Two New Games! "Choice of the Petal Throne" and "The Shadow Horror"
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From: Choice of Games
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2015 5:06 PM
Subject: Two New Games! "Choice of the Petal Throne" and "The Shadow Horror"
Download "Choice of the Petal Throne" and "The Shadow Horror"
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Today, Choice of Games is proud to announce two new
games. First, Choice of the Petal Throne, the latest in our popular “Choice of
Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available on
Steam, iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire.
Second, we’re announcing that The Shadow Horror is now
available under our “Hosted Games” program for iOS, Android, and the Chrome Web
Store.
Rise to glory on the battlefields of Tékumel™ in
“Choice of the Petal Throne”
In the Empire of the Petal Throne™, will you find
glory, or a knife in your back?
Choice of the Petal Throne is a 124,000-word
interactive fantasy novel by Danielle Goudeau, where your choices control the
story. It’s entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by
the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
M.A.R. Barker’s world of Tékumel™ is a fantasy universe
like no other, where South American, Middle Eastern, and Indian cultures
collide. The princes and princesses of the Tsolyáni empire vie for their
father’s mystical Petal Throne, tearing the nation apart with civil war and
political intrigues.
As a captain in one of their armies, will you play as
male or female, gay straight or bi? A brave and forthright soldier, a
hedonistic intriguer with a heart of gold, or scheming double agent?
(Tékumel™ and Empire of the Petal Throne™ are
trademarks of M.A.R. Barker and are used with permission of the Tékumel
Foundation. For additional information, please visit
http://www.tekumelfoundation.org.)
Why Tékumel?
Author Danielle Goudeau explains,
Tékumel is an amazing setting that encapsulates both
the history and the future of table-top gaming. Published in 1975, it blends
sword and sorcery, dungeon crawls, war gaming, and meticulous detail with a
non-Eurocentric setting, alternative sexuality, and a role for women that
manages to be empowering while not blithely ignoring historical reality.
Because of this, it lies at the intersection of both the Old School Renaissance
movement, and the call for more diversity in gaming.
There is so much to love here. The human society,
drawn from India and South America, eschews the standard rugged-individualism
of most adventuring parties for a world in which every PC is caught in a web of
obligations between their family, their clan, their temple, and their career.
The morality springs from an honest exploration of what it would be like for
humans to live in a world where incomprehensible omnipotent gods interfered in
daily life. The alien races are truly alien, not just humans with some features
changed.
What I love most, though, is that this game, the
first published RPG setting, has so much of what I see people calling for in
modern games. Not just that the PCs all have black hair and brown skin and
don’t live in Ye Olde Europe. Homosexuality and bisexuality are discussed
openly in the books and accepted within the cultures, as is polyamory. The role
of women, is in my opinion, portrayed brilliantly, with women pressured into
traditional family roles, but legally allowed to declare themselves the equals
of men. This lets me play the female general, governor, or bad-ass
scholar-priestess, while showcasing the more rigid gender roles in historical
societies.
For all these reasons, and because any game with a
table discussing regional variations in architecture is just awesome, take time
this year, on the 40th anniversary of its publication to play some Tékumel.
Find a game at your local convention, or buy a source-book and run a session
for your friends. Play it using Béthorm or Empire of the Petal Throne or your
rules-light system of choice. See where our roots are as a hobby and think
about where we’re going.
We need your support to continue delivering our games
on Steam. Our goal is to release our entire catalog of interactive novels on
Steam. Based on the extraordinary performance of Choice of Robots and The Hero
of Kendrickstone, both which made it onto Steam’s front page this year, Valve
has allowed us to ship a handful of additional games. We’ll need to continue to
deliver outstanding results to prove that interactive fiction can be successful
on Steam.
We’re asking all of our fans to follow us on Steam.
Even if you don’t use Steam that much, it will be a big help if you sign up to
follow us there, because the more followers we get, the better visibility we
get on Steam’s curator list. (Our goal is to hit 3,000 followers for our Steam
curation page; we’re about 40% the way there as I write this!)
When you follow us, you’ll see our games and our
recommended games right on your Steam home page. It’s free, and it’s a big help
to us, so follow us today!
Beware “The Shadow Horror”
Stranded by a breakdown, you explore a nearby
abandonded house only to find that you are not alone. A creature not of this
world lairs within the walls. As the sun goes down, so do your odds against the
Shadow Horror.
The Shadow Horror is a 533,000-word interactive horror
novel by Allen Gies, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely
text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast,
unstoppable power of your imagination. Allen Gies is the author of Marine
Raider, Apex Patrol, and Tin Star, the biggest interactive novel ever made.
We hope you enjoy playing Choice of the Petal Throne
and The Shadow Horror. We encourage you to tell your friends about these games,
and recommend our games 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.
follow on Steam | follow on Twitter | friend on
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Copyright © 2015 Choice of Games LLC, All rights
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