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Hosted Games has two new games for you to play!

A long-lost treasure. A glittering prize. An unforgettable journey. And a host of rivals and enemies between you and the finishing line.

It’s 30% off until April 14th!

1938. A terminally-ill English aristocrat has one final wish: to locate the long-lost resting place of one of his legendary ancestors, a crusading knight said to have found a terrible secret in the East and then vanished. A cryptic, coded poem points the way, allowing a modern-day adventurer to retrace the knight’s steps. So a contest is set: five of the world’s leading treasure-hunters and archaeologists are challenged to follow the trail and track down the crusader’s tomb. And whoever gets there first stands to win an unimaginable fortune. Do you have what it takes to outwit and out-gun your villainous rivals and make it safe – and first – to the prize?

Relics 2: The Crusader’s Tomb, the sequel to Relics of the Lost Age and the second game in the Relics trilogy, is an exhilarating 400,000 word interactive adventure novel by James Shaw, 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.

Step into the weathered boots of a swashbuckling 1930s archaeologist and embark on a wild ride across Europe and Asia, racing to stay ahead of your vicious and amoral rivals, facing murderous enemies and intriguing mysteries at every turn, as you strive to beat the odds, solve an ancient mystery, and uncover the secrets waiting for you in the long-lost crusader’s tomb.

• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, poly, asexual, or aromantic.
• Continue to develop your romance from Relics of the Lost Age, or try your luck with one of three new romanceable partners: a hedonistic historian (m), an elusive master- thief (nb), or a treacherous rival (f).
• Experience a hectic four thousand mile race. Go up against four memorable rivals who will stop at nothing to get to the prize first, and a shady organization who will do whatever it takes to prevent you from finding the truth.
• Brawl in the Moulin Rouge in Paris, plan and execute an audacious heist in Venice, infiltrate Hitler’s “Grail Castle” in Germany, survive a terrifying night in a vampire castle in Romania, and discover long-lost secrets beneath the bustling streets of Istanbul.
• Experience epic gunfights, visceral brawls, and wild stunts in vintage vehicles.
• By plane, by airship, by train, by car, by motorcycle, by any means necessary race across a lovingly-realized 1930s Europe to get to the finish line first.

Become a brain-for-hire in this mad-science adventure!

It’s 33% off until April 14th!

Big Brains in Little Jars is a 300,000-word interactive novel by Ashlee Sierra. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

As a valued appendage at a company called Gray Matter, you’ll do the thinking, speaking, and fist-fighting for clients who hire you, all from the comfort of your jar. Along the way, you’ll start riots, solve riddles, torment party clowns, escape burning buildings, find allies among your fellow brains, and commit felonies. Not a bad gig, as long as eternal servitude is your jam.

Of course, every workplace has its downsides. Bad brains get imprisoned in dead bodies, your coworkers are tired of being science experiments, and that intern won’t quit looking at you funny. Also, the healthcare coverage is abysmal. But escaping won’t be easy. After all, you’re a brain in a jar—and Gray Matter isn’t about to let a valued appendage just roll out the door.

• Don’t worry about gender (you’re just a brain) or sexual orientation (seriously, you’re just a brain).
• As a brain-for-hire at Gray Matter, help your clients achieve their wildest dreams—or humiliate them in front of everyone.
• Explore the depths of a mysterious underground laboratory known for madcap scientific experiments. (Portal gun not included.)
• Bully scientists, befriend disgruntled coworkers, or forge risky alliances with high-ranking Gray Matter employees to learn where your brain-jar is imprisoned.
• Choose one of four distinct sidekicks, each with unique abilities to help you navigate Gray Matter.
• Flex your mockery muscle by increasing your dedicated Sarcasm stat.
• Flip someone off using their own finger, start a fistfight in a corporate break room, ruin a first date, and get into general mad-science mischief.
• Find out whether you’ve got what it takes to outthink Gray Matter—or if you’re bound to spend eternity as a brain trapped in a jar.

It’s mad science, and you’re the experiment.

Ashlee and James developed these 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.

In partnership with World of Darkness and Paradox Interactive, Choice of Games is proud to announce the release of Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires now available on Steam, iOS, and Android.

It’s 20% off until March 31st! And Sins of the Sires author Natalia Theodoridou’s Nebula Finalist Rent-a-Vice is 25% off as well!

In this elegy of blood, Athens is burning!

Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires is an interactive novel by Natalia Theodoridou, based on “Vampire: The Masquerade” and set in the World of Darkness shared story universe. It’s entirely text-based, 300,000 words, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Athens, Greece: a city with an ancient past now thrust into the modern age. A city torn between the Camarilla establishment and the Anarchs, where everyone owes your boss a favor, and that makes you an untouchable vampire in this nocturnal society where you and your fellow Kindred must conceal yourselves from mortal eyes–the Masquerade of the Kindred.

Rumors spread of an ancient vampire, Aristovoros, intent on bringing about a new world for the Kindred, an end to the Masquerade. Why hide from mortals when you can reign over them as gods?

Who will you use, who will you help, and who will you prey on? Will you topple the old Prince Peisistratos? Will you betray your boss when your lost sire returns? What miseries will you inflict to fight for a fairer, more humane world?

• Become Clan Tremere, Ventrue, Malkavian, Banu Haqim, or thin-blooded.
• Play as a man, a woman, or a non-binary person, femme, masc, or androgynous, and as gay, straight, bisexual, queer, or ace.
• Outlast a dark tale of corruption, power hunger, betrayal, and yearning for what you once were.
• Rise within the ranks of the Camarilla, stand with the Anarchs, or forge your own lonely way ahead.
• Unmask your true sire. Is it the Prince Peisistratos? One of the city’s Primogen? Is it Aristovoros himself?

Which part will you play in this game of masks?

We hope you enjoy playing Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires. 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.

Athens, Greece: a city with an ancient past now thrust into the modern age. A city torn between the Camarilla establishment and the Anarchs, where everyone owes your boss a favor, and that makes you an untouchable vampire in this nocturnal society where you and your fellow Kindred must conceal yourselves from mortal eyes–the Masquerade of the Kindred. Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires is a 300,000 word interactive novel by Natalia Theodoridou, based on “Vampire: The Masquerade” and set in the World of Darkness shared story universe. I sat down with Natalia to discuss Sins of the Sires and her experiences with interactive fiction.

Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires releases this coming Thursday, March 24th.

• You can play the first three chapters for free, today
• Pre-order the game on the Apple App Store
• Wishlist it on Steam

I’ve really enjoyed witnessing your evolution in interactive fiction, from your first game with us, Rent-A-Vice, which is a dark near-future speculative piece, to An Odyssey: Echoes of War, where you took on the Homeric myth of your homeland, to this latest, Sins of the Sires, also set in Greece. How has that evolution felt to you?

All three games are very different from each other, of course, but I think in a way Sins of the Sires combines elements from both my previous games: it’s broody and dark, like Rent-a-Vice, and, like Odyssey, it’s set in Greece and informed by both its mythology and its long history (real and imagined). It’s almost as if the two earlier games were paving the way for this one.

I also think I have a much better understanding of story structure now, which has bled into my non-interactive fiction writing too. Sometimes putting together a story is a matter of considering all the possible pathways through the narrative and picking one. Yet all those other choices are still there, invisible but present, haunting the story with all that could be but isn’t.

What surprised you most about writing in this particular fictional world that to some extent is not of your own making? How did it stack up to adapting Homer?

I’ve discovered I work well with pre-existing material. I’ve long loved having some clay to work with from the start, but I think the joy of this kind of collaborative writing goes even deeper for me. I’ve always intuited this, but working with both Homer and the World of Darkness confirmed it beyond all doubt: thinking is dialogic, and a creator is always a co-creator, even when you’re not ostensibly working with pre-existing material. Because, of course, you always are.

The plot of Sins of the Sires (no spoilers!) is chock full of the political infighting and betrayal and power-mongering that VtM promises players. Tell me a little about the themes of the game.

One of the main themes is figuring out who you are, what you are, what you stand for and who you stand with. So a core theme is identity and the stories we tell about ourselves to ourselves as well as to others. The mythologies we cling to, the masks we wear, not only as individuals, but collectively as well: nation, history, race, religion, gender.

And what was it like writing a game set in modern day Greece? I think players will find it fascinating and unusual in the panoply of VTM offerings.
It felt both easy and strange; there’s a specific kind of distancing that needs to happen when you’re writing about your own stuff — culture, history, trauma, whatever — in order to represent it for others who may be encountering it for the first time. In a way, you need to hold it up and really look at it. Before you swallow it again.

But also the setting was ideal for the themes I wanted to explore. I talked before about mythologies of belonging — questions like, who belongs here and who is an immigrant, who is Greek and who is foreign? This place is such a pastiche; you have ideas of classical Athens (and an ancient Greece that only ever existed in retrospect), fever dreams of Byzantine greatness, a long history of Ottoman rule, a mix of Balkan culture and western influences, a nation of immigrants and refugees. Take one layer of Greek history and identity away, and there’s something else underneath, and on and on until you get to the bottom and there’s nothing left. Just a masquerade.

Did combining Choice of Games style interactive game and “Vampire: The Masquerade,” each with their own form of mechanics present any interesting challenges or insights into game design for you?

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that, when writing with ChoiceScript, with its robust ability to allow players to create very complete and unique player characters in terms of complex personalities and skillsets, you’re essentially writing about a main character you don’t know, who is in turn controlled by an unknowable player. I think that some of the most interesting narrative tensions are created from the friction between what the player believes and holds dear and what the player character chooses to do, precisely because the player’s personality need not align with the player character’s. What writing for VtM has added to this, for me, is an angle that allows me to write this unknown character controlled by the unknowable player with some amount of empathy, and that angle was the Beast. We all have it. Perhaps we all try to escape it, to varying degrees. That was a key narrative concern for me when designing the player’s experience. It raised surprisingly fundamental existential questions, like: is the Beast our common humanity, or its opposite? I go back and forth between the two, and I find both possibilities equally intriguing.

Do you have any personal favorite tabletop rpgs or LARPs?

I’ve talked elsewhere about how my first VtM LARP was one of the most memorable experiences in my gaming life—how using Dominate on someone made me feel both powerful and ashamed; I think that captures some core conflict that you’ll find in certain characters in Sins of the Sires. Recent favorite rpgs include Tim Hutchings’s Thousand Year Old Vampire and the aptly-titled this game contains absolutely no triggering material by PH Lee.

What else are you working on? Our readers would love to know.

I’m always working on short stories—you can read “Ribbons,” my most recent publication, in Uncanny Magazine—but I’m also currently working on a novel. It’s a Bluebeard-y tale about agency, literally toxic masculinity, complicity and abuse. Pretty dark, but then, what isn’t? If you look long enough.

Grand Casino of Fortune, Dawn of the Sol Empire, and Caves and Dinosaurs, the latest in our user-made “Hosted Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, are now available on Android and iOS. All three on sale until March 24th!

As you enter the Grand Casino, you have only one goal: reach the top floor and claim unimaginable wealth for yourself. Can you succeed where many others have failed?

It’s 33% off until March 24th!

Grand Casino of Fortune is a thrilling 55,000-word interactive fantasy novel by Teemu Salminen, 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.

If you reach the top floor of the Grand Casino, unimaginable wealth will be yours. Challenge various gambling games – including classics like blackjack and poker. But can you avoid drowning in debt in the process?

Guide a mysterious character (non-specified gender) on their path to succeed at a divine trial

• Challenge lots of gambling-related minigames such as blackjack, poker, roulette, baccarat and many others – even original games and modified versions of classic games!
• Collect items that increase your luck to further improve your odds of winning at various games.
• Use borrowed tokens as leverage to fuel wild accumulation of wealth.
• Explore the casino further to discover special events and games.
• The higher you climb, the more you have to win – or lose.
• Can you reach the top floor and survive the final trial?
• Take the chance to reach heights that only exist within the Grand Casino!

You are the leader of a space colony threatened by imminent invasion. Can you find a path to survival for your people – as well as yourself? Manage your planet, expand your space fleet, make diplomatic breakthroughs – and do whatever it takes to survive an interstellar invasion by the vastly stronger Sol Empire!

It’s free to win and 33% off “pay to turn off ads” until March 24th!

Dawn of the Sol Empire is a thrilling 35,000-word interactive science fiction novel by Teemu Salminen, 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.

• Choose your gender (male, female or other).Guide a remote space colony to safety – or ruin – in truly dangerous circumstances.
• Challenge or appease the mighty mighty Sol Empire.
• Control or unleash the advanced AI running your colony.
• Navigate the politics, diplomacy, internal affairs, military expansion, industry, economy and scientific research of your colony.
• Engage in fast-paced space combat when needed.
• Interact with ruthless AIs and cunning politicians, all with their own goals.
• Experience around a dozen unique endings – most with a unique branching path leading up to the ending itself!
• Show the universe your resourcefulness and unwavering resolve to survive!

Adventure awaits! Delve deep into dangerous labyrinth in search of the magical flying dinosaur’s (not a dragon) money pit. While you might seek treasure, fame, friendship, love, the past, exotic animals, revenge, trophy killing or even your birthright to the throne, you don’t know that you’re actually stuck inside a ruthless game…

Caves and Dinosaurs is 33% off until March 24th!

As a character inside a game, you are unknowingly being hunted by a blood-thirsty DM who is trying to TPK (total party kill) your plucky group of adventurers. The cards are stacked against you, and you will likely die, but with a little luck and ingenuity, you might escape with your life, and maybe, just maybe get a happy ending. If you have every played a TTRPG then you will love the nostalgia this game will bring you.

• Play as one of the five party members (Tank, DPS, Healer, Support, and Trapper).
• Experience all the good, the bad, and the ugly endings.
• Roll dice just like any other RPG experience.
• Over 400 different paths lead to a larger story hidden underneath the surface.
• Avoid over 50 ruthless ways to die!

The authors 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 Hosted Games will publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.

Hosted Games has a new game for you to play!

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven: Part Three continues your story as you leave your hilltop outside Nightfall, Colorado with your group of survivors and travel to a new haven, a rural junkyard. Continue your story from earlier parts, or skip right to the new chapters with a new original or pre-made character!
It’s 20% off until March 10th!

In addition: Part 1 is 20% off, and Part 2 will be going up in price from $3.99 to $4.99 on March 10th, so get it now while the price is lower!

With five brand new chapters and another 680,000 words, Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven is now more than than 1,600,000 words in total! That’s 70,000 words each time you play Part Three alone, and more than 140,000 for the full game. Given the number of paths from beginning to end, you can have a unique story every time and still never see all there is in Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven!

Jim Dattilo 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 Revolution Diabolique, 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 20% off until March 3rd!

Summon demons to win the French Revolution! Will you uphold the Republic, restore the monarchy, rule France yourself, or lose your head?

Revolution Diabolique is a 425,000-word interactive dark fantasy novel by Chris Conley. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

As a demonologist in eighteenth-century France, you study the world’s most dangerous forbidden magic in the safety of your provincial estate. You can summon forth a breathtaking variety of demons: some creep subtly around your enemies to confuse and distract them; some appear as terrifying monsters; some guide you towards unlocking even deeper secrets of the universe.

Now that the flames of revolution are beginning to kindle, you cannot hold yourself apart from politics for long. Every faction—monarchists, republicans, peasants, intellectuals, anarchists—would love to benefit from your power. Where will you send your demons? Will you unleash their power on the battlefield to aid or hinder the Revolution’s armies—or march on Paris itself? Will you lead a political faction with the secret knowledge that you have gained? Will you inspire a new cult dedicated to demons?

But all power comes with a price, and as you rise up, you will need to sacrifice something: your reputation, your fortune, your safety…or possibly even your life.

When the dust clears, will it be you who rules France?

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, bi, ace, or poly
• Rise to lead a faction of monarchists, aristocrats, peasants, or humanists
• Use your magical might to change the course of history – or to take down your personal enemies
• Build a palace to rival Versailles
• Bring the study of demonology out of the shadows and into France’s loftiest salons and universities
• Crush rebellious provinces with your demonic and military might—or join their uprising against Paris
• Pursue romance amid the Revolution with a Parisian professor, a decorated military veteran, or a mystical philosopher
• Lose your head to the guillotine—or use your magic to transcend death itself
• Enjoy twenty full-color character portraits

Vive la Révolution Diabolique!

We hope you enjoy playing Revolution Diabolique. 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.

Summon demons to win the French Revolution! Will you uphold the Republic, restore the monarchy, rule France yourself, or lose your head? Revolution Diabolique is a 425,000 word interactive novel by Chris Conley. I sat down with Chris to talk about his evolution as a writer of ChoiceScript games, and the fascinating setting of his latest effort.

Revolution Diabolique releases tomorrow, Feburary 24th. You can play the first few chapters for free now. 

This is your first Choice of Games game, but not your first ChoiceScript game! Tell us about your past work with ChoiceScript.

I first used Choicescript in 2011 for the Indigo New Language Speed IF event. The idea of Speed IF is to create a work of interactive fiction in a short period of time, generally two hours to two days, similar to a game jam. But in this case, because the idea of this particular Speed IF was to learn a new programming language you’ve been interested in but haven’t tried to use yet, it ran for two weeks. My story there was something like one of the old traveling salesmen commodities trading game crossed with Oregon Trail.

My first (and only other finished) commercial work in CS was Machinations: Fog of War, which was published by Hosted Games in 2016.

How did your writing and game design evolve between the two games?

When I started Machinations, I didn’t really have any idea how to approach writing something like it, a novel-length monolithic work. It was going to be my longest complete work by far, whether interactive or traditional. I developed a writing process as I went along, assembled from various sources of advice, including CoG’s blog here, as well as trial and error of various techniques I found or developed myself. Starting out and developing a writing process, I found it incredibly helpful to participate in a writing group online which runs a weekly flash fiction competition. Every week, they run a new writing prompt, and a few people judge the entries, and then the winner is tasked with proposing next week’s writing prompt and judging that week’s competition. Setting a goal like that for yourself, to write something short and complete and to an imminent deadline, again and again, is a great way to develop your own writing process and get in the habit of actually finishing things, which had always been a problem for me.

The most important thing I’ve found is that, in a sense, what you do doesn’t matter: all that you need from your process is that it gets you to write. Exactly what works is going to vary for each person.

In terms of design, I found more efficient ways to code as I went along. Revolution Diabolique gave me the chance to start from scratch applying what I knew and learned from past projects. I had been fumbling around with various ways to structure my writing design throughout the development of Machinations, and it was nearly the end of the game before I had settled onto my current process. With RD, I had that in place from the start, and it just needed some minor tweaking here and there after that. Most importantly, I started RD with a strong plan for the ending states of the story and the various secondary variables that are tracked to lead towards them, rather than deciding I should do that once I had nearly reached the end and bolting it onto my earlier scenes, as I did in Machinations.

On the other hand, RD also ended up being much more structurally complex in terms of code, so that a standard structuring tool like flowcharts became less and less useful, or even possible to use, as I wrote. This was partly because I decided to implement what Emily Short terms a “salience engine”, especially in the fourth and fifth chapters. This is an effective technique to improve the reactivity of the story to the player’s choices, by changing exactly which events happen, and in what order they are presented to the main character, based on the existing state of the game world and past player actions. But it also entails a lot more intensive work than just writing a simpler linear structure. I used a little bit of the technique in Machinations, mainly in the late game, but I may have gone a bit overboard here. I probably won’t use it so much in the future, at least not outside of an engine specifically designed to facilitate it.

Also, RD offers romances, unlike Machinations (where I didn’t really feel like writing a love story involving a robot). And some of those passages are among my favorite parts of this story.

What drew you to the French Revolution as a subject?

I actually started with the name first; “Diabolique” was French, and I asked myself “What period in France would make a good subject?” and the Revolution was an obvious candidate. The French Revolution is still one of those revolutions that exists at the forefront of public consciousness, and has inspired many of the revolutions that came after. It also established many of the political terms used to this day, such as “left” and “right”, named for the parts of the hall in which the reformers and conservative monarchists sat in the first national legislature that convened (almost by accident) at the start of the crisis in 1789.

Plus, at least in the US, it’s fairly familiar because it tends to be presented as a kind of dark flip-side alternate version of the American Revolution. Both arose from complaints about taxation and representation against a monarchy, inspired by Enlightenment ideals, in roughly the same era, and even involved some of the same players. But then of course the French Revolution soon careened out of control and off the rails, and that sort of broad fluctuating chaos offered the idea that a player character would have the chance to get involved and make substantial changes that would not be plausible in a more stable and settled, less iconoclastic milieu. Plus, this setting gave me the chance to research and write history and politics, which I always enjoy.

I love supernatural games and Revolution Diabolique is no exception–what’s been your favorite part about that piece of the writing?

It’s just fun to come up with magic systems and ensure they’re self-consistent and interesting. A supernatural setting also lets me write bizarre and otherworldly creatures and places and events, without needing to be constrained by real-world physics or behavior or places. I especially enjoyed writing the huge powerful demons near the end, because they’re a lot more willful and dangerous than the earlier demons, with actual dialog.

What are you working on next and what other projects would you like our readers to know about?

The next story I’m working on for Choice of Games is a near-future cyberpunk noir. And I aim to actually finish that this year, unlike the three years that these things have tended to take me.

If you want to see more from me, I’m setting up a website with a mailing list and possibly a blog at novelinteraction.com, mainly devoted to subjects along these lines, interactive writing and design; I have some more experimental kinds of interactive fiction and other games up at chrisc.itch.io; if you’re interested in writing parser IF, I maintain the Threaded Conversation extension for Inform 7; and with Meg Eden I gave a talk at MAGFest this year about interactive narrative design.

We’re proud to announce that Brimstone Manor, 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 40% off until February 17th!

Lose your heart to an angel or a demon and join the battle between chaos and order! Will you fly with the angels or cast a dark spell alongside the demon lord?

Brimstone Manor is a 168,000-word interactive supernatural romance novel by Frances Pauli. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

You’ve just been hired as the nanny at Brimstone Manor, a job that came with more than you bargained for. There’s something unusual about your new boss, Darien Stone…and your little charge as well. The house itself is full of secrets: What’s in the forbidden basement? Why do your employer’s rivals have an angelic glow about them? Is the big shaggy dog really a hellhound? Have you been hired to work for…a demon?

As you find your feet at Brimstone, you’ll uncover its secrets, care for an adorable demon toddler, learn magic, soar through the air on angels’ wings, and join a battle between heaven and hell—and a battle for your heart!

• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, or poly.
• Romance a quirky journalist, a demon, or an angel—or two!
• Learn powerful magic, work miracles, and tame your boss’s hellhound!
• Befriend or defeat a terrifying demoness!
• Fly with the angels or cast demonic spells!
• Reveal the truth about demons to the world or keep your paranormal knowledge secret.

We hope you enjoy playing Brimstone Manor. 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.

Lose your heart to an angel or a demon and join the battle between chaos and order! Will you fly with the angels or cast a dark spell alongside the demon lord? Brimstone Manor is a 168,000-word interactive supernatural romance novel by Frances Pauli, part of our Heart’s Choice line of interactive romance novels. I sat down with Frances to talk about her work and this latest Heart’s Choice game.

Brimstone Manor releases this Thursday, February 10th. You can play the first three chapters for free, today.

This is your first foray into interactive fiction, but definitely not your first publication! Tell me all about your other work.

I write across a broad selection of genres, but I cut my teeth on romance, and most of my work has strong romantic plot elements. I have a lot of series published, from Fey worlds to Space Opera, and more recently I’ve been writing shifters and stories with animal characters, which have always been a staple in my books. So you could say I diversify a lot, I suppose. But there is always a speculative element, a romantic element, and lots of fun critters.

Brimstone Manor contains a really classic dichotomy for the romance interests: Angel or Demon!?  What drew you to writing a supernatural romance? 

You know, despite all the aliens, shifters, mythical creatures and speculative elements I’ve worked with, I’d never done an angels and demons romance before. The closest I came were the demons in my Dogs of War series, but they’re a very different manifestation of the idea. I thought it would be a fun theme to write, in particular in a format where the reader has choices, and I really did enjoy it a lot.

Did you have a favorite NPC while you were writing the game?

Lucifer won me over hands down. (paws down?) I love writing animals, and if they’re sassy and highly food motivated, even better. I’m fond of Gabby and Lily as well, but as an animal lover, Lucifer was my favorite from page one.

What surprised you about writing an interactive story? 

So much surprised me about this process I’m not sure where to start. First, it was a lot harder than I expected, more challenging. But that’s a good thing, right? At times it felt like I was writing several stories at the same time, or several versions of the same book. It was definitely a new experience for me.

What’s your favorite genre of romance? 

I love sci-fi romance and shifters. I’m not sure I could choose between those two. Aliens and animals. It’s a pretty simple recipe to keep me happy as a reader. So long as you throw in a happily ever after to go with it. If a story has sci-fi AND shifters or animal aliens, then I’m going to be hooked immediately.

Tell our readers what else you’re working on.

This will probably not be surprising, but I’m writing a new series about a family of shifter witches called Brighton Vale. There is a heavy romance lean, but it’s also family saga, and follows an incredibly dysfunctional but very loving family of shifters as they try to navigate romance, danger, and family squabbles while keeping their existence secret. In addition, I’m working on a new serial story that falls along the lines of My Little Pony meets Twilight. Unicorns, and vampire-style Kelpies, and a lot of hijinks.
You can find info about all of the above on my website: francespauli.com

Hosted Games has three new games for you to play!

It’s the calm before the storm. Savor every moment of these light-hearted adventures with your superpowered classmates; these may be your final moments of levity and joy before the Diabolical Dozen crushes the world’s heroes beneath its collective heel. But for now, there are small-town monsters to discover, fantasy creatures to battle, and visits from your mother to survive.

It’s 25% off until February 10th!

Community College Hero 2.5: Fun and Games is a 108,000-word superpowered interactive novel by Eric Moser. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Set during the fall and spring semesters of your first year at Speck Community College, Fun and Games includes three all-new adventures with an emphasis on comedy, friendship, and exploring fresh settings with nary a superpowered villain in sight!

• Play as male, female, or non-binary.
• Romance any of seven different classmates.
• Just answer a few questions and you’re off! No saves from Community College Hero Parts 1 or 2 are required.
• Join your classmates in an epic tabletop fantasy adventure with bandits, elves, ogres, and even a wyvern! Will you become a champion known throughout the realm or die penniless and forgotten?
• Create your own custom fantasy character and use real die rolls to determine your success or failure!
• Help your friends investigate the legend of the lake monster. When the creature starts terrorizing Hay Springs, Nebraska, can you figure out who’s behind the mayhem before it’s too late?
• The mystery can be played numerous times with different results; the game generates different culprits!
• Dean Tolly invites everyone’s loved ones to visit campus, and it’s just as embarrassing as you might imagine! Do you try to win the day’s activities, appease your mother, or learn more about your classmates?
• The Dean might just have a secret plot – will you figure it out in time?
• Earn up to 47 Achievements, three of which unlock short stories featuring Crook, Stoic, and Dr. Hover.
Enjoy fun and games with your friends at Speck Community College!

NEXT UP…

Super Super Soccer Striker is a 122,000 word sports story by Chris Viola where you can experience the full life of a pro soccer player. Balance your romantic life, personal life, family life and personal reputation against your career. Gain full control of your skillset to become a speed demon who dominates the entire field, a striker with defensive skills, a ball-handling legend, a shooter with pinpoint accuracy or a balanced all arounder.

It’s 25% off until February 10th!

Fend off the media for privacy or embrace it leading to fame. Gain a few extra skills or get rich selling out to promotional material for others. Use your opinion to push your world views or save your reputation and boost your popularity. See cities from all over the world and every continent. Will you stay with one team your entire career to become a club legend or have a mercenary career where you play for winning teams?
• Play as a male, female or non-traditional gender
• Romance a partner of your choice
• Increase your fame and choose a custom skillset
• Play for one of 10 fictional teams, each with its own history and play style
• Travel to over 50 countries from every continent
• Control your personality and have your career and reputation reflect your choices
• Engage in a rivalry with another prime superstar

AND ALSO…

An action-packed arcade with 10 fast-paced text games, complete with sound effects.

Race against Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, use your diplomacy skills to defuse a tense situation, get in the boxing ring with champions, face down Wild West outlaws, enjoy a spot of tennis, and solve a murder mystery aboard a spaceship in this unique collection of ten interactive adventures.

It’s 33% off until February 10th!

Interactive Bonbons is a 68,000-word interactive text arcade game by Sam Ursu. It is entirely text-based, without graphics, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, asexual, or poly.
• Contains 10, endlessly replayable interactive fiction mini-games complete with sound effects
• Includes Senet, the world’s oldest known game
• Duel Wild West Outlaws or try your hand at diplomacy
• Fun for the whole family

It’s like a 1980s handheld electronic game but in an all-text format.

Eric, Sam, and Chris 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 Hosted Games will publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.