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!
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!
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!
So you’re a villain now? Let’s see if you survive the experience.
Fallen Hero: Retribution is a 1.45-million word interactive superhero novel by Malin Rydén, where your choices guide the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
Be the telepathic villain you always wanted to be and embark on a career as a thief, mob boss, hero hunter, or anarchist in your own bespoke base. Will you start to regret your actions, or double down and commit more heinous crimes? No matter your choice, your old hero friends in the Rangers will be out to stop your criminal rampage. To them, the fact that you are on the wrong side of the law is more important than the crimes you commit, no matter your motivation. Luckily you can remain one step ahead of them thanks to your telepathic powers, but it would be best to not push your luck and get too close. Or reveal your secrets.
Explore relationships as straight, gay, bisexual, or aromantic.
Pick your brand of villainy: become a thief, hunt heroes, run a mob or dabble in politics.
Delve deeper into the underworld and match wits with the kingpin of Los Diablos.
Set up your base in the rat-infested sewers, buy a luxury lair, or anything in between.
Deepen your previous two relationships or explore one or more of the three new ones; the young hero idolizing your past, your most dangerous opponent, or the Marshal himself.
Juggle two bodies and three identities, play as male, female or genderqueer.
Explore your feelings about gender and your body.
Hopefully, your past stays buried. If not, get a shovel.
Malin 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’re proud to announce that New Witch in Town, 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 February 2nd!
Make friends, cast spells, and uncover secrets in your magical small town! Will you preserve the forest or let the town grow?
New Witch in Town is a 750,000-word interactive YA fantasy novel by Grace Card. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
When you were a kid, you lived with your grandmother in the small town of Silvertree, on the edge of a magical forest. Grandma is a witch, and she taught you how to use your magic to affect the natural world, too. “Magic is a part of you,” she always told you. “Learning how to use it means figuring out who you are.”
Now you’re 19 and on your own. After years of living in the forest while you perfected your witchcraft, you’ve returned to take care of your grandmother’s house and crow-familiar while she’s gone. Figuring out who you are feels more important than ever – not to mention, figuring out what Silvertree is. A lot is just as you remembered: the friendly generous next-door neighbors with a kid just your age, the proud town council, the quaint little shops with quirky punny names, the gentle shadowy forest full of magic.
But now it feels run-down, with potholes in the streets and overgrown empty lots where stores used to be. A big real-estate developer promises to help the town by expanding into the forest. What’s the best thing for the people of Silvertree and for the magical forest? What mysteries wait to be uncovered in the town archives? And more importantly, where did your grandmother go? Why do you keep having strange dreams?
And how did a tree grow overnight right in the middle of Main Street? Is it possible that you’re not the only new witch in town?
• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, pan, or aromantic
• Choose your familiar – a dog, cat, or owl – and bond with her, then go on to pet every single animal in town
• Find love with an earnest dreamy history major, a tattooed stranger with a not-so-secret soft spot for animals, an adventurous aspiring journalist, or your old friend the kid next door
• Become a good citizen of your new town, or break every rule on the books
• Heal old family wounds by bringing together parents, grandparents, and children
• Keep your magic a secret, or use it everywhere you go
• Make your voice heard in local politics: speak up at a town council meeting, join a protest, write in to the local newspaper, or bring Silvertree’s history to light
• Advocate to preserve the forest, or make way for progress and new houses so that Silvertree can grow
Friendship is magic, and so are you!
We hope you enjoy playing New Witch in Town. 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.
Make friends, cast spells, and uncover secrets in your magical small town! Will you preserve the forest or let the town grow?
New Witch in Town is a 750,000-word interactive YA fantasy novel by Grace Card. I sat down with Grace to discuss her work and writing process. New Witch in Town releases this Thursday, January 26th. You can play the first three chapters today for free.
The world of New Witch is such a fun place to spend time. How did you conceive of it?
My original thought when I first started planning the game was that it would be fun to explore the culture shock of a witch moving from a magical forest to a small town, with misunderstandings and mystery and cute animals throughout. When I actually started to write the game, however, I realised I wanted to take it in a slightly more ‘realistic’ direction, because for me personally, fantasy and speculative fiction in general are at their most interesting when they’re juxtaposed with ‘real life’. I like to imagine how magic would fit within the real world, thinking about how it might work alongside modern technology, or the unexpected ways it could impact on ordinary parts of our lives. And I wanted the world to feel like it had depth, so that when you bring magic into it, it feels all the more strange and fantastical, with potentially higher stakes for using it. So since I wanted to try and create a sense of realism, it felt pretty natural to take inspiration from places I already know. Silvertree is a place with lot of interesting history, which is pretty but also neglected, and which feels a bit isolated – very like the place I currently live.
Even with all of that, I still wanted the game to be fun, and funny, and full of mystery – and I realised I could, because humor and joy are just as real as uncertainty and fear. Some of my favourite parts of the game to write were conversations between characters who knew each other and their town too well, and knew how to make each other laugh about it.
As for the magical side of the game’s world, however, that was something I had to work at far more. I hadn’t written a lot of fantasy before I started this game, and so my imagination about all the things magic could do was somewhat limited. But since I’d had the idea for the main character to be living in a magical forest before the start of the game, I started to take inspiration from nature, and began to imagine magic as a natural entity similar to a forest, or even the ocean or outer space; something awe-inspiring, which humans can interact with, but with no personal concern for human lives. Within the game, magic became a bit like the forest itself – beautiful, vast, potentially dangerous, and mysterious. With all of that in mind, I began to think of ways that the main character could use their magic, but also be perplexed by it, with elements of fantasy and mystery emerging from their relationship with magic. I think I still have a lot to learn about fantasy writing, but my lack of experience led me to consciously putting in effort to think about how magic can be interesting, and without giving anything away, I ended up with some ideas I was pretty excited about.
What were some of the challenges of writing a Choicescript game for you?
At first almost everything about it was a learning curve. I had never written interactive fiction before this game, and I’d never done any sort of coding, so it took me a few weeks of writing in Choicescript to feel at home with all of the different commands. I made a fair few beginnger’s mistakes, but it wasn’t too long before it started to feel quite natural; it’s just a matter of practice. If anybody is feeling unsure about whether they could learn Choicescript, I’d really recommend at least trying it out, because it really is designed for anyone to be able pick up.
In terms of writing the game itself, the endings were definitely one of the hardest things for me to manage. Since I was new to interactive fiction, it was a very new thing to not only come up with multiple distinct endings (I struggled with how to make some of them feel unique while still fitting into the story), but then to write them all in a way that felt satisfying. One thing I definitely found challenging (and this goes for individual choices as well as the game’s endings) was creating a breadth of options without sacrificing depth. I did at times fall to the temptation of giving the player a lot of branching paths, only to realise that each one would need to be equally interesting; and given the time and energy it takes to write just one scene, I sometimes found myself struggling to finish everything I had started. I learned through writing the game that it’s better to give the player fewer, more meaningful options, rather than feeling that more options are always better. I ended up cutting quite a lot of endings I had originally planned, because I realised there was no feasible way I could write them all, and it was better to focus on building up the ones I had already started.
Speaking of choices, one interesting thing I found after writing a lot of the game was that some of the trickiest choices for me to write were ordinary speech options. I have a bit of trouble finding what to say in real life, and although I find it easier to write fictional conversations, I started to find it difficult giving the player 3+ options for what their character could say while talking to friends or neighbors (specifically, options that were different from all the other conversations I’d written) – and then coming up with 3+ replies from the person they’re talking to! I tried my best, though – and I think I managed to improve my own conversational skills a little bit.
On a more personal level, writing such a large project – which was completely my own choice, and about a world and characters I genuinely loved – became a difficult thing to manage. This game was the first major project I’ve ever actually finished, and in some ways it was a very positive experience; as I say, I loved the story, and I learned so much about how to plan and execute a piece of writing on this scale. But without going into details, I pushed myself too hard while writing this game, to the point that existing health issues were exacerbated and writing anything became harder and harder. I’m very grateful to the Choice of Games staff who were so supportive through all of that, including to the point of taking over the remainder of the game’s editing when I was struggling to get it finished. Thankfully, I’ve started to make my health more of a priority, and I’m doing much better now – but I’m still constantly reminding myself to pace myself, and that no matter how many plans I have, it’s okay to focus on one thing at a time.
What surprised you about the process?
I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed the coding aspect – once I got to grips with the basics, I started looking for more creative ways I could use the commands, and honestly found it very satisfying putting the logic into place. Things could definitely get confusing, and I’m sure my code looks like a tangled mess at times, but I managed to find my way around it okay and it honestly made me want to learn more about programming. I’ve even started watching an introductory course on computer science in my spare time, and I’m finding it fascinating!
I also wasn’t expecting just how different writing interactive fiction is to standard prose fiction. In a lot of ways I could approach it like any other story, but I also had to be aware that I wasn’t just writing one story, but five or ten or even more – and so I had to think of it more as a world to be explored than just a straightforward story.
Another surprise, honestly, was much much I ended up loving the story I was writing. It’s not that I didn’t like it at all to begin with – I just didn’t expect how deeply I would start to think about the town, and its history, and its characters, and really want to explore pretty much every inch of the world. I’m not planning on writing a direct sequel to the game, but there are a few things I still really want to write about; and I plan on doing just that! It will be in a different form, but I’m going to keep exploring the game’s world for a bit longer (see the last question for more details about that!).
Do you have some favorite magic-centered books or films that you drew inspiration from?
To be totally honest, I’m quite new to the fantasy genre all around. I read a fair bit as a child – including some very popular series that have probably influenced the game in ways I don’t even realise – but as an adult I tended more towards historical fiction (if I read at all; it’s been difficult for me for quite a few years). I love Spirited Away, for its symbolism and its beautiful focus on magic within more mundane moments as well as the impossible ones. Another thing that inspires me in a lot of things I write is folk music, which is a huge love of mine. Their stories are often magical, with magic being fantastical but also sometimes strange and frightening as well. And in a lot of songs/stories, magic is used as a means to try and understand real-life concerns, which are often very personal or political.
Also, it’s not a book or a film, but one of my biggest inspirations when I first started writing New Witch was the game Night in the Woods. It’s not strictly a game about magic, but it involves a series of inexplicable events that soon start to seem supernatural. But even as that happens, the characters’ ordinary, realistic lives never feel less important – if anything, it throws them into an even more significant light. When something scary and unexplainable happens, it just shows all the more how important the ‘smaller’ things are, from worries about jobs and the future to friendships and mental health and just hanging out eating pizza.
What else are you working on?
Right now, I’ve decided that I’m only going to focus on one main writing project at a time (rather than planning ten projects at once and somehow expecting myself to work on them all). After spending a little while trying to narrow down a few different ideas, I’ve decided to start working on what I hope will be my first novel. It’s still in the planning stages (though writing this game hugely improved my story-planning skills!), but it’s going to be about the new life taken on by a formerly-abandoned town, and all the ways history begins to repeat itself as it’s reinhabited in different ways by people and wildlife. It’s also been a plan of mine for a while to try and write a musical somewhere down the line – I’m challenging myself a bit with that one, but I’m a singer and I’ve written some music before, and I figured there’s no point talking myself out of it before I’ve even tried!
I think I’d really love to write more interactive fiction in the future, since I feel like I’ve learned a lot and there are so many interesting things you can do with an interactive story. But prose fiction is what I’ve always wanted to write, and now this game is done it feels like the perfect time to put all my focus there.
Also, although my main project for now is a novel, I’ve recently opened a Patreon (patreon.com/silvertreetoday) where I’m going to be posting a lot of bonus content related to New Witch in Town. My plan is to post short side-stories expanding on things that I couldn’t fit into the game, as well as my own art of characters and important locations, etc. As I wrote the game there were so many things I wished I could have gone on huge tangents about – as the game’s lore developed I got so excited about certain characters and parts of the town’s history that there just wasn’t space to talk about, but since I still have all of those ideas I’m hoping to be able to put it all on my Patreon in some form. If anyone is at all interested – and it’s totally fine if not! – I’m hoping to start posting regularly there from February 2023.
TO UNLOCK ANCIENT SPELLS NEEDED TO DEFEND THE GALAXY, CAN YOU NAVIGATE FANTASY QUESTS, NOIR CASES, HEROIC COMPETITIONS, DYSTOPIAN WORLDS & SPACE HEISTS? It’s 40% off until January 26th!
FORTUNE the FATED is a 130,000-word interactive novel by Zachary Sergi that continues the saga of the Sergiverse. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
In a galaxy that faces an insidious invasion, an elite squad has been trained to scour remote and exotic planets for the secret powers capable of destroying the invaders. The key to unlocking these mysterious and destructive forces rests in one young adult with unthinkable magical powers—and whether you become the galaxy’s greatest hope or its most wretched threat is up to you. Can you navigate fantasy anime quests, noir detective investigations, heroic reality competitions, dystopian world explorations, and deep space heists to unlock the ancient spell-power needed to defend the galaxy—or will you self-destruct everything in the process? To save everything, is there anything you wouldn’t destroy?
FORTUNE the FATED is an interactive novel that allows you to make character choices, assemble plot parts in customized order from several genre-spanning stories, and unlock alternate endings based on your chosen readings. It is a standalone work, perfect for new readers, but also serves as a companion novel to The Versus Trilogy & continues the story of The Sergiverse. (Book One in the FORTUNE the FATED Duology).
Zachary 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’re proud to announce that one of our bestselling games, Vampire: The Masquerade — Out for Blood has a new major update, available now, and we’re putting the whole game on sale to celebrate.
In Vampire: The Masquerade — Out for Blood, you’ll gather your allies to hunt the vampires that terrorize your town. In today’s major update, the full powers of True Faith await you. Regardless of what deity you invoke or which beliefs you follow, you now have the opportunity to call upon True Faith to put vampires in their place! Besides fire and sunlight, Kindred fear nothing more than this divine power.
The True Faith update is available to every owner of Vampire: The Masquerade — Out for Blood at no additional charge. If you’ve already purchased Out for Blood, we invite you to open the game, install any pending updates, and begin playing.
If you’ve never purchased Out for Blood before, you can buy it today, including the True Faith update, on sale! The whole game is on sale for 25% off until January 19.
New Religious backgrounds
Fully developed uses of True Faith
New opportunities and new ways to kill vampires
More locations to investigate in Jericho Heights, to better understand Chastain’s insidious plans
Some homecomings feel more like rude awakenings, but this one will become a waking nightmare. Find love while exposing the secrets of your eerie hometown! It’s 33% off until January 12th!
The Fernweh Saga: Book One is a 600,000-word interactive, romantic thriller novel by Aelsa Trevelyan. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
Return to a small town that you now feel a stranger in. It has been years since you were sent away following the tragic house fire that claimed your parents’ lives, but the death of your grandfather has brought you back. While grim circumstances overshadow the visit you never planned on making, there are also opportunities to reminisce, reconnect, and reunite with old
childhood friends, rivals, and neighbors. Familiar faces are all around, but will they aid or hinder you as your return trip spirals into a dark mystery and you start experiencing vivid nightmares?
Begin to unravel what is going on in this seemingly idyllic, forested town.
A feeling of unease grows with each sleepless night spent within Fernweh’s borders, but you can’t leave yet…
It won’t let you.
Play as male, female, or non-binary–with options to be gay, straight, bi, asexual, or poly.
Develop the beginning of a unique and enduring romance with 5 potential love interests.
Influence relationship dynamics with a cast of characters from your past and present.
Experience how your personality, habits, decisions, and relationships impact your visit to Fernweh and how you confront what lurks within the town.
Discover that things aren’t always what they seem by making connections and noticing links.
Fight, resist, flee, struggle, or give in to whatever is invading your nightmares and the town; there is more to it than a boring ole monster…Much more.
Fall in love, forge friendships, and uncover your past while spiraling into a mystery!
Aelsa 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.
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