#choice-based games

[interact-if]

We're kicking off a month-long celebration of interactive fiction this May—and we want you to be part of it! 

Over the course of the month, we'll be building curated recommendation lists across a range of IF genres, highlighting standout games, and featuring interviews with the creators of these games.

Objectives: 

We hope that this will be a fun, community-driven way to:

Keep Interact-IF's recommendation lists up-to-date

Allow authors to share their work with a wider audience

Help everyone discover new, awesome interactive fiction games!

How to participate *Edited dates:

Now–May 14: Submit your own games or nominate others (multiple allowed) in each genre.

May 16–21: Community voting on submitted games by genre.

After voting: Winners get short feature interviews.

By May 24: Final showcase published with all submitted games + rolling interview features from May 25

INTERACT-IF GENRE LISTS: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

We're kicking off a month-long celebration of interactive fiction this May—and we want you to be part of it! Over the course of the month,

Genres for this round^:

Fantasy

Sci-Fi

Action/Adventure

Modern/Slice-of-life

Historical Drama

^We might do other genres in the future!

WIP and completed games, twine, choicescript etc. games are all welcome, so long as they are 'interactive fiction'! Do try to tag the game as (WIP), (COMPLETED) when submitting if you can, though!

Love, Interact-IF team

[merrycrisis-if]

Merry Crisis — A festive, cozy romance visual novel [Demo release]

The beloved Merry Crisis text-based game is now a beautiful hand-drawn visual novel!

Three loves. One week. Merry Crisis is an intimate, character-driven romance visual novel about love, loss, and belonging—is home what you left behind, or where you’re headed?

DEMO OUT NOW. It's completely free!🎄

✨ Synopsis

After a breakup, you return home to Singapore for the holidays… only to:

try (and fail?) to move on from your recent ex (and flatmate)

keep running into the sexy musician-next-door

meet your estranged first love again

With 45min of gameplay, branching paths, cozy introspective vibes, and beautiful art, it's the perfect demo for the season! Play it now on Steam!

Game screenshots

Team

@crxwes, Maria, Silvia, Naz and @fienyx , @princetongirl818, @kathaeris

[allieebobo]

Choose Wisely Festival Official Opening Showcase 2025

Ahh! Merry Crisis has been featured as one of the 50 choices matter indie games in the Choose Wisely Festival's opening highlights reel alongside some really amazing??! games!!

If you want to skip straight to Merry Crisis, go to 52:52, otherwise the vid is time-stamped at the start of the "exclusive announcements" section (47:00), which is where Merry Crisis is featured!

[satsu004]

Games where your choices truly matter

I've loved decision-making games for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I couldn't help but notice that lots of these games lie to you, only giving you the illusion that you have a choice. So here's a list in no specific order of games I've enjoyed, including for each game how much your choices actually matter. #1 Detroit become human

Starting with my personal favorite, dbh is quite transparent with how many choices you can make. It does suffer from some writing problems, but it is easily overshadowed by how much content the game has. The choices you make have actual consequences and the different characters you play as influence the state of the world as much as each others fates. Some might complain that this game lacks gameplay, to which I'll reply that the decision making IS the gameplay. #2 Baldur's gate 3

Takes place in the world of dungeons and dragons, it gives you lots of freedom and makes you almost feel like you're playing an irl dnd game. You can play the game with irl friends and/or the companion npc's you can recruit throughout the game. These npc's each have a story of their own with their own choices to make and most of them are also romancable. I recommend this one for those that enjoy roleplay and want to go on a memorable adventure. It also has a turn-based combat system which is very well done and lots fun.

#3 The Stanley Parable

This is one of those games with a short game loop and lots of endings. It's pure comedy and doesn't take itself seriously at all. It's lot's of fun to try out every single choice, not for the endings themselves, but for the narrator's reactions during it. I recommend this one for the gremlins that enjoy chaos. #4 Until dawn

This one is great if you enjoy horror. The story itself is pretty linear and can't be influened much. Your choices matter not to the plot itself, but to the survival of the different characters. You will control different members of a friend group and the goal is to make them all survive through the night, each choice matters. The game will also adapt itself to the player as to make it scarier to you specifically.

#5 Mystic Messenger

This game is in my top 3 fav romance games. It's a free mobile game with a virtual currency that can realistically be farmed through different means, so it's very accessible and doesn't make you feel forced to use real money. You communicate with the different characters through a chatting app in 'real time', which makes it feel much more personal than other otome games. The dialogue options you choose will first define which romance route you've unlocked, and then will define which of the different possible endings you will get. #6 RPG Maker horror games

Mad father, the witch's house, Ib, Pocket mirror, Corpse Party,... I can go on like this for a while. There was a period during which games like these were quite popular, and lots of them are still great. Most of the choices in these games were pretty straightforward, choose wrong and you die, but they also had more subtle choices. Actions that may at first seem unimportant, actually influenced which ending you will get. Special mention to Little Goody Two Shoes which is heavily inspired from these and also happens in the same world as pocket mirror. #7 Slay the princess

Another one of these short loop kind of games, but this one has a much different tone and a bigger overarching story. It's a horror visual novel with an interesting story. It's mostly dialogue options but each one you choose has it's importance as it influences the personality of the protagonist and his perception of the world. I can't say much more without spoiling but it's definitely worth checking out.

#8 Papers, Please

It's pretty chill and straightforward. You're an immigration inspector hard at work to provide for your family. You will be faced with complex situations questioning your morals. Your choices will influence the state and safety of both your family and the country you live in. #9 Please, don't touch anything

This one is very silly but I felt it was worth mentioning. You're sitting in front of a table with hidden puzzles, each leads to a different ending. Some of them are pretty funny, that's it, that's the game.

#10 7 days to end with you

It's a bit of an acquired taste as it can be quite difficult. In this game you will have to figure out a fictional language with little to no handholding. Your ability to get the different endings will be dependent on your ability to figure out the language and communicate with this kind woman who houses you .

[merrycrisis-if]

Super early peek at the extended demo

Hi all!

Super excited to announce that Merry Crisis (the VN version) will be getting an extended demo (the current demo is free-to-play on Steam) as part of the Dames 4 Games showcase!

Here's a little sneak peek of one of the scenes that'll be in the extended demo:

As a thank you to everyone who has supported/played Merry Crisis (in whatever form), I'm doing a bonus raffle to play the super early alpha version of the extended demo. There will be 1 person picked from:

Patreon supporters

Ko-fi supporters

Tumblr followers

Instagram followers

For patreon/ko-fi: Just drop me a DM on Patreon/Ko-fi with the message "sneak peek!"

For Tumblr/Instagram: Reblog/Repost or leave a comment on this post (Tumblr) or this post (Instagram)

This will close in 24 hours and I'll be in touch to do the spinning of the wheel + announce the winners by Mon, 9pm Pacific Time!

[shepherdsofhaven]

hi lena! i'm too shy to ask this directly, but you seem to know a lot about video games, so i was wondering, do you know any choice based games that aren't hosted/cog/if? in other words, not text games? i just got a ps4 so i'd love any recomendations if you have any!

Hi anon, you’ve come to the right person! 

Here’s the list I tend to give people who are just getting into narrative games (or: games that change according to your choices). I’m going to leave out visual novels because I assume you know about those, and try to keep away from games I haven’t personally played!

Telltale Games

The “OG” narrative game studio that revived the choice-based genre and launched it into the mainstream. It shut down recently and then was revived again... Generally point-and-click exploration with lots of choices!

The Wolf Among Us

The Walking Dead (Season 1-4) (Note: you do not need any knowledge of TWD to play)

There’s more but I haven’t played any of the rest

Dontnod Entertainment

The same play-style as Telltale with a few novel mechanics. Largely very narrative and atmospheric with a fantastic story and characters!

Life is Strange

Vampyr (haven’t personally played it yet)

Supermassive Games

Realistic motion-capture, high production value, and popular actors is their calling card, with lots of choices and quicktime events. Only on PS4 and best played with a group! (Note: their games are all horror!)

Until Dawn

Man of Medan (bought but haven’t yet played)

Quantic Dream

Another pioneer of interactive storytelling, this studio also utilizes motion-capture and actors. The games can have their flaws but I generally enjoyed them in the moment!

Heavy Rain (be warned: kinda gruesome)

Beyond: Two Souls (be warned: kinda spooky)

Detroit: Become Human (my favorite so far)

Night School Studio

Writers from Telltale created their own studio and made Oxenfree! It’s more of a puzzler but it does have lots of choices and very unique mechanics, including other players leaving you hints throughout your game and a crazy new game+ feature...

Oxenfree

After Party (coming 2019, you’re two best friends who are stuck in Hell and you have to outdrink Satan)

BioWare

While the games out of BioWare are primarily RPGs, there are a lot of choices that can change the course of your story!

Dragon Age (start with Origins if you can)

Mass Effect (don’t start with Andromeda)

Bethesda Games

While more “open world” exploration-based than choice-based, there are still some changes that happen as a result of your decisions!

The Elder Scrolls (most recent being Skyrim)

Fallout (Fallout 4 being most recent but New Vegas widely considered as the best)

Mobile or PC Games:

Orwell

Papers, Please

Always Sometimes Monsters

The Stanley Parable

Sorcery!

On my list:

Cyberpunk 2077

Divinity: Original Sins

Heaven’s Vault

Eliza

The Council

Firewatch

Undertale

I hope that helps give you a start into the medium! Thanks for your question, and please drop in if you end up playing/liking one of these games!

[superblysituated]

Yeah, I get your idea. It is just that I know a lot of people who instantly replayed the whole thing just because they failed to save Kate. And I was like: guys, but the whole point was that you can't rewind... And you kind of ruined it... I just love this kind of games because you can actually fuck everything up (which I do a lot xDD) and then try to deal with the consequences. And I don't get it how people can be not interested in developing their own story and only aim for the "good" ending.

Yeah I know people who have done that too, and I get why you feel like it kind of makes the choices less meaningful. But when I used to read choose-your-own-adventure books, if I died, I’d just go back and read the other endings; I think it’s a natural human tendency to want to know the other possible outcomes of the story and the beautiful thing is, in games or books, you have the ability to find out, as opposed to real life. So I’m kind of like, ‘to each his own,’ cause I see the pros and cons of both. I think ultimately, even if we’re able to ‘manipulate’ the story by replaying it with more information, we’ll have to make a difficult choice at the end of this game. If the developers do their job I feel like there won’t be a ‘perfect’ or ‘best’ ending and we’ll all be living with some amount of regret.