I started off on gamebooks, which for all their multiple choices ultimately you died, or you reached one of the few endings. There were a lot of blind choices, a lot of dying, flat characters and shallow storylines for the most part. But they were also fun.
I love the adventure game genre and the stories they tell, but again your actual ability to influence the plot is rather limited, if you have a chance to influence it at all. But ultimately, it didn’t matter to me because I enjoyed participating in the story.
Heroes Rise is a little like that. It’s not my favourite choice game but I do appreciate it for what it is.
There’s differences between the good Hosted Games and the good Choice Of games. I’ll dig up some of the links about it when I get a chance. It’s really something for its own thread (I can’t remember if it had one or not.)
I’d disagree with you. Sparrow, Tarana Rain and Pressie, are all different, their stories are different, their reasons for betrayal are different. That does have an impact on the story.
I didn’t beta-test the first game.
I think Jason talks a little about it here. I know there’s comments in other parts of the forum too.