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There’s nothing quite like the high of galloping toward the end of a project, so I am particularly happy to report the “Choice of Zombies” finish line is in sight.

They're happy, too.

The first third of the game won IntroComp 2011 back in July (and have I mentioned that I am still floored by that? The Ego-Boost That Keeps On Boosting) and we’re pretty sure the rest of the game meets the expectations set by the beginning.

We’ve tried some new things with this one—Zombies is the most complex game ever made under the official “Choice of” brand, and it’s the first game my husband Richard Jackson and I have designed together. It’s Richard’s first foray into ChoiceScript, in fact—but almost certainly not his last. Welcome to the madness, love…

He wants YOU.

Zombies is also the first game to feature box art by the multi-talented Jason Wiser—art so awesome and so disturbing that it simply had to go on a t-shirt too. Because who doesn’t need a t-shirt depicting zombies bursting out of their ribcage? Right, exactly. Everyone needs this shirt. (There are actually three different, equally gorgeous and equally disturbing, versions of the sternum-exploding zombie, so you can choose the visual that best suits your torso.)

So: If you want a taste of the upcoming Zombiepocalypse, check out the IntroComp-winning beginning of the game here. To add a piece of art to your wardrobe, click there. And expect me back in two or three weeks telling you Zombies is live—er, so to speak—on all the usual platforms!

Choice of Games is pleased to announce the release of Apex Patrol and Zombie Exodus part 3!

“Apex Patrol” is our second title by Allen Gies, the same author who brought you Marine Raider. You can play Apex Patrol on the web, or download the iPhone version or the Android version.

In “Apex Patrol”, you command a star cruiser! Visit colonial worlds, rescue imperiled vessels, investigate stellar phenomena and prepare your ship to battle a ruthless foe. Only you and your crew can save Earth from utter destruction in this text-based adventure.

Zombie Exodus Part 3 allows you to continue the adventure you began in parts 1 and 2. Jim Dattilo has been hard at work on this expansion, and it the first two have been a big hit. Play it now on the web, or download the iPhone version or the Android version. If you’ve already downloaded the app, you just need to update it and then you’ll be able to purchase Part 3 from the main menu.

We hope you enjoy playing “Apex Patrol” and “Zombie Exodus” Part 3, and we encourage you to play them, tell your friends, and to recommend them on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our App Store ranking. Basically, the more times you download in the first week, the better “Apex Patrol” and “Zombie Exodus” will rank.

Finally, a shameless plug: these games are made available as part of our hosted games plan. If you’d like to write a multiple-choice game of your own, give it a try! If you host our game with us, we’ll share a portion of the revenue that the game produces with you.

On Friday, be prepared to download two Hosted Games: “Apex Patrol” by Allen Gies, and Part 3 of “Zombie Exodus” by Jim Dattilo!

Make sure to stay tuned for links to the apps in the app store. Remember, the more downloads in the first few days, the better the ranking for our authors. Show your support by downloading them this weekend!

Choice of Games is pleased to announce the release of Wizard’s Choice for iPhone and iPad, by Sam Landstrom. Sam has already published his successful series of Wizard’s Choice titles for Android, Windows Phone, and Kindle; we’re excited to partner with him to release the game for iOS for the first time.

Fortune and glory or death? Stay alive, manage your spell power, find treasure, and smite evil. Wizard’s Choice is a series of text-based adventures that will engross you in a storyline while allowing you to make the decisions that will determine your fate.

We hope you enjoy playing “Wizard’s Choice” and we encourage you to play it, tell your friends, and to recommend it on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our App Store ranking. Basically, the more times you download in the first week, the better “Wizard’s Choice” will rank.

Finally, a shameless plug: “Wizard’s Choice” is another game available as part of our hosted games plan. If you’d like to write a multiple-choice game of your own, give it a try! If you host our game with us, we’ll share a portion of the revenue that the game produces with you.

Yesterday, the 2011 XYZZY Award winners were announced. Zombie Exodus by Jim Dattilo was nominated in ten categories, including Best Game; it won only one award, a “Special Recognition” award, which was devised after voting started.

This happened because folks from the ChoiceScript community and/or fans of Zombie Exodus voted as a block. In the first round of voting, where voters nominated games out of a list of more than a hundred, a large number of people voted as a block for ChoiceScript games. In round two, the votes were split approximately 50/50: votes for Zombie Exodus, and votes for everyone else.

Without intervention, Zombie Exodus would have swept the awards, winning in every category for which it was nominated.

The XYZZY Awards are normally decided by a close knit community of interactive fiction enthusiasts; more than a hundred votes is a good turnout for XYZZY.

But this year, our votes completely overwhelmed the entire interactive fiction community. I think it’s fair to say that most of the voters for ChoiceScript games did not play any of the non-ChoiceScript games in the competition; they didn’t give the other games a fair shot. In discussions on intfiction.org, some folks were calling the voting block a “community invasion,” and I can’t entirely disagree.

(To be clear, XYZZY does not have a rule against blogging about the competition or campaigning for votes, but it’s normally “not done.” Ben Cressey on intfiction.org said, “I don’t have a problem with your [blog post on choiceofgames.com], but I do think it’s a shame that it was so effective.” In my opinion, that captures the tone of the discussion.)

In response to obviously lopsided voting patterns, and in conversation with Jim and Choice of Games, the organizers of the XYZZY competition chose to intervene, separating votes that went exclusively toward ChoiceScript games from all other votes.

We fully support their decision, although I think nobody’s really happy with the way things turned out.

On the one hand, we’re proud of Jim and the votes that Zombie Exodus earned; we rocked the vote.

On the other, we have nothing but the utmost respect for the winner of this year’s XYZZY Awards, Cryptozookeeper by Robb Sherwin. (It won Best Game, Best Writing, Best Setting, Best NPCs, and Best Individual NPC.) It was in the making for five years, and it shows: it comes on a DVD with a full album of background music and interstitial images. And it’s well written to boot! We’d like to offer a hearty congratulations to Robb for his accomplishments.

We’re in discussions with the XYZZY Award organizers to decide what to do for next year’s competition, to guarantee that the awards are fair to everyone involved.

For now, we should take this opportunity to celebrate the winners of the XYZZY Awards. There were some awesome games last year; now’s a great time to check them out!

The finalists in 2012’s XYZZY awards have been announced! The XYZZY Awards are given for the best works of interactive fiction released the previous year in a variety of categories (Best Writing, Best Puzzles, and so on).

Now it’s time to vote for the winners! Anyone can vote for the winner in every category, even those who did not vote in the previous round, but please play all four games before voting for Best Game. Voting ends March 2.

The nominees for Best Game are:

• Cryptozookeeper (Robb Sherwin)
• Mentula Macanus: Apocolocyntosis (Adam Thornton)
• Six (Wade Clarke)
• Zombie Exodus (Jim Dattilo)

Zombie Exodus is a finalist for Best Game, as well as Best Writing, Best Story, Best Setting, Best Puzzles, Best NPCs, Best Individual NPC, Best Individual PC, Best Implementation, and Best Use of Innovation.

Other ChoiceScript games also received nominations. The Race (by Andy Why) is a finalist for Best Puzzles and Best Individual Puzzle, and Marine Raider (by Allen Gies) is a finalist for Best Setting.

Choice of Games congratulates all of the nominees, and doubly congratulates the nominated ChoiceScript games!

Click here to vote for the winner in the XYZZY Awards. May the best games win!

The annual XYZZY Awards are here! The XYZZY Awards are given for the best works of interactive fiction released the previous year in a variety of categories (Best Writing, Best Puzzles, and so on).

Anyone can vote in the XYZZY awards; in this round, all games released in 2011 are eligible to become finalists. In the next round of voting, starting in February, the winners will be selected from the most popular finalists in each category.

This year, there are a number of fantastic ChoiceScript games on the list! (Here they are in alphabetical order.)

• Dead Already?
• Dilemma
• The Land of Three Classes
• Marine Raider
• Mobile Armored Marine
• The Race
• Zebulon
• Zombie Exodus

There are also a number of other multiple-choice games on the list this year, including The Play (written in Undum), as well as award-winning parser-based text adventures, such as Taco Fiction, which won first place in this year’s IFComp.

Click here to vote in the XYZZY Awards. May the best games win!

Are you writing an interactive novel using ChoiceScript? Don’t make these common mistakes!

1. Not Enough Delayed Branching

   In “By the Numbers: How to Write a Long Interactive Novel That Doesn’t Suck“, we draw a distinction between choices that branch the story immediately and choices that cause the story to branch in a later chapter. It’s impossible to write a story with lots of choices if all choices branch the story immediately; delayed branching solves that problem nicely.

   When authors try to write a linear story without delayed branching, the result is a game where the player makes minor choices that don’t affect the plot.

   Fix: Use “if” sections. Put some lines in each chapter that describe how earlier chapters affect the current events.

2. Bad Mix of Stats

   In “7 Rules for Designing Great Stats” we distinguish between different types of stats: skills, personality traits, morality traits, world stats, resources, and goals.

   A good game should probably have a mix of all of those. A particularly common mistake is to offer only skills, like Strength and Intelligence.

   Fix: Add at least one stat from each category.

3. Easy Choices

   In 5 Rules for Writing Interesting Choices in Multiple-Choice Games we talk about how to design interesting choices. One particularly common mistake is to tell a story where most choices have one “right” answer, and all of the others are wrong. (That can be OK in some cases, but it should be the exception, not the rule.)

   Interesting choices should be “hard” because all of the choices are compelling.

   Fix: Make sure each option is worth choosing. Even “wrong” answers should be fun. (Never include a boring “death” ending. If the main character dies, make it an awesome death scene, to encourage players to try again.)

4. Too Many Words per Choice

   We call this problem the “wall of text,” when the author goes on for pages and pages at a time, without giving the player an opportunity to interact with the story by making a choice.

   Fix: After about 100-200 words of text in the main body, consider adding something for the player to do, even if it’s just a *fake_choice asking how the player feels about what’s happening. Avoid 400 words or more between player choices.

Choice of Games is pleased to announce the release of The Race, by Andy Why! Play it on the web, or download the iPhone version or the Android version.

Much like Zombie Exodus, Andy developed “the Race” with extensive input from the Choice of Games Forums.

You are about to go on the journey of a lifetime as you take part in the event known the world over as “The Race”. With a huge cash prize, being a participant on The Race is a great opportunity for success. You have been chosen to take part and race through Peru to an unknown, final destination. Every step of the way, the choices you make will affect your performance, as well as the other teams around you! Select your partner, compete against other teams, uncover corruption and discover hidden secrets! “The Race” is a choice-driven text adventure with multiple endings. Can you find them all? Can you make it to the end?

Bonus: It’s not all about winning. Sometimes other choices are more important. Can you uncover a hidden conspiracy? Can you solve the mysteries in your dreams? Can you even go through cities not even on the race list?! There are three alternative endings to the race. Challenge your friends to find them all!

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

Finally, a shameless plug: “The Race” is another game available as part of our hosted games plan. If you’d like to write a multiple-choice game of your own, give it a try! If you host our game with us, we’ll share a portion of the revenue that the game produces with you.

Choice of Games is pleased to announce the release of Dead Already?, our third title by Kie Brooks! Play it on the web, or download the iPhone version or the Android version.

Life is not fair, neither is this game. Another short murder mystery for you to solve following the ChoiceScript multiple-choice text-based format. The murderer is randomly selected at the beginning of each game for a greater challenge.

We hope you enjoy playing “Dead Already?” and we encourage you to play it, tell your friends, and to recommend it on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our App Store ranking. Basically, the more times you download in the first week, the better “Dead Already?” will rank.

Finally, a shameless plug: “Dead Already?” is another game available as part of our hosted games plan. If you’d like to write a multiple-choice game of your own, give it a try! If you host our game with us, we’ll share a portion of the revenue that the game produces with you.