Choice of Robots
By Kevin Gold
(10/10)
Well, shit. I seem to be saying this a lot, but Choice of Robots (“CoR”) really is That Girl™️. It seems to be the only “mainstream” Interactive Fiction game so far, with an Overwhelmingly Positive 1,894 reviews. I can see why. In IF, there’s a broad spectrum of stories. On one end are the novels, where there aren’t a lot of inner mechanics, and the appeal is the writing. On the other spectrum are games. Or, I suppose, a gamebook? Where the writing and plot is more secondary to the underlying mechanics and player freedom. While respecting both, Choice of Robots is clearly on the latter end of the spectrum. It’s all about branching, choice reactivity, and mechanics. That’s not to say it doesn’t have good writing—Kevin Gold’s prose is simple yet beautiful—but there are glossed over plot points and little character development. I usually champion story above all else, yet Choice of Robots made me concede a rare point—the medium itself can be the message. Because CoR is a game obsessed with reactivity: choices echo forward, paths fracture and recombine, and the consequences of your decisions are structural rather than cosmetic. Long after the details blur, what lingers is the shape of the world I made—and the uncomfortable clarity that no one else made it for me.
Pros:
Branching and reactivity. CoR is obsessed with reactivity in a way few IFs ever manage. This isn’t a game where choices slightly tweak flavor text or relationships. Chapter 6 has four different climaxes, depending on your story! Paths fracture, rejoin, and diverge again based on early, sometimes seemingly innocuous choices—what dream you picked first, who is funding you, did you give your robot a gun for an arm. I cannot stress enough how everything matters.
Complex moral quandaries. CoR doesn’t do anything new. (I’m thinking of Detroit: Become Human already playing with human/AI ethics). But what it does is give you is a cute, fun story that quickly accelerates into an emotionally intense and genuine series of dilemmas. I wanted to be a brilliant yet charitable inventor. No violence, I vowed, and no military operations. And yet, when I found myself having to choose between my morals and the need to keep funding my robot, I caved. I’m sorry, I did! While I secretly made my robots more graceful and empathetic, the U.S. Army used my robots only as a support or defence unit. This was fine, I told myself. Every soldier needs a good medic. And my robots are smart, too. I grew extremely wealthy. So my morals weren’t actually compromised, right? Except, even small actions—like choosing how your robot handles a minor dispute—can snowball into questions about slavery, war, and the ethics of consciousness. “Doing no harm” is a luxury you can’t always afford.
Mechanics and stat systems. Unlike most IF, Gold strips personality down to the bone. There’s no slider for “sarcastic” or “kind,” no physical descriptions to pin your character to. You’re reduced to a name, a gender, an age, a year—and four blunt measures of success: Humanity, Fame, Wealth, and Romance. It’s almost unsettling how little the game thinks it needs to know about you. And yet, it works. Humanity tends to fall as Fame and Wealth rise, not because the game is cynical, but because it understands tradeoffs. Becoming visible, powerful, and comfortable often means becoming compromised. You’re not “evil," right? You’re just busy, distracted, or insulated.
The robot, ironically, is where the real complexity lives. With only four stats—Autonomy, Military, Empathy, and Grace—it feels simpler than a human at first, until you realize how tightly wound those traits are. Empathy makes the robot gentler, more perceptive, but it actively weakens its Military effectiveness. Push it toward strength and obedience, and you sand down its softness. Every improvement is also a subtraction. And everything feels super personal, like I’m raising my own child! When the robot responds coldly, or fails to understand why humans are suffering, it’s hard not to recognize your own fingerprints on it. What did you optimize? What did you decide wasn’t worth protecting?
Prose. Honestly, Gold’s language is competent, but not “literary” or beautiful. It’s quite matter-of-fact, almost history-like as it narrates events in your life. But it’s rather charming in its simplicity.
Unique ROs. I was impressed with the ROs. They are not tropes or even conventional attractive. Each one has their own flaw. My chosen RO, E, was staunchly anti-military and expressed disapproval that I sold my bots to the military. So much so, in fact, that I got broken up with! The fact that a side character had this much agency delighted me. Josh, another RO, is uh. Not a romantic guy and not exactly a traditional, steady romance. You can get with your stalker, so that’s fun as hell! Another RO I found is Juliet who works for the military—which opens up a whole can of worms! These aren’t “dateable cardboard cutouts” at all. Push against their morals too much, and they’ll be angry enough to dump you. But somehow balancing your relationship and ambition is satisfying, with just enough tension and consequence that it never feels predictable.
Cons:
Glossed over milestones. This is the biggest con. Because the game spans such a large period of your life, there’s always going to be moments skipped over. For example, my biggest issues were when I got imprisoned, got pardoned by the President, got married to my RO, and had a child. These events followed Gold’s vignette style—but suffered as a consequence. While that approach works beautifully for passing years and gradual shifts, it undersells events that should feel life-altering. And none of these moments are badly written, mind you, they’re just over too quickly. I got maybe two pages of exposition and companion reactions, when the significance of the moment demanded way, way more.
Similarly, your ROs don’t … seem to change much. While their reactions to your choices can be sharp and immediate, their personalities and core beliefs remain largely static. Even after years of story progression or major plot events, they often respond in the same way they did at the start. E will always be liberal. Josh will always be a capitalist. You and the robot change so much, while the side cast pales in comparison.
Quite a bit of pop culture references. The age is dating CoR a bit. There were quite a lot of references to past and current (at the time) events. I didn’t mind the books or literature, but I was never a big song or movie person. A lot of the references came off as cheesy to me.