clown elementalist; an intense former vigilante healer; a friendly teleporter, or a stone-skinned rebellious new recruit. Or maybe you still carry a torch for your Academy classmate who switched sides…
• Travel the world gathering up new recruits for the Guardians—if PSION doesn’t get to them first!
• Bend elements! Read minds! Smash stuff!

They say it takes fire to fight fire. You are the fire.

We hope you enjoy playing Posthuman: Guardians vs PSION. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

Steam’s Medieval Fest begins today! Plus, we’ve put more of our medieval titles on sale alongside it! We’re happy to share that several of our games are now on sale as part of Steam’s Medieval Fest! And we’ve added a couple more to the mix as well. For the next week you Chronicon Apocalyptica, A Squire’s Tale, Mask of the Plague Doctor, I, the Forgotten One, The Sword of Rhivenia, Pendragon Rising, Fool! and Ironheart are on sale!

And, we’ve created a Steam Medieval Bundle for extra savings!

Now available up to 40% off until April 27th on Steam!

• Chronicon Apocalyptica
• A Squire’s Tale
• Mask of the Plague Doctor
• I, the Forgotten One
• The Sword of Rhivenia
• Pendragon Rising
• Fool!
• Ironheart

Choose from 20+ distinct superpowers! Lead your team of superheroes to the moon and beyond, and stop the supervillains of PSION—unless, of course, you join them.

Decades ago, legendary hero Adam Atom created the Guardians: an elite force of posthumans to protect the world from those who use their powers for harm. In response, PSION—the Posthuman Supremacy International Organized Network—sprang up. The United Nations calls them terrorists; they call themselves a liberation army protecting posthumans from human persecution.

Now PSION is hatching their most ambitious plan yet—and it’s up to you and your fellow Guardians to stop them.

Posthuman: Guardians vs PSION is a 300,000-word interactive superhero novel by Evan J. Peterson, author of Drag Star!. I sat down with Evan to talk about his upcoming game, the world of Posthuman and his other endeavours. Posthuman: Guardians vs PSION releases next Thursday, April 23rd. You can play the demo today and wishlist it on Steam—even if you plan to purchase the game on another platform, it really helps!

This is your second game for us, and the source of this game derives from a world and characters you had been building for a long time prior. Tell me all about it.
Gladly! I started creating a super-people story many years ago. In high school, I’d draw characters and design their costumes (I thought I was going to be a clothes and costume designer, and that didn’t stick). Then I thought, “Well, what do they do? Who are they, and what’s their world look like?” I got about a third of the way through writing a novel with some of these characters; Vogue is one person I’ve never gotten tired of. But the novel wasn’t about her. It was about second-rate vigilantes discovering their powers and falling into a dysfunctional, even toxic love affair. In retrospect, I had been writing an MM romantasy, but I didn’t know that at the time. Maybe now I’ll revisit it. A lot of their world lived in my head, and now it lives in Posthuman. Come play with us.

What was the most challenging part of making the move from that sort of prior conception to a piece of actual interactive fiction?
I really had to restrain myself on the lore. I cut a chapter’s worth of worldbuilding out in the early chapters, then found places to break that backstory up and redistribute it. This huge world was so precious to me, and I was so invested that I lost focus on the PC occasionally and drifted into long backstory. I was too emotionally close to the material at first, but Jason and Mary redirected me. Later, when some beta testers responded about needing more history of this world, I dug in gleefully and wrote a bunch of in-world database files on the various teams and events. Players will find these linked on the stats page.

This is also my first time writing romance into a COG; there’s a little hanky panky in Drag Star!, but there are no real romanceable characters. Now, there are six or different romances possible. Even though I like a good romance scene, having to do it in six versions with different personalities and voices was challenging.

Who are your own personal comic book superhero idols?
The humans or the superhumans? I adore Keiron Gillen’s writing. Alan Moore has been very influential, too. The folks who founded Milestone (now the Dakota-verse, owned by DC for better or worse). I look up to the Milestone crew, who made a whole new world together, populated mostly by characters of color–and many of them were LGBTQ. They didn’t give a f*** . Readers in the 90s may not have been ready for a Black trans man on a team of superheroes who were also an inner city street gang, but the Milestone crew said, “That’s what you’re getting!”

As far as the fictional, I love love love the X-Men. Not all of them, because now there are hundreds. But Storm, Iceman, Magneto, Synch…who doesn’t love this super-messy, fashion-serving found family of freaks?

Why do you find yourself drawn to those kinds of stories and storytelling?
It’s everything. High-drama people with extraordinary abilities, many of whom are forced to live double lives, who know just the right thing to say at the right time? There’s the outsider/other perspective, there are monsters (good, evil, and nonbinary), and true goodness usually triumphs over true evil. AND THEY DO IT IN COSTUMES. What’s not to like about that?

What else have you been working on?
I got married, so I’ve been nesting. But my brain never stops pulsating. My first novel, Better Living Through Alchemy, came out in 2024, and it won an award for best small-press fantasy novel! I’m super effing proud of that. We also made a short film to serve as the book trailer. With Posthuman finally complete, I’m digging into writing a sequel novel to build the Alchemy series. And I doubt very much that the Posthuman universe is done. Lots more stories in there to tell. Other than turning looks and selling books? I’ve been learning how to garden, how to DM, and how to pole dance. The usual Evan J Peterson stuff.

Shhhhh! It’s our super secret special sale!

You’ve cast your votes and chosen five underrated Choice of Games titles: Nikola Tesla: War of the Currents, Asteroid Run: No Questions Asked, Cliffhanger: Challenger of Tomorrow, The Play’s the Thing, and Bootlegger: Moonshine Empire. These “Hidden Gems,” selected by a highly scientific poll conducted on our forums, are on sale on all platforms this week!

Pick them up for discounts up to 34% off until April 16th on the platform of your choice: Steam, Android, the Android Omnibus app, the iOS Omnibus app, our website, and on the Amazon Android Marketplace!

• Nikola Tesla: War of the Currents
• Asteroid Run: No Questions Asked
• Cliffhanger: Challenger of Tomorrow
• The Play’s the Thing
• Bootlegger: Moonshine Empire

Hosted Games has a new game for you to play!

Earth. Modern day. Superpowers exist only in myth, stories, and movies. One night, a freak storm breaks over the City of Ryker and changes everything. Superpowers now rise in the shadows for both the valiant and the wicked. All heroes have an origin story–shape yours as a conspiracy threatens the city.

Dawn of Heroes is 40% off until April 9th!

Dawn of Heroes is a 450,000-word interactive novel by C. Claymore. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, bi, or asexual.
• Romance a street-level vigilante, an insecure mage, a master thief, a co-worker, or several others.
• Choose your character’s hero costume.
• Decide your character’s powers – then customize the powers’ advantages and limitations.
• Choose your character’s career outside of their hero work.
• Join a team of heroes ranging from non-powered to a god.
• Discover a threat that endangers everything your character knows.

Will you rise from the ashes of Ryker or prevent the fire from burning it down?

C. Claymore developed this game using ChoiceScript, a simple programming language for writing multiple-choice interactive novels like these. Writing games with ChoiceScript is easy and fun, even for authors with no programming experience. Write your own game and Hosted Games will publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.

We’re proud to announce that Silk and Secrets: Rites of Pleasure, the latest in our “Heart’s Choice” line of multiple-choice interactive romance novels, is now available for iOS and Android in the “Heart’s Choice” app. You can also download it on Steam, or enjoy it on our website. It’s 40% off until April 2nd! Please note the game is currently not discounted on Steam; we’re working to rectify that ASAP.

Infiltrate the orgiastic secret society beneath the modern-day Palace of Versailles! Will you expose their sex rituals or surrender to their pleasures?

Silk and Secrets: Rites of Pleasure is an interactive erotic novel by A. Simon where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based, 100,000 words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, 5/5 peppers on the Heart’s Choice spice rating scale, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

When you begin your research into Versailles’ decadent royal history, you uncover secrets far more lustful than you ever imagined. A society called the “Court of Pleasures” secretly carries on the hedonistic rituals of Louis XVI’s court. Initiated into the society as the Duchess of Sighs, you must decide what you are willing to trade for access, influence, and truth. Will you investigate the society from within, gathering evidence to expose it, securing your place in history? Or will you embrace your new role, surrendering to the pleasures, power, and protection the society offers?

And most importantly of all, will you manipulate others’ desire for your advantage, indulge in sexual pleasure for its own sake, or find true love amid the society’s erotic rituals?

Marcus, the palace security guard who brought you into the society, has broad muscular shoulders, a sultry gaze, and a wickedly talented tongue. He’ll let you take control and go down on you in public–or, if you want, he’ll dominate and teach you a thousand new tricks. Your fellow scholar Jules has fantastic wealth and privilege–not to mention fantastic blue eyes and even better fashion. A connection with his family could be your ticket to power–and a night with him means acrobatic tricks and burning intensity. Or there’s the smooth-voiced man known only as the Duke of Dishabille, masked and elegant. He’s learned countless historical forms of debauchery during his tenure in the society: let him introduce you to his collection of toys.

Or, find pleasure for a night or just a few minutes with any one of the society’s other members of any gender. But beware: all knowledge comes at a price.

• Play as a woman; have relationships with men and liaisons with people of all genders
• Choose a persona at your initiation–cunning courtesan, saucy barmaid, or innocent maiden–and act it out in sexual scenes
• Slip into hidden chambers and uncover dark secrets that have been concealed for centuries
• Play by the Court of Pleasures’s rules and become a society favorite, or defy their strictures for the sake of your own ambition

Will you expose the truth, or abandon restraint and expose your hidden desires?

We hope you enjoy playing Silk and Secrets: Rites of Pleasure. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

Infiltrate the orgiastic secret society beneath the modern-day Palace of Versailles! Will you expose their sex rituals or surrender to their pleasures?

Silk and Secrets: Rites of Pleasure is an interactive erotic novel by A. Simon. It’s entirely text-based, 110,000 words, and 5/5 peppers on the Heart’s Choice spice level rating! I sat down with A. Simon to talk about her upcoming game and background.

Silk and Secrets: Rites of Pleasure releases this Thursday, March 26th. You can play the first three chapters today, for free. You can also wishlist it on Steam—even if you don’t plan to buy it there, it really helps.

This is your first time writing interactive fiction, but not your first time writing romance and erotica! Tell our readers about your background and your pen name.

A. Simon is my “no rules” pen name, a space where I can lean into indulgence. Under another name, I’ve written more than twenty contemporary romance novels with humor, found family, and feel-good vibes.

Silk and Secrets: Rites of Pleasure is easily my most salacious project yet. It’s unapologetically spicy and designed to include a range of sensual fantasies. But I couldn’t resist weaving in a bit of quirky humor, because even at their most scandalous, my characters don’t take themselves too seriously.

What has been the biggest challenge for you in game writing rather than writing novels?

The biggest challenge has been learning to share control of the story without losing emotional impact. In a novel, I guide every beat of the character’s arc, but in interactive fiction, the player is shaping who that character becomes in real time. That means building meaningful choices and layering in emotion based on the need the player identifies.

At the same time, there’s a huge technical layer: learning ChoiceScript, managing stats, and tracking branching storylines, romance options, and bonus liaisons. It’s a lot of moving parts in an erotic storyline. (Literally!)

What did you find surprising about the process?

How fun it is not choosing. As an author, I’m used to living in my characters’ heads and making every decision for the story. Writing a game flips that – I get to hand those choices to the player. It was freeing not to have all the answers. I could offer a witty response and a reckless one without having to pick a lane or define a single experience.

What romance/erotica writers do you enjoy reading yourself or for inspiration?

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Black Lace imprint (there are so many talented erotica authors from that era), and I’ve spent more time than I should probably admit on Literotica.

I love romance with a bit of snark and action, like Ilona Andrews and Nalini Singh. Lately, I’ve been diving into other Heart’s Choice titles as well. I really enjoyed Their Majesties’ Pleasure and just started Hearts in Hades.

What else are you working on now/next?

Maybe a sequel to Silk and Secrets. There’s a vengeful widow begging for her own story. Later this year, I’ll launch a romcom novel that’s sweet, soapy fun. Why choose between scandals and softness when you can have both?