Hope Abides - Tumblr Posts
How can anyone live like this? It’s a question you ask yourself often—and for good reason. In this interactive fiction, you play as a character navigating a dystopian world where gender is binary, assigned at birth, and non-negotiable, and where only heterosexual marriage is allowed.
Over the course of six decades, you’ll have to survive in a society determined to break your spirit and force you to conform—something you refuse to do. Instead, your mission is to fight for the rights of marginalized communities, as well as your own.
Notes & Mechanics:
An LGBTQIA+ themed interactive fiction written by an LGBTQIA+ author! ♥
Play as male, female, nonbinary, or anything else; intersex or not; gay, lesbian, bi, straight, aro, or ace!
Find love and take things to a super steamy level... or don't! Surround yourself with friends if you want to. Or do both—find your tribe and thrive!
In the beginning, everything is terrible. Society is hostile, oppressive, and downright terrifying. But this is where YOU step in—your goal is to change the world and strive for utopia!
Features nearly 30 different stats tracking a broad spectrum of rights, from marriage equality and healthcare access to anti-amatonormativity laws!
Over 240 planned scenes for maximum replayability (yes, it’s going to be massive!)
Seven distinct endings—can you achieve the best one? ;-)
Hope Abides is a Patreon Exclusive and launches on September 19th!
Which choice script do you think will be release first? After dark or The in between? It’s amazing how you are able to do the two objects at once, must get intense at times but they are both so far, really good! You can see how much work, love and care for put into them ❤️
Hey! Thanks so much for the compliments. It means a lot to me!
I'm actually working on two and a half projects right now. Tomorrow, I'll be releasing the prologue for Hope Abides, an LGBT-themed Patreon exclusive. It's a big project that I'm taking quite seriously, so it won't have regular updates like After Dark and The In-Between (for now, at least).
Between those two, The In-Between is probably the one I'll finish first, even though it's newer. The reason is simple: it's more of an interactive book than a narrative game, so the code doesn't take me a lot of time. After Dark, on the other hand, took me months of work just to fine-tune the code! The latter is strongly focused on the game-like management experience, where you have to survive, build relationships, and regain control of your future. Every little interaction requires lots of code, bugs pop up all the time, and there's always something to fix or improve... So yeah, The In-Between is the most likely to be finished first! ☺
What would your favourite choice of the games interactive stories be? Would you have a favourite type? Romance, Fantasy etc. and did any of the inspire you with the ones you are currently writing? 😁
Oh boy! This is going to be a long answer, brace yourself lol
Let me start by saying that I have a degree in English literature (in fact, I'm going to do a PhD on it), so reading, in general, is one of the core activities of my life.
As for text adventures, even if not from Choice of Games Ltd., I'd like to mention a few inspirations: my passion first came from the original Choose Your Own Adventure series, and I still remember which numbers obsessed me as a child: Mountain Survival #28, The Dragons' Den #33, and more than any other, Space Patrol #22! (The latter may have also fueled my unhealthy obsession with Star Trek TOS, actually). For those unfamiliar with this fantastic book series, the genres of the three books I mentioned are, respectively, adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi. This gives you an idea of how varied my tastes are...
Later on, I discovered interactive fictions and text adventures. Dude, it was a dream come true. I started with Adventure ('76, never finished it, of course) and Zork ('79, never finished that either… of course. How damn hard were they?!). Then Mystery Mansion ('78), Castle Adventure ('82), and too many, many others. I'm a sucker for Sorcery! from inkle, and I deeply loved Magium (RIP Chris, you won't be forgotten). For my Italian-speaking friends, I also really enjoyed the Fra Tenebra e Abisso series (although its current status is unknown).
But back to CoG-related things. I've read a lot, and I'd probably be faster telling you what I didn't like! As you may have figured out by now, I don't have any particular genre preferences as long as a story is well-written, though horror-thriller stories usually grab my attention more easily.
Important note: I've read a lot of stories and, with a few exceptions, I liked most of them. To avoid writing a too-long list, here are the published stories that really impressed me:
A Crown of Sorcery and Steel,
A Midsummer Night's Choice,
Blood for Poppies,
Blood Moon,
Broadway: 1849,
Choice of the Cat,
Choice of the Vampire,
Donor,
Doomsday on Demand (1 and 2),
Gilded Rails,
Golden Rose: Book One,
Jazz Age,
Lies Under Ice,
Life of a Mercenary,
Life of a Space Force Captain,
MetaHuman Inc.,
Noblesse Oblige,
Paradox Factor,
The Evertree Saga (all four books),
Rent-a-Vice,
Revolution Diabolique,
Siege of Treboulain,
Tally Ho,
The Daily Blackmail,
The Dragon and the Djinn,
The Fernweh Saga: Book One,
The Fog Knows Your Name,
The Gray Painter,
The Grim and I,
The Ghost and the Golem,
The Lost Heir,
The Midnight Saga: The Monster,
The Parenting Simulator,
The Play's the Thing,
The Soul Stone War (1 and 2),
The War for the West,
Tudor Intrigue,
Vampire Regent,
Vampire: The Masquerade (all of them),
Way Walkers: University (1 and 2),
Welcome to Moreytown,
Werewolves: Haven Raising,
Zombie Exodus,
Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven.
And now, onto works in progress! There aren’t that many because I barely have time to follow my own (heh…), so here, in alphabetical order, are the ones I'm following with the most interest:
Adoriel's Tears (@adoriels-tears-if),
A Father's Love (@kal-down),
Crown of Ashes and Flames (@coeluvr),
Dawn Chorus (@dawnchorus-if)
Disenchanted (@disenchantedif),
Dragon's Edged (@dragonedged-if),
Elysium (@elysiumcircusif),
Fallen Lights (@fallenlightsif),
For King and Country (@forkingandcountry-if),
From The Ashes We Rise (@kal-down),
Hubris (@hubris-the-if-game),
Kingdoms and Empires (@kingdoms-and-empires),
Return to Misty Cove (@fluorescent-if),
The Abyssal Song (@ri-writes-if),
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - An affair of the heart (@doriana-gray-games),
The Lonely Shore (@thelonelyshore-if),
The King's Hound (@the-kingshound),
The Reaper Watches Me (@thereaperwatchesme),
The Bureau (@thebureau),
The Unseelie (@theunseelieif),
Van Helsing (@vanhelsing-if),
When Life Gives You Lemons (@when-life-gives-you-lemons-if).
Okay, that was… a lot. As for direct inspirations, I don't have any direct ones, but I can say I felt like writing a post-apocalyptic story after reading Doomsday on Demand! Other than that, I guess the collection of narrative, text adventures, and interactive fiction I've read have led me to where I am now.
Damn, it took me hours to write this answer. I hope it's satisfying at least! Thanks for asking ☺
I've finally published Hope Abides' prologue!
It's very, very short (only 11,000 words so far), but I hope it conveys the right atmosphere! In case you're curious, since it's a Patreon exclusive, you can find it here.
And now... back to work on After Dark! ♥
Hi! I read about the difference between the novel and the if version of "in between" and the difficulty to translate the gay-man-in-the-closet's challenges to introverted-mc's challenges, and it made me wonder did you ever thought on a MC-asexual path? I'm personally both demiromantic and demisexual, and there can be similar challenges, for example the pressure to date or have sexual encounters with people in which there isn't any interest in, because it's normal to have that kind of interest (especially sexual). Obv it's just a suggestion! I totally get if it's too much, especially since you've already have the demo, and since the asexual spectrum is quite wide! PS: I love your story and I'm running off to read the new chapter! ❤️
Hi! Thanks for the question ☺
In this particular story, it would get a bit too complicated because MC has had (and will have) romantic interests that are part of the plot. So, for my own sanity, I decided to make them allosexual.
However, I’m working on two other projects! One is After Dark, a post-apocalyptic horror where you can choose for MC to be asexual (though that’s more of a secondary aspect). The other is Hope Abides, a drama/modern-historical/management game focused on an LGBTQIA+ main character, and it also explores the challenges of being asexual (or aromantic, or both).
I’ve only published the prologue for Hope Abides so far, and it’s a Patreon exclusive for now. I know it’s not exactly what you were hoping for, but I promise I’m doing my best!