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ChoiceBeat is (almost definitely) the world's only zine dedicated to visual novels, interactive fiction, and other forms of choice-heavy, text-heavy, digital games. This eclectic issue features 40+ pages of articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including:

  • Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo
  • Books for Visual Novel and Interactive Fiction Creators
  • Chronicles of Tal'Dun: The Remainder
  • Dream Life
  • Hanako Games
  • The Midnight Saga: The Monster
  • Mirrors
  • Nursery School Diaries
  • The Pretender's Guild
  • Rebellion at the Billionaire Bunker
  • Roadwarden
  • The Seven Living Sins
  • Speed Dating for Ghosts
  • Spirit Hunter: Death Mark
  • Tomato Clinic
  • ValiDate: Volume 1
  • And much more!
StatusReleased
CategoryBook
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(9 total ratings)
AuthorWilly Elektrix
GenreInteractive Fiction, Visual Novel
Tagsartgame, Meaningful Choices, Narrative, zine

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ChoiceBeat - Issue 6 (PDF) 10 MB

Comments

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This was a cool zine, I am very new to visual novels, and found a few games I want to check out.  My fav bits were KuroKairins Paper Ghost Story bit; insightful as I am not from that place and culture and the flow chart-game-index by Chest Butlerhome; what a delightful way to present the information. Thanks to everyone for sharing their work!

Excellent work! I am really enjoying this zine!

Hello there, enjoying the zine! Especially the range and the tendency to dig up really obscure stuff.
One suggestion: Would it be possible to have a short marker for some basics in the info box of each review? E.g. is it VN, KN, IF, FMV? And maybe the genre? I had a few moments where I am halfway into reading a review when I realize the game in question is just not for me, usually based on genre.

Thanks for reading! That's a pretty good idea! I'll run it by ChoiceBot (the editor).

I was today years old when I learned about a lot of cool games from ChoiceBeat #6.

Hell yeah, new Choice Beat.

 "I suspect a lot of our readers are developers." Called out! But it makes sense the people who put a lot of time into making something would be a big fan of that particular thing. 

Also just a note on the Bad Ends article since I found it interesting, I've always been surprised to see people take bad ends as a punishment in branching narratives! A lot of horror branching narratives have a sort of "collect-em-all" approach. Sometimes with a page somewhere in the game where you could look and make sure you've seen everything there is to see. But maybe I'm just in the minority here as a Bad End Enjoyer.

Thanks for reading!

I agree with your sentiments! I think, in general, the worlds of VN and IF are full of as many devs as players. There is something about the medium that is really approachable, so people who play visual novels tend to think, "I could do this..." That's what I like about it!