I've noticed that romance seems to be a huge focus in IF games, because that's what the audience wants, but I'm curious about games that aren't very romance focused. Anything but the Infinite Sea series, please.
I am bored and I wanna play something romance centric like wayhaven
Apologies if this isn't allowed and I'll take down my post, but I recently started rereading 1966 after hearing it got an update. It's such a great read but I'm having trouble keeping track of all the different routes, and not even RO routes, just between the various cults and agencies.
So anyway, I did some hunting and came up empty-handed, so I figured I should ask here — is there any kind of guide or rough attempt to help get through the heavier parts of the story? I'm really enjoying it but the obsessive in me wants to know that I'm clearing through all the levels as I go 😅
Any help would be appreciated (=
The latest Hosted Games title by Matt Ryland is now out and on sale until July 9. Velocity: The Race Begins is an action-packed, high-stakes story where you play as a somewhat regular teenager suddenly thrown into the world of gang wars, vicious criminals, and street racing right after transferring to a new school in the 1980s. When a new acquaintance of yours finds his life at risk from the mafia after a meet gone south, you find yourself with the opportunity to join the street racing scene, rise to the top, make a ton of cash, save your friend or just spend it all on Rolex and Gucci - all the while getting closer to the truth of what happened to your older brother that vanished some years back.
This game surprised me. I’m not a car person, never liked (or finished) the Fast and Furious franchise, and dislike most racing games. If I wasn’t trying to review most new releases, I probably never would have made it past the demo. But I actually had quite a bit of fun with this one. Something about the text-based, narrative-first format sucked me in in a way other racing games don’t, and I found myself really getting into the story and the various mysteries to unravel along the way. Unfortunately, in its current state it suffers from some serious issues on the technical side, so I don’t yet feel good widely recommending it. Bugs, typos, and certain stylistic choices lend the story an unpolished feel, and the current game mechanics are far too punishing and extremely frustrating, with many possible instant game overs throughout. The author is working on some of these concerns already, as well as a sequel, so I could see this story really shaping up in the future, but as is my recommendation comes with some caveats.
+ High-stakes tension: there were quite a few “edge of my seat” moments which was great fun…it’s been a while since I felt genuinely scared while reading but I felt a little of that in this game. Part of this tension is because stakes are real. In my playthrough, multiple characters died, including my MC (we’ll get to that later), so there’s a bit of a thrill making certain choices, deciding just how far to live on the edge to achieve your goals. I also enjoyed how totally chaotic the plot got towards the end…I love stories that just get wilder and wilder as they progress.
+ Family themes: the MC comes from a broken family; your father cheats on your mother, the divorce leads her to alcoholism, and your older brother runs away and becomes a wanted street racer. I liked that we get to choose how the MC responds to all this: do we try to forgive everyone and move on, or become bitter and resentful? Do you encourage your mother to find a new romance or try to thwart her how you can? While you don’t get to see your father and brother all too much in this game, it sounds like you will in the sequel, and I look forward to seeing how these themes pan out.
+ Gender choice seems to matter a little: this is a bit of a personal preference, I know there are a lot of different takes on how to do gender for IFs, but I found it refreshing to play a game that came with subtle changes depending on what gender I chose for my MC. It’s a small thing but it suited the 1980s high school setting to have characters, for example, flirt a bit differently with a male vs female MC, and it made the world feel a bit more real.
+ The author is openly addressing feedback already: I’m about to get into the things that aren’t working so well for the game, but what I appreciate is that the author is already working on the biggest issues. My hope is that with a bit more fine tuning, this game will end up reaching a much wider audience. It’s also a good reminder to report your bugs!!! There’s no way for the author to catch all of them on his own…if you want these stories to be great, they rely on players like you catching what was missed in the beta phase.
- The instant deaths: right now there are SO MANY ways your game can just end out of the blue, sometimes by pure chance. People are even reporting this with cheat mode turned on and stats maxed out. I get what the author is trying to do and I already mentioned this does increase stakes and tension and adds an element of realism, but as is I don’t think I would have made it through the game without using the Firefox ChoiceScript extension that comes with a back button. Otherwise I would have had to replay the game like ten times just to make it to the end. The author is currently working on a checkpoint system though so I think this will get way, way better in the near future, so don’t let it scare you too much.
- Unbalanced stats: I’m not sure where to begin with how stats are handled. The game breaks almost every CoG standard for handling stats, and not in the fun way. The end result was extremely frustrating. I found myself frequently unclear which stats would be tested or gained given a choice, which stats I should strive for, and ended up being gated out of a lot of choices and successes as a result (even with frequent code diving). I felt a few of the stats could be removed, the rest clarified and rebalanced, and I would have had a much better time. As one example: some dude came up to me saying that I should really have a gun if I was going to be a street racer, so I started upping my arms stat, only to find that I had no way to get a gun because I didn’t ask for a fake ID earlier on in the game (I only realised this by code diving too). Now I have this useless stat (along with my useless grades stat) while the rest of my stats are now too low to pass the very high success thresholds late game.
- Unappealing and difficult romance: I thought I heard somewhere there are 6 ROs but I’m seeing mixed information on just who those are and how to romance them. I do know they are all straight in the current game. My female MC was able to flirt with Jason, Matthias, and Lakeem, though none of these paths appealed to me. Jason is such a sleazy womanizer and I just didn’t find Matthias or Lakeem to be developed well enough to interest me. Flirting felt really forward too, like I’m not sure if you could romance anyone while playing a shier type MC (one scene I found, you’re just full on making out with Lakeem in a public setting as your first kiss). As for female ROs…Amaya seems like she’d be really fun to romance, but Britney is a jerk and also hard to land scenes with and while I assume Angela is also an option she was really hard to befriend. That leaves one RO that I think might be decent if you’re playing a male MC. Perhaps people can comment on their experiences though.
- Distracting slang: the story employs heavy use of slang to reflect different subcultures and dialects. I can appreciate what the author is trying to do here, especially since dialects can be really hard to do well, but sometimes it’s distracting, hard to understand, and can come across as exaggerated or unrealistic. There have even been accusations of racist stereotyping with the slang, though the author has responded to this, noting that he himself is a black male. The author also talked about drawing from personal experience engaging with a wide range of people so it might be more realistic than I know and just not something I’ve come across where I live.
- Long childhood prologue: I like the MC’s backstory and it’s important for the main narrative, but I think there could have been a better, more efficient way of delivering the backstory without starting the narrative at conception and keeping players in childhood for most of the demo. The first possible race only happens after the demo, and you could easily go five chapters (half the game) without racing at all. This means that the demo doesn’t really give a good sense of the game, and that players are expected to stick around for almost half the game before really getting a feel for what the game is all about.
- Unpolished prose and other minor issues: there’s just a lot of little things throughout that are mostly forgivable on their own, especially since this game wouldn’t have gone through copy editing as it’s not a Steam release (so far as I understand), but it does all add up to an unpolished feel. Things like typos throughout, using hyphens instead of em dashes, incorrect ellipses (. . . instead of …), and multiple exclamation marks (which worked well here and there, but I found was overdone and cheapened the prose). There are also plenty of bugs still but this is a new release and the author is already working on correcting them.
- Unbelievable narrative elements: to a degree it’s forgivable, desirable even, to have an over the top element in this genre, but sometimes I felt things were just a bit too unbelievable. My #1 beef is that my MC, so far as I understood, hadn’t driven a car in her life and yet was able to basically beat the #3 champion in the area her first time behind the wheel. I don’t care how many family members are pro drivers, you can’t just do that without experience. In general, things felt a bit too convenient at times and stretched the ol’ suspended disbelief.
Velocity isn’t without its flaws. Major ones at that. It’s not an artistic masterpiece, but despite all that it’s still a fun ride (hehe), which end of the day is the main thing. If the premise seems at all interesting to you and you can get past the issues, or don’t mind waiting a bit for the author to iron out some of the kinks, I think it might be worth a try. I for one will be keeping my eye out for the sequel and am interested in seeing how the author grows after this first release.
I always enjoy giving spotlights to creators who aren't talked about a lot. So here are some IFs that are new, or have a smaller audience.
Costa Sul - Tumblr - Slice of life, going back home after a hurricane hits.
Kindling - Tumblr - Forum - Fantasy game where you're a half-dragon.
Guardian of Time - Tumblr - Forum - Be a girl with a dragon friend.
Directive - Tumblr - Forum - Space opera heist game with a team.
Beast of Gévaudan - Tumblr - Werewolf game in the 18th century.
Both Costa Sul and Beast of Gévaudan are very new, without a ton of content, but both seem promising. And these may have been talked about in the past, but I enjoyed them, and I implore you to comment any you know and want to show off! Though I specified WIPs, if there are lesser known full games please say those too!
I've been playing through cogdemos and bought "the passenger" on steam for the sale only to realize that I'm supposed to just deal with it if a choice leads to an outcome I didn't want? What is this, iron man mode? I get not enabling save games if I didn't buy the game but I spent money on it. Plus, I'm not here to grind, I'm here to casually and leisurely read...
Even though I’m somewhat following the steam guides, I have to ask 2 things from the community. 1. What is the best club to join and 2. is it better to attack the Overseas Mob or help the marines?
I’ve joined the Reform club but you can’t do both supporting the Sainthood mission and and the part 2 reform mission to raise a mob of your own. I believe it will be important to fully support the Sainthood mission when book 4 comes out so I’m a bit lost.
Would simply like the opinions of the community on this, thanks.
Spent way too much time thinking about how my latest Step's villain suit looked like lol, it was a Terrifying suit with Telepathy + Speed and cape
I just felt we don't talk enough about that
Hey guys, so I noticed this trend, which isn't news to anyone, but I wanted to talk about this as an aspiring IF writer, so I can understand how others feel about this.
To address the elephant in the room, Fallen Hero. Almost every one of us loves the books, and for good reason, they have an excellent premise and the story/world is really well done. But I fear we as a community are suffering from the tolkienization effect that lord of the rings has in modern fantasy as a whole.
Sure, there were other superhero books before, but none with that big of an impact as FH in IFs.
I'm not making any comment on the quality of post FH superhero books, but it's a fact that without FH, we wouldn't have as much superhero IFs being written. And superhero IFs fill the reader need for more FH stories, so new superhero IFs by default get more attention than unexplored subgenres.
I ask this, because reading FH made me see that superhero fiction isn't reserved to movies and comics, even literature can have this when done correctly, and I do intend to continue to write in this subgenre regardless of how many works are going to be published about superheros.
This isn't a post asking if it's okay to write about superheroes or asking for any kind of validation.
I made this post becauss can't avoid to feel the need to make sure that my own work is unique and not some search to emulate the feeling of FH, even if I'm not consciously doing it.
So in that topic, what are things in superhero IFs that you feel are still unexplored or often explored too often?
And for authors who wrote in genres/subgenres where previous books made their mark so much that every new story will inevitably be compared to it, E.g. Harry Potter, Neuromancer, Lovecraft Mythos, GOT, etc...
How did you approach this? I hate the anti-tolkien style where writers felt the need to subvert fantasy to make the opposite. Still, their need came from a real desire to not be derivative and make the own work unique.
Other thoughts on this topic are welcome, there are many beginner writers, like myself, that I think would benefit on a constructive debate on this.
Thanks in advance!
Played the new James Bond game recently, which made me rewatch a couple of the movies and subsequently remember just how awesome they were. The aura, folks, the aura was unmatched.
Basically just looking for any good super spy IFs, the cheesier/tropier the better (WIPs are fine!).
I found this while going through tumblr..
How do I trigger G's scene ? Cus I didn't tell her to stay away and still nothing happened ?
I’m pretty sure played this game 1-2 years ago, and I remember specifically playing it because you could have a yandere MC. I remember it being chinese inspired and the MC was a person of power, not sure if royalty adjacent or just high status. At the time of reading it, the yandere ‘mode’ was only for a specific servant RO.
Hello!!! I'm in a romance mood of late, so I'm looking for the some IF recs where the romance has progressed to where they have gotten together !!! I especially like yearning or slower romances, though it doesn't have to be angsty! Childhood friends are pretty cool as well, but hit me with anything you find interesting!!!
I've read God Cursed, Bastard of Camelot, Sword Of Rhivena, Golden Rose, Fernweh Saga, College Tennis, Merry Crisis, A Tale of Crowns, We Wretched Creatures, Crown of Exile, When Twilight Strikes, The Soul stone war, the Creme de la Creme series, Wayhaven, Blood Moon, Thicker Than, Shepards of Haven, and of course, please insert Fallen Hero Invincible Title Card. Currently getting to the second Tally Ho game, Keeper series and Whiskey Four.
Oh, and I'm a useless lesbian, so only romances where you can be a woman and the RO is a woman/sapphic please :)
More specifically, I'm having a difficulty with my MC's Re-Gene and villain persona reveal to Chen and Ortega. I had already found some tips online about what to do, but when I followed them I didn't get the same results. I'm not really sure what I should do differently.
With Chen (I'm romancing him) I only got the Re-Gene reveal but not the villain persona.
When visiting Hollow Ground I used the puppet, but when I visited Ortega in the hospital I didn't have the option to reveal my villain persona.
I'm sorry if this has already been asked before, and thank you in advance for any help.
P.S. Is it possible to have both Chen and Ortega find out about MC being a Re-Gene and a villain, but without having to go see HG in your original body and being forcibly exposed to all the Rangers in the hospital?
For me i think mine is N from Wayhaven. They are genuinely one of the most caring and understanding people out there and they go out of their way all of the time for the detective to make them feel loved. It might be silly but they were also one of the first Ro’s i fangirled over hard lol.
A close second for me would be Tobin from CTOS. The flirty personality that gives away to someone who shows they love the Mc and makes sure everything will be okay just really hits hard for me.
So who's your favorite?
Velocity: The Race Begins is officially LIVE on Hosted Games! 🏁🔥
After years of writing, months of waiting, and an incredible amount of support from this community — it's finally here!
Velocity: The Race Begins is a 290,000+ word interactive fiction game set in the underground street racing world of Los Santino — a neon lit city ruled by gangs, mafias, crooked cops, and dangerous secrets lurking in the shadows.
Every choice is yours. Every consequence is yours. YOU define your legacy!
🎮 Available now on:
Google Play
App Store
Hosted Games website
To everyone who followed the WIP thread, left feedback, sent encouraging messages, and stuck around through all the delays — this one's for you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 🙏🥳
Now let's take it to the streets of Los Santino! 🏁🔥
Get it here! Velocity: The Race Begins!
Got any questions to ask me? Shoot em my way!
ngl i put too much effort into this
time spent putting effort into art is less time spent making cursed shit