Topic by Dark 2018-01-28 04:32:35

  • Dark
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Another new interactive title from choiceofgames now available for Ios, Android, directly from the website over on www.choiceofgames.com or on Steam for those who want to cope with the accessibility complications of that platform.

I confess I'm less sure about this one. For one thing spy fiction is something I've only had a miner interest in, partly because the subject matter is so often jingoistic, and reading about how the glorious united states, ---- or very occasionally united kingdom is in danger from those evil Ruskies, or chinese, or Libians, or Islamic terrorists or whatever the current political Bogyman happens to be can often be rather depressing.

More than that, the genre is often cliche ridden, and full of very shallow characters and predictable hero invincibility or the like, not to mention  being a platform for the writer's views on the goodness of the capitalist system or the traditional nature of Gender.

of course that doesn't describe all! spy fiction, but suffice it to say for me to pick a spy novel up these days  need a very solid recommendation from someone I trusted.

Getting back to matters at hand though, This one I don't know about, since apparently it does! have evil terrorists as the bad guys, also unusually it sounds like you can't choose your gender and must be female (or potentially gay since it mentions a romance with someone's son).

Anyway, if anyone tries this one thougths would be appreciated, though there are other Cog/hg titles which are higher on my priority list (like the full Samurai Huga trilogy for a start).

Anyhow, enough of my rambles, here is the info direct from Choiceofgames:

We’re proud to announce that Undercover Agent, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, iOS, and Android. It’s 25% off until February 1st!
Think fast and lie faster! When you go undercover to retrieve a deadly new bio-weapon, can you pull off the mission and escape with your life?
Undercover Agent is an interactive novel by Naomi Laeuchli. It’s entirely text-based–135,000 words, without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
You are the top operative at the DTU (Domestic Terrorist Unit), a covert agency that specializes in investigating terrorist groups on US soil. As Silas Bishop’s administrative assistant, you are in a prime position to spy on his business and search for the deadly weapon his scientists have engineered. But word has leaked there’s a mole, and you’re running out of time.
Can you depend on your computer hacking skills to get you out of a tight spot or will you count on your brawn? Would you rather sneak where you shouldn’t be found or bluff your way in with pure charisma and charm? And what about those friends you’ve made while undercover? Can they be trusted, or would you rather just use them? Cover your tracks, delay the mole hunt, and plot your escape.
• Rescue your best friend or leave him to his fate
• Avoid detection or kill those who suspect you
• Find love with your handler or even your enemy’s son
• Frame your coworkers or protect them
• Plant bugs, hack computers, crawl through vents, and use your charms
• Bribe, torture, or threaten information from targets
• Go on the run or earn a promotion
• Expose the mole in your own agency or join forces
• Retrieve the weapon, destroy it, or sell it
We hope you enjoy playing Undercover Agent. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

P.S. Our Choice of Games Contest for Interactive Novels is going strong! We're offering $10,000 in prizes for interactive novels written in ChoiceScript. The First Place winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize, the Second Place winner will receive $3,000, and the Third Place winner will receive $2,000. In addition, all three winners will receive a publication contract with Choice of Games, including 25% royalties on the sales of the published game. Entries must be submitted by January 31, 2018. Official rules are also available.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

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Reply by CrystalD 2018-01-28 04:45:37

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Yee I'm not really into spy games or stories either for the same reasons, but I'd love to hear about other interactive fiction you've played and liked cuz I'm really itching to get back into the genre because I'm working on making some/visual novels (I consider them both in the same vain honestly) and want to play as many accessible titles as I can!

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Reply by Dark 2018-01-28 06:47:30

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Well Christal D, the choiceofgames and hosted games titles are a good place to start. They aren't interactive fiction in the traditional sense with a parser and need to type commands, they are rather gamebooks where you choose your action by using standard html links.

The clever thing though is that in each game you have stats which define your character. not rpg like stats such as strength intelligence etc, but stats which define the way your character behaves and  alter throughout the story..

For example in Fatehaven, one of imho the best titles I've played, there are stats for honesty vs duplicity. 

if your very honest and don't lie very much your honesty will increase and your duplicity decrease and visa versa, however if your a very honest person and try telling a lie or concealing the truth, or even just evading in conversation your not likely to get on very well, while if your a very duplicitous character you might have a hard time convincing others your telling the truth when you in fact are.

thus getting through the games involves playing consistantly.

You also have stats for different paths, for example in the naval warfare game choice of broadsides you have stats for loyalty/independence, ie, how much your loyal to king and country, and how much your out for yourself, so if you want to end the game as lord high admiral you probably won't do well if your independence stat is very high, on the other hand if you want to end by emulating Henry Morgan the pirate you won't do well raising your loyalty too far.

The games are published under two banners if you like Choiceofgames titles which are officially approved by choiceofgames, and hosted games titles which are not. There are awesome games I've played in both categories, so it's worth checking both out.

a long discussion of lots of the games you can check out This topic

Actually now my Iphone is back in working order I would like to get back to trying these out for myself as there are plenty I haven't played yet.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

Dark's Website

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Reply by bookrage 2018-01-28 18:54:08 (edited by bookrage 2018-01-28 18:57:19)

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Dark,

I think in the case of Undercover it is more of an evil company within your culture not some foreign threat.

Also, Your handler might be female, so there is no reason to think you have to be  female or male in the game specifically, in most cases I've seen, especially over the past year, male, female, nonbianary, and all types of sexual orientation seem to be a mandatory thing in the Choiceofgames series.

Also, I think you are confusing choice of broadsides and some other title I haven't played. There is no loyalty stat, you have things like tact, bloodthirst, sailing, fighting, gunnery, and the like, but that game has no rocker stats that increase and decrease another to always equal 100%, and there is no option for any kind of betrayal of Albien in that game, though you can be a total ass to your crew when you get your ship about halfway through or take a great delight in slaughtering the enemy. There is also no independence stat in the game, that sounds more like some of the stuff in Sea Eternal, which is a mermaid/merman fiction game that is the only choiceofgames title I've found that I hate.

I am currently playing through Choice of Broadsides right now and have played it several times before, right now going for a really bloodthirsty social gorilla who knows his sailing stuff and is a great fighter but who is a terrible leader and a social walking disaster. I play one chapter of a choiceofgames title or one from a earplay thing per day, getting a new title in some area every month or so.

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Reply by Dark 2018-01-29 09:42:11

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@bookrrage, I did think there was! an independence or patriotism rocker stat in choice of broadsides, but I admit I could be wrong, or indeed the game might have changed, it is a very long time since I played it.
I might also be confusing it with mecha ace which   definitely did! have a patriotism rocker.

In the case of undercover agent though the reason I think gender is more set than in most Cog titles, is that it mentions in the above description

"find love with your handler or even your enemy's son"

Not your enemy's child, or your enemy's son/daughter, it mentions "son" specifically, it also doesn't have the usual wording in the description that your character can be of any gender or orientation which is usually an indication that  gender of the protagonist is locked in some way.

not that I mind, not all games need you to play a blank slate, you can play a preconceived character, indeed  I can think of a couple of cases where it is pretty clear the author had one gender/orientation in mind and shoe horning you into the wrong one was a bit strange, such as in zombie exodus where you have more options for relationships with women and where people tend to react to  far more as though your character were a man than a woman, or in creatures such as we  where your given a choice   amount and style of makeup you want to put on.

I was more bothered in this case by the hole "evil terrorist!" ethoss, so it'd be nice if it was a semi futuristic setting or a fictional evil crime syndicate or something else that didn't smack of political bias or scare mongering (I've still not managed to bring myself to play Silent gear for that reason).

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

Dark's Website

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Reply by bookrage 2018-01-29 14:06:43

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your point is well taken. All I can say to not having your gender preset is to refer you to "Welcome to Moreautown." In that game, no matter what gender and sexual orientation you pick, the genders of the NPCs you can have relationships with don't change. Chris Westbrook is always romancible if you want and she's always female, just as David (can't remember last name but he's a cheetah person.) is also always romancible and is always male, no matter what sexual orientation and gender you pick for yourself, it just strikes your own character as odd if you lean into something different than what you said at the start of the game if you go a different route.

Some Choiceofgames have set characters and have relationships for different characters more likely depending on what you pick such as "Welcome to Morautown," While others change the character gender of romancible Characters depending on what you like, such as in "diabolical."

I'll probably get to "Undercover Agent" and maybe it isn't what you're worried about, or maybe it most definitely is.  all I know is the main badguy you are undercover in is an evil corporation.

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