What three games by Hosted Games do you think deserve a round of recognition? What games that you loved are on this list…but shouldn’t? Vote it up and let people know what they should be playing.
I don’t know why Community College Hero: Fun and Games hasn’t been more successful. Sure, in retrospect I guess I wish Eric Moser had focused on the third installment of the trilogy, but I haven’t given up hope that he’ll get back to writing one day, and then I’ll simply be glad that this delightful little game exists to allow us to spend some uncomplicated downtime with the characters we’ve come to love.
Donor is a genderlocked game without romance, but if you let that stop you, you’ll be missing out. It’s a dark and gripping story with deliciously evil villains and tough dilemmas. If you prefer your vampires with more sheer evil swagger than angst, this game has the bite you’re looking for.
Paradox Factor offers such a unique and fun take on time travel you could almost forget how devastatingly poignant it is. It is a study in the ways that grief warps the world, a maze through the mourning process in search of an ending we can live with. Although I’ve never actually played it in a time of bereavement, it has become one of the stories that I use to explain to myself the journey of loss. This is the kind of story interactive fiction exists to tell.
Day ever after is hilarious, I second what was said about paradox factor, and divided we fall really deserves more attention. That one admittedly is maybe not the best game, but the story is really good
Donor is challenging, its one to keep coming back to simply to find out how long you can survive. You don’t have to like or fancy the protagonists to play. Very underrated!
I just realized I forgot to name a couple of personal “honorable mentions” the way I did for the other poll. I’ll have to go with Blood for Poppies and The Floating City.
I’d love to see Don’t Wake Me Up get more love. I feel like if it had gone through the IF Comp side of the IF communities, it could have got a lot of attention. I really enjoyed playing it for a lot of reasons, including how it plays with genre and character expectations (which I imagine is part of why it’s in the underrated section).
I would say that the Balance of Superpower saga had improvements in the second part and potential for a third title. If you don’t believe me, look at the word count in both works.
I’m very happy to see The Gray Painter at the top. I’m much less happy to see Doomsday on Demand so low. Give it a chance (and of course also to the first one), it’s a gem, I promise.
Andy Why and I spoke recently, and we both have plans to, eventually, finally write our Kepler sequels…people may recall I was originally a co-author but kinda abandoned Kepler for a long time
IFComp’s a very different audience with very different tastes though. I regularly see stuff doing well in that and other comps that would completely flunk as COGs/HGs. I do agree it would have had a good chance of winning IFComp (or at least placing very highly) if entered there.
@AletheiaKnights I think we have a lot of similar tastes in games
That’s great to hear. I didn’t realise that was the reason why Kepler never got it’s conclusion.
Shout out to Lich and Icepeak. They’re just such different games to what we usually see and I’m a bit sad to see both on this list. If you like fighting fantasy type IF I’d give them a look.
Edit: Also thank you for those who voted for Oedipus
That’s for the best, probably. It certainly makes for a far more diverse IF landscape for the reader. Not quite something for every taste, but we’re getting there.
I put out a 55k word update last year that flew under the radar. Plus it’s my only HG not on Steam 
