ChoiceBeat has always been about vibes. Sometimes those are chill vibes, like Keep Driving, a game about being young and taking road trip. Sometimes they are weird vibes, like Loom, a game about wizards casting musical spells. And sometimes, they are bad vibes, like when our robotic editor ChoiceBot makes us all go without sleep for a week to meet their arbitrary deadlines. This issue has all three flavors of vibes (every issue does, really).

• Fledgling Realms – An interview with Paul Wang, the prolific ChoiceScript author behind The Hero of Kendrickstone, Sabres of Infinity, Hunter: The Reckoning – A Time of Monsters, Mecha Ace, and more
• Cat President: 3rd-Rate Candidate – Breaking news! Real cats run for president!
• Loom – A magical, musical graphic adventure adventure by the legendary LucasArts
• Kinetic Reportage – Visual Novels as documentaries
• Laugh Track – Create your own horror-world of oppression disguised as a teen sitcom
• Dirk the Dictionary – Can’t get enough gay furry visual novels
• Keep Driving – The source of our vibe-filled cover art this issue
• And more! There is always more!

Read it online
Download the PDF
Get it in print

ChoiceBeat has always been about quality over quantity, but this massive 50-page doorstop is also about quantity. You will never find more of anything in one place.

• Zombie Exodus – An interview with Jim Dattilo, creator of this fan-fav ChoiceScript series
• Blippo+ – Finally, it’s TV on your computer.
• Saint Ceri – Poly romance in an morally ambiguous fantasy world
• Serial Experiments: Lain – Highly experimental game “Psycho-Stretch-Ware” based on the anime
• Videotome – Part two of our epic interview with Videotome creator Freya Campbell
• even if TEMPEST fandiscs – What’s a fandisc? Now you can know too!
• ChoiceScript Top Ten – Three experts rate their ChoiceScript favs
• Partim500 – Celebrating 10 years of the French-language interactive fiction jam
• And more – Broke Signal Badlands, Evertree Saga, The Nameless: Slay Dragon, The Guiding Spirit, Fabled Lands, Kenoma: Action Without Action and at least one other game we’re forgetting.

Read it online

Download the PDF

Get it in print

This is it. The best issue. There won’t be a better one, so if you don’t read this, don’t bother ever reading again. (ChoiceBot: Don’t listen to that. The next issue will be even better.)

• Ladykiller in a Bind – Every issue has to have one game with a content warning that’s a mile long.
• Spellbound: Malachite Coven – Witch dating, ChoiceScript style
• The King of Chicago – 1986 adventure game of crime and more crime
• Hypercard Novellas of John Freemyer – You will not believe this wild and crazy stuff!
• Long Live the Queen – Our most hated writer complains about a beloved classic game. When are we going to fire them?
• Videotome – Including an interview with Freya Campbell, creator of the Videotome engine and ace Domino Clubber
• Wanderlust: The Magnificent Journey – Travel the world with your besties!
• Wanderlust: Travel Stories – Another game about traveling, completely unrelated to the other Wanderlust
• Our Winding Road – Complicated love from the creators of Chronicle of Tal’Dun
• The Test – From our hard-hitting, mean-spirited review, “To describe it charitably, it’s not a very serious attempt at game-making.”
• Gay Furry Visual Novels – We know you want them. Get on in here!

Not to mention: quizzes, reader letters, and other anarchy!

Read it online

Download the PDF

Get it in print

ChoiceBeat recently won the official award for the “MOST POWERFUL VISUAL NOVEL AND INTERACTIVE ZINE.” To celebrate, we’ve got an action-packed issue with plenty of everything that matters…

• Alter Ego – The ORIGINAL life sim from 1986!
• Sometimes You – Publisher of genre-defying narrative (?) games 
• Thunder Perfect Witchcraft – Hard to explain what this is all about. You better get in here and check it out.
• Leas: City of the Sun – Fae politics Choice of Games-style
• Fiction Factory Games – Developer of Arcade Spirits and more
• Bewitching Sinners – Isekai with hot guys
• Sultan’s Game – Be your worst self in this utterly debauched game!
• Tempest in Teapot – Time-travel

Not to mention: quizzes, reader letters, and other anarchy!

Read it online

Download the PDF

Get it in print

ChoiceBeat #13, our unluckiest issue ever, is here!

Read on for news, articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including…

Game Poems by Jordan Magnuson, Hatoful Boyfriend, The Hero Unmasked!, Omen Exitio: Plague, Otogirisou, Reigns Beyond, Town of Nie, Warhammer 40,000 – Legacy of Dorn: Herald of Oblivion, game preservation, a impossibly hard quiz, letters from fascinating people like you, and all the other craziness you’ve come to expect!

Read it online

Download the PDF

ChoiceBeat #12 is for the real fans. Check out four interviews with Choice of Games authors, but don’t stop there. Read about Decker, a highly wacky and highly chicken-filled game development tool. Then test your visual novel and interactive fiction knowledge with our ultimate quiz.

Read on for news, articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including…

Betrayal at Club Low, Decker, The Butterfly Dreams, Fallen Hero, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – The Book of Hungry Names, Pryzm, Learning from the Best of Text, A Heart of Butterblue, Perfect Tense: Maggot Therapy, The Ghost and the Golem, and more, more, more!

Read it online

Download the PDF

ChoiceBeat #11 has it all! Check out a game by Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame, games made by elementary school students from Slovakia, a game for blind people, gamebooks on DVD, at least two games featuring parrots, and a game set in “Godfield, Louisiana” where the “sky bleeds acid and mud boils in the bayou”.

Read on for news, articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including…

Amazon, Attentat 1942, Computerfriend / Familiar, Deep Dark Wood, Gamebooks on DVD, The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels, One Night: Burlesque, Real Sound: Echoing Sky, A Red Sky at Dawn, Saint Maker, Suzerain, To the City in the Clouds, Ukraine War Stories, and lots more!

Read it online

Download the PDF

ChoiceBeat #10 sends you beyond the pale with a preternatural plethora of visual novel and interactive fiction content. Check out news, articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including…

Bahnsen Knights, Fabled Lands, Fighting Fantasy Classics, Hollywood Visionary, Lies Under Ice, Lone Wolf Saga, Mothmen 1966, Night Cascades, PARANORMASIGHT, Portal: A Computer Novel, Return to Shironagasu Island, Seers Isle, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery!, Tokyo Onmyoji, Varney Lake, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and Alice Cooper (?!)

Read It Online

Download the PDF

ChoiceBeat #9 sucks you into a whirlwind of visual novel and interactive fiction content. Check out news, articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including…

Domino Club, Escape from Norwood, Fishing Vacation, Gnosia, I, the Forgotten One, Last Chance in Xollywood, Raging Loop, The Shapeshifting Detective, books turned into games, fake games, and assorted mayhem!

Read It Online

Download the PDF

ChoiceBeat #8 breaks boundaries in eclecticism with a incomparable variety of visual novel and interactive fiction content. Check out news, articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including…

Apex Patrol, Asteroid Run: No Questions Asked, Breathless Winds, The Case of the Golden Idol, Collar X Malice, Insert-Rich-Family-Name, Five Dates, Monster Prom 3, Oulipo, The Stillness of the Wind, Veil of Dust, queer games, game demos, and lots more!

Read It Online

Download the PDF