New Hosted Game! “The Volunteer Firefighter”

There’s a new game in our Hosted Games program ready for you to play!

An action-packed firefighting game, filled with humor, heartache, adventure, and romance! Fight fires! Save lives! Do you have what it takes to be a hero?

The Volunteer Firefighter is an epic 130,000-word interactive fantasy novel by Stefanie Handshaw, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

  • Walk in boots of a volunteer firefighter!
  • Immerse yourself in more than 120,000 words of dramatic adventure, humor, romance, and heartache.
    firefighter!
  • Be a member of either the Truck Company or Engine Company.
    firefighter!
  • Experience realistic firefighting scenarios.
    firefighter!
  • Make life-and-death decisions to determine the course of the game.
    firefighter!
  • Fight fires, rescue victims, and save the day!
    firefighter!
  • Play as male, female, or choose not to conform to binary gender roles.
    firefighter!
  • Opt for a gay or straight romance.
    firefighter!
  • Maybe adopt a cat!

Stepfanie developed this game using ChoiceScript, a simple programming language for writing multiple-choice interactive novels like these. Writing games with ChoiceScript is easy and fun, even for authors with no programming experience. Write your own game and we’ll publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.

8 Likes

Maybe it’s just me, but the game isn’t showing up in the User-made games archive. You might want to check that out.

Oops, fixed! Thanks!

I loved the beta of the game, excited to try it in its full version :slight_smile:

1 Like

This is a GREAT GAME!!! I got it this morning and I have went through it twice already and I love it!!!

1 Like

I bought my copy on Android, shared it on Google +, rated it a 5, and made an announcement about this on the HG FB page.

2 Likes

I just bought and played through this game a few times. It was pretty enjoyable. I found a typo or two, should I post them here, or somewhere else?

I don’t know if it’s a glitch, but every other line shows up as ‘firefighter!’ in the bullet points …

Screenshot:

1 Like

Loved the game. Simpler choices than some of the other CoG titles and a few bugs here and there but overall a great read.

I do have one major bug that is annoying as hell.

When fighting the fire in the donut shop as part of the hose team, I had one of the team checking the ceiling and when I saw fire I pulled my team out safely and it described everyone getting out safely and turning the operation into soaking the building from the outside.

Then when I hit next it looped back to us inside the building as if I hadn’t been checking the ceiling and we’d continued on to the kitchen and there is no way to get out without ending up in the hospital.

FYI - I have purchased through the CoG website, not playing on an app.

I also get the bug where it loops back. I have the Chrome Web Store version.

I have but one questions: why can’t I have two kittens instead of one?

3 Likes

Thank you, everyone! I’m working on a fix to the donut scene bug to be ready ASAP. Please PM me with any typos you find. I’d be very grateful!

Also, I am posting regular updates on the game on Facebook, if you want to check in there: https://www.facebook.com/TheVolunteerFirefighter

1 Like

@Shula
Wow, your page is doing really well. Have you had it up for a while, or did you just get a really big rush of likes after TVF’s release?

Hi Samuel! I put the page up about a week before the official launch date. Then I sort of lazily promoted it during that week to my friends and family. The day of launch, I went all out, spreading the word anywhere I could think of that was even vaguely appropriate. It seems to be catching on pretty well! I think it helps that firefighters seem to have a lot of pages and groups among themselves so news can spread fairly quickly if something catches their interest.

2 Likes

@Shula
Especially since your title seems to be doing so well on social media, would you consider adding a link to the HG FB page at the end of TVF?

EDIT:
Okay, I’ve read through most of this. First of all, I want to congratulate you on releasing your first CoG. Secondly, I’d like to say that the writing is very good, and you seem to know a lot about this subject. I do have a couple complaints, though, which are that it seems like most of the narrative is rather vague (like we’re just being given a lot of summaries) and the characters could use a little more development. There are a few typos, too, but nothing major, and those could easily be fixed with a proofread or two.

@Shula Your game was very enjoyable and educational. I stayed up till 4AM playing over and over! Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend that but I couldn’t help it. :slight_smile:

Here are things I found during my playthroughs for your review:
Someone from the truck company comes in with? the thermal imaging camera to check for hot spots in the walls and ceiling,

So Jeremy respected your choice to be a firefighter but didn’t really like? the idea of it.

“If you didn’t want to go to the movies with me or if the drill was that, you could have just told me,” him told you frankly, looking more sad than angry about it.

Before long, Jeremy was back in you arms again. And it was an altogether excellent night.

You spend the whole night with your SO? Or their name?, and let’s just say you get very little sleep for all the most wonderful reasons. What an amazing first date! (It wasn’t a first date. It was with my original, already established SO)

You can’t be in two places at once, and you can’t really compare going to a movies with a training drill in terms of importance – right?

Despite Jeremy’s wishes, you gently untangle yourself from him’s arms, apologize, and dash to your car.

But that is small comfort to the members of your fire department who lost one of their own in the line of duty. And that fact dose little to console your family, friends, and coworkers.

Before you even think of opening a door like this, it’s important to get a sense of whether or not there is fire directly behind the door or if the room or corridor is filled with pressurized smoke that might trigger an explosion when you let it more air.

So Firefighter Schmidt will place the adz end of the halligan into the door frame, near the locking mechanism, and you will use the flat part of your ax to strike the halligan and wedge it further into crack so that the door can be pried.

Who knows when you’ll get a chance to save a life and be appropriate rewarded for your efforts?

So you let your affection and desire fill your eyes, meet his gaze, and draw his into an achingly sweet kiss that feels too good to possibly be true.

To top it off, you left Avery with the bill and not so much a word of good bye. (Think it should be “not so much AS a”)

“Sure. What’s on your mind?” “Well, actually, you are,” you say and hope it comes across as smooth rather than cheesy. “Heh,” Jo replies. (MC was Jo, probie was Avery.)

And the, when you do hang out, things are usually pleasant, but sometimes you argue about stupid stuff like the hurtful thing he said (but doesn’t remember saying) three months ago or even what to do on a Friday night.

The sobering reality is that a firefighter, upon first seeing the signs of an impending flashover, even if they are wearing full PPE, will have only a few seconds to evacuate an area that once it begins to flashover.

Being in decent shape be a matter of life and death in certain emergency situations.

When you explain to Avery that you have something special planned for (him?)back at the hotel, Avery is more than happy to cheerfully decline the invitation to go out with the others.

The captain and a police officer try get more information from the distraught woman.

“Thank you,” you say, sincerely. There’s no time for casual chatting so you simply tell he, “Help me search.”

You wonder how things might have been different if you made different decisions. Could you have saved him? Could you have saved the boy? (In this playthrough The boy did survive. Velez and the grandfather died.)

Before you know it, Renner is talking about how scared {NPpronoun1} was when you went after Velez alone,

In this playthrough Avery had passed away in the fire but he is resurrected later in the game.
(Of course, you have Avery through all this as well. He was with you in the very worst of the fire, and he is having a pretty tough time dealing with everything that went on…This year, of course, you are going with Avery. As a probationary firefighter (but not for much longer!) he doesn’t have to wear his uniform…)

Then you put your right hand back on the wall and follow it around until you reach the closet where Renner has gotten himself confused and disoriented. “I got you.” You squeeze him gloved hand reassuringly. “You okay?” {NPname} nods but doesn’t seem entirely convinced.

Alice," you tell him. “We have to bail-out of this room NOW. You’re going first so I can help guide you. You’ve done this all before in training. Don’t be scared. I love you.” (MC was Alice…the probie was Avery.)

2 Likes

Thank you, @piggleywinks! I’m so glad you enjoyed my game so much, and I really appreciate you sending all this helpful feedback. Even with all my wonderful playtesters, it was still extremely difficult to proofread all possible paths so this is enormously helpful. :smile:

1 Like

Played the game, loved it! I liked how the game felt realistic, instead of just running into a fire with a water gun. I also liked how the MC’s SO stayed consistent with stuff like hating or loving you being a firefighter.

1 Like

I got proposed…

So I played the game some and found it to be an excellent wau to kill time it’s a nice easy story but the problem I keep running into is as a member of truck company one when I respin o the call after the party with my freinds even if I say “I’v had more than enough” before the pager goes off when I get to the station it says I’m drunk and gives me a reprimand how do I get to go on ghe call