Hi there!
I’m mostly going to reiterate what’s been said and clarify some points.
This forum is dedicated to games made with the ChoiceScript programming language. Choice of Games is the name of the company that owns the rights to ChoiceScript as well as being the publisher of the main line/label of games. If you’re on mobile, it may be easier to browse through the CoG catalogue on the [Android](Android Omnibus for Choice of Games now available or iOS omnibus apps. These apps allow you to browse and buy all the CoG line of games in one single app, a concept you’re probably already used to if you’re already familiar with Choices and other apps, but which I pause to clarify because if you’re an android user, you might stumble upon all of the same games in standalone apps on the Google Play Store. These are the exact same games/stories as are in the omnibus, so there’s no need to buy them separately unless you really enjoy the game and want to support the company and the author!
Now, CoG has games in a variety of genres, ranging from sci-fi, action, adventure, fantasy, etc. and all of the games/stories that include romantic subplots will always give players the option to choose their gender (cis/trans/nonbinary/genderfluid/etc) and sexuality (gay/lesbian/bi/aro/ace/etc) because of the company’s aim to remain inclusive to all genders, sexualities, etc. Heart’s Choice is another line of games with their own games and omnibus app. As mentioned earlier, these games have romance as the main genre and plot, so kind of the reverse of what you’ll see in CoG games, with romance not always being a given.
Because of the amount of detail and focus given to romance in this line of games, authors are allows to narrow their focus a bit, so you won’t always get as much freedom to choose some protagonists’ genders and and sexualities, it all depends on the specific game. For example, All-World Pro Wrestling is a Heart’s Choice game that only lets you play as a male protagonist and only features male romances.
Last, we have Hosted Games, which is a line of games where the authors are regular folks like you and me! Unlike with CoG and Heart’s Choice games, the authors often aren’t professionals and thus are not creating these games under contract or guidance from their respective company’s editor. It’s a much more loosey goosey system that’s intended to directly benefit non-professionals or authors who are really only writing in what little free time that they can. In fact, the author of the very first Hosted Game was still in high school! The entire idea behind this line is to lower the barrier for entry when it comes to publishing, and for this reason, requirements are intentionally much looser and more flexible.
It’s also for this reason that you might read/hear that the overall quality of this line of games is lower than Choice of Games and Heart’s Choice while in the same sentence being told that Hosted Games contains some of the most popular games and series ever made with ChoiceScript, as it’s a mixed bag of semi-professional authors, writers who have lots of experience but who have never been published, first time writers of anything, etc.
Like CoG games, the genres featured vary wildly, though I believe that fantasy is the most popular genre. Unlike all the main line of CoG games however, Hosted Games can in fact lock protagonists into set genders and potentially sexualities. While I can’t think of any that have done the latter, the former is quite common, and you’ll find a great many male-locked protagonists, though not all of them include gay romances. That said, the most popular series of Hosted Games definitely let you choose to play as gay/straight/lesbian/aro/ace/etc in addition to letting you play as cis/trans/nonbinary/etc.
Lastly, as with the other lines of games, Hosted Games has an Android and iOS omnibus apps.
So, knowing all this, it shouldn’t surprise you that the forum is home to a large amount of work-in-progress (abbreviated as WIP) games from all these lines, and most are available on here to test and give feedback on. Just be careful not to ask for updates, as we don’t want authors to feel pressured into giving updates when they may not be ready.
I know this can be quite a lot to take in, so feel free to ask any questions and I promise the community will be up for answering just about anything. And, since I’m sure you’ll be asking this soon, you can ask us for game recommendations right here!