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Return to the exclusive boarding schools of Crème de la Crème—this time as a royal! Work hard, study hard, and play hard as a royal in training at the exclusive Archambault Academy. Will you rule the roost, or be a royal disaster? Royal Affairs is a 400,000-word interactive novel by Hannah Powell-Smith. I sat down with Hannah to discuss their latest game and their worldbuilding. Royal Affairs releases this Thursday, March 30th. You can play the first three chapters today, for free.

I feel like it was two minutes ago I was interviewing you for Noblesse Oblige, your third game, and here we are publishing the fourth one! How did it happen that you ended up writing two games at once?

In summer 2021, I was just over a year into making Royal Affairs and thanks to world events it had been a slog. When my schedule cleared due to a mass layoff (ah, the game industry…) I was asked about creating a shorter game with a shorter production cycle alongside Royal Affairs, which turned into Noblesse Oblige. I built up momentum again with a new, shorter project, and it brought me the confidence to return in earnest to the much longer and more complicated Royal Affairs. As I swapped back and forth between the two (while juggling a new day job!), I could apply what I learned to each.

The whole experience really helped my burnout and meant I was in a far better position for my creativity and health. Instead of frantically and exhaustedly trudging to the end of Royal Affairs, I had the time, skills, and energy to make it the best it could be.

Royal Affairs is a return to Archambault but not a direct sequel to Crème de la Crème, right?

Royal Affairs is set a few years after Crème de la Crème with a new main character, the middle child of Queen Estell of Westerlin. Archambault Academy is the rival neighbour school to Gallatin in Crème de la Crème, and I couldn’t resist exploring what it was like from an insider’s perspective.

There are plenty of luxurious descriptions and events in Crème de la Crème – most of the characters are upper-class. But in Royal Affairs it’s pushed even higher, reflecting the protagonist’s royal station and the status of their peers as titled aristocrats. At the same time, the stakes become wider-spanning because everyone’s interested in what the young royal is up to.

It was also fabulous to bring some characters back (including the Crème de la Crème protagonist, under some circumstances) while also inventing a whole new cast of characters. Writing communal scenes with the Archambault students was so much fun because I love showing groups of friends or rivals playing off each other – while the protagonist can join in or totally change the dynamic.

Ultimately the Royal Affairs protagonist is a lot more grounded in the world around them. They have a lot of power and Royal Affairs is very much about deciding what to do with that. All while their personal life is being dissected in the papers!

What did you learn in returning to this setting?

It was important to me to keep things feeling new and different. Although they share the upper crust boarding school setting, and Archambault and Gallatin are in a similar location, the protagonists’ responsibilities and dilemmas are very different and showing that was a priority straightaway. I thought a lot about creating tension and challenge in a situation where a lot of people around the protagonist want to go out of their way to make their life easier. The pressures the protagonist are intense! Although they’re in a position to order people around, and many adults treat them with a lot of trust, with it comes the fact that changes to their reputation can have national or even international implications.

In Crème de la Crème the politics of the nation aren’t on most people’s minds, and people can get in trouble for discussing such subjects. In Noblesse Oblige, the island of Teteriuk is very isolated, far from current events of the day. Both games have hints about other things going on – but in Royal Affairs the protagonist is at the centre of it, even if their mother the Queen might want to shelter them from it.

In Royal Affairs, the Archambault students are expected to become future leaders in some way, however badly suited they might be for it. Exploring the dilemmas of leadership is a big part of Royal Affairs, as well as how to connect on a personal level with people when you’re mostly a lot more powerful than them. So I figured out a lot about the dysfunctions of Westerlind society, how the society’s able to work, and where it fractures. Looking at the same culture through a different lens was a great experience in changing things up while building on established foundations.

It can be so satisfying to fill out and spend more time in a world you’ve created. What was your favorite part about writing this one?

It was really fun to take elements I loved, like the social navigation and obsession with social niceties, and place them into a familiar but fresh situation. And expanding on what was in Crème de la Crème and Noblesse Oblige, while sowing a few seeds about other parts of the setting.

Specifically though: I loved writing about the royal family and those close to them, and the pets! Whereas the parents in Crème de la Crème have a distant role, I wanted to spend plenty of time on the Queen and the protagonist’s siblings so the protagonist can form their own opinions about them and what they’re up to, and navigate their connections accordingly. Some delightful feedback I had was from playtesters who got really invested in how their protagonist related to the royal family as people and as an institution – whether they ended up on a good, bad or complicated footing.

And the pets brought a lot of joy when writing. The protagonist and their fellow students can bring a horse, dog or bird of prey with them to Archambault. Showing those interactions and how friends and rivals treat their pets too was something fun and new to write.

Where are you taking our readers next?

I recently finished work on a multiplayer indie game called King of the Castle. In a funny coincidence it also involves royalty and voting – though it has a lot more silliness and wizards than Royal Affairs.

Currently I’m working on a new game set in the Crème de la Crème universe with a new protagonist who’s an adult. It’s set in Teran, a large republic northwest of Zaledo. I’m thrilled to explore a brand new part of the Crème de la Crème world!

We’re proud to announce that Stars Arisen, 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 33% off until March 22nd!

Reclaim your mother’s throne with the mighty power of the skies! Bring down lightning on your foes, climb an endless tower, and call the ghosts of ages past to your aid. But will your sorcery save the city, or tear it apart?

Stars Arisen is a one-million-word interactive epic fantasy novel by Abigail C. Trevor, author of Heroes of Myth. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

After a four-hundred-year reign over the city-state Kelestri, your mother, the immortal and all-powerful Sorceress of the Skies, was overthrown in a violent revolution. Called a tyrant and forced into exile, she was believed dead by all. Only you, her secret child and chosen heir, know the truth. Now, as the Sorceress’s life begins to fade, she has given you a task: steal back the fallen stars that granted her power and reclaim her crown.

With the last vestiges of your mother’s magic in your hands, you descend to Kelestri to find a city on the edge of change. Factions feud over its governance, riots fill the streets, and would-be sorcerers grasp at the remnants of magic in the city’s secret corners. Seeing the rising new world, do you still intend to fulfill your mother’s ancient vision? Will you restore the Sorceress’s might, shatter it for good, or claim it for yourself?

• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bisexual, monogamous, polyamorous, asexual, and/or aromantic
• Wield the power of the stars to call down storms, shape the earth, ride the wind, raise the dead – or even to become immortal!
• Romance a radical orator, a savvy journalist, an outlaw mage, the heir to the rebellion, or the ghost of a master thief
• Use your political acumen to pit feuding factions against each other, or guide them to peace
• Uncover the stories that your mother wanted to bury: the secrets of her power, your ancestry, and the nature of magic itself
• Reclaim your mother’s place as ruler of Kelestri, strengthen the revolutionary government, or seize the throne for yourself!

With the magic of fallen stars in your hands, how high will you rise?

We hope you enjoy playing Stars Arisen. 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.

Reclaim your mother’s throne with the mighty power of the skies! Bring down lightning on your foes, climb an endless tower, and call the ghosts of ages past to your aid. But will your sorcery save the city, or tear it apart? Stars Arisen is a one-million-word interactive epic fantasy novel by Abigail C. Trevor, author of Heroes of Myth. I sat down with Abby to discuss her new game and her growth as Choice of Games author. Stars Arisen releases this Wednesday, March 15th. You can play the first few chapters today for free.

It’s been just under four years since your last game, Heroes of Myth, an epic in its own right. Now Stars Arisen is here and is an incredible 1 million words long. Tell me about the writing process this time.

It’s basically the same as the writing process for Heroes of Myth, except it kept going for longer.

That’s maybe a bit of an oversimplification, but my core process hasn’t changed: when I’m working on a project I write or do something related to writing every day. Some days that’s 4000 words, some days it’s 10, some days it’s making the characters in online dollmakers. And then I keep doing that until the project is done. The biggest disruption this time was that I used to almost always write in coffee shops, which stopped being an option a few months into the game for obvious global reasons. I have a hard time focusing on writing without a change to my environment. But now I spend a lot of time writing outside, weather permitting.

You obviously were interested in telling a much bigger story this time around. How did that translate to the scope of the game–I sense there are big branches to explore here and deep relationship building.

I’m not very good at estimating length in a tangible way. I knew when I was writing the initial outline that this would be a longer and more complex game than Heroes of Myth, but I had no idea what that would translate to in terms of word count. I wasn’t convinced the game would actually be over a million words until I was in the last couple of chapters.

I hope there’s deep relationship building, and not just with the love interests. (But also with the love interests.) There’s a lot of follow-through—people remember what you told them, or what you didn’t tell them. There aren’t many fixed points—you can change your mind about what you believe and what you want as you see the story develop, and characters will remember that you did that too. And in terms of branching, a lot of it is about fulfilling promises. I don’t want to imply possibilities in the beginning that you can’t really achieve by the end. That’s probably why there are seven different possible configurations for the government by the end. Maybe more than that, if you count some specifics I won’t go into just yet. And that’s before we get to the Stars.

What do you think will surprise players about this game?

In a lot of ways, this isn’t necessarily a game about being surprised. It’s more about giving you tools and seeing how you use them. There are reveals in the story that I don’t expect to be particularly surprising—to the characters, maybe, but I expect a lot of players can figure them out. That’s because I’m less interested in shocking you than in finding out what you do next.

That’s not to say there aren’t any moments I expect to be surprising. And I hope there are choices you’re surprised to end up making, ways you didn’t think your character would turn. But I hope you’re satisfied more than I hope you’re surprised.

Stars Arisen has a very specific fantasy world and magic system, both of which I think are very fun. Can you tell me a little about the powers the PC can wield?

The magic in this world comes from the Remnant Stars, five fallen stars with incredible powers. (There’s a sixth still waiting up above.) The characters believe the Remnant Stars are actual stars from specific constellations. Astute readers will note that this is not how meteorites work, but the thing about the Remnant Stars is that no one knows for certain how they actually work or what they truly are, so the characters could be wrong. Either that or it’s magic. I’d say the odds are about 50/50.

The Remnant Stars grant their wielders a variety of sorcerous abilities, from calling light and darkness, to controlling the weather, to healing wounds or even raising the dead. And they’re bound at their cores to the emotions and desires of the people who use them, more than some of those people ever realize. Some characters want them desperately. Others believe they’re too dangerous to exist. You’ll have to decide where you fall along that scale.

Also, there’s a magical city with a pulse that resounds in your bones. It’s probably fine.

How has your writing changed in the course of the last few years?

Well, more of it’s been done outside.

Trying to answer this question reminds me of one of those videos where a guy takes a picture of his face every day for ten years, and What Happens Will Shock You. But there’s no individual moment where the guy himself is shocked, he sees it all the time, it’s just his face. Writing the game was a standard part of my life every day for so long, and I was focused enough on moving forward that I haven’t spent a lot of time getting introspective about the writing itself. But I’d be interested to see how someone else would answer this question about my writing, because I think it would probably surprise me.

What are you working on next?

I took a break after finishing Stars Arisen, which I actually did a few months ago, and just started work on a new game idea very recently. It’s early enough that I don’t want to give too much of a preview because a lot could still change, so in the interest of that and of being infuriatingly vague, I will say that it currently involves some or all of the following:

• Ghosts
• Dragons
• Ghost dragons
• The weight of history, again
• Meddling in forces beyond mortal comprehension
• Just a really big snake

We are thrilled to announce that Vampire: The Masquerade—Sins of the Sires, by Natalia Theodoridou, is a finalist for the Nebula Game Writing Award, and it’s on sale, 25% off this week! To celebrate Natalia’s second time as a finalist, we are also putting every previous Nebula Finalist game on sale:

The Luminous Underground
The Road to Canterbury
The Magician’s Workshop
Rent-A-Vice
The Martian Job

Vampire: The Masquerade—Sins of the Sires is a 300,000-word interactive interactive novel set in the World of Darkness shared story universe. In this elegy of blood, everyone in Athens owes your boss a favor, making you untouchable! Who will you use, who will you help, and who will you prey on?

This is the fifth year that there has been a Nebula award for game writing, and the fourth year that Choice of Games authors have been finalists. Past Choice of Games Nebula finalists are: Phoebe Barton for The Luminous Underground, Kate Heartfield for The Road to Canterbury and The Magician’s Workshop, Natalia Theodoridou for Rent-A-Vice, and M. Darusha Wehm for The Martian Job.

Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given annually to the best works of science fiction and fantasy published that year, as voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). The 58th Annual Nebula Awards ceremony will be streamed live during the 2023 Nebula Conference, May 12-14, 2023. Stay tuned for more!

Hosted Games has a new game for you to play!

Take your place at the head of a noble house in a kingdom on the verge of ruin. Seek your fortune as a politician, industrialist, rabble-rouser, or conspirator to bring wealth and power to your family – or to save the realm from itself. The choice is yours in the long-awaited sequel to 2016’s Guns of Infinity.

Lords of Infinity is an immense, 1.6-million-word interactive novel by Paul Wang, author of Sabres of Infinity, Guns of Infinity, Mecha Ace, and The Hero of Kendrickstone. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Will you use corruption and intrigue to secure your position amongst the aristocracy, or use the power in your hands to protect those weaker than you? Will you stand for the old ways? Or blaze a trail to an uncertain future. Will you take advantage of an age of disorder to enrich yourself, or risk everything to create a better world? Will history remember you as a paragon? A hero? An opportunist? Or a traitor?

• Become a member of the Unified Kingdom of Tierra’s political elite and navigate the intricacies of the Cortes—the Tierran Parliament.
• Manage your noble estate and bring peace and prosperity to your tenants—or squeeze them dry to fund your grand ambitions.
• Embark on sweeping plans to bring industry and commerce to your lands.
• Immerse yourself in the social life of the Tierran capital—a world of exclusive clubs, glittering balls, and high-stakes gambling.
• Balance the affections of family members, friends, lovers, and enemies.
• Conspire with lords, firebrands, and the agents of foreign powers.
• Use your wits, your charm, or your proficiency for violence to protect your interests, your fortune, and your honour.
• Seek romance in the most unlikely places—or look for happiness in an arranged marriage.
• Fight duels, hunt poachers, face bandits, and live the life of a country nobleman.
• Amass influence, wealth, and allies—and use them to determine the very fate of the Unified Kingdom.

Will you find yourself crushed by the intrigues of the bold, the idealistic, and the desperate? Or will you take your place among them as one of the Lords of Infinity?

Paul 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.

Hosted Games has a new game for you to play!

You’re a thief in need of gold, stuck in the poor town of Greywood. The only gold in town is locked up in the Merchant’s Guild vaults, guarded by mercenaries. Word on the street is that a new delivery of gold is coming by horse-drawn carriage. You’re not the only one interested in this delivery, however, as a band of adventurers also has their eye on it. Do you team up with the band of adventurers, or strike out on your own? Either way, you can’t pass up on this golden opportunity!

Dan 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 are proud to announce the release of a new in-app purchase for both Blood Money and Crème de la Crème! Now you can access a “cheats” in-app purchase and maximize your stats for fun!

Plus, both Blood Money and Crème de la Crème are on sale until March 2nd!

Blood Money: A Ghostly Helping Hand
Bend the mortal world to your will in A Ghostly Helping Hand! Master the underworld, challenge yourself to play on hard mode, and uncover Nasri City’s secrets with these hints and cheats.

Crème de la Crème: A Silver Spoon
Become Gallatin’s top student in A Silver Spoon! Discover hard-to-reach paths, achieve the highest grades, or play on hard mode. With these hints and cheats you’ll never be late for class again!

We’re proud to announce a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the publication of Life of a Wizard! It was ten years ago this month that Mike Walter published his smash hit 130,000-word interactive fantasy where you make the choices of an archmage! Brew potions, raise the dead, summon mythical beasts, control men’s minds, and blast away your enemies.We’re thrilled to celebrate a decade of adventures by making Life of a Wizard free to win, supported by ads!

Not only have we made Life of a Wizard free to win, but all of Hosted Games author Mike Walter’s eight games are on sale for the next week!

Try one of eight games now on sale:

• Life of a Wizard
• Paradox Factor
• Life of a Mobster
• The Lost Heir: The Fall of Daria
• The Lost Heir 2: Forging a Kingdom
• The Lost Heir 3: Demon War
• The Last Wizard
• Life of a Space Force Captain

Mike Walter developed his games 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 Changeling Charade, 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 38% off until February 16th!

Masquerade as a noble with fairy magic! What will you risk for your family? For fairy revolution? For true love?

Changeling Charade is a 450,000-word interactive supernatural romance novel by Ruth Vincent, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Magic is illegal in the city of New Victoria. That means that Supernaturals–werewolves, djinn, fairies, and more–have started an underground trade in potions and spells. As an impoverished fairy, you’ve joined that trade in hopes of earning a better life for yourself and your family: you’ve become a changeling, transforming yourself to resemble the human noblewoman Lady Constance Weatherby.

Living in Lady Constance’s lavish townhouse, you can wear the finest fashions, attend masked balls, make friends among the nobility, learn the arts from a skilled tutor, even gain an audience with the Queen herself!

But there is more to New Victoria’s high society than meets the eye, and you are not the only one hiding a magical secret. Which noble house conceals a werewolf? Which one has suspicious ties to the shady Potion Market? Not only that, but there are fairy revolutionaries fighting to reverse the laws that forbid magic, and spies among the nobility working for the same cause. Will you join them? Or will you stay in the comfortable human life that you have made for yourself?

And where will you find love? With the distinguished earl that Lady Constance’s overbearing mother hopes to match with her daughter? The fashionable noble with a pet fox and a mischievous smile to match? The penniless tutor, artistic and sincere? Or even the idealistic fairy revolutionary who leads the charge to restore magic?

• Play as a woman; gay, straight, bi; poly or monogamous.
• Romance a melancholy earl, a mischievous noble, an artistic tutor, or a bold fairy revolutionary.
• Uncover the supernatural secrets of New Victoria’s human nobility
• Dance at masked balls, attend pastoral picnics, refine your artistic accomplishments – or laugh and drink at a fairy pub.
• Find acceptance for your true fairy self – or discover new comfort living as a human
• Meet the Queen—or work to overthrow her, or even take her place on the throne!

We hope you enjoy playing Changeling Charade. 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.

Masquerade as a noble with fairy magic! What will you risk for your family? For fairy revolution? For true love? Changeling Charade is a 450,000-word interactive supernatural romance novel by Ruth Vincent. I sat down with Ruth to talk about her new game and her work in the world of the changelings. Changeling Charade releases this Thursday, February 9th. You can play the first three chapters today, for free.

This is your first piece of interactive fiction, but not your first time writing about changelings! Tell me about your other works.

I have two fantasy novels out with Harper Collins, Elixir and Unveiled. They’re both about fairy changelings, but in a very different context than Changeling Charade. Those books are urban fantasy, set in contemporary New York City, and the protagonist is a fairy changeling turned private investigator who solves missing persons cases. I had originally conceived Changeling Charade as a book as well, but then I realized the story would work better as an interactive fiction game than as a traditional novel.

What attracted you to the idea of taking that world to a new medium?

When I originally tried to write Changeling Charade as a novel, it was a murder mystery. But the book wasn’t working structurally, and my literary agent at the time suggested I shelve the project. When I discovered Heart’s Choice games, I realized that this was the perfect medium for Changeling Charade. The story had never really wanted to be a murder mystery; it wanted to be a romance! So, I revised it, shifting the focus from killing to kissing, lol, as well as adding in three more love interest options, and restructuring the plot for better playability. I’m so happy that Changeling Charade eventually found its home at Heart’s Choice, because I think the medium of interactive fiction helped it to become the story it was always meant to be.

Did you have a favorite character you enjoyed writing most in the course developing the game?

While I love all my characters, of course, I have a particular fondness for the Honorable Valentine Dupont. I’ve been in love with Valentine ever since they first swaggered into my imagination with their pet fox in tow. As a child, one of my favorite books was The Scarlet Pimpernel, and I became obsessed with the idea of characters who are not what they seem (perhaps why I love writing about changelings!) I enjoyed creating Valentine’s wildly outrageous persona – which doubles as the perfect cover for hiding in plain sight – as well as exploring the tender and vulnerable heart beneath the brazen exterior. And Valentine’s pet fox, Felicity, was so much fun to write! Who doesn’t love a fox who wears tiny fascinators, has filet mignon served to her on fine china on the floor, and is her human’s best friend?

What did you find most challenging about the writing process?

The most challenging part of creating Changeling Charade for me was learning how to code. I had zero previous coding experience before writing this game and was initially very intimated to learn. But the more familiar I became with Choice Script (the coding language writers use to create Heart’s Choice games) I realized that it was actually a very simple, logical system, ideally suited for structuring this type of game. There was a learning curve, and I made a lot of mistakes at first, but overtime, writing in ChoiceScript began to feel natural. Also, since Changeling Charade is on the longer side, word count wise, with a lot of different story branches, it became increasingly complicated to keep it all straight in my head in the later chapters of the game. Thankfully, I worked with a wonderful editor and team of beta testers to make sure that none of those story threads got tangled!

What are you working on next?

I have a new novel that I’m currently querying to agents, since my former agent recently retired from the industry. The premise is, what if you didn’t get your invitation to magic school until you were forty? What if you suddenly had powers, but also a marriage and a mortgage and a full, adult life that you couldn’t just walk away from? The novel explores the ways in which five New Yorkers struggle to solve their very grown-up problems with magic…or learn to find enchantment in an ordinary life. I’ve been calling it a coming-of-middle-age novel. I also have an idea for a new interactive fiction game. In a world where magical manna comes down from the sky like powdered sugar, those with a knack for baking become the new wizards…and become contestants in a national baking competition. Think The Great British Bake Off but with magic! I’d like to write future games where both the PC and every romance character has the option to be gender variable, and I think this would do that. I’m always coming up with new ideas for projects though, more than I can ever finish… but I figure if one doesn’t come to fruition, I can always save the most fun parts of the story and use them in another medium, just like I ended up doing with Changeling Charade!