PixelBerry’s StoryLoom has begun OpenBeta. For those who don’t know, PixelBerry runs the app Choices, which focuses on romance stories, primarily for women. With StoryLoom, you will be able to make your own IF stories using their resources, and host it on their platform.
It seems interesting, and their library is pretty massive. I even found a new story from @JimD, called Revenge Magic.. According to his Twitter, he has a second story as well called Your Trial.
It makes sense for them to move in that direction. I’ve played a couple of their games, and it’s true they have a very specific target audience in mind. Despite being able to enjoy their games somewhat, I was always left frustrated with the choices and the direction of the story. As far as I remember, there was a lot of the same complaints going on in the Reddit community.
Not only that, but there is also a lot of complaints about samey stories. I’m curious to see what other stories the community can come up with. Their horror games are some of the best but there’s so few of them!
Do you know if they plan to adopt a monetized system like hosted games?
Yeah, I felt the same way. I can’t blame them, their fanbase IS heavily heterosexual women, so that is the audience they cater to. But with StoryLoom, theoretically it should be a lot more diverse because it’s not just PixelBerry developing these stories–it’s anyone who wants to use it.
If fans can make something like the It Lives fan project, I feel excited to see how much more they can make with actual official support. Hopefully this leads to another resurgence in IF.
I’m not sure about monetization, my guess is that it may be similar to however Episodes functions. I did see that there’s a marketplace for purchasing assets. Currently I’m trying to figure out if you can make stories with custom protagonists.
Great to see some books with preset male MCs. I know that the recent lack of gender-of-choice books has been a big problem for many fans. Personally, none of the newer Choices books have really appealed to me, so I’m looking forward to whatever the community creates, particularly things we don’t get offered (much) in Choices. That said, is it possible to play any of the first chapters without buying coins? 
I played Choices a lot before I discovered Choice of Games. Their target audience is heterosexual women, but they also have a big LGBTQ+ player base and some straight men as well, because they have quite a few stories that allow you to play as a male MC (and rarely non binary MC), while all other similar apps only include straight female MCs. All stories have female ROs, so at least gay/bi women are always represented (although female ROs are often sidelined compared to male ones). It’s true that players on Reddit have been very upset with the company lately, but at the end of the day, it’s a vocal minority of players, which is why PixelBerry continues to make decisions that hurt players who aren’t heterosexual women, such as fewer female ROs and less screen time for them, and the lack of male and non binary MCs. Also yeah, more and more stories are becoming subpar these days.
It Lives fan project is brilliant, and I also hope StoryLoom can become a platform for creating more amazing stories like this one. Though I don’t know much about StoryLoom myself.
I was somehow under the impression they were mainly pushing single-LI books with preset female MCs but GOC love interests. Has the treatment of female LIs gotten even worse? Everything I read about the Aislinn romance in LOA sounded fairly positive… sigh
This is what they have been doing, yes, but the writing generally is written with the male LI in mind–you’ll see references to the female LI’s stubble on her face, she’ll make references to women that sounds weird coming from a fellow woman, etc.
Yikes. I remember seeing discussions about the reverse happening in ID (“guyfriend”). Not cool. Especially when you see projects like ILW and how they dealt with multiple game variables. 
Is there some way to get coins? It says in the onboarding message that all stories are free, but when trying to play it asks for coins (which cannot even be purchased apparently).
Yeah, I’m not sure. I’m in the same boat myself.
Yeah, what @RedRoses said. Even though the single LI system guarantees an equal number of male and female LIs (which is one, lol), they are all written as male by default, which sometimes makes the narrative for the female LI nonsensical.
But I think the main problem these days is definitely the lack of male and nb MCs. The first book with male MC this year will only be released in July, and it’s not even a new story, but a sequel.
Even when you can play as other gender, the language is very much coded for a cishet woman. I honestly don’t mind playing as a different gender than my own, never had a problem with that. But the plots are very clichéd and non-sensical, characters are cardboard cutouts, every other choice is a “diamond” choice (I’d rather pay upfront for the whole book than get milked for diamonds, not to mention it ends up a lot more expensive to play a book), so on and so forth. A lot of these books feel like barely disguised smut romance novels, especially the new ones.
This is interesting. As a reader on Interactive Fiction, I really started on pixelberry first game High School Story and Hollywood U which they sadly gotten rid off on the playstore and with the recent Choices Upcoming books has really shown their main focus was on genderlocked books maybe with this I hope that changes it. Because since starting January I uninstalled the app because the spring Books has all been women Main Characters. I don’t have a problem in playing as the opposite gender (I really liked Hot Couture and Crown and Flame) but I wish to play more Male MCs. Also I really see that they always repeat their resources for the side characters and the plots sometimes kinda fall flat and kind of inadequate and lackluster.
Pixelberry has always had all flaws (and other ones) you guys have noticed.
They’ve had them since 2016, the difference is once at least they used to try making enjoyable stories for everyone, now they don’t even bother, aside a few “pride strikes” (with mixed results) but they are not enough to save the boat.
Apparently they automatically refresh the coins, I don’t know the time frame, but now I have 100 coins.
I got a little excited and outlined a story from an old idea I had dropped. 
I might try actually going forward with it (if I get some free time).
Currently trying out other titles right now seems interesting so far but still not a fan of the coin system. Hope we have an option to buy specific titles.
I would be more interested in Choices if it a. Had a system akin to COG where I could just buy the stories that interested me rather than playing diamond juggling every five minutes and b. It had more games with a decent range of female ROs.
As is on the two times I have downloaded and started games I lose interest quickly because I am essentially paying possibly hundreds of pounds for something without the intricate storytelling and narration of most better COG games that I can buy and that’s it. No doubt the company finds their systems more profitable but I don’t intend to agree to that, especially when the large majority of games don’t have any content for little old het male me. 
I have a friend who plays Choices. (I’ve tried it, and it would be decent fun if it weren’t such a money grab, but nothing terribly special either.) I keep trying to convert her.
I loved the first High School Story, Shame they got rid of it
Same! Probably the story that got me into IF, if I think back on it.