Street Jam: The Rise -- Become the best street fighter in the city!

Hosted Games
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Hosted Games has a new game for you to play!

The circuit calls for a new king and you’re ready to answer them! Will you overcome all odds and become the new ruler, chief of police, a gang leader, or end up six feet under?

It’s 33% off until January 16!

Street Jam: The Rise is a violent 370,000 word interactive adult novel by Tevin Betts, 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.

Content Warning: Ableist insults; problematic depictions of race; transphobia; rampant chauvinism; fat shaming; poor depiction of neurodivergents; forced sexual activity; description of narcotic distribution, including to minors; child abuse. Reader discretion is advised.

In one of the biggest metropolises in the world, you are a new street fighter looking to hit it big, be it for cash, fame, or the cops. Choose from a variety of unique backgrounds and use your skills to rise from nothing to everything. There will be blood, death, and more…all surrounding you as you clear out club after club in this story, inspired by the criminally underrated Def Jam series.

Will you be an honorable and merciful fighter who wins with their skills? Or a murderous scheming cheater who wins by shooting up the streets? Or even an ambitious undercover officer who wins by using the police force? Your personality will affect your journey as much as your wins.

Find love or lust with over eleven characters, settle a rivalry that has been going on since elementary school, fight in several distinct styles, and change both the city and the circuit forever. Whatever you do, remember, actions always have consequences, no matter how small they may seem at first.

  • Play as male, female, non-binary; cis or trans; gay, straight, asexual, or aromantic.
  • Fight your way through rich, poor, crazy, wrestling, and karate clubs across the city.
  • Fourteen unique backgrounds including military, detective, rapper, a sports star (with four distinct sports options), stripper, and more for unique experiences.
  • Choose your proficiency in six different attributes including brute strength, intelligence, charisma and more to become a wrestler, martial artist, or another type of fighter.
  • Use the police, your gang, money, or your own skills to defeat the brawlers and challenges in your way.
  • Get with an experienced older woman, a hot and chilled out young man, a muscular amazon and more for love, or just fun.
  • Settle a grudge that has been going on for years with a bloody vendetta or forgiveness.
  • Rock an entire city and become the biggest fighter in the entire world.
Tevin Betts 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 Hosted Games will publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.
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not enjoying how saying you’re not okay with depictions of bigotry and sexual content leads to an early ending that essentially boils down to “lol bye snowflake”

it was annoying when samurai of hyuga did that, but it wasn’t, like, problematic then. having a condescending message for people who leave because of a content warning sucks.

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I mean, what do you expect? Saying you aren’t okay with themes within the story means that you probably shouldn’t be playing it. Though I do have to ask, are content warnings gonna be a ‘thing’ from all future games or is it just coincidence that the last two releases have had them.

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After loosely following the demo, the way the game ends if you choose you’re not comfortable looking at the content is actually not that out of character.

This game is gritty, hell, it even says violent in the first sentence above and while playing the demo, there were times that even I had to step away and I don’t find myself to be easily triggered.

While it might come off as snowflakey to many, overall, I think warning people before they get too invested will do more good than harm. There are many games, Rent-A-Vice immediately comes to mind, that are relatively gritty and still good plays.

I don’t believe the author was saying, “Go play Affairs of the Court lol loser,” but stopping you before you got too invested in a way that fits in with the writing style of the game.

As with everything though, people will have varying opinions. Nevertheless, I’m eager to play the full version. The last time I played, it was a wild ride.

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Affairs of the Court is hardcore, yo. :joy: Talk about murdering your way to the top!

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I would expect the author to be more respectful of the players. If the content warnings were there for the sake of warning people -instead of being plain rude- it would have the list of content warnings and a message with something along the lines “if you think this may be triggering for you, please proceed with caution if you still want to play it.” You know, with some manners and professionalism?

Instead, we have a whole condescending message saying how this game is for those of “thick skin” and giving a choice just to point out how much of a “snowflake” the player is if you pick how said CW may be not so great…

As it is now, is just kind of childish, if you ask me. It just strikes as something done to be “edgy” more than to actually give a meanigful look to all the contents this game has to offer.

Edit to add: I don’t see why content warnings shouldn’t be a thing in games with potentially triggering content. It doesn’t take much effort to take into consideration the mental health of the players, and it can save people from suffering anxiety or panic attacks. There is literally no down-side to adding CW.

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I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the author warns people who might have issues with their game away via trigger/content warnings.
For me I think child abuse might have been the one what made me decide to stay away from this one.

Tho I kinda worry that some authors might use the warnings as a pass to handle certain issues in an inappropriate/insensitive/trying to look edgy way? I can’t say if that happens here since I didn’t even read the demo.

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I was more offended by the seemingly random nature of combat solutions and the inconsistent tone. I think it’s fair that the author points out that there’s potentially content that people of a certain persuasion won’t be able to handle. I doubt that they would rewrite those sections just to accomodate people with sensitive dispositions.

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Speaking from a perspective that’s as unbiased as I mentally can be, I agree that the warning feels a bit too dismissive. It’s definitely good to have the whole “are you willing to play this?” option and having it lead to an early ending if the player says no is a good move. But the way it’s written feels very much like the author saying, “Okay crybaby, get bent,” instead of, “No worries. This game isn’t suitable for everyone and that’s cool.”

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Hi there. So can we report typos and the likes here?

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Report them via email to support AT choiceofgames DOT com.

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Ok, so I’m going to be honest… This isn’t a good game. The sstory is bland (and for some reason shifts into the fantastical genre halfway through, only to go back to sort of normal at the end), the characters (while colorful) are too numerous for the length and the choices aren’t intuitive.

But you know what’s the worst part? The pretentiousness and the stereotypes. It just feel so forced. This is especially visible for a poor MC in a gang, whose life in ‘da hood’ is just purely based on stereotypes.

Second, the narration. It’s very difficult to pull off a narrator who has a personality of their own, and this game fails. Hard. During the creation of my character alone, I got insulted several times (and almost dropped the game because of it), simply because my PC was rich and had intelligence as a main stat. The narrator kept calling me a spoiled brat and saying my character ‘wasn’t made for that kind of life’, instead of being neutral. I quickly made a violent gang MC to check if it were different and would you look at that, no judging there.

Speaking of the PC, they are all but soulless. The choices allowing to determine their personality don’t matter, and I felt like the only CYOA part was whether you won or lost. The variations at the end are just one or two choices resulting in a couple of lines, so no point in replaying it.

There’s also that weird part where you meet a transgender person and if you tell them you identify as your birth sex they tell you that you are just ‘someone conforming to the norms’ (screenshot right below). To be clear, my problem here isn’t with the presence of a transgender person, but with the fact that this is not something I’ve ever heard a transgender person said, and it sounds borderline transphobic (in that it is a very stereotypical and ignorant view of transgender people).

Screenshot_20200110-195418
Screenshot_20200110-1954181080×2280 794 KB

So yeah, on top of the very condescending tone in the trigger warnings? I don’t recommend it.

EDIT: also, the word count is probably exaggerated, in that the game repeats the same paragraphs in its coding.

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@Harroc I have to be honest. It seems to me that you just aren’t a fan of his(?) writing style, which is totally fine. He doesn’t really take anything seriously and constantly acknowledges the absurdity of any situation. The MC is a street fighter, which is not a glamorous profession. So if you come from a glamorous background that doesn’t really fit in with “'da hood”, as he calls it, he acknowledges that fact. I started out as a straight shooter like you and he said something like, “Are you sure? I mean it’s your life but that seems kind of boring.” Then when I said a group of orphans and I started a gang he goes, “Now we’re talking!” It’s just how he writes. Personally, I’m a fan of his ridiculous writing style, but it’s not for everyone.

I can’t speak to the ending since I only played the demo, but so far I love it and will definitely be buying it.

PS: @Tevin Keep up the good work. I’m super pumped for Become Mortal

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Bought this game because I really liked Become Mortal. I had no problems with the writing style either. Besides being quite funny ( when there’s a whole sequence referencing the running montage from Punch Out, you know you’re not supposed to take this game seriously), I feel that all the “insults” directed towards the player fit in with the theme of the game.

The game was kinda difficult for me and I still haven’t found a way to win all the fights yet. The only way I’ve found is to concentrate on building up one particular stat, but then this leaves my other stats too weak to deal with the other opponents who don’t rely on my uber stat to win. The stat gains feel pretty miniscule too. Unless I’m doing it all wrong.

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Yeah this… all tone aside, this just isn’t accurate at all. It’s not how any of this works. Always disappointing to see.

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I guess I’ll put my two cents in.

The way the author addresses the choice of not wanting to see the triggering content isn’t necessarily bad. I believe it’s the way you perceive it to be. All it says is bye and that they hope you find another suitable game.

I was around 6 years old when I played the Def Jam series, so I didn’t remember much; thus didn’t know what to expect nor did I understand how many elements of the Def Jam series will be included within the game. My expectations going into this game was that it was going to be a realistic(as real as it can get), gritty and perhaps even controversial read; due to the environment on how the ghetto and the projects are. However, given my own experience, this game went more on the video-game, cartoonish aspect of it instead of the ghetto realism. Nevertheless, there were some scenes where it really did touch there, but it felt more like I was in a cartoon. I was disappointed (perhaps due to self-misleading expectations) when the game continued and you began to see stuff that felt really out of place, and became much more fantasy. Which, in all honesty, just may have been the faulty expectations I was holding going into the game.

As for the choices and interactions with the characters, it was fun at first but then it came to that realization on how minimal the personalities and interaction were. Additionally, there were some characters with unusual qualities in which you wouldn’t necessarily expect in the ghetto, given the environment; again, perhaps this is another faulty expectation.

At the end of the day, if you’re looking for a not so serious and not a gritty realistic game involving street fighting, then go for it. Expectations to have going on is that you’ll see some triggering stuff, not much, but depends on who and how you are, and that this isn’t an actual real street fighting story. For example, it’s definitely going to be more on the cartoonish and video-game style (obviously like the Def Jam series which inspired it) than the classic movies that involve street fighting (like Blood and Bone, Fight Club, etc.)

But respect to the author, @Tevin, for putting the time and effort into this game which I’ve seen has involved rough periods. I’m going to replay the story a few more times and see what other clever narrations you got :wink:

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No,you’re right, you do have to concentrate mostly on one stat and occasionally dip on a second one and accepting all the help that require cash(if you want to beat the final boss). As for me I mainly used Int with Str being second, and I’ve been able to beat everyone, some are through stats(like the first club) but others are through choices(like the costume fights).

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The way only way to win all fights that i found is to focus in str spd and int in this order and have a least 10 in each other atribute

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Hey does anyone know how to get the romance for the vampire because I’m having trouble?

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So like, when you’re fighting her.

Choose the option “My heart beats” then when charge at her.

She will ask what roses you prefer or something. Say “Black roses” then the next option choose to cheat and let your next opponent lose on purpose. Then choose her to accompany you outside.`

`

Then ask about her clothes. Then ask for her number. She will say no but then she asks you what you liked about her. Say her eyes and that should get you started

]

Then go out with her when you have the option. You have to say “Such a romantic spot” when the option presents and then agree you love the option she picked for the date.

Also in order to romance her you can have sex with others previously but you’ll have to break up with them if you want to romance the vampire.

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