I stick to COGs because I prefer to pay once and then own the story. I am not a fan of the ticket/heart systems that both Lovestruck and Choices use. The art is cool but it doesn’t make up for the lack of real choices that impact the plot. It’s just following along a story on rails, which is fine but I have books for that.
Choices is really bad about LGBT inclusiveness, they always have a “main” RO that gets all the attention and I never like them. In the roman courtesan story, there wasn’t even any free interaction with the female LI, it was 100% pay locked while every other scene had Marc Antony in it. I follow a lesbian gamer on tumblr and Choices doesn’t seem to have improved their inclusiveness at all and I won’t even consider using their app until they get their act together regarding this.
well I understand but I mean it costs way more money to make lovestruck work than cog lol so they need to have that “heart system”
the plot is pre determined and everyone knows that, but it’s fair if you don’t like it.
and choices is straight up bad most of the time exactly because of the forced ros.
I would also say that whilst Choices does have a decent amount of games now with the option of a male character, some feel like they’re still expecting you to be a straight female reader because they only have one female romance option.
But hey, enjoying Endless Summer so far and Quinn and Estela are both interesting romances, plus Sean and Jake are as interesting as friends too.
It does seem they have a demographic, but I feel ES stood out from their earlier stories in that regard perhaps, could be wrong here but I think it could of been the first story they released that added the option to choose the MC’s gender. And just as an aside Estela was my absolute favorite character in that series.
Yeah, it was the first to add it, but that’s not the only thing that made it stood out.
The art-style, the not-half-assed romance, decent character development and a beginner’s mind screw plot made it worth reading. This was before Choices completely leaned into the “Premium choices in every chapter” too, so I think I had enough diamonds to actually make some of those premium choices.
It’s frankly one of the best titles on the platform. That’s what I feel at least.
Going by the wiki I think you’re right, the three books I think came out over 2016-17. So it might have been new ground for them at the time. But I suppose female focused romance storylines sell better for them so that’s what they opt for. Quinn is more adorable to me but I like Estela’s attitude.
Vivienne!!! AHHHH, Queen of Thieves is one of my favorite of the new series. Mackenzie Hunt and Alex Cyprin are my top 2 LIs.
I don’t think I’ve tried Stories? Tell us about it!
@bobsmyuncle re: Choice’s lack of attention on female Romance Options. I totes agree! The Choices stories are really high quality with the writing and art, and they have books where choices affect the story (It Lives series) and others were it only affects the romance. In the bulk of stories the female LI feels like a “niche” option, a bone thrown to sapphic players without much commitment behind it. I fell in love with the Haunting of Briadwood Manor and Veil of Secrets partly because the female romance options were focused on more.
I mainly kept like several account to mines diamond and stuff. Not ideal, but hey it’s work. The story is hit or miss i say. There are a good one like open heart or MOTY or Blades and many other and some just… Flooped and cringe like baby bumps…
But comparing to other VN IF like chapters, etc choice is the best option.
And too bad there are lack of female ro’s there, like many of them are male ro (which is okay for me, but then u get a wholesome and lovable female char and it pains me you couldn’t romance them)
Whilst Endless Summer is decent with its female romance options via Quinn and Estela, I have kinda wished that Grace was a third option - always fond of a cute geeky character.
b-baby bump was a traumatic experience… please, just the word bump reminds me of the mc rubbing her tummy every five secs. i curse my curiosity that made me start playing that story.
It has a kinda weird looking “idle/emotion” character models which is kind of refreshing and off putting at the same time. If you are into M/F relations in your playthroughs then Stories has got you covered, probably 8 atleast?Unfortunately for F/F , there is barely any: as in like 2-4 but only 2 of them are decent IMO. Dear Diary is one of them and i gotta admit that its pretty good (2 Male,1 female LI). Sing for Me is the other one, its okayyyy ( 2 Male, 1 Female again)
They’re decent enough if you take them for what they are I suppose. They’re cliche stories told in a somewhat interactive format with minimal branching (some stories have more variation than others) and strong focus on appealing to straight women. They’re certainly nothing like CoGs and HGs which for the most part include strong male and female ROs and gender choice, but they can be fun enough as long as you stick to the less… questionble ones.
The whole thing about diamonds does kind of irk me, but you get what you pay for I guess, and if you pay for nothing, then well, expect nothing.
I really played it but the problem is PB always do genderlocked books instead of genderneutral and most of the times no one can make a nonbinary MC ;-;
I used to play choices, but as time went on they started to make really poorly written stories. Now and then they release an interesting game, but most of the newer ones are pretty bad.
My favorite is “The haunting of Braidwood manor”, this one unfortunately (or fortunately) never had a part two.
I used to play Choices when it was 'at its peak so to speak, in terms of stories. My favourite was endless summer (was abit like the lost series), perfect match and bloodbound book 1…kinda felt it lost its originality over the past year or so.
One of the first games released it had was a game of throne type one (I forget the name lol) and you could fight and had some good romances but nowadays it seems to be same generic mc characters and bland predictable plot.
Also choices is expensive as hell. Like for the price they charge you imo its not worth it for the diamond scenes as they always seem short and don’t really affect much.
I also played episodes alot as a teen lmao and wow I just cringe now because one of the stories I read was about a teacher/student romance it used to be free back then idk if it is now.
As someone who plays Choices, Episodes and Chapters all of them have downsides and upsides to them. (Though finding any good stories in Episodes and Chapters ARE hard sometimes ).
Anyways, I don’t know if I’m contributing to this thread at all but there ARE new VN IF apps like Fictif, Delightgames, Tales, Stories and Romance club. Tales and Romance Club are quite promising though the downsides are quite huge. While it’s easier to farm gems in Romance Club interface of the app is quite clunky and for Tales while it has many interesting stories unfortunately it’s really hard to farm gems for F2P players.
it used to be free back then idk if it is now.
).