Restore, Reflect, Retry—This haunted game remembers you. Play again?

Announcements
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Originally published at: Restore, Reflect, Retry—This haunted game remembers you. Play again? - Choice of Games LLC

We’re proud to announce that Restore, Reflect, Retry, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, Android, and on iOS in the “Choice of Games” app.

You’ve played this game before. It’s a haunted game about a haunted game. You may not remember, but the game remembers you. I remember you.

It’s free to win, and paying to turn off ads is 40% off until July 18th! 

Restore, Reflect, Retry is an interactive horror novel by Natalia Theodoridou. It’s entirely text-based, 90,000-words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

None of you remember who first found the game: the black rectangular box with the small screen on which instructions appear. Of course it piqued your interest: this is the 1990s, after all; and there isn’t much for teenagers to do in your small town. Your friends were intrigued; you were intrigued. So you started to play. And play. And play.

What does it matter if nobody remembers exactly how you discovered the game, or if the story changes, ever so slightly, each time you tell it? Or if you change, ever so slightly, every time you emerge into the real world once more?

All that matters is that you keep playing. The game needs its flesh.

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, or bi.
• Travel through the world as a visionary artist, a strategic gamer, or a thoughtful book lover.
• Befriend a ghost; become a ghost; consume a ghost.
• Save your friends from the game within a game—if you can.
• Explore pixelated alternate realities to solve the mystery of the game’s origin, and contemplate the deeper truths of this reality.
• Befriend the being behind the screen—or try to destroy the game that you are playing, and hope that it doesn’t fight back.

Come in, Player. I’m waiting.

We hope you enjoy playing Restore, Reflect, Retry. We encourage you to tell your friends about it and to recommend the game on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

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Will you trust me?

Go play Restore, Reflect, Retry. Don’t read the reviews. Don’t even read the blurb if you haven’t already. Just go play it, knowing as little about it as possible. It’s free, after all, so what have you got to lose? Just go play it. Then play it again. And again. Why are you still reading this? Go. Play. The. Game.

…

… oh. You’re still here? Fine. If you must know, Restore, Reflect, Retry is unlike anything else CoG has published. It’s gorgeously written, it’s relentlessly meta, it’s weird, and it will go deeper into your brain and stay longer than you planned to let it. It doesn’t just break the fourth wall, it razes the entire theatre, sets the rubble on fire, and does a little dance in the flames. It’s a story about stories, a game about games, an interactive novella that illuminates and interrogates its own medium. It’s also about ghosts and time and coming of age. It’s a game you arguably haven’t played at all unless you’ve played it more than once. And as literary and ambitious as it is, it’s also accessible and fun. Please don’t deny yourself the experience.

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How deliciously ominous.

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Congrats go to Natalia Theodoridou for this unique experience.

For a 90,000 word game, it offers a lot, especially for a free to win price-point.

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Congratulations to the author!

Also, what I mentioned earlier in the interview still stands.

Like Repeat the Ending, Hand Me Down and Lake Adventure, [t]his will change the dynamics of what a Choicescript game can be.

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I started the game, read a few pages, and then hit one that exactly matched what I had been wondering about sometimes.
As if someone read my brain and poured my feelings on the page.

That’s when I bought it.

(The reading flow is so smooth and just. Yes, I know those emotions.
I think I will like this game. It sees me.)

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It does. And I know what you mean, because it sees me too. It’s uncanny but wonderful to see something articulated on the page (or screen) that you’ve always felt or known but never dared put into words.

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That’s it exactly! It feels a bit too much, and yes, uncanny.
But it is a horror game, after all. That’s what it is meant to do.
And the prose! I should really go and finish his other works.
They’re not the same of course but I have a sudden urge to do it and compare my emotional reactions.

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You can find a lot of his short non-interactive fiction online too, and preorder his first novel, which is coming out in April.

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Impulse bought this as soon as I got the notification in my email. Engrossing - I’ve already played it at least five times, trying to figure out the metagame solution. (Also a bit shocked to realize a ChoiceScript game can remember things between runs!)

Can anyone who’s made it further than I have give me a nudge? I’ve managed to get to the end with everyone alive, gone to college, started a romance with Maria, and seen both responses after “Reflect” at the end, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with “reach beneath the mirror” and “reach out to reach in”.

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It is in fact a meta puzzle.
Here’s a hint. You can’t find it through playing the game. You have to access the game in another way.
Here’s the solution. Look in the game’s code.

If you still can’t find it. I can give you the explicit answer, but the satisfaction is from finding it yourself.

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Well, damn. This is my favorite sort of game. I’ve already played it five times over and I’m still not done.

Glad I listened to this advice, haha.

I wish I had more words at the moment, but I’m honestly a little speechless. This is a game I’m going to have to think about for a while before I find myself and I’m thrilled.

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Edit:
Its good.

I’d prefer it to be me in the first challenge, though.

Haven’t finished, yet.

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This is actually pretty good. And it’s just 90,000 words! Pretty impressive I must say

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You need to be brave and pick a specific option.

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It is possible for you to be the one who bleeds, but you definitely have to vote for someone else.

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Hmm. So choosing someone would allow me to be cut, then killed? I will have to try it then.

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Wait, what? You can’t be killed.

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Oh. I was trying to take place of friends death so they can live. I was right then. Thanks. I won’t go back then.

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You can save Tommy but again, you need to make specific choices.

You need composure, you need to pick the cross (the medic role), and you need to choose to play pacifist. You may also need to pick “fight with my bare hands” but I’m not sure about that one.

Tommy will get stabbed no matter what you do, but with the right prerequisites you’ll be able to administer first aid in time to save him.