The Every Game from Choice of Games bundle is currently with a 25% discount because of the Steam Summer Sale. It includes 30 stories and a couple of DLCs for some of them.
Link: Every Game from Choice of Games
I'm not into interactive stories, so I can't make personal recommendations, but I've checked the store pages of every one of them, and at least two thirds of the bundle feature good comments from users (with Choice of Robots being one of those unusual instances of "overwhelmingly positive" reviews).
Though, as a good news, in case you want to focus only on some particular fictions (or if you find the entire bundle still too expensive, that's another possibility), there are available several smaller bundles, although it's a bit confusing to find them, because sometimes they should be mentioned at certain store pages (since such game is part of that bundle) but they aren't. The following list feature some of these mini-bundles, but if you explore the different pages you may find some more:
- Choice of Games Superpowers Bundle
- Choice of Games Urban Fantasy Bundle
- Choice of Games Literary Bundle
- Choice of Games Sci Fi Bundle
- Choice of Games High Adventure Bundle
- Choice of Games Sword and Sorcery Bundle
So, which one will be your Choice of Games? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Link: Every Game from Choice of Games
I'm not into interactive stories, so I can't make personal recommendations, but I've checked the store pages of every one of them, and at least two thirds of the bundle feature good comments from users (with Choice of Robots being one of those unusual instances of "overwhelmingly positive" reviews).
Though, as a good news, in case you want to focus only on some particular fictions (or if you find the entire bundle still too expensive, that's another possibility), there are available several smaller bundles, although it's a bit confusing to find them, because sometimes they should be mentioned at certain store pages (since such game is part of that bundle) but they aren't. The following list feature some of these mini-bundles, but if you explore the different pages you may find some more:
- Choice of Games Superpowers Bundle
- Choice of Games Urban Fantasy Bundle
- Choice of Games Literary Bundle
- Choice of Games Sci Fi Bundle
- Choice of Games High Adventure Bundle
- Choice of Games Sword and Sorcery Bundle
So, which one will be your Choice of Games? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I have played a few of them (including Choice of Robots) and I generally like them. The writing is a bit wonky at times, though, and dependant on the game (since there's a couple of different writers).
On GNU/Linux, both the JSON files the game uses and the source .txt files that are parsed by the ChoiceScript preprocessor are plain files in the scenes/ subdirectory of the installation path. Likewise, the interpreter is written in JavaScript (the game binary is just a thin wrapper around the Chromium Embedded Framework), so that's also human-readable. If you like snooping behind the curtains, looking at how the sausage is made, that might be of interest for you.
(On Windows, that's a bit more difficult, because there the files are inside a ZIP file embedded in the resource fork of the PE EXE. No idea about Mac OS X, but could theoretically be inside the HFS+ resource fork?)
The game automatically saves your progress on each page, overwriting the save file each time. I've written a quick-n-dirty script that monitors the save file (using inotifywait, Debian package name is inotify-tools) and copies the file somewhere else on each change, with the current time attached. That basically gives you a way to "save scum".
If anybody is interested in that script, I put it in a gist on GitHub here. It's a bit hacky, so beware. As parameters, it needs to original save file (inside ~/.steam/steam/userdata/$yoursteamid/$appid/remote/ (substitute the ID of your steam account and the ID of the game in question), the file without the temp attached), a directory where to copy the saves and a prefix to add to each file. It then continues to monitor the save file and copies it on each change, until you kill the script with Ctrl+C.
Last edited by DrMcCoy on 1 July 2016 at 8:16 pm UTC
On GNU/Linux, both the JSON files the game uses and the source .txt files that are parsed by the ChoiceScript preprocessor are plain files in the scenes/ subdirectory of the installation path. Likewise, the interpreter is written in JavaScript (the game binary is just a thin wrapper around the Chromium Embedded Framework), so that's also human-readable. If you like snooping behind the curtains, looking at how the sausage is made, that might be of interest for you.
(On Windows, that's a bit more difficult, because there the files are inside a ZIP file embedded in the resource fork of the PE EXE. No idea about Mac OS X, but could theoretically be inside the HFS+ resource fork?)
The game automatically saves your progress on each page, overwriting the save file each time. I've written a quick-n-dirty script that monitors the save file (using inotifywait, Debian package name is inotify-tools) and copies the file somewhere else on each change, with the current time attached. That basically gives you a way to "save scum".
If anybody is interested in that script, I put it in a gist on GitHub here. It's a bit hacky, so beware. As parameters, it needs to original save file (inside ~/.steam/steam/userdata/$yoursteamid/$appid/remote/ (substitute the ID of your steam account and the ID of the game in question), the file without the temp attached), a directory where to copy the saves and a prefix to add to each file. It then continues to monitor the save file and copies it on each change, until you kill the script with Ctrl+C.
Last edited by DrMcCoy on 1 July 2016 at 8:16 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
PublicNuisance Jul 1, 2016
I have loved all of their games. I own a bunch of them but I would rather focus my money and resources on DRM free. Great games for any visual novel fans who don't mind DRM.
Last edited by PublicNuisance on 1 July 2016 at 10:17 pm UTC
Last edited by PublicNuisance on 1 July 2016 at 10:17 pm UTC
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Are these anything other than choose-your-own-adventure e-books? I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely curious. I was never much of a fan of the genre in books, so I've never played one of these on computer, and I'm wondering if there's more to the genre here?
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Well, depends on what you mean by choose-your-own-adventure. If you mean the simple variant that just connects sections together by "If X go to page Y", then no.
They also track stats (that differ from game to game). So doing something might, say, increase or decrease your wealth or your compassion, which enables/disables other options later on. In some of them, there's also some light randomness: an option might succeed or fail depending on a hidden dice roll.
As such, they're more like more mid-complex gamebooks. Thinks the Lone Wolf series or solo pen-and-paper roleplaying adventures.
From a literary genre point of view, they're a pretty widespread bunch. There's pulpy SF, there's superheros, there's fantasy. It is very much genre fiction, though.
However, you will have to read a lot. The main action you're doing while playing them is reading. There's no way around that. If this is not your idea of a good game, then they're not for you.
They also track stats (that differ from game to game). So doing something might, say, increase or decrease your wealth or your compassion, which enables/disables other options later on. In some of them, there's also some light randomness: an option might succeed or fail depending on a hidden dice roll.
As such, they're more like more mid-complex gamebooks. Thinks the Lone Wolf series or solo pen-and-paper roleplaying adventures.
From a literary genre point of view, they're a pretty widespread bunch. There's pulpy SF, there's superheros, there's fantasy. It is very much genre fiction, though.
However, you will have to read a lot. The main action you're doing while playing them is reading. There's no way around that. If this is not your idea of a good game, then they're not for you.
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