Tag Archives: romance

Black Closet

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Hanako Games’ latest is a time-management game in which the student council at a posh girl’s school acts as a detective force, solving mysteries, intervening in conflicts between students, and preserving the school’s reputation. You play Elsa Jackson, student body president, … Continue reading →

Posted in cyoa, interactive fiction, review | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Naming and NPCsity

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Last post discussed player-directed – or, at least, not directly author-mandated – naming for individual player characters. But there’s another important use-case: naming lots of characters, using generated names. The Simple End of Things Creepy narrative block-puzzler Road Not Taken has a town populated by … Continue reading →

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Best NPCs 2013 (a much-belated set of XYZZY Award Reviews)

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

As part of running the XYZZY Awards (announcement on that soon, I swear), for the past few years I’ve organised focused reviews of the finalists in each category, drawing on the rich pool of critics and reviewers in the IF world. … Continue reading →

Posted in cyoa, interactive fiction, parser-based | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Shooting the Moon

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

So omigod you guys I am totally pashing on Shooting the Moon. It’s a three-player story-oriented RPG, usually but not necessarily romance-oriented. It’s #2 in the storygame trilogy Three Quick Games about the Human Heart, by Emily Care Boss: game #1, Breaking the … Continue reading →

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CYOA structure: Tween Romance

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Choose Your Own Adventure books (the series, not the medium) typically had the same kind of hero: a white American pre-teen, somewhat gender-ambiguous but tending towards male-default, engaged upon some variant of a Boy’s Adventure. This wasn’t totally inflexible — … Continue reading →

Posted in cyoa, interactive fiction | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

the effect of salacious troubadours on the state of Denmark

Posted on April 20, 2008 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

You know how it goes: you’re the nineteen-year-old daughter of the Duke of Crete, you’ve been married off to the bastard son of the King of Denmark, and you’re pregnant with your second child. Everyone else in the court is … Continue reading →

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