#choices analyses

[vivalgi]

What in the AI f*ckery is PB up to again? There is 0 doubt the cover "art" for TDG was largely done with the help of AI tools.

Let's start with Farah. There's a lot of similarities in the hair between the in-game sprite and the cover "art" portrait, so PB probably fed both images and text prompts to the generator. What gives away that it's AI generated though is that part of the hair on the right side is randomly swept back.

Upon initial look Dante looks pretty genuine, a suave Latin-American actor, if not for the t-shirt changing to dress shirt. But if you zoom into the hair, it's definitely an AI generated smudgy mess.

This young nerdy girl with deer-in-the-headlights look and piggy nose is supposed to be our deadpan doctor.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this actress in an early 2000s black comedy movie. The hair color is totally wrong as well.

People have complained for a long time that Choices (East) Asian characters don't look very ...Asian. Probably that's why this generic young K-pop starlet looks nothing like Astoria the influencer lady in TDG.

The "artist" inserting the prompts should have clarified to AI that the COO has no gray hair or goatee. The pattern on his jacket doesn't even match his roleplay costume.

PB just generated a random black guy and copy-pasted the toupée on his head, which is probably one of the only two non-AI generated objects in the cover "art".

She is literally Sarah Hyland!

Again, like with the influencer above, the AI isn't aware that generally Asian men in Choices look big and bulky, along with other western beauty ideals.

Please stop this bullsh*t, @playchoices! AI generated images are not art, it's blatant theft. In order to train their AI tools, companies steal billions of artwork made by hardworking and underpaid artists. I'm certain you wouldn't be happy either if someone used your stories and artwork without your consent for training their AI to then profit from it.

sprites: 1; 2

cover image

[vivalgi]

I took a closer look at The deadliest Gambit cover image as well and I'm pretty certain the man is also AI generated:

missing right nostril:

2. Weird looking earlobe:

3. Jacket's right sleeve buttons melting together and swirling into each other:

4. Jacket's left sleeve only has 2 buttons:

5. The shirt only has one button:

[vivalgi]

Pixelberry acquisition hints at AI-driven future for interactive fiction - Upptic

The recent Pixelberry acquisition by Series Entertainment looks to be a strategic fit that could change the game for interactive fiction.

I found a short article with an additional 10-min video podcast on the recent PB acquisition by Series AI Entertainment. It discusses a little about what led to it and what could be the implications of AI driven content creation. One of the guys in the video is an industry insider who has deeper knowledge about PB. In the video they also provide some recent revenue and download estimates from Sensor Tower, which is otherwise paid content. One thing that caught my attention was that near the end of 2023 downloads suddenly spiked and then plummeted. If you ask me then it coincides with Blades 2 reaching the end of its weekly releases. It was the book that people had been eagerly waiting for 3 years and also the most successful book of 2023, according to its lead writer. Kinda looks like many people said their final goodbyes to Choices with that book. Many of you did promise to wait for Blades 2 to come out before uninstalling the game due to the declining quality of content in recent times. Overall, if you look at the past 12 months then according to Sensor Tower the revenue has slowly decreased around 30% while downloads have dropped nearly 90%!

The guys in the video told it's mostly the long time players still helping to pay the bills. This is why I find it strange that PB has been trying to attract new players from Chapters with cheap controversial sm*t, instead of focusing on its core player base and what made the game so popular in the first place. It's so easy to lose valuable customers but near impossible to get them back later.

All in all, no matter what we think about the morality of using AI in creative works, the fact is that PB's new sugar daddy is its final straw. If that doesn't work out then it's game over. Only hope is that PB will make Choices available on Steam should the worst case scenario happen.

[vivalgi]

FUN FACT: Tyson is the first canonically white male LI since Hugh Crawford (TUH) i.e. basically ever since PB published its representation post (June 15, 2020) during the George Floyd protests, promising to do better.

Before that pivotal moment almost a third of all male LIs used to be white. Since then most LIs have been customizable (about 2/3).

I even happen to have a little table chart to illustrate the situation (Mind you, some of the data is very subjective, like which LIs were included and how I've categorized them):

Here's another table, which shows how customizable LIs have changed since then:

Basically, the little bit better representation of other ethnicities and/or cultures besides the "main 4" has later come mostly at the expense of Hispanic/Latino and Asian sprites.

[vivalgi]

Regarding the new breed of MCs since Unbridled, the reason for their low artistic quality could be that they're based on character sprites originally made for Storyloom. Its creator tools provide similar body types for "realistic" MCs and the same choice of ashy skin tones. PB probably thought they could cut a few corners by recycling Storyloom content but the quality standards for art in that app are much lower than they are (or at least used to be) for Choices.

I have already tried my hand on some edits to see how these new bodies could be improved. I used this helpful app called Magic Poser which allows you to pose 3D figures to use as a base for your art projects. Meet Elle and Arnold, two figures from the app who helped me to get correct proportions:

First the female body type. One of the main problems to notice is that it has too short arms, especially from elbows below. The hands are also on the smaller side and the shoulders are too narrow. Moreover, the body is angled more sideways at the shoulders and then bends towards the viewer at the hips.

The male body type is actually pretty decent in terms of proportions. It does, however, suffer from weird looking pecs and abs like many other male bodies in Choices. The pecs have a pencil sharp contour, making them look rather saggy, and there seems to be a lump beneath the abs.

[vivalgi]

I'm one of those weirdos who has a Choices Excel sheet with a crap ton of different data. I thought since 2023 has just ended it'd be a nice time to start a series where I share some of them with you.

For my 1st post I have made two charts that show what selection of love interests the books have been offering based on their genders. There's more variation than the charts show but I tried to keep everything reasonably simple. I've only included the main stories and not the special shorts. I've also left out The Promise of Forever that most of us don't have in the app.

Regarding books with multiple playable characters, for The Crown & the Flame I only counted choices for Kenna and for other books (Rules of Engagement, Across the Void etc.) I only counted LIs of the customizable main character. It was easier with Most Wanted since it didn't have any romance anyway.

The first chart shows the selection of LIs throughout the whole series. For example, the entire Freshman series has 3 male and 2 female LIs, so it's among the green colored series first released in 2016.

The chart below depicts the selection of LIs in each individual book. Some book series introduce new or existing characters that you can romance only in sequels, which is one of the reasons why I made this chart as well. For example, In the first two Freshman books we only have 2 male and 1 female LI, so they're in yellow. Book 3 introduces Zig and in addition we can start pursuing Becca, therefore the rest of the books are in the green category.

Many consider 2018 as the golden year of Choices and in my opinion these charts once again illustrate it well. We got so many books where we have a selection of both multiple male and female LIs for every taste. Granted some of the female LIs were quite heavily sidelined, but that didn't stop me from romancing them and enjoying the stories.

A clearly visible trend is the quickly growing number of books that have only one LI with customizable gender. Starting with the early access release of With Every Heartbeat in late 2019, the single LI books have practically taken over the app by now. A lot of us have expressed dissatisfaction about it but PB doesn't seem to be slowing down with such books.

EDIT: Some percentages as well. In 38% of series and 42% of individual books you have a choice of multiple female LIs, both gender locked and customizable. The numbers for multiple male LIs are 63% and 72% accordingly. 29% of series and 22% of books have only one GOC LI. So far.

Let me know if you have any questions as I'm not 100% sure if I made everything clear.

[vivalgi]

Hearts on Fire has become the book with the smallest number of days between VIP early access and wide release:

The average of the current early access system is around 54 days (without counting any delays like COP).

[vivalgi]

Better late than never, this month's Choices Insiders is finally here! Here's even a chart I made last month to confirm the e-mails are gradually being sent out at later times:

PB won't stop finding ways to make every relationship seem forbidden. I might look into the story, depending on what the circumstances for breaking up were ...oh wait it's gender locked. Never mind then 🥱

Unlike the leaked cover, it seems that the in-game CGs may not be AI generated at least. She looks like she's about to sneeze or fall asleep though😁

Top FAQ once again didn't give me any new info I'd be interested in nor answered any of the questions I sent.

The new LGBT focused book All of Us that the CEO mentioned in her recent blog post will be released already in August for VIPs. I usually do MLW routes when given a chance but depending on the VIP beta testers' 😛 impressions I might do differently for this book.

New info on Hearts on Fire as well. I'm not familiar with the expression "hero to repay" so that part is confusing but otherwise the story sounds exciting. There's no clear mention of the LI(s) either, only the chief and fellow firefighters. I've already seen the cover image, which depicts a man in firefighter outfit and a woman in some other, probably office uniform. Maybe the former is our MC and the latter is the chief that was mentioned? Although the guy also has a tattoo on his arm which is usually one too many details for MCs to have. Kind of a wishful thinking but I hope it's like TPA, with a more male coded MC for a change again.