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Mark your calendars! “Choice of the Star Captain,” our newest “Choice of” game, will be released on Tuesday, September 25th. Download this hilarious interactive science-fiction novel on Tuesday from the iOS App Store, the Android Google Play Store, the Amazon Kindle Store, or the Chrome Web Store. A free trial version will be available on our website.

Fight on the front lines of the war between humanity and the hideous Blobs. (Not that anyone has actually seen a Blob up close, but everyone knows they have tentacles. Surely they’re hideous!) Go on stealth missions, run alien blockades, and investigate mysterious planets, “aided” by Lloyd, your insufferably obnoxious shipboard computer.

If you’d like to be reminded when “Choice of the Star Captain” is available, subscribe to our blog on the right-hand side of this page, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. We’ll run one more blog post on Tuesday to post download links.

In the meantime, we’re running a countdown on Twitter/Facebook/G+, featuring quotes from the game.

• Monday: “HONOR TO MEETING YOU, CAPTAIN. MAY TENTACLES WRAP YOU IN SLIME.”
• Tuesday: “Lloyd sounds smug. Who in hell programs a computer to be smug?”
• Wednesday: “Playing with your tiny human brain gives me treasured seconds of amusement.”
• Thursday: “If gravity were a smell, what do you think it would smell like? A) burnt hair B) triumph C) whiskey D) gravity”
• Friday: “More hostile function will be met with internal organ besplatterment!”

Today, Choice of Games is proud to announce two new games. First, Eerie Estate Agent, 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 Way Walkers: University is now available under our “Hosted Games” program for iOS, Android, and the Chrome Web Store.

Manage a Haunted House in “Eerie Estate Agent”

In Eerie Estate Agent, it’s your job to rent out a haunted house before your tyrannical boss has you fired.

In this interactive novel, your choices determine how the story proceeds. For example, when your tenants, who haven’t slept in days due to bone-chilling whispers emanating from the walls, ask to break their lease, do you:

A) Let them transfer their lease to another property?
B) Allow them to break the lease, but keep their security deposit?
C) Insist on sticking to the terms of the lease?
D) Boldly investigate, like all the victims in bad horror films?

How will you screw over your tenants? Will you ignore inconvenient supernatural phenomena, or use them to drum up publicity? How will you deal with ghost hunters, squatters, and celebrity tenants? Will you emerge as the top agent? Stage an office coup? Or will you become a permanent resident of 57 Crowther Terrace?

Embark on a Spiritual Adventure in “Way Walkers: University”

Which Way will you walk?

In a land were science and magic are the same, you are one of the few born with Extrasensory Abilities–and you dream of attending the most prestigious metaphysical university on the Continent. There, you can discover not only your potential and place amid the Twelve Ways of Spirit, but perhaps your ultimate destiny. Fight drakes, make friends or enemies, chase ghosts and argue with angels, be an upstanding student or a devious rebel–it’s all up to you.

Way Walkers: University is a truly interactive novel, set in a world where freewill is paramount. Every choice you make decides your fate, and defines your very soul. ‘For freewill shall choose between the paths fate has lain.’

Will you follow the Way of the Healer, or carve your reputation as a Warrior? Shall gossip and relationships fill your days, or shall you choose the Way of Truth and study? Will you seek fame along the Way of Creativity, or hone your Abilities under the Way of magic?

Will you choose a righteous path, or fall to the Way of Evil?

Our Two-Label Publishing Platform

Choice of Games makes games available under two labels: our official “Choice of Games” label, available only to select authors, and our “Hosted Games” label, which is open to everyone.

“Eerie Estate Agent” is the second game under the “Choice of Games” label written by a professional author outside the “Choice of Games” partnership. Our previous experiment with this was Heroes Rise: The Prodigy; it was a huge hit.

Like “Heroes Rise,” we’re not offering the entirety of these new games for free on our website. We’re offering the first part (about 20%) of each game for free; to play the rest, you’ll have to purchase the game.

We hope you enjoy playing Eerie Estate Agent and Way Walkers: University. 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.

Mark your calendars! “Eerie Estate Agent,” the newest game under our “Choice of Games” label, will be released on Friday, August 31. Download it on Friday from the iOS App Store, the Android Google Play Store, or the Chrome Web Store. A free trial version will be available on our website.

In “Eerie Estate Agent,” it’s your job to rent out a haunted house before your tyrannical boss has you fired. How will you screw over your tenants? Will you ignore inconvenient supernatural phenomena, or use them to drum up publicity? How will you deal with ghost hunters, squatters, and celebrity tenants? Will you emerge as the top agent? Stage an office coup? Or will you become a permanent resident of 57 Crowther Terrace?

If you’d like to be reminded when the game is available, subscribe to our blog on the right-hand side of this page, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. We’ll run one more blog post on Friday to post download links.

In the meantime, we’re running a countdown on Twitter/Facebook/G+, featuring quotes from the game.

• Tuesday: “That house. It defies the axioms of Euclidean geometry.”
• Wednesday: “You each recognise that the other is used to screwing people over for a living.”
• Thursday: “One of the golden rules of real estate is ‘never grapple an armed client.'”

The IntroComp award ceremony was today; Resonance, by Nereida Scales, took first place. This is the second year in a row that a game written in ChoiceScript has won IntroComp.

IntroComp is an annual interactive-fiction competition in which entrants submit only the first part of their games. Players vote for the winning game.

1st place: Resonance, by Nereida Scales
2nd place: Compliance, by Chris Conley
3rd place: Belief, by Justin de Vesine

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
The Bafflingly Casual Adventures of No One of Significant Import, by Robb Kinnison
Genesis, by I.B. a.k.a. ML
Wasteland by Taylor Melton and Alex Tocco

Congratulations to all of the winners!

Now you can play Choice of Zombies as a retired Delta Force operator – an elite member of the U.S. Army’s special forces, expert at unarmed combat, infiltration, and staying alive in enemy territory. And armed with an MP-5 and a grenade launcher.

It’s zombie hunting season.

The Delta Force option is only available for iOS and Android devices, because it requires an in-app purchase. Discover how your new skill set changes the zombiepocalypse experience! See how much longer you can survive, how many more people you can rescue, how many more zombies you can put back in the grave!

(And when you’ve been there and done that, get the t-shirt!)

Back in June we posted a link to IntroComp, an annual interactive-fiction competition in which entrants submit only the first part of their games. Players vote for the winning game.

The introductions are now available and can be found here in a single zipped file:
http://www.allthingsjacq.com/IntroComp12

There are six contestants this year, of which two were written in ChoiceScript. As always, we recommend playing as many of the games as possible before voting.

Please note that it is the expectation of the IntroComp organizers that no one will canvass for votes on the authors’ behalf. It’s inappropriate to post voting recommendations on our forums or anywhere else.

It is furthermore hoped that you’ll vote in good faith and on an introduction’s merit, as opposed to a show of support for a particular author, genre, or platform. In other words, please don’t just vote for the ChoiceScript games! Try some of the other stuff to see if you like it. All of the other games are parser-based interactive fiction; here’s a handy cheat sheet for how to play games like that.

The voting deadline is midnight Eastern time on August 25, 2012. You’ll need to register before you can login and vote online.

Please vote for your favorite intoductions! May the best game win!

Today, we’re proud to announce that Heroes Rise: The Prodigy, the latest in our popular line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for iOS, Kindle and Android. This is also our first game available for download on Windows, OS X, and Linux via the Chrome Web Store.

In “Heroes Rise,” Powered heroes have become the ultimate celebrities, and you dream of joining the A-List–but to get there, you’ll first have to take down evil Powered gangs, compete with deadly rivals, choose a worthy sidekick, team up with famous champions, and prove to all of Millennia City that you’re a true hero.

“The game is completely text-based,” said Zachary Sergi, author of “Heroes Rise.” “There’s no graphics, no music; nothing but 100,000 words and your imagination.”

At each step, “Heroes Rise” offers a multiple-choice question, putting you in control of the interactive story.

For example, when surrounded by dozens of criminals who are battling for control of the “Gravitas” artifact, which would you choose?

• Jump in right away and stop the killing. It doesn’t matter who gets the Gravitas–saving lives is more important than anything.
• Your only concern here is the Gravitas. Make a grab for it and go!
• Wait for them all to kill each other off, then take the Gravitas by surprise from whoever is left standing.
• Stay put and wait for the police to arrive–this is way too much for you and you know it.

Will you play as male or female? Gay or straight? Crusade for justice, or gun for money?

How high will you rise?

This Is Not a Hosted Game

In the past, Choice of Games has distinguished between two types of releases: our official “Choice of” games (Dragon, Broadsides, Romance, Vampire, Zombies) and unofficial “hosted games” written by third parties.

Today, we’re trying something new: Heroes Rise is a full-fledged “Choice of” game, written by a professional author outside the “Choice of Games” partnership.

Furthermore, unlike our other games, we’re not offering the entirety of “Heroes Rise” for free on our website. We’re offering the first 20,000 words of the game for free (out of 100,000 total); to play the rest, you’ll have to purchase the game.

That’s why we’ve chosen to make “Heroes Rise” available on the Chrome Web Store. Anyone on Windows, OS X, or Linux who doesn’t have an iOS, Android, or Kindle device can download Google Chrome for free to purchase our game. When you buy Heroes Rise on the Chrome Web Store, the game will download to your computer, where it will be available to play offline as long as you like.

We hope you enjoy playing Heroes Rise: The Prodigy. 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 Heroes Rise will rank.

EDIT 7/18: The iOS app is now available!

There are two fantastic game development events happening this month: the 2012 IntroComp competition and National Game Development Month. Both are great venues for games written in ChoiceScript.

National Game Development Month is a parallel to National Novel Writing Month; we’re late in announcing it, because it started June 1. You can register here to start working with a community of game makers who can encourage you to start and help you finish the game that’s been dancing in your imagination for years.

If you’re not sure you can finish a game in that time, consider just writing the introduction to a game, and submitting it to IntroComp!

The requirements of IntroComp are deceptively simple: All entrants must submit the beginning of a new, never before seen work of IF that is not yet complete and for which the ending is somewhat uncertain. The introduction can be as short or as long as the author likes, so long as it is 1) a working, playable game and 2) interactive fiction.

Note that this year has a new rule that only introductions to games which are slated for non-commercial release may be entered in the competition. (I asked for some clarification of this rule in email; the organizer emphasized that IntroComp “is not a venue for people aspiring to make money.”) This includes games distributed for free with advertisements.

If you’re interested participating, you’ll need to submit your Intent to Enter by June 15th (just a few days away!) and submit your polished introduction on July 15th. The competition is open and welcoming to games written in ChoiceScript; last year, the top two entries were in ChoiceScript, including the winner, Choice of Zombies.

Choice of Games is pleased to announce the release of Sons of the Cherry, by Alex Livingston, author of The Nightmare Maze. Play it on the web, or download the iPhone version or the Android version.

“Sons of the Cherry” is a game of espionage and arcane magic in the American Revolution. Choose a side or go it alone in the secret war for the soul of the new nation. Use multiple magic disciplines to reach your goals and change history.

Both “Sons of the Cherry” and “The Nightmare Maze” are part of Alex’s Waking Cassandra series, which now includes two multiple-choice games, a comic book, and a stage play. You may also recognize “Sons of the Cherry” as an entrant in the 2010 IFComp. (At that time, the game was available only on the web.) The new version of the game incorporates feedback from IFComp reviewers.

We hope you enjoy playing “Sons of the Cherry” 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 “Sons of the Cherry” will rank.

Finally, a shameless plug: “Sons of the Cherry” 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.

The Kindle Zombie Watch was upgraded to a Zombie Warning on Monday, following eyewitness reports of zombie sightings on the Kindle platform. Kindle users are advised to stay indoors and practice Zombiepocalypse Survival techniques with Choice of Zombies from Choice of Games.

• Choice of Zombies for Kindle Fire
• Choice of Zombies for E Ink Kindles
• Or, just search for “Choice of Zombies” on your Kindle.

The game is also (still) available on the iOS App Store and the Android Google Play Store.