Blog

We’re proud to announce that both games in our bestselling “Heroes Rise” series of interactive novels are now available on Steam. These are the first text-only games ever to be released on Valve’s platform.

“Heroes Rise” is an epic interactive novel series by Zachary Sergi, where your choices control the story. The games are entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination. (There are some gorgeous visual novels on Steam, but there has never been a game on Steam without graphics or sound effects.)

Today’s release includes both Heroes Rise: The Prodigy and Heroes Rise: The Hero Project, clocking in at 100,000 words and 177,000 words respectively. In a single playthrough of each game, players will typically read more than 50,000 words, the size of a 200-page manuscript.

A Huge Discount at Launch

During the first week of launch, each “Heroes Rise” game can be purchased standalone for $1.99, a 33% discount off the full $2.99 price. In addition, Steam buyers can purchase one $0.99 upgrade for “Heroes Rise: The Prodigy” and two $0.99 upgrades for “Heroes Rise: The Hero Project,” or buy both games plus all of the in-app upgrades for just $3.99, 55% off the full price.

• Heroes Rise Bundle
• Heroes Rise: The Prodigy standalone
• Heroes Rise: The Hero Project standalone

We Need Your Help!

If we’re going to bring any more interactive fiction to Steam, we need “Heroes Rise” to do well. The third game in the “Heroes Rise” trilogy, “Heroes Rise: Herofall,” will be finished and released later this summer, and we’ve committed to making it available on Steam, allowing Steam players to finish the trilogy on the platform of your choice.

After that, we’d love to bring our entire catalog to Steam, But much of that depends on Valve, and how many copies of ‘Heroes Rise’ we can sell this summer. If “Heroes Rise” flops, we might be the first and last interactive fiction we can get on Steam.

We’re asking all of our fans to buy Heroes Rise on Steam today, even if they already own the game on other platforms, to show their support for Choice of Games and interactive fiction on Steam.

We’re also asking you to spread the word as far as you can. Post about it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Reddit, or wherever you can find people who enjoy Steam games.

Together, we can bring a new genre of games to Steam, and making it possible for a new generation of interactive-fiction authors to make a living.

How high will we rise?

We’re proud to announce that Mecha Ace, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for iOS, Android, and, via the Chrome Web Store, Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Step into the cockpit of a giant robot in an interstellar civil war! Customize your mecha to duel against enemy pilots with “monosaber” plasma swords. Find glory, disgrace, and even love.

“Mecha Ace” is a thrilling interactive sci-fi novel by Paul Wang, where your choices control the story. The game is entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Who will you be, pilot? Hero, villain, or renegade? Will you lead a unit of elite pilots to victory? Defeat your enemies with skill, cunning, determination, or heavy firepower? Fight for glory, for power, or for an enduring peace?

• A 230,000-word story of conflict, love, and sacrifice, set in the midst of an interstellar war between Earth and its colonies.
• Customise and pilot your Combat Armature: your very own 20 metre tall mecha.
• Defend the innocent as a valiant hero, or revel in your enemies’ deaths as a violent sadist.
• Turn your comrades into friends, enemies, or even lovers.
• Discover the history, politics, and technologies of the Interstellar Era, an original sci-fi setting.
• Decide the fate of humanity: a new order? An enduring peace? Or everlasting war?

We hope you enjoy playing Mecha Ace. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, 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.

Today, Choice of Games is proud to announce two new games. First, Neighbourhood Necromancer, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, and, via the Chrome Web Store, Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Second, we’re announcing that Planetary Quarantine is now available under our “Hosted Games” program for iOS, Android, and the Chrome Web Store.

Neighbourhood Necromancer: Command the undead to take revenge on the suburbs

In Neighbourhood Necromancer, command the undead to take revenge on the suburbs! Oh, everyone at school laughed at you, but no one will laugh when your minions seize control of critical local infrastructure. Perhaps you’ll start by taking over a convenience store.

Neighbourhood Necromancer is a hilarious interactive horror novel by Gavin Inglis, author of Eerie Estate Agent. The game is entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Will you rule suburbia openly or skulk in the shadows? Will your necromancing impress the cool kids at school? Will you use your dark powers to destroy your home town, or save it from the secret industrial/military operatives who have come to destroy you? The choice is yours.

• Become a teenage small-town necromancer.
• Play as male or female, gay or straight.
• Manage an unruly squad of walking corpses.
• Exact brutal vengeance, or struggle to maintain your humanity.
• Entertain unexpected house guests from beyond the grave.

Planetary Quarantine: Build worlds and minds across interstellar space

In Planetary Quarantine, you’re a quarantine agent—an extrajudicial representative of the law who lets only approved people and products leave Earth—and in a few days your starship will be arriving as your new home world. A dead passenger, a mysterious society, and a potential threat to interstellar civilization all await you. Solve the case and save the world. Build your life while building society. Explore this richly intricate game where new surprises await you each time you play!

We hope you enjoy playing Neighbourhood Necromancer and Planetary Quarantine. We encourage you to tell your friends about them, and recommend our games on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, 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.

Today, Choice of Games is proud to announce two new games. First, NOLA Is Burning, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for iOS, Android, and, via the Chrome Web Store, Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Second, we’re announcing that Choice of the Rock Star is now available for iOS, Android, and the Chrome Web Store.

NOLA Is Burning: A blood-soaked New Orleans noir thriller!

Your boss, The Bull, the most dangerous gangster in New Orleans, has a job for you. Rescue your kidnapped lover–officially The Bull’s lover, but unofficially yours–before dawn. Slaughter everyone who stands in your way, including other gangsters, cops, and the Triad, as you slink across the underbelly of New Orleans.

NOLA Is Burning is a blood-soaked interactive noir thriller where your choices control the story. The game is entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and powered by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Will you outwit your enemies or take it to the mattresses with your trusty sawtooth? Will you earn respect as NOLA’s most infamous headcrusher, or will you retire to Mexico on a huge pile of cash? To be honest, you’ll probably die. But in NOLA, death is just the beginning.

• Your character, your choice: play as a man or a woman, straight or gay!
• Make deals with the cops, a Voodoo priestess, the leader of the local Triad, or a fallen priest.
• Mix old world magic and advanced technology in a fight to the death, and beyond.
• More than 70,000 words of interactive fiction, 15,000 words on every run through the game.

Choice of the Rock Star: Rock your way to the top of the ’80s charts!

Rock your way to the top of the ’80s charts in this interactive tale of music and mayhem! But beware, mischievous managers, fickle fans, and gossiping groupies stand between you and rock immortality. Will your band tear itself apart? Will you flame out on national television? Or will you build a legacy that stands the test of time?

Choice of the Rock Star has been unofficially available for a while now, but it’s an extremely complex game with many different paths to success, so it took us a little while to shake out all of the bugs. We think it’s in ship shape, now, and ready for you to rock out.

Please Spread the Word

We hope you enjoy playing NOLA Is Burning and Choice of the Rock Star. We encourage you to tell your friends about them, and recommend our games on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. Basically, the more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

J. Leigh, author of Way Walkers: University and Way Walkers: University 2, has written a novel, Way Walkers: Tangled Paths, published by Red Adept Publishing. You can buy it in paperback or as an ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or the iBookstore.

Twelve Ways create a thousand tangled paths.

Hatched from an egg but unable to shift into dragon form, Jathen is a moot among the Tazu. His rightful throne is forbidden him because of his transformative handicap, and neither his culture nor his religion offer acceptance of his supposed flaws. Driven by wounded anger, Jathen strikes out across the vast world beyond Tazu borders, desperate to find a place where he feels accepted and whole.

Though he travels with the most trusted of companions, sabotage and conspiracy soon strike his quest. Jathen and his allies must struggle against man and magic alike, at the mercy of forces beyond their ken.

As Jathen presses further from everything he once knew, his questions of belonging are surrounded by those of identity, loyalty, and betrayal. Where will the path of his destiny lead, and will he follow, or fall?

As documented here, http://www.choiceofgames.com/2014/04/our-site-was-hacked-forums-are-down/ our Vanilla Forums web site was hacked yesterday, at 10:20am on April 26th.

Right now, go here https://www.choiceofgames.com/forum/profile/password and change your password.

I believe that we’ve closed the security hole in the forums, but it’s hard to be 100% sure of that. In a separate thread, I’d like to begin a discussion about what changes we’d like to make to make the forum better and more secure. https://www.choiceofgames.com/forum/discussion/3315/switching-off-of-vanilla-forums

Our website was hacked earlier today. The attacker exploited a vulnerability in our forum software (Vanilla Forums), so we’ve temporarily disabled the forums.

EDIT: Forums are back up now!

If you’d like us to email you when our forums are back online, please subscribe to our mailing list using the “Subscribe by Email” button on the right.

We’ll also post to our Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ when our forums have returned.

We don’t know how long it will take to restore the forums. Rather than bring back the old forum software (with its gaping security flaws), we’ll probably have to choose another type of forum software and then switch to something better.

We’re proud to announce that Trial of the Demon Hunter, the latest in our Hosted Games label of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for iOS, Android, and, via the Chrome Web Store, Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Trial of the Demon Hunter is an interactive fantasy novel by Samuel Harrison Young where your choices control the story. Battle against the forces of evil and embark on a perilous journey to avenge your decimated village alongside your shape shifting companion.

We hope you enjoy playing Trial of the Demon Hunter. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. Basically, the more times you download in the first week, the better we’ll rank.

We’re proud to announce that Tin Star, the latest in our Hosted Games label of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for iOS, Android, and, via the Chrome Web Store, Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Tin Star is an interactive western mystery novel by Allen Gies (author of Marine Raider and Apex Patrol) where your choices control the story. The game is entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and powered by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

It’s also the biggest interactive novel ever made, as far as we know. A single playthrough from beginning to epilogue can run over 80,000 words. The source code for the game is over 1.3 million words long. It’s on sale for $3.99 until March 10, when the price will increase to $4.99.

Ride out into the Old West as a U.S. marshal! Confront outlaws, find romance, challenge Indians, defy the elements and craft an enduring legend as you uncover a conspiracy whose deadly web stretches from San Francisco to New York City!

We hope you enjoy playing Tin Star. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. Basically, the more times you download in the first week, the better we’ll rank.

Choice of Games is proud to announce two new games as part of our Hosted Games program!

1) Unnatural, by Sam Kabel. Monsters are real. Join the Supernatural Response Team, an organization formed in direct response to the first documented case showing the existence of the darker side of humanity. Unnatural has earned excellent reviews, averaging 4.5+ out of 5 stars on all of the app stores in which it’s available.

2) Burn(t), by Vivi Tran. It’s a zombie apocalypse story with a twist. Will you work together with a group, or take what you can? Abandon the group or be abandoned? Without spoiling it, all I can say is that this game is about more than just zombie survival.

These authors have developed their 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 we’ll publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.