This started out as a chocies sideblog, but then choices got bad so now I mostly blog about IF games. Woops. Icon is my crown, Nîyaz, from A Tale of Crowns. main account @wolfcat-hybrid
Some of you may have already heard of Choices' recent takeover by a rather questionable company that produces AI-generated TV shows, following over a year of using AI-generated content in all of its recent stories.
Unfortunately, it's quite apparent that Choices is following the footsteps of Lovestruck in its final days, where bad content is resulting in consumer boycott and a dwindling fanbase, which means that its shutdown is also now highly possible. Some people over at r/Choices and r/ChoicesPreservation have expressed an interest to archive the game, just like our community did almost half a decade ago.
They have no solid team or blue plan in the works yet, but some of our experienced members from LS Salvation Squad are already over there helping them get on track, using their prior experience with archiving Lovestruck.
If you are also a fan of Choices, and have interest, time and energy to help out, please consider joining them on discord.
A couple days ago, I made a post addressing Pixelberry/Series Entertainment's "It Lives Within." At the time, I wasn't aware of the story, I only knew that the name was the same. Since then, I saw many people accusing it of plagiarizing our game. I decided to look into it more, and after having watched all the episodes on YouTube, the claims of plagiarism unfortunately seem to be valid. As such, I'd like to further address this situation, and provide a list of stolen ideas and art with screenshot proofs and explanations.
A few years ago, I had a video call with one of the original writers for the It Lives Series. Though I knew nothing about their original plans for the game before starting this project (including that they also intended to name the game "It Lives Within"), he told me their plans on that call. It was going to be a survivor-type cave crawl story with giant bug-inspired and creepy crawler monster enemies, where you play as a new character who is attacked by these creatures while camping and separated from their friends. From my understanding, Connor and his crew would be sort of like the Sam and Dean from SPN, acting as these experienced "hunters" who help protect them.
That is not what the story of what Choices "It Lives Within" was. At all.
This means that the AI """writers""" at Series Entertainment/PB were not creating this story based on the original writers’ plans. They made their story idea later - after ILW was completed in its entirety. Therefore, it's reasonable to follow that unlike the title, these similarities are not coincidence. Though even then, the title It Lives Within had to do with the cave setting and going literally into the earth, while the AI version has nothing to do with caves. So the reasoning for the title is not the same as the reasoning for their original title.
With all this in mind, let’s go over the similarities between our game and the Choices It Lives Within AI show. I am going to be putting it beneath a read more, in case there are people who are interested in playing ILW and don’t want to get it spoiled.
Major things they stole:
Their villain, Silas, is Matthias. Literally, that's it. He's Matthias.
Silas is an immortal man who looks just like Matthias who's been alive for almost 200 years and was a member of the Westchester cult, where he knew Cora. He wants to sacrifice redfield Noah due to his connection to the Power (Rowan anyone) as part of a complicated ritual he's put together in order to... I'm not quite sure what, exactly, as the story was a bit hard to follow. He thinks he’s all manipulative and the main crew states that "He’s getting us to do his work for him!”
And then there's his appearance. That's the same hairstyle. He's the same age. Same race. Literally, just like Connor in their story is as recognizable AI-version of his in-game sprite, that's what this guy looks like. All he's missing is the beard.
The gang's base of operations is Cora’s cabin
This one is interesting. It's such a tiny detail, and I'd grown so used to the cabin being their safe place that when Connor was like "We need to get back to the cabin" it literally took me a moment to realize - wait. They had nothing to do with that cabin in the original series. Using that as a home base was literally our idea, an It Lives Within original.
The main enemies are mind controlled townspeople working for Silas
Instead of following the precedent of the previous games and having the enemies be Power-twisted animal monsters, they decided to make their enemies humans that are mind-controlled into zombie-like beings that attack the gang in hordes. There's even a scene where the gang is driving through them in their car. This is a rip-off of It Lives Within's horrors. And on top of that, they copied the carnival scene where Harper driving through the horde of horrors.
Noah and Devon's relationship
Their relationship in this '"TV show" has suspicious similarities to their friendship/romance routes in ILW. They made Devon be redfield Noah's anchor to reality, and even had Devon use memories to help ground Noah, which we showed in the cabin scene where Devon and Noah play baseball together. And I know there were Noah x Devon shippers outside of me before ILW released, but it was never PB's plan to canonize them. So the fact that they are seemingly changing course to canonize them after they grew so popular in the fan version feels a bit too coincidental.
Scraping fan art for their AI animation frames
But what's even more egregious is that they have even stooped to scraping from fan artists, who have nowhere near the same following or exposure as our project does. Seriously, what are the odds that the MC they choose to use matches this artist's MC's race, gender, hair, and outfit exactly, that they used Noah's old outfit, that they are literally positioned on the same sides of the image? It's blatant plagiarism, and it's despicable. @errajay I'm so sorry they did this.
These are the biggest similarities, but considering that it was only like 15 minutes of content, that means that a high percentage of the story was stolen. Sure, the exact details of "Silas's" plan are different (he's like a horcrux for the "entity" aka power and he was split into 43 parts and Noah's one of his parts and he needs to kill him to get it back and be free or something) it's the same concept: immortal man who's trapped making a complicated ritual requiring sacrifice while manipulating people to get everything into place.
If you want to see for yourselves, please find it on YouTube. Do not support them with clicks or traffic on their app. Thank you! Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering, no AI was used in the drafting of this post 💖
We have an exciting update for The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe) today! Specifically, the demo now officially boasts three new sprites for MC and Daonna!!! (Read more below 👇)
If you remember from our Kickstarter, one of our stretch goals was the ability to fully customize the appearance of MC and their mysterious doppelganger, Daonna. Sadly, we weren't able to reach this goal at the time - which meant that for the foreseeable future, MC and Daonna would be functionally represented by a single sprite. This was obviously not ideal, since this limits players to a single skin tone, hair colour, eye colour, etc., so after our Kickstarter ended we decided to go back to the drawing board and come up with a middle ground solution that was more realistic/feasible for us. Hence: Daonna now has three distinct designs, which players can use as a basis for their MCs if they want to. (Examples: Maybe your MC styles their hair differently, or never goes without rouge!) Ultimately though, if you still prefer your own headcanon to our sprites, feel free to consider them simply interpretations of MC/Daonna's many possible appearances! Mythology is often full of contradictions, after all ;)
In addition to MC/Daonna, there are a few other new things in this version of the demo (which will update automatically on Steam, but needs to be fully redownloaded from Itch):
Bug fixes (missing audio for Milesian, added entry for Finn, some typos, missing credit names)
A new, fabulous sprite for the lady shopkeeper (with another for the shopkeeper man on the way!)
A new sprite for Maeve's crows
A new animation for Maeve's crows
Minor UI updates
That's all for now! Slán go foill!
- Clotho
EDIT: There appears to be a bit of confusion surrounding the nature of this update, so I want to clarify: These sprites will only appear in the character creation menu and when Daonna (who already had a sprite prior to now regardless) makes appearances in-game. Otherwise, the gameplay is the same as before. This sprite will not be visible when your MC speaks, so you are still free to imagine your MC in any fashion of your choosing.
Some interesting reading - latest Pixelberry review on Glassdoor by an ex-employee, giving their point of view of what's been going on at PB lately. Also says that those 200 people who were let go were around 75% of staff 😬
so after like months of forgetting i still had the app, i tried out choices again cos i was bored. and girl....... oh wow....
LMAOFODIW ITS SO SHITTY???? like i knew they were on a downward spiral, completely losing the plot, an absolute dumpster fire, using fucking GENERATIVE AI now... but DAMN??
i tried out the second roommate book and then the ghost book and wow... the writing feels like something taken straight from some 14 year old preteens shitty bts college AU fanfic. like WOW u can really tell they fired all they fuckin staff. no exposition, no background, just omgggg it's senior year and we're alpha pee pee poo poo sorority but ughhhh this stupid frat take house and omg Hot Boy...? but Hot Boy arrogant 🤬... like girl when was the last time any of yall have been to college 😭 they fired everybody so now they got a team of underpaid middle schoolers to write the scripts??
just straight up DOGSHIT LMAOOO??? and the gender selectable SINGLE love interest is UGLYYYYY. ugly as FUCK!!! ugly and ASHY with skin falling off the BONE!! and they're ALLLL like that. every single FUCKING book!!
and bc all the writers are fourteen there's no chemistry. not even a little bit. instead ur grown ass mc already getting her panties wet bc some arrogant asshole is Shirtless™️ and Rude™️.
and they're all like that. every single customizable love interest is like that. either they're rude and arrogant or stoic with a soft side or just Nice™️. like ouuu i knew choices was cooked when they started centering every book around a single customizable love interest. just plain laziness—making a single cookie-cutter love-interest that lacks a unique cultural background (bc the character has NO roots, bc they're fucking customizable) and saves them from criticism about diversity (bc u can just fucking pick!! 😋)
and then the story is either: i am a directionless adult woman who feels unfulfilled at JOB in PLACE who has also been cheated on by my recent PARTNER. due to mysterious circumstances, i now find myself in [new] PLACE with GUY i met earlier....... but now he's BOSS/COWORKER/ROOMMATE/ALPHA ?! or i am a delicate and studious little lamb who has arrived at UNIVERSITY with FRIEND. at UNIVERSITY there is GUY who is leader of top university FRAT who is hot and sexy and Shirtless (something i have never seen) and arrogant and unpredictable and unmedicated with secret ISSUE. suddenly GUY and i have found our lives irrevocably intertwined and i am now undergoing a slightly disingenuous CHANGE that FRIEND is uncomfortable about. OR!! i am subordinate and GUY in a position of POWER. he is arrogant and TRAUMATIZED and big on BDSM. i am newbie prepared to be dominated. i will not file workplace harassment claim.
AND THEYRE ALLLLUHHHHH like that LMAO??!?#&# EVERY SINGLE STORY IS A VARIATION OF THAT ARCHETYPE... without FAIL!! and please don't get me started on the fucking AI LOLLLL
the covers are TERRRIBLEEEEEEE. generative AI is already terrible but the fact that this is coming from a COMPANY and it's STILL THIS BAD??? it's all so airbrushed and uncanny like this cannot be what u sold out for. and the ai covers of characters from older books.... like oh the difference is astonishing. HORRIBLE!! ethan ramsey was already an ugly and decrepit old bastard and that gen ai cover of him really pushed all his wrinkles to the surface ☹️ LIKE??? THE SHIT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING YOUD FIND ON JANITOR AI LMAOOO YALL CAN'T BE SERIOUS WITH THAT..
i cannot WAIT for them to close up shop and give it a rest man like it's OVERRRRR it's OVERRR this isn't the same playchoices that gave us endless summer, blades, THEEE it lives anthology, or hero LOL
with fortunately convenient timing, the unnanounced narrative game company founded by former pb employees now has a name! candlelight games, led by none other andrew shvarts aka mr. blades himself (along with his brother daniel), megan schwarz (lead of tna, ame, ds, weh) and royal mcgraw (who headed the original hollywood u and then choices until 2021).
their first project is a fantasy story, so if the series ai acquisition and, most recently, the blades iii ai cover reveal upsets and disappoints you (which it should! fuck ai fr), i'd recommend taking a following to them as i have. i'm looking forward to what's to come!
A Dying Wish is an interactive story about being a bird.
Well, not just a bird.
Thousands of years ago, you were worshipped - maybe they built grand temples and statues of you, maybe secret little shrines in the darkest parts of the endless woods...
But none of that matters anymore. The statues and temples of old have crumbled into dust and the woods burned away in the fires of industry.
Yet you are still there today, unknown and uncaring, hidden in the rubble of this broken world, in which a humanity far beyond its peak slowly grinds towards its own erasure.
Although fatigue should be unknown to you no matter what physical form you assume, you find yourself to be tired. That's why you chose to become a mortal bird, fragile but free, and seek out one of the few remaining forests to starve to death in relative peace - not that you're sure what death actually means to a being like you.
But as you come to rest on the branch of a lone maple tree in the midst of countless birches, you find that you are not alone... a human is bleeding out beneath your tree.
Genre: Romance, Horror
Setting: Pseudo-Postapocalyptic ('90s Russia/Yugoslav Wars vibes)
Note: there's only one (customizable) RO
Objective: find your place among the many monsters in this world and worm your way into the RO's heart
Demo: TBA. This project will only occasionally be worked on as I focus on my main wip, Орлёнок.
Iliya is a romanceable character in my interactive game Thicker Than.
Name: Iliya Sudlenkov
Gender: M
DOB: 11/MAY/1910
DOD: 25/APR/1945
Height: 190cm
Build: Muscular
Skin: Fair
Hair: Fair
Eyes: Grey/Blue
Note: Facial scar, tattoos
Skills: Fighting (close range, hand to hand, and fire arms), Languages ( Eng, Rus, Ger, Fre)
Bath of the Beast
You look up and see… a man. Tall, muscular, and watching you with amused grey blue eyes. His smile is crooked, twisted out of shape by an old pink scar on his lips.
"Who are you?" you ask.
"Your new best friend," he says. "I'm a very very good friend. Very good at keeping secrets." Even though the music you hear the distinctive short, heavy vowels of a Russian accent.
Iliya is a lover of stories, both real and imagined, with a special fondness for books of all kinds. He's also a thug for hire, and damn good at his job. If you need someone roughed up, he'll rough 'em up good.
Iliya was born and raised in Russia, and served as a soviet soldier in World War II. There, he was fatally wounded. But death didn't stick.
As a vampire he has travelled the world and watched the night light up neon blue. As far as he's concerned, there is no better time to be dead. Being a vampire doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.
Iliya's vamperic powers manifest in strength, speed, and sheer brutality, known to some as 'the path of the beast'. He can teach these powers to a vampire eager to deal some damage.
Art by @dahliadrawthings :
Dahlia is the one who gave him his tattoo. I can take no credit for that idea. The English translation of the text is: I don't want to live without teeth. I don't want to die without being bitten.
He is lazy and doesn't really care about any one or anything. He sneaks aboard a ship full of people with powers and plans to betray and kill them all, just because he is doing it to pay someone back for a favor. He is downright sociopathic
Ethan Ramsey
really fucking annoying and forced as hell. mostly probably has a white savior complex. even if not romancing him, still gets offered to have a 'bdsm scene' - outfit and all included. found him a whiny ass bitch.
Me two weeks ago: "I don't think I'm going to make anymore Ren'py games."
Me now:
Full disclaimer, this is super short, and a long way from being my best writing, but I've had some stuff going on and I just wanted to make something small, so I thought I'd finally see if this dark mermaid thing had legs (fins?) after all.
With PB’s adult romance book covers continuing to step further into the bodice ripper cover aesthetic, I think it’s worth questioning who it is that’s appearing on these kinds of covers and why that is.
Heterosexual couples. They’re all heterosexual couples.
The first inkling of this post came when the Alpha cover was leaked, showcasing a truly breathtaking unwillingness to do almost anything to distinguish itself from Choices’ other werewolf romance, Wolf Bride.
My first thought on seeing the Alpha cover was, why? Why would you use a practically identical composition as your other omegaverse book? Why wouldn’t you want to give this book its own identity? Does it have its own identity? Are the two books connected narratively? Because as far as we know, no, they’re not.
And then I truly thought about what an obvious missed opportunity this was. Why didn’t they make the obvious decision to distinguish this book by making it a gay cover? Alpha is confirmed to be a gender of choice book, and making it a gay cover would kind nod to the fact that a truly significant portion of the omegaverse sub-genre of fiction is dedicated to male x male pairings.
Later, I was thinking about how I’d really want to see one of these bodice ripper style covers with an m/m pairing, and I remembered that Choices only has a single gay cover with Foreign Affairs, and it is the picture of chaste. At that point it hit me—probably not for the first time—that none of these adult romance covers have been queer.
PB giving pittance to the mlm audience is honestly expected at this point, but it is genuinely weird that we haven’t gotten a lesbian cover in what, years? And that’s not even just for these adult romance covers. But if we’re talking adult covers; while only some of them have been GoC and so had the feasible option for a gay cover, all of them had the ability to play as a female MC, and all of them had a female love interest optional. They have had every opportunity to do at least one. Why have none of the bodice ripper style covers been queer?
How come the straight covers get to be this:
But the queer covers have only ever been this?
The obvious counter-argument to this is to say that the majority of Choices players are straight women and so they’re going to market their books with the straight female audience in mind.
And to that I say, I do not care. I truly, unequivocally do not care. Words cannot express how little I care about this argument, especially because there’s this, straight from PB via the Choices Insiders email in March this year:
So actually though, why no queer covers for their adult romance books? All I can say is that I do think it is in part influenced by the homophobic standard in media that queer desire isn’t marketable, and that image isn’t something they necessarily want to market themselves with. Not because PB themselves are homophobic, but perhaps because they don’t want the perception of a cover like that to potentially turn away their largely straight female audience. And that if true, to put it simply, is cowardice.
So, conclusions: With the growing number of Choices’ adult romance book covers using the bodice ripper aesthetic, the lack of any queer covers in this style—despite all opportunities to do so—leaves one with the impression that PB, intentionally or not; are both being informed by and feeding into the homophobic standard that queer desire is not something to be showcased or celebrated on the same level as heterosexual desire.
Basically, not only do PB need to start doing more queer covers; but they also need to start showing them being horny on their covers too.
This has been… one absolute mother of an update, but we’re finally ready to call it done and let you all get your hands on it.
The Final Chapter is playable now!
Make one last bit of very bloody war with your friends against whichever enemy you have earned, and solidify the future of Clan Maghnus.
The last stop for us will be the epilogue, which will probably be short and sweet, a farewell to the characters we’ve spent so much time with, as well as the ones who may or may not live to the finish line. After that there’s a big scary expanse of emptiness, but we’ll deal with that when we get there.
