Are there any completed but unpublished Choice of Games stories or Hosted Games stories that are unpublished (let’s say on Google Play/Apple Store/Steam) for reasons like unpopular/adult/offensive/mature-themed? Is there a section on the forums for it because there are a ton of stories on the forums in WIP, some seem to be closed, some are unfinished but it seems like there would be more that wouldn’t be fit for “public consumption” but I would still like to read/play. Sorry if there is already a thread on this but I couldn’t find the right keywords and I don’t know how to navigate the forums that well so I resorted to writing my own question.
A few of my tales fall under that umbrella.
Departure is completely finished, but I have gotten around to publishing it yet. I suppose I’m waiting for a bit more feedback.
And then there is “Abraxas, or the End of All Things” which is a bit rougher, but still done. I haven’t published it because I feel as though it could use a bit more editing.
I would very much like to know the answer this as well. My gut feeling is that any unpublished works are more likely to be abandoned WIP rather than completed, but I am still hopeful
Thank you Wannabe Human for sharing your stories, excited to check them out
Mine hasn’t been ever published yet, It’s not entirely finished, the overall thick part is, but I need to edit some things, and then the betatest and draw the images and all that.
It’s just my free time seems to be on a roller coaster and now I’m in a “no free time” part of it. This is not the first time it has happened to me, and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t make it public, I can’t keep up with a schedule and I feel it would seem like I’m quitting over and over again. I don’t know if that’s just me or there is a lot of almost finished books that no one knows about.
I was thinking more like stories that are completed but don’t fit the CoG/HG image. Like maybe they are too dark. Or have explicit sex scenes. Or maybe they’re racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic.
I don’t think I ever see ones that are pulled from publication. Sure, some stories are bad they sit on 2~3 stars rating, but nothing on “unlisted from publication” yet.
I’m certain they do exist, but they’re not really talked about for good reason. They’re not the sort of things CoG wants to be viewed as allowing to occur unchecked, at the very least.
Off topic, but as a budding new writer, this interests me. Does that mean, if you complete a fairly decent and beta tested game, so long as it abides their qualification rules, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be accepted under the Hosted Games label? For some reason I had presumed they were only hand picking the best few out of a pool of many.
@Ferdiechen My guess is you might have better luck finding that kind of fiction on other interaction fiction sites, maybe http://textadventures.co.uk? Probably most writers using Choice script are aiming to get published here, so they take the rules into account from the start since CoG is pretty upfront about its policies
Yeah the reason why i wanted it on CoG is because i like their UI, font, general format. Their look basically. I mean if you know another organisation that does darker stuff but has a similar look amd stats and stuff then can you recommend any? Also i have an android phone so they need to be able to be downloadable on there
Yes — HG deliberately has a much lower entry barrier than COG, so new writers can be published under that label.
The threads I remember about this topic are all pretty old, but as far as I am aware very few submitted HGs actually get rejected, and those would be for things like not following the rules (like word count, passing randomtest, forum beta, etc.) or the author absolutely refusing to make required changes.
I’m not sure if the author ever intended it to be a CoG game, but I found Superstition Season 1, and Season 2, by 13leagues when I was looking for more interactive fiction, and I enjoyed both books quite a bit. They’re familiar but also a little darker I guess, and I like the music component. I believe they’re on itch.io, and they’re completely free to play.
Wouldn’t say CoG/HG doesn’t publish explicit sex scenes - the Soul Stones War (book 2) gets pretty explicit with the Daelynn romance and that’s the only romance so far with a sex scene. Book 2 will, as I remember, have space for all the other romances to get their turn.
My CoG game, ‘Werewolves: Pack Mentality’ has both explicit interactive sex scenes and an optional torture scene that’s fairly graphic and uncomfortable enough that they considered having me remove it. So they do allow such things, it just has to be written to their standards and make it past the sensitivity reader before publication. It can’t be the prime purpose of the game, though. Unless you want to write for Heart’s Choice or something. All Star Pro Wrestling is basically all sex all the time, and that’s under their sub-label.
