So far I haven’t played through a single Heart’s Choice game from start to finish cuz there just hasn’t been one with a premise that really interests me, but if one that does comes out, I think I’d buy it. Or play through once then buy, if I’m not totally sold. I think Souls Unguarded will be one of those for me, whenever it comes out.
Once for free and then I usually don’t play again. That’s true for most CoG games though, usually I return for games I found exceptionally enjoyable, or if it’s been a looong time (a year or two) or if the game is releasing a sequel.
I’ve enjoyed the titles I’ve played (which is to say the mlm ones since… gay) but the general idea feels somehow simultaneously too niche and too general. For example, if I want to play romance games in particular I’d obviously prefer to play the mlm ones but there’s only like two. If I wanted to play an interactive fiction game where I could just happen to be gay then there are plenty non HC titles to choose from. I feel like the ‘spiciness’ might be a way of offering something comparatively unique but at the same time I’d prefer how Freshman Magic handles it rather than All World Pro Wrestling. Generally. I enjoyed the latter, don’t misunderstand, but I was undeniably playing porn.
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It saddens me to see that a lot of people have sort of written off Heart’s Choice already as not having enough of the right kind of thing. I think it does bear to keep in mind that they’ve been around for only three years at this point, and (probably because of the pandemic) they didn’t settle into a steady publication routine until this year.
When I first discovered Choice of Games, in 2011, there were four games. That’s all there were. There were a few Hosted Games too, of course, but most of their early games were nothing special. I played Dragon, Broadsides, Romance, and Vampire over and over while I waited for them to come out with something new. It was several months before they did. Now, those are four very good games. But if I wanted to play something non-supernatural, the only option was Broadsides. If I wanted to play something contemporary or futuristic, too bad. If I’d wanted to play a character outside the gender binary, I’d have to be a dragon. If I wanted to play an asexual character, it was strictly headcanon.
And of course, now there are about 150 games, and although some genres are still far better represented than others, just about anyone should be able to find a few things they enjoy. I think the same will be true with Heart’s Choice. Even if you have the broadest possible tastes, there are still only a dozen games to choose from right now - and if you’re looking for something that presses your particular romantic buttons, there may be many fewer than that. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they did have a catalog of a hundred games a decade from now, with at least several dozen to choose from for any given gender and orientation - even straight men.
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Is there a need to have a separate app just for romance focused games? There are already a handful of titles on HG and COG that are better romance CYOA than HC offers so its kinda pointless to have the HC releases on a separate app when its clearly hampering their sales. Better to release them on COG in that case
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The reason it’s separate is that it has different standards and requirements.
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In regards to the straight male thing, I’m pretty sure it has already been explained that the way things work is that prospective authors pitch their game ideas to HC, not the other way around. HC doesn’t commission people to write for them, out of the blue.
So the reason there are no games strictly for straight males, is that authors aren’t really applying to make them.
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I know within the first chapter whether I’ll want to play a full game, so I buy at that point in the same way I would look at the start of a book in a shop before buying. I don’t play with ads, I find them too annoying, but even if the ads weren’t there I’d want to support the author.
I firstly appreciate Hearts Choice because it includes titles with specific queer MC orientations. CoG by design is more broad, and for all the commentary about HGs being more varied, I haven’t seen many published HGs doing it. I think there’s one sapphic HG, Moonrise, and I don’t recall any M/M exclusive ones off the top of my head. I would love to see more exclusively gay HGs! But for whatever reason, if you want something exclusively gay, it’s mostly HC.
I also enjoy that in Hearts Choice you know you’ll have a Happy Ever After or Happy For Now by the end, whatever trials you face along the way. That’s unique to HC and is something that makes them an escapist wish fulfilment for me. Like eating a delicious dessert! I know I can focus on the characters in Heart of Battle and I don’t need to juggle stats to get some sort of positive ending. Often I’m in the mood for that; often I’m in the mood for the various settings and stories in the HC lineup.
The other thing … how to put it delicately … with HC I know there are going to be some optional sexy scenes, of varying spice level yes, but if that’s what I’m in the mood for, I know that the game isn’t going to be solely holding hands and sharing glances over a table. On a less physical level, I know that in HC I’m going to experience a romance that develops over the course of the game and I won’t be left hanging at the end with a romance interest who doesn’t seem interested in me (even if it’s the start of a series!), romanced characters won’t be forgotten about, and I won’t have to choose between saving the world or getting a moment with a love interest - none of which are a guarantee with HG or even CoG (which I say with all love to the HG and CoG romances I’ve enjoyed, and with the knowledge that the romances in my CoGs don’t meet HC’s style guide).
I find it a little surprising to see folks suggesting that a label publishing games which they think are less popular is pointless, when the Underrated Games polls have been so hotly contested and discussed. It’s not even true that HC games are universally less commercially popular than other labels. Even if they were… whether popularity is measured by sales or by forum commentary, less popular games very much have value.
tl;dr: some HCs are more niche in target audience and protagonist. But there’s room across the ChoiceScript labels for different approaches and I think that’s neat.
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I paid for two, and I regret buying one of them. The other, I thought was just aight.
For a romance focused app, the stories are pretty bad at being romantic. Most stories just felt like they had the same quality romance of Choice of Games (which feels like an afterthought) rather than Wayhaven or the Golden Rose (which I was expecting from the app, romance that makes me feel some type of way)
I haven’t chosen a poll option because I have bought the books before completing them, but I won’t do so in the future because I don’t trust it to be what I am looking for.
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Wow I’m actually really surprised by this poll given how many people say they play CS games largely for the romance aspect and won’t play games that don’t have RO’s (or perhaps that’s part of the problem when they are character locked to a degree?) TBH I don’t tend to play games primarily for the RO’s and romance is not my favorite genre so none of may favs are in HC currently, but given a chance to build up more of a library so there’s more games to suit everyone I would think it could end up reasonably popular for people looking for romance centric games?
One comment I would make is to me personally it almost seems like HC is quite removed from COG and HG games (even though the ones I’ve played at least seem to sit somewhere on the scale of variation within what you’d see in HG in terms of variable character locking and RO options) especially since both the latter have tabs on the main COG page, but HC doesn’t.
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But what many people have said is that many of these romance stories a not very good at the actual romance part.
They may be very good at the non romance part, have interesting setting and really good writing, (most I have read have), but for many of them the actual romance fall flat because it is just not fleshed out enough.
Which, ironically have many of romance fan signing off.
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When I got back into ChoiceScript games after being away for far too long, it took me several weeks to realize they’d added a third line. I understand why CoG, HC, and HG exist as separate entities, but I do think there should be a little more cross-promotion among them.
I’m actually quite satisfied with the amount of romance in most HC games. To be fair, although I do enjoy romance, it’s not the biggest draw for me, so I like it that HC games have more going on than just romance. I like the feeling that the romance arises naturally out of shared passions and hardships, and that the romance both shapes and is shaped by what’s going on in the world around us. I like being able to build strong platonic friendships in addition to falling in love. I like it that some HC games even make it possible to opt out of the romance and still get to read a good story, although that’s probably not something I would ever do outside of beta testing.
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But why would those stories just not be regular cog-games then. They would properle get better exposure and sell more and they are not bad games, so they deserve that. There are no doubt people writing those games off because they think it is a romance when it barely is and they would actually like it.
The romance-centered brand shouldn´t be most attractive to the people who prefer their romance to be light, not there or a side dish.
I distinctively remember playing the werewolf parent thing, jazz age and the demon house and thinking, why is this a heart choice and not a cog and then not picking up a lot of HC after that.
It is the same with scandal note. I just read it. It is all right when it comes to character interaction, definitly on the better side when it comes to the amount, but it still just felt like.: The only reason this is a heart choice is that it is genderlocked and since genderlocking tend to make me mildly dysphoric…
well I have basically written off HC at this point. Which considering that I am one of those who do in part play for romance, that is not good. And judging by the above I am not the only one of the target group this has happened to.
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Because HC games can be character, gender or orientation locked which COG’s writer guidelines state they must not be. I’m assuming they were hoping to attract romance writers that may want to character lock to get more focused romance stories happening and/or write what they know. (It really is easier for some types of stories to be character locked to a degree to get the depth of story some games can benefit from, although it can come at the expense of allowing people to self insert if they want to), but that’s just my guess. I think it was a worthwhile thing to try and see how it was received.
They’re not HG’s either because they’re commissions. Almost all HG’s (with a couple of exceptions) are not commissions.
I was okay with the genderlock when I thought that it would lead to more focused writing, 8/10 it does not. This depth of story you talk about is mostly hypothetical.
The setting of Scandal Note is the usual vagely progressive for the time setting, with only the most surface mention of gender roles and various -phobia as many other cogs. I would take very little to writing to make it cog acceptable and quite frankly it is a good story and deserve to reach out to those who want to play “Gossip Girl in a 20´ setting” where you friends a kind of cool actually."
Selling something in a romance genre is limiting it, because it a maligned genre despite its popularity.
In my opinion (Which is only my opnion, mind you) a romance is a like a musical. If you can take the romance completely out and still get about the same emotional journey and story, then it is properly better served not being a romance.
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Just want to say that if this is the brand’s mission, it’s not communicated well. If I haven’t been in IF circles, I wouldn’t know you can’t lose a Heart’s Choice.
I think when people pick up romance games they expect romance to be at the forefront. What does that mean?
It means it’s not just a sideplot for MC to enhance the story or to reward them. For example, saving Opera, in a romance novel would be a sideplot, not romance.
What would improve almost every HC I’ve read is more descriptive writing and attention to detail: small variations of the scenes depending on MC’s relationships. It adds up.
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I don’t think I’m quite the demographic for HC games since romance is rarely at the forefront of my mind when I play a CS game, though if it’s there I generally partake.
That said, I’ve played at least one chapter of almost all of the HC games – I usually know within the first 2-3 chapters if I want to finish a game, and if I intend to finish the game, I’ll usually buy it since CS games are usually what I play to keep me occupied during my long commute to work. I’ve played more than 2 chapters of maybe one? That I didn’t buy, and I’ve bought maybe 3; of those I regret buying one of them because I just didn’t really like it at all in the end which is not even a fault of the story (which I enjoyed) but rather that it was marketed as a romance game and I didn’t care for pretty much any of the romance options, who I actually disliked the more I learned about them LOL.
That said, I want to start off with the caveat that I am aro/ace and while, yes, I love romance in CS games because it lets me experience the fantasy of attraction (which is lovely!), it’s hardly my main draw to a game. That said, perhaps it’s in part due to the fact that HC games are fairly short in comparison? Or maybe the fact that it’s marketed romance that has my expectations higher, but of the 3 games I played to completion, I could take or leave the romance in all of them. For one, I felt the romance was almost even a detriment to an otherwise charming story, and the other two it was just kinda… There. I liked the stories, don’t get me wrong, but I just felt no emotional attachment to the characters that I was meant to romance. They felt way too fast, there wasn’t enough time or interaction to really hook me on their personalities, and the 1 on 1 scenes just felt like “hey I just met you and this is crazy but let’s bang maybe?” which is moving a little fast for me 
. But even by the end of the story, I hardly felt like I knew the ROs better, which is the biggest bummer for me if I’m meant to like them!
But I think it’s largely in part due to my preference for slower burn romance stories if romance is there. The Golden Rose and the Fallen Hero series come to mind as stories where the romance felt like it had a nice progression to me, but I realize that Golden Rose has the advantage of sheer volume of writing on its side to let me really get to know both Hadrian and Alessa. With Fallen Hero, I went in with no expectations for romance so Ortega blindsided me. But they are just a well written character who I would have liked, romance or not.
I have no real, honest criticism. I enjoyed the overarching plots of the ones I did play, but the romance was 100% not what I was there for and did not grow on me as I played the stories, which doesn’t make them bad stories! But it does lead to something of a disconnect when it comes to expectations in regards to the marketing. I do have a bit of a short memory, but if, out of 3 games, I can’t even remember the name of a single romance option that I’ve spent 150-300k words presumably getting to know, well… I think it’s safe to say I was not terribly invested in them LOL.
I want to stress that I’ve enjoyed all the stories I played, but not as romance stories. But again, I think maybe I had very different expectations going in.
I got so caught up in writing all this only to realize it’s only tangentially related to the OP haha sweats. I suppose to bring it all in, all that’s to say that I do tend to buy stories if I intend to finish them. I do appreciate that they can be read for free if I wished, though! But I prefer to binge any story I do read a few times to see how different choices affect the plot, so I do still treat the “free” games as long demos. If the game doesn’t hook me within the first 3 chapters or so, it being free doesn’t really change my decision to drop it.
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I’ve been reading everyone’s comments on this thread and I keep wanting to post my thoughts, but I felt like the thread was getting a little off topic from what the OP was asking. But I can’t take it anymore, I feel like I’m being gaslit into opining lol.
I am so confused by the confusion here regarding Hearts Choice games being focused on romance. Am I really the only one who has seen and thought of HC as the smut section of the brand? Like that is how I viewed HC since it was announced and before any of the games were released, I am so confused why other people had expectations that it was going to be focused on “romance”. And I say that in the nicest way possible, I like smut. Currently I think my favorite gamebook on this entire site is All-World Pro Wrestling, so please don’t take this as me insulting the brand.
But if you look at it this way, its obvious why HC has its own site and app compared to CoGs and HGs. While I would agree that the majority of the audience who reads here are probably adults, I wouldn’t be surprised if CoGs wants to market their games to teens as well. So its completely understandable why they need separate sites/apps to handle HC since I’m certain most parents wouldn’t be pleased if their teens were using apps that also sold “porn”. Or the tech companies that host the games may take issue with it.
I think if y’all looked at HC as less about being romanced-focus and more about being CoGs that don’t “fade to black” when sexy time starts, I think you guys will end up having less failed expectations. Most erotica I have read (at least in the gay genre) are not particularly romance-focused either, there is some in it and its nice but they aren’t really a romance novel like some of the HGs that have been mentioned here.
There are a lot of other sites that have erotica and also various books you can buy at bookstores, but I think what makes HC special, is that its interactive, so its easier to put yourself “into” the porn if that makes sense.
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… Omg now that you say that I think it makes a lot more sense HAHA. I’ve mentioned before that I’m aro/ace and I’m actually cracking up irl because it had completely slipped my mind about the smut portions, which I actually generally skim or straight up skip over out of lack of interest in like every CS game where it comes up.
Oh man, I’m so sorry. I was right in that I am absolutely not the target demographic but it is sort of like one of those “can’t find my glasses because they’re on top of my head” situations and it’s both absurd and pretty funny because I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been puzzled over why I just can’t seem to get invested in any of them.
My point still stands that I’ve found all the characters largely forgettable despite the stories themselves being charming, but it sort of feels like you handed me a puzzle piece of a jigsaw puzzle I’ve been trying to put together LOL!!
Smut is sort of like sports to me: I get that people like it and I don’t really get why but I’m glad people like it. I feel like a proud grandparent at a hockey game where they went to support their grandchild or something but know 0 things about the sport, like LOOK AT MY CHILD GO CLAP CLAP THEY SCORED just applauding when everyone else is. Why are they screaming? Who knows! I’m just vibing! So I am a very poor judge of the quality of smut LMAO
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Most HC aren’t… smut 
If you check the app you can see these little red peppers, that’s the heat level - one means “clean”.
And they are marketed as romance brand, yes. It’s heart’s choice, not the choice of 
.
I think I know where the confusion happened - you tend to just play m/m ones, aren’t you? These were spicier than f/f and f/m ones. All Pro World Wrestling is the only proper smut game.
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Hmmm, it might be me who misunderstood, but I was under the impression that people included the smutty parts, when they talk about ‘romance content’.
So it’s not that they want less smut and more romance, but that they think the romance+smut doesn’t take up enough of the content of each game, next to the general plot of the games.
At least, that’s why I agreed with them.
And yes, as @jay-walker says, the wrestling game is very much an outlier so far, by having it’s plot mainly act as an excuse for the smutty stuff to happen.
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