A week and a half ago, I posted a link to the latest issue of ChoiceBeat, a quarterly zine dedicated to visual novels and interactive fiction. I’ve been involved since the fourth issue, writing about ChoiceScript games. I love our little zine, and I love the CoG community, and so I’m eager to hear what you think.
If you’ve read ChoiceBeat, what was your experience like? Did you read it online or download it? How much of it did you read?
Past issues have included reviews, game design articles, developer spotlights/interviews, exclusive minigames, and even personal reminiscences. What did you like? What did you not like? What would you like to see more of?
What would make this zine more interesting, enjoyable, and/or useful to you?
Answer as many or as few of these questions as you like, or share any other thoughts you may have. We’d love to hear from you.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out ChoiceBeat yet, you can read or download the current issue, as well as all five previous issues, at Issues – ChoiceBeat and you can look forward to the next issue on March 30.
I don’t think I’ve read all of the issues as I missed the first few and need to catch up, but I’ve read the most recent couple. I’ve tended to read on my phone, dipping first into articles about games or creators I’m familiar with and then going back to the start to read the rest. I enjoy it a lot!
I actually really liked the flowchart at the end of the book. Cool way to find something of interest.
I don’t love the format the zine is in though. It’s useable but seems more tailored to touch screens at a guess? The full 2 page spread is too small to read even on my laptop, so I have to zoom in using the mouse to click on the option at the bottom of the page and then click and drag around the article making sure to avoid any links as the arrow keys don’t work. When I go to the next page, it zooms back out to the original size and so repeat. It’s a little thing, but you’re asking what would make it more enjoyable, and for me, having a different format or arrow and +/- keys enabled would be a QOL improvment so I don’t have to keep using the trackpad.
