I’m the spokesperson for ChoiceBeat: The Visual Novel and Interactive Fiction Zine. The newest issue (#6) of the zine just came out, and I wanted to share it here. It’s got 45 pages of news, articles, reviews, interviews, and everything else related to visual novels and interactive fiction.
The ChoiceBeat staff works REALLY hard on this zine, so please share it around with whomever you think might like it.
Also, we are always looking for contributions, news tips, and feedback. Let me know if there is something cool and noteworthy in the world of Interactive Fiction we should be talking about.
Whoa, cool to see an interview with Chani included. I’ve seen their work all over the visual novel space. Interesting to see them experiment outside of their usual genre and dip into otome. Really neat zine!
I recognize Hanako games; the founder entered IFComp a few times and really had some unusual games, like a medieval-arabic lesbian erotica choice game back in 2000 before choice was even a big thing, and some kind of RPG maker game. I also liked Triune, which was a pretty straightforward parser game mechanics wise but really creative with story and characters. Fun to see how big they are now in the VN world.
I also follow her on twitter, where she mostly talks about why different games submitted to her yuri steam curation page are ‘not yuri’.
Honestly, one of the most innovative IFComp authors ever, I think. Ahead of her time. I don’t like reading erotica, as I don’t associate it with enjoyment and happiness, but the setting, gender choices and CYOA format in the one game and the open world in the other were really cool.
Thanks for asking! Please support it by spreading the word. If you have social media accounts, post about it. If you are on any other relevant forums, share it there. Discord servers? You know what to do.
I didn’t know anything about Chani before KuroKairin submitted the interview for the zine. Since then, I’m starting to notice all these Chani fans coming out of the woodwork. =)
I’m reading the new ChoiceBeat now. It’s so much fun, as usual! I always discover new games. Very excited to try out the long lost Sacred Pools. Vintage FMVs are an obsession of mine.
Your rallying cry editorial makes a great point. I’d love to see all the disparate audiences within “story-rich” games unite. To that end, would you ever consider starting a ChoiceBeat Discord?
A ChoiceBeat Discord could be cool, but I suspect there wouldn’t be enough regular users for a really active community. The ChoiceBeat audience just isn’t that big… yet! Plus there are a lot of other communities people interested in VNIF could join (intfiction.org or the VN DevTalk Discord for instance).
I follow your line of thinking. There isn’t really a place for the disparate visual novel and interactive fiction communities to unite (communities tend to focus on one or the other instead taking a holistic view of the medium). This forum is a great starting place though. There isn’t a lot of discussion about visual novels specifically, but there is a Ren’Py subforum. It’s a start!
Edit: There actually isn’t a Ren’Py subforum. I was misremembering the “Choice-based IF” forum in the “Authoring” section. My bad! =/
I hear you. It’s no small thing to start and run Discord community, and when you do pull the trigger, you want to make sure it’s super active.
I finished the issue BTW. Loved reading about all the contributors’ first experiences with IF. Mine was playing Transylvania for the Apple II as a little kid. I barely understood what I was doing, but it made a memorable impression.
Looking forward to more ChoiceBeat. Keep up the great work!
[quote=“Geoffrey Golden, post:13, topic:59412, username:AdventureSnack”]
Transylvania for the Apple II[/quote]
Transylvania looks awesome! “There is a fat little goblin twirling a tiny gleaming key.” The terse writing and those big, cartoonish graphics are pretty evocative.