See your name in lights on Broadway! Find fame, fortune, and true love! All it costs is your immortal soul. Devil on Your Shoulder is an interactive urban fantasy romance novel by Lisa Fox, author of A Pirate’s Pleasure. I sat down with Lisa to talk about her newest game and romance in general. Devil on Your Shoulder releases Thursday, February 13th. You can wishlist it on Steam today—even if you don’t intend to purchase on Steam, it really helps!

This is your second time writing for Heart’s Choice, and we loved your first game, A Pirate’s Pleasure. This game has a very different setting and feel! Tell our readers all about it. 

Thanks so much! A Pirate’s Pleasure was an incredible project. My first ever IF. I’m so glad it was as well-received as it was.

Devil on Your Shoulder is definitely a very different setting. It takes place in the 1990s, sort of all the 90s crushed into one year, in New York City’s East Village and Times Square. It was a gritty time, and the city was a gritty place. The city’s rebirth into what it’s become today was just beginning back then, and there were literal sweatshops in Chinatown and rotting tenements throughout the Lower East Side.
But despite all that, the city was also full of everyday magic. A dollar and a dream as the New York lotto used to say. That’s all you need to make it in New York.

Well, that and a whole lot of determination, of course.

I have so many fond memories of that time. I tried to put them all into Devil in some small way. That time, in that place, was amazingly special. If you lived in the East Village, you really could see Joey Ramone walking down the street on any given day, stop by CBGB’S for a beer, have lunch next to Allen Ginsberg, or go to an illegal rave advertised with nothing more than a phone number written on the door of a bathroom stall.

I want readers to feel that vibe, and I hope they love it as much as I do.

Heart’s Choice author Lisa Fox

What changed for you in the writing of these two games? For one thing, I can see that Devil on Your Shoulder is much longer, at 300,000 words! 

Jebus, what hasn’t changed since Covid? Everything. So much. And Devil is definitely a Covid baby. It has struggled to leave the confines of my computer and see the light of day for quite a while!
But the extra time gave me the flexibility to write extra words, and so I did. Also, this time around I had more of an understanding of how IF works, so I was able to offer – what I hope! – is a fuller experience.

What are some of your favorite romance novel conventions/tropes, or some of your least favorites? 

I go absolutely mad for a tsundere character. Every time. I’m a total sucker. I love that initial aloofness, the slow breaking down of their walls. Bonus points if the love interest is a Ray of Sunshine. I eat that trope up with a spoon!

In that same vein, I love, love, love enemies to lovers. I will never get tired of that one! Also, fake marriage/fake dating is tremendous fun.

The only trope I really can’t get into is yandere. I’ve tried it in many different games, and I’ve just never liked it. Not my thing at all.

If you were going to romance one of your characters in Devil on Your Shoulder, who would you choose? 

Aww, that’s not fair! I refuse to choose… All right, if I must – Mikhail.

What are you working on next?

I’ve made it my goal for 2025 to learn Ren’Py. I think I want to try my hand at visual novels next.