Choice of Games

Choice Of Games is a small partnership that creates text-based Choose Your Own Adventure games based on a scripting language they developed - ChoiceScript. Unlike many such games, they involve the use of stats, and this combined with the large number of possible pathways adds a good deal of personalization to the games.

They are planning to release sequels to both Choice of Romance and Choice of the Vampire - if you reach the end of these, you will be given a password which should transfer your character over to the new game. (If you made the right decisions, of course...)

As Choice of Games has published numerous text-based Choose Your Own Adventure games, the separate lists of the published games have been created:

• Choice of Games
• Hosted Games
• Hearts Choice

The website also hosts some user-contributed games, which are generally much shorter.

The blog can be found here; the forum can be found here.

Needs a Better Description.

Tropes used in Choice of Games include:

• Action Survivor: The protagonist in Choice of Zombies can develop into this, along with a hint of Blood Knight depending on choices.
• Anything That Moves: The King/Queen from Choice of Romance.
  • The PC in Choice of the Vampire will be this unless you expressly play them otherwise.
• A Taste of the Lash: Choice of Broadsides.
• Bi the Way: Possible in Choice of the Dragon and Choice of the Vampire but not Choice of Broadsides or Choice of Romance. Choice of Romance makes sense in that by choosing what gender you are attracted to you choose the gender of your love interests, but Choice of Broadsides seems to deliberately invoke No Bisexuals - you can only have an affair with Villeneuve if you choose that you don't want to get married because you aren't attracted to the opposite gender. Otherwise, you'll just have a drink together and end up good friends.
• Black Magician Girl: The PC in Choice of Romance can be played this way or as a Lady of Black Magic, depending on whether she prioritizes charm or intelligence and subtlety. Since Full-Contact Magic is in use at certain points, this crosses over with Magic Knight.
• Boy Meets Ghoul: Choice of the Vampire.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: an option with Silas, in Choice of the Vampire.
• The Captain: The protagonist of Choice of Broadsides, eventually.
• Character Customization: The point of each game.
• Choose Your Own Adventure
• The Cutie: Silas, Magdalena
• Cutting Off the Branches: You get a password at the end of Choice Of Romance to transfer your character over for the sequel, but only if you ended up with the Queen/King!
  • The long-awaited sequel can finally be found here.
• Dating Sim: All the games involve romantic elements in one way or another but Choice of Romance focuses entirely on this aspect.
• Dance of Romance: The ball at the end of Choice of Romance.
• The Dandy: Given that the protagonist in Choice of Romance was written as though a young lady but can be played as a boy, he rather comes across as this.
• Deadly Decadent Court: The entirety of Choice of Romance/Intrigues, and New Orleans in Choice of the Vampire.
• Dialogue Tree
• Dumb Is Good: Well, not "good" per se, but in Dragon, Honor and Cunning are mutually exclusive.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: Choice of Broadsides
• Fragile Flower: Samantha Withers cries quite easily.
• Funetik Aksent: Often used in Choice of the Vampire.
• Gay Option: The programmers actually considered this a pretty important element, and each game has one of these. In Choice of the Dragon you can decide which gender you want your mate to be (or if you don't care), in Choice of Broadsides you can have an affair with Villeneuve, who is always the same gender as you, in Choice of Romance you choose at the outset what gender your love interests will be and that will be the only thing that changes about them, and in Choice of the Vampire there are two main love interests, Clotho and Silas, regardless of what gender you are. (You can also engage in some pseudo-sexual actions with your Dominus and Jesse, both of whom are always male, regardless of your gender.) Choice of Broadsides is especially interesting in that Villeneuve is much more vital to the plot than any of the opposite-sex choices, and their route is arguably the 'main' one.
• Gender Flip: A rare case of an entire genre being flipped: In Choice of Broadsides, rather than force the player to play as a male, it's possible to to set an option such that the entirety of both navies (including the player) is staffed with females, thus turning the genre into Wooden Ships And Iron Women.
• Ghost Shipping: Choice of the Vampire.
• Golden Path: The King/Queen's route in Choice of Romance.
• Gold Digger: Your job in Choice of Romance. You can subvert it by eloping with de Mendosa, but that means you won't be able to go on to Act 2 and 3.
  • Meal Ticket: Torres is pure Meal Ticket; canonically, in a romance with him/her, you're not in love and it leads to a rather depressing but rich life. The Monarch can also fit here, depending on whether you use them to gain love, money, or power.
• Gray and Grey Morality: Choice of Intrigues is a fairly dark version, where Nice Guys Finish Last, no one's hands are clean, but no one is completely unsympathetic either. Choice of Broadsides, of course, is about sailors fighting for their respective countries' wealth and power, and morality doesn't enter into it.
• Grow Old with Me: Can happen in Choice of Broadsides.
• Heir Club for Men: Choice of Intrigues has a variant. Gender is not an issue due to full equality of the genders in Iberia, but an heir with the proper kind of magical talent is a direct stand-in for having a male heir. A monarch's consort who isn't producing is a consort in trouble.
• Hello, Sailor!: In Choice of Broadsides, you can choose to say that you aren't attracted to the opposite sex. If you do so, the game will note that that sort of thing isn't unusual for navy men or women, but it's not the sort of thing you can generally talk about.
• The Hero's Birthday: Choice of Romance begins on this.
• Hollywood Atheist: In Choice of the Vampire, the choices necessary to reduce your level of superstition generally involve openly mocking religion. You can be quiet about your lack of belief, but the stat won't go down as far that way.
• Homosexual Reproduction: Part of the setup for Choice of Romance is that Life Magic allows for people of the same gender to reproduce, thus justifying Eternal Sexual Freedom.
• In Medias Res: All of their games start out with an action scene (yes, even Choice of Romance). Afterwards, they segue into flashbacks about your childhood that determine your stats.
• Interspecies Romance: Choice of the Vampire.
• Istanbul Not Constantinople: Choice of Broadsides is set in the royal navy of Albion (Britain), who is at the time at war with Gaul (France).
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Odd example in Choice of Romance. If you marry Torres, you may still get close enough to the Queen/King to have an affair with her/him. If you do this and choose to tell Torres about it, he/she will reluctantly allow you to, telling you that they never met to force you into a marriage you weren't happy in. You can also attempt this with Mendosa, but they are not receptive to your idea...
• Ladykiller in Love: Implied with the King/Queen in Choice of Romance.
• The Lady's Favour: The protagonist of Choice of Romance can do this for the King/Queen for the jousting competition. Alternately, she can take the Monarch's favor and joust herself.
• Let's Wait a While: The protagonist can do this with the King/Queen in Choice of Romance.
• Lesbian Vampire: Choice of the Vampire, of course.
• Lipstick Lesbian: A lesbian PC in Choice of Romance is expected to be this; the junior partner is to let herself be courted, rather than trying to impress her suitors herself. You can subvert this if you so choose, however.
• Loved I Not Honor More: Silas is ready to leave you for his army and probable heroic death. Also Villeneuve, when he gets his command.
• May-December Romance: The protagonist and Torres in Choice of Romance can get married, but it will state in canon that you aren't in love.
• Mayfly-December Romance: Choice of the Vampire.
• Multiple Endings
• Murder the Hypotenuse: In Choice of Romance, it's an option...
• No Bisexuals: You can only get together with Villeneuve in Choice of Broadsides if you state that you aren't attracted to the opposite sex. Also, the first version of Choice of the Vampire enforced this, with the protagonist unable to get together with Silas if they pursued Clotho far enough. Later versions avert this, however.
  • In Choice of Romance, you can't be bisexual, though the King/Queen is.
• Noble Demon: An Honorable dragon in Choice of the Dragon, especially if they prefer Finesse to Brutality.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Choice of the Dragon.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Choice of the Vampire actually fits in pretty well with the standard modern vampires - they can't go out in sunlight, must drink blood to live, and can have some supernatural powers. Whether they're affected by holy symbols depends on their own beliefs.
• Paranormal Romance: Choice of the Vampire.
• Personality Powers: Choice of the Dragon: A dragon's physical traits are bound to his personality. A brutish and cruel dragon is also a mighty dragon, while a dragon who focuses on Pragmatic Villainy (or a Noble Demon) will be swifter and more agile. Honorable dragons are also more skilled in direct combat.
• Politically-Correct History: Choice of Romance is set in an alternate fantasy past where gender is irrelevant when it comes to marriage. Choice of Broadsides also uses it unusually - if you choose to play as a female sailor, the game world becomes a completely gender-flipped version of 18th-century Europe, with an all-female Navy.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender
• Railroading: It's a Multiple Choice Game. It's necessary. More specifically, there is no possible way to still be together with Clotho or Silas in Choice of the Vampire - if you don't break up with them, they will die.
• Relationship Values: If you treat Villeneuve well early in Choice of Broadsides he/she is a viable romantic interest later on.
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: The way marriages work in Choice of Romance, though here it's "rich and boring," "poor and exciting," and "rich, exciting, royal, and already married."
• Romance Sidequest: The potential dragon mates in Choice of the Dragon, the wives/husbands and Villeneuve in Choice of Broadsides, and Clotho and Silas in Choice of the Vampire. Choice of Romance doesn't have a romance sidequest as romance is the main plot.
• Second Person Narration
• Schrodinger's Question: Common during the character-building sections.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections: A game mechanic in Choice of Broadsides. Your patronage stat determines just how much leeway the brass gives you if you don't do perfectly.
• Straight Gay: As noted above, you can pretty much be whatever gender or sexuality you won't and it won't affect your character one bit. Well, any more than you decide to change them, anyway. Also Villeneuve, and Silas if you pursue him and are male.
• Villain Protagonist: In Choice of the Dragon, you're a Card-Carrying Villain who kidnaps princesses and defeats knights because that's the dragonly thing to do, though you can play as a Noble Demon if you so choose. The player can be this in any of the others too.
• What the Hell, Player?: The games usually go along with you, but sometimes they call you out if you make some cruel choices. For example, in Choice of Broadsides, if you choose to hang the sailors you suspect of mutiny without launching an investigation first you get this:

I wonder how you can sleep at night after murdering some innocent sailors.

• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Silas Hope, Gabriel(a) de Mendoza
• Wooden Ships and Iron (Wo)Men: Choice of Broadsides.
• Woman Scorned: Abandon Gabriel(a) for the Queen in Choice of Romance. He/she will trash your reputation throughout the court.
• Zombiepocalypse: Choice of Zombies.