I love Stars Arisen a lot and I’m kind of sad that I feel like most don’t
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this is probably the biggest aspect of the Choice of Games catalog that consistently bothers me. i think it makes sense theoretically, maybe, to have personality/trait stats have some degree of success/failure outcomes, but every time i actually encounter it in any game it drives me up the wall.
i don’t think i would even mind bad relationship outcomes as a consequence of certain PC choices, but something specifically about personality stat failures (especially in dialogue with other characters!) always feels deeply inorganic and can instantly flatten any momentum in a scene. i just always feel like…does this ever happen in real life? where in a conversation with someone, they immediately shut down or become hostile because you’re not saying the exact thing they expect you to, exactly as they expect? it feels just so unrealistic and unsatisfying most of the time for me.
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I’m also surprised by the silence on Heroes of Myth! I’m repeating myself, but it’s just … like a solid work. That may seem demeaning, but I mean, all my cons were super nitpicky. But I don’t think I’ve read any discussion except for the discussion thread Joel linked.
Like you said, Trevor seems to know exactly what she wants and writes it!
Huh. You know, I think this is it. I gave it a 9/10, but it’s not one of my favorite works. It’s not something I’ll go back and reread. The cast is strong, but it’s not making me go crazy, like Ortega in FH or Alessa in The Golden Rose. This revelation is probably nothing new, but it seems like the most popular works have a popular (or controversial?) romance or a large, attractive cast. What are the most popular COG/HG titles? Wayhaven has strong romance, and I’ve seen lots of comments about A. Harris Powell Smith’s works always have excellent romance and a large cast. Same with The Golden Rose. FH is FH. I wouldn’t call Paul’s Infinity series romance-focussed, but on Reddit at least, most of the comments are about the romance—which, fair! I feel like Kevin Gold’s works aren’t strong on the romance, though his stuff is popular and awesome. Zombie Exodus is light on the romance … I think.
I tried the demo, and I think the premise is super cool, but I didn’t vibe with Abigail Trevor’s writing in that one! Don’t know why. Might give it another try later.
I’m glad you guys agree, because this has been a tiny aspect that bugged me for so long. I like personality stats as flavor text, but … gosh, I’m forgetting all the examples I know I’ll remember when I press Reply. I think the worst case is in Samurai of Hyuga. A fellow reader told me Attunement doesn’t really matter, but all I can see when getting “Attunement decreased” is ah, shit, I picked the Wrong Gamer Choice™️ Plus, people read tone differently. What’s sarcastic to the writer can be serious to the player.
In Heroes of Myth, I was annoyed because I picked a choice that was something along the lines of “I tell the truth seriously.” But there’s no serious/playful personality trait. I had high Honesty and Subtly, but I failed the check, which irked me. I get it, though; it’s low-hanging fruit.
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I seen a lot of talk of it in various choicescript discords when it came out
Funny thing is that was true for me with the Heroes of Myth demo 
. For Stars Arisen I playtest both the open and closed alpha (though I didn’t really gave much feedback during the open alpha)
I also pick Evander though that was particularly because I was into him
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Late to this but although it’s not a book, you might like A Gentleman’s Murder by Christopher Huang - I’ve not read it myself but had heard good things!
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If you haven’t seen it yet, I have a guide to get 60 in all your talents at the start which helps unlock paths. I couldn’t write a full guide because it actually does a really good job of actually branching from major choices. There’s a lot of variables that get tracked which gives your choices more weight. Which is definitely a positive thing.
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Heros of Myth is a game I went into with the expectation of just a normal fantasy story and it totally surprised me in the best way possible. I really enjoyed it
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Takes notes quietly and double checks that I’m not using personality stats to lock players out of particular notable choices… 
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Ck3 does something interesting where acting against your personality traits causes stress which can cause a mental break. The Life and Suffering of Prince Jerian an I guess you call it a vn stat manager is planning something similar where you have to spend reason to pick some choices that are against your personality stats. Think both would be better methods in Choicescript games then just fully locking you out of a choice though I do have a liking for sanity mechanics
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Funny timing, as I am reading Heroes of Myth right now. 
I dig it just like the other two of Abby Trevor’s, but so far it is the least favourite – what I loved in the other two was political stuff, and as of now Heroes seems to me more standard sword and sorcery fantasy, which I am not a big fan of.
As an aside, political stuff is why my MC ends single in every playthrough of both games. In them, every RO is dealing with some heavy personal and sociopolitical shit, also isn’t showing any personal interest in MC, and MC’s entry into romance goes something like this: “welp, I suddenly think I want to know the RO (who, lemme remind you, never showed a hint of romantic interest in any conversation with MC ever) better, lets do it!” And then I imagine MC rolling up to one of those stressed out ROs with “Yo, wanna fuck?”… and I just cannot click on that option. 
I mean, the only logical answer from any RO to something like this would be a bewildered “Really? That is your priority right now?” and anything else would kick me straight in my immersion.
Re: personality stats. As someone who – in basically all games – hovers around 50% in everything if not metagaming and therefore fails all checks, I really don’t like if they directly affect where the story goes. Especially when a lot of those are subjective – one man’s rude is another’s honest, not to mention something as varied as humour sense.
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Fallen Hero: Retribution
By Malin Rydén
(10/10)
[Inset Ben Affleck smoking.image here] All right, I’m eating crow. You little fuckers (affectionate) were right. Happy, now? YES, Fallen Hero: Retribution (“Retribution”) is exactly perfectly rated and deserves all the hype. I’m genuinely shaking after reading the last couple of chapters. It’s absolute CINEMA. I honestly don’t even know what to say because I’m putting my head in my hands. I try to be an objective reviewer, but I am literally frothing at the mouth right now. It’s fine. I’m fine.
First, a warning that there will be MAJOR story/ending/character spoilers, though blurred, of course. I try to keep it vague for a potential buyer, but there’s no way to discuss Retribution without taking a look at the nitty-gritty. As such, I will assume a reader is familiar with Books 1 and 2.
I gave the author’s first book, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (“Rebirth”), an 8/10. It was good—a fun premise, solid prose, eye-catching cast, but it didn’t blow me away like so many people on Reddit and the forums promised. To be fair to Rydén, my cons were purely personal; I felt like a vegan entering a steakhouse and wondering why I didn’t like the food. In sum, I was just not a fan of Sidestep being an unreliable narrator and being a semi-defined protagonist with—most importantly—a lot of trauma and baggage. It’s a valid writing design, but I’ve learned I need to know the MC’s motivations ASAP, and I have no patience for “wait, all will be revealed in time” or murky pasts. I need to understand why my character is acting the way they are early on, or I lose interest. Rebirth asked for patience I didn’t quite have, and when Retribution opened on a similar note, I braced myself for more of the same. I was wrong. Oh, so very wrong.
Retribution has blown my expectations out of the water. So much so, in fact, that I have spent a pretty penny on Rydén’s Patreon. Hey, never let it be said that I don’t put my money where my mouth is. All my frustrations and critiques have been washed away. While the reader doesn’t get the full truth, not quite yet, there is an astounding amount of side characters, plot, main character, and romance development—so much so that I am flabbergasted. To put the cherry on top, the player choice and reactivity is unmatched. What truly fascinates me, however, is how Fallen Hero really focuses on the “Interactive” part of IF. Obviously, it’s a broad genre that encapsulates every different game under the sun. But part of FH’s mass appeal is its visceral, personal nature. It seems more “modern” than other works with its deliberate thematic focus on sexuality, gender, and duplicity. Of course, a modern audience would latch onto it. FH becomes what you choose to see in it.
Pros:
Clear(er) motivations. Finally. In the first couple of chapters, Sidestep came so close to spilling the beans, to thinking about the truth to themselves. But at the last second, Sidestep dismissed it. Wow, I felt lowkey edged. But the hints keep piling up until Sidestep breaks. Something has to, at least. And after hearing what Sidestep has to say? My opinion of their whininess and edginess has done a complete 180. Do I feel a little ashamed of ripping into them in my past review? Perhaps a tad. Do I think I was justified in jumping the gun? Perhaps more than a little. I’m only human, after all, and Rydén gets a bit meta with the unreliable narrator. My favorite example is Rodion Raskolnikov from one of the great Russian classics: Crime and Punishment. There’s a three-layered tension. Raskolnikov insists on his superiority theory; he narrates himself as a man of intellect, almost above morality. The third-person narrator quietly undermines him—lingering on his fever, his paranoia, the cracks in his logic. His weakness! And Dostoevsky, hovering above both, aligns more with that moral gravity than with Raskolnikov’s rationalizations. After reading about his (sad af) life, it’s difficult not see how Christianity or love can save a person. The result is a triangulation: what Raskolnikov believes, what the narrative reveals, and what the author ultimately affirms.
Here, we don’t have a traditional external narrator correcting Sidestep. We live entirely inside Sidestep’s perspective. Their thoughts are immediate, raw, defensive. They justify. They deflect. They catastrophize. When they call themselves monstrous, it feels factual. When they insist they’re alone, it feels true. But the dissonance emerges from the friction between their internal monologue and the world’s response. And after hearing the big Tragic Backstory™️, the distance between player and protagonist finally closes. Sidestep is still kind of a loser, but I understand them now. Their fear is no longer something the player has to infer from breadcrumbs; it’s much more in your face. Anger reveals itself as armor. Control becomes a coping mechanism. Shame colors every interaction. What else can I say but poor Sidestep!
Player choice. Now, I’m pretty sure I didn’t play the game the “right” way. I didn’t play a monster. I didn’t lean into the title of a fallen hero. Instead, I chose, stubbornly, almost defiantly, not to harm when I could have. I chose to tell the truth when lies would have been cleaner. I chose to unmask myself—twice. I chose to say I love you. I chose to reach out to old foes. I even chose to go to therapy! In short, I played the worst villain ever. My kingdom for a pretty woman, I guess. I chose connection over control, softness over spectacle. And somehow, I was playing a hero. Sidestep is still a mess and hasn’t labeled themselves so, but … Tell me why I got an achievement that says “Mia Ochoa thinks you are secretly a hero, not a villain.” Or why the last achievement I got was “Gone Soft. You’re closer to a hero than most people think.” Fallen Hero becomes the story you want to tell. If you want blood, it will give you blood. But I wanted forgiveness and justice, so I earned it myself.
Relationship system. Rydén’s freedom philosophy extends to the cast and, especially, the relationship system, which is among the most dynamic I’ve seen in a ChoiceScript game. After looking into the code a bit, I believe Rydén’s use of variables (if that’s what they’re called) is how they create such a flexible, natural system. In quite a lot of IF, most relationships are based on stats. Let’s say, 80% of a relationship bar gets you a passionate romance scene, but 70% gets you a chaste romance scene. There’s not much room for callbacks or to do anything fun with a stat. But by using a variable that tracks specific emotions—like whether Ortega bit you or whether your Sidestep regrets killing—callbacks are naturally easier. It’s a lot more work, but god, does it pay off. So, your relationships aren’t just basic “Ortega loves you,” but you can choose whether to be allies, friends, enemies, lovers, or even how you feel toward them.
Romance. Okay, first off. I have to praise Retribution for its flexibility. I, ahem, flirted with Ortega. And Lady Argent. And Mortum, both (triple?) as Sidestep, Puppetmaster, and my puppet. I’m not ashamed either! I loved how the narrative and characters make pointed questions, ask heavy questions, and reference your flirting. Quite a bit. I love the characters, too. All right, I can’t even be objective anymore. The chemistry between Sidestep, Ortega, and Argent is unreal. UNREAL. Ortega brings history, softness edged with hurt, that sense of “the one that got away.” Argent is all sharpness, dominance, and rivalry. The poly relationship has some of the best chemistry I’ve read in a while. THE BITING SCENE??? That shit had me giggling and kicking my feet. No notes. 10/10. I need more poly content. Please?
Cons:
Uh, I have to think of some cons. Wait a sec. Oh, it does end on a huge ass cliffhanger … or several, so if you’re curious, know you’re going to have a ton of burning questions. I still don’t like the expletive of choice. I understand the design choice, but I was never a fan of the flashback, traumatic scenes where the prose becomes stylized (e.g., no punctuation, bolded letters, run-on sentences, etc.).
If there’s not going to be a Mortum/Ortega/Sidestep/Argent poly, I’ll be devastated. I already confessed my love for everyone, soooooooo … I actually might kill myself btw
Oh, here’s an actual one. I think the buy-in will be hard for readers like me who were put off by Book 1. Retribution is phenomenal, but it still builds on foundations laid in Rebirth. If you bounced off the first game because of Sidestep’s opacity or the slow burn of its reveals, this sequel asks you to trust that those frustrations are intentional. That’s a big ask, tbh. Not everyone will want to make it. I don’t subscribe to the idea that mediocrity is automatically justified by a strong payoff, or that audiences are obligated to endure five uneven episodes to earn a good sixth. A story should stand on its own merits at every stage. Buuuuuuut I’l give Retribution a pass. Just this once.
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Wowzers, I wrote 1.6k words on Retribution in one day, while I can’t even break 2k words for my legal memo assignment that I have a month to work on. Mental illness smh
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Malin is thinking about it, same with an Mortum/Sidestep/Argent poly
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HAHAHAHAH omg i knew what the rating was gonna be before even opening the thread. Retribution really is so fucking good. Also:
i almost feel like in Retribution, compared to Rebirth, there’s an actual “narrator” (who’s not Sidestep, and not the player, and not Rydén) whose voice starts poking through. these reviews really made me think on why i felt Rebirth was so suffocating to read compared with Retribution. “suffocating” maybe sounds super negative but i don’t really mean it in that way, i just don’t know how else to describe it. i think because Sidestep is so unwell (for good reason), and Rebirth feels SO self-contained in that i really only “heard” Sidestep’s voice the whole time, it was really emotionally dense to read.
Retribution felt very different to read because, like you said, the external world starts creeping in more and more to Sidestep’s life and day to day experience. it reminds me of Notes from Underground, kinda, which is also a Dostoevsky novel funnily enough, but the whole first section is just the protagonist talking on and on about his thoughts, how he lives, what the world is like, et cetera. very self contained prose, similar to how the extremely isolated Sidestep of Rebirth’s POV goes. BUT! in the second section, he has to interact with the “outside world,” and the dissonance between how he tells the reader things are (who he is, what his life is like, what his world looks like) and what ACTUALLY HAPPENS when he’s out and about is extreme enough to cause a sort of tonal schism.
i felt that way about Retribution. Sidestep is obviously stil rhemself, still in survival mode and self loathing and anger and fear for good chunks of it, BUT the other agents in the world take up more of their time/space now, which ends up giving the non-Sidestep “narrator” cracks to slip in through. i say narrator mostly to refer to the small, subtle bits of prose that slip the reader information about the other characters, the setting, the story’s world (etc) without drawing Sidestep’s attention. stuff like Ortega (or whoever) saying things to Sidestep that directly contradict what they have told the reader in their POV. the narrator isn’t a distinct speaker or anything who “switches off” with Sidestep, but the way Retribution feels so much more breathable/alive in a lot of ways to Rebirth makes me convinced that there is another voice at work in the moments when Sidestep is quiet/distracted/unsuspecting of stuff going on in the text.
idk it’s all very interesting. i enjoy it. man. i need to go replay these games now!
this killed me :SLKGJSLKG it’s lowkey so true..
and
YES EXACTLY THAT WAS EXACTLY HOW IT FELT TO ME TOO!!!
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Your feelings on the first one were so similar to mine that I kinda expected this would be your reaction to Retribution haha.
I think my sole criticism of Retribution is that I’m not sure it was entirely satisfying as a standalone story so much as it was a fantastically written series of successive events culminating in a massive cliffhanger (though I completely I get that it had the arc of steadily escalating feats of villainy culminating in a big, sometimes literal, crash), but I think our developing understanding of Sidestep and the core cast felt like enough of a narrative that it wasn’t an issue for me at all, not did it really detract from the sublime experience overall.
Besides, I’ve always been of the opinion that second instalments of a good series have a bit of license to play looser with story structure!
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I completely agree with the both of you!
100%!!! To me, the narrator’s voice was Sidestep. But in Retribution, I could literally see a shift. I picked heroic options, and the narration kept asking questions about my motives, what I was doing, etc. I swear the game literally asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?” or “This isn’t how a villain should act.” I got called out by the actual narrator, a voice of hope that’s breaking through Sidestep’s misery.
AHHHHHH NOTES MENTION!!! “I am a sick man … I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts.” RIP Sidestep, you would have loved Dostoevsky.
Literally touch grass smh.
100%. I totally get you.
Looking back, I see this now, too. If we’re going traditional story arc, there’s a hell of a climax, but the middle and beginning are sorta jumbled up. It begins in media res and feels almost … slice-of-life. I’m not opposed to such design choices at all. I do like stream-of-consciousness novels in traditional literature and in IF, as well. I adore Gower’s Jolly Good, yet the structure is not traditional at all. You’re just Doing Stuff™️ Really depends on the execution!
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And now I have time to write a proper reply!
First of all, I am glad you enjoyed it. I had a feeling you might, but not gonna lie, I wasn’t sure if it would hit this well. Now for some behind the scenes comments.
Dostojevskij
I had a massive russian literature period in high school (I studied russian for two years) and yeah, the comparisons might not be unfounded. Both books namedropped are right here in my bookshelf (in the swedish translations). My favorite at the time was The Master and Margarita, though now I really want to reread a bunch of stuff. Gets you in the mood, you know? JG Ballard and William S. Burroughs are two other authors who vibes with this story.
Cliffhanger
Yeah, that was not how the book was originally planned to end. It was supposed to be a trilogy, but when I added three additional love interests and the ability to pick your villain career and way too many paths and options to be sane (I promised myself I would let me indulge myself since people liked the first one) it ballooned beyond expectation. So I had to cut it early, and add another book to the series. It’s really hard to predict how long a choicescript book will be compared to a normal one. Not gonna lie, I really liked leaving it on a cliffhanger, but it wasn’t planned.
Pacing
Oh boy. This remains my biggest issue when writing choicescript. I have too many path options to be able to control pacing tightly, and too many themes and stories I am trying to fit into a single book. I made a choice as I saw it start to ballooning. I could either keep it as the narrow, sharp story the original book had been, or I could dive into the interactivity and explore exactly how much you could tailor a story to reflect what the reader is putting into it. As you noted, I picked the latter, and pacing was the sacrifice I made on that altar. The first half of the book was massively recut and reordered to try to sort out some of the issues (the og demo started with the Argent bridge fight), but there are limits. I have an entire old rant about this issue, maybe I should sharpen it up and post it here.
Balance
The combination of cutting the book and fitting more things in it meant that another thing got throw off, which you might not have run into since you had the ‘old friends’ oriented playthrough. Much of the more villain oriented content/interaction that was planned got shunted to book three instead, which left people who dove deep into the villain side and saw the Rangers as enemies with a much sparser book than someone who dove deep into that pit. But my goal was always that you would be able to play both someone who crawled back to the hero they used to be while not (?) compromising the goals they are fighting for or forgive their past, and someone who cared little for human lives and wholeheartedly embraced the supervillain label and wouldn’t mind ruling over the entire west with an iron (telepathic) fist. There is no right way of playing this book, nor is there a wrong way (why would I bother writing those?) and I intend to let people explore their way towards the end. Nobody is locked into anything, there is always a second chance, or a new chance to double down.
Interactivity
If Rebirth was me learning how to write an interactive book, this was me exploring how to write an interactive story. How much could I tailor it to the readers experience with tags and stats? I think my plan worked very well there, even single sentence callbacks, or variant reactions can color the entire surrounding text and see it in a new light. I didn’t want the text to feel stale, I wanted it to feel alive and yours, and if you replayed it with similar choices but a different character it would still feel different. I would say this is my biggest focus and joy with writing these things, even more than story and pacing. The only thing that outshines that is characters.
Polycule madness
I don’t think you have to worry, Ortega/Sidestep/Argent/Mortum might not have come into being yet, but it is too fun not to write. Especially since Ortega and Mortum has history… I really can’t wait to have all these people collide, it is wonderful to write and they live in my head full time at this point.
Revelations
Since you signed up to my Patreon (much appreciated, welcome aboard, there are years of backmatter) you will see more of how the cheese is made. Revelations is stumbling into being, one demo at a time, disjointed and graceless. Everything will connect eventually, and the first skeleton will be born. The magic won’t happen until it’s editing time, be warned!
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I went back and got this old rant I had about Retribution because I think it is topical and illustrates some of the things I am struggling with:
PACING IN A BLOODY CHOICESCRIPT GAME.
It is a nightmare. In a book you have control. Here, the more choices you give people, the less control you have over the pacing.
Let’s take a simple book. A is for Action, I is for Interaction, and R is for Romance.
A - I - A - I - A - R - A is a common pacing. A mix of action/plot and character interaction ending in a romance and a climax. No, not that kind of climax, get your mind out of the gutter.
In Rebirth I had a pacing like this, because the Interactions were separate, Ortega for the hero side and the past, Mortum for the villain side and the future. No complications. Simple. Easy to pace. And then we started to add love interests.
A - I - A - Ia/Ib/Ic/Id - A - Ra/Rb/Rc/Rd - A
Not that much more complicated. More alternative scenes, sure, but still straightforward as games go. Talk to person A or B. A lot of games that locks in your romance does this, choose the same interaction to build romance points, enough and you’ll get the payoff at the end.
But some of those scenes were so nice, and would also work if you are friends. And I wanted a platonic playtrough as well. It’s just that well, the friendship scenes are already there, and you can care about more than one person so why not be able to romance one and be friends with the other?
A - Ia -Ic - A - Ia - Ic - A - Ra - A
And all of a sudden those action/plot scenes are a lot further apart.
But some of those interaction scenes were cool, and kind of plot related things were revealed so maybe everyone should have those not to miss out on content, right? And that also helps with not having to choose one out of five options and feel shut out from the cool things in there for no good reason. In real life, people have time to do more things, right? Not to mention that you need more interactions to do more groundwork for the romance, which some people want to happen right now, and other people draw it out.
A - I - Ib - Ia - A - Ia - I - Ib - A - Ra - A
By now our plot/action A scenes are getting further and further apart… and all of a sudden someone says, well, there’s a lot of talking and not much action in this game? Because we can have one playthrough that is:
A - I - Ib - Ia - Ic - A - Ia - I - Ib - A - Ia - Ra - A
because they talk to/wants to romance everyone, while another playthrough is:
A - I - A - I - A - R - A
because they are playing a depressed loner who would rather skip at least two of those I scenes because that would be in character.
And these are the things I’ll have to sit and balance. Because there is no canon playtrough. Because some people will want to talk to everyone, and I have to make the decision if I should let them, and risk them complaining that the game is slow and too talky, but if I don’t, they might complain that they get cut off from content for no good reason because realistically in the game they would have time.
And on the other hand I have to decide if I should allow people to skip content because it would be in character, and risk players missing out on content, information and maybe even think it was a short and boring game if they only played it once. I made the Lady Argent mind dive optional in Rebirth, and I think it was the right call. I did not make the Ortega argument in the park optional because I wanted that interaction there, though it was against character for some mc’s to meet up.
These are the things I have to juggle, in addition to the pacing.
I am taking a big risk with Retribution, but I’ve allowed myself the possibility of failure, rather than taking control. I am giving the players/readers more variation/control and choices than I had planned. It’s going to be very hard getting a decent pacing at the end, for all the varying playthroughs. But I’m gonna try.
We’ll see if I’ll manage to pull it off.
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Thanks so much for sharing this - it’s weirdly comforting knowing even the top CS authors grapple with the exact same issues as the rest of us, haha. Balancing action / interaction / romance scenes and controlling what information the player needs to have vs what can / should be kept as optional / tied to branching is like 70% of what takes up headspace for me when writing.
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