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These are the following games found under Choice of Games' main label.


Games with their own pages:

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    Avatar of the Wolf 
Written by Bendi Barrett.
  • Blood Knight: The Wolf God encourages bloodlust in his Avatar and followers, who can go so far as to be a bloodthirsty cannibal.
  • Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: The protagonist can seduce the Spider Goddess.
  • Godhood Seeker: The protagonist can seek to usurp the power of the Wolf God, their patron deity.
  • Grand Theft Me: At the end of the game, should the protagonist avenge the Wolf God he will tell them of a way he can be resurrected: by devouring their soul and taking over their body. Depending on the protagonist's stats, the Wolf God can devour them, or they can devour him.
  • Kill the God: The protagonist seeks to avenge their patron, the late Wolf God, who was killed by the other gods for his insatiable bloodlust. Should they choose to seek revenge, the protagonist will end up killing the other gods — or at least trying to.

    Broadway 1849 
Written by Robert Davis.
  • And the Adventure Continues: The game covers only the first year of the protagonist's presumably long and illustrious career. The climax is even in the second-to-last chapter, leaving the last one devoted more to determining exactly how the adventure continues.
  • The Artful Dodger: Nell Niblo is a female version, albeit one is mistaken for a male at first by the protagonist. Instead of a criminal, she's a cheeky newsgirl the player can befriend by protecting from the authorities and get extra information from, and who eventually dabbles in actual journalism.
  • Bad Boss: Hamblin to Miller. He tries to pressure them into renewing their apparently very demanding contract with him against their will by threatening to withhold pay otherwise, uses them to spy on the protagonist, and forbids them from attending social events due to his own distaste for them.
  • Benevolent Boss: The protagonist, at least if they want a high Cast Loyalty.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Hamblin and Buntline take turns inconveniencing the protagonist, with Hamblin being more prominent for most of the game before Buntline takes the spotlight in the climax. The protagonist even has their final confrontation with the two right after each other. However, the player can choose to make friendly with them and even call in Buntline for assistance against Hamblin.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Whomever the player picked to come with them arrives with reinforcements just in time to save the protagonist from Buntline in Chapter 9.
  • Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Miller's mother is not happy with her child's decision to get into acting, to the point of hiring thugs to physically drag them away from the protagonist's theatre so they can get a more respectable job in business.
  • Foreshadowing: Buntline mentions early on that he has "explosive" plans for the city. Explosive as in a bomb.
  • Historical Domain Character: This game contains many, some of them even main characters.
    • The protagonist's chief rival is Thomas Hamblin of the Bowery Theatre, with Louisa Medina as his wife and writer.
    • One of the possible Love Interests is Louisa Missouri Miller (or, if the player so chooses, Nathaniel Miller) who, just as in real life, works for Hamblin at the start of the game. Their mother Adeline Miller also appears.
    • The player can choose to oppose or team up with Ned Buntline and his ally Captain Rynders. Sadie the Goat, Butcher Bill, Battle Annie, and Hell-Cat Maggie make appearances as acquaintances of his. The climax of the game is the Astor Place Riot, which Buntline helped instigate in real life as well.
    • William Macready and Edwin Forrest with their famous feud play a large part in the later chapters.
    • Caleb Smith Woodhull, the mayor at the time, is a possible ally for the protagonist.
    • Alice and Phoebe Cary are reoccurring characters.
    • Over the course of the game, the protagonist has brief encounters with several famous writers.
      • They can have a drink with Washington Irving in the first chapter.
      • Irving argues with James Lowell about the merits of fine art vs. wider public appeal.
      • They watch a concerto with Herman Melville and can later play his short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" at their theatre.
    • Anna Mowatt, Charles Kean, Charlotte Cushman, Ira Aldridge, and Matilda Heron are all actors the protagonist can hire, and Josephine Clifton and Charles Mestayer are members of their company.
    • One of the protagonist's actors in the beginning is one Junius Brutus Booth, and at one point there's an offhand mention of his sons Edwin and John Wilkes.
    • The protagonist is interviewed by Horace Greeley.
    • Laura Keene has a minor role, though as manager of the Astor Place Opera House rather than Laura Keene's Varieties.
    • The protagonist has a short conversation with future president Abraham Lincoln.
  • Historical Villain Upgrade:
    • While Thomas Hamblin was violent and womanising in real life, in this game he also sets the fire that historically burned down the Park Theatre.
    • While Ned Buntline did help instigate the Astor Place Riot in real life, in this game he's more directly involved and tries to blow up the opera house, and William Macready with it, with a bomb.
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Abby Meade is a friendly prostitute with extensive knowledge about the theatre that the protagonist can befriend.
  • The Mole: Hamblin assigns Miller to spy for him on the protagonist, though with a successful skill check they'll spill the beans almost right away.
  • Opposites Attract: The player can choose this as the reason the protagonist is attracted to Miller; the option even name-drops the trope.
  • Parasol of Pain: Abby uses a parasol to fend off rowdies during the riot in Chapter 5.
  • Plucky Girl: Nell, a street urchin the protagonist can befriend.
  • Stalker with a Crush: One scene tasks the protagonist with chasing away a Dogged Nice Guy flavour of this, who insists on visiting one of the actresses and giving her flowers despite her making it clear that she's not interested.
  • Terms of Endangerment: Buntline calls Macready "my dear man" and a male protagonist "my darling sir" when planning to kill them in the climax.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Mrs. Miller never appears nor is even mentioned again after her first attempt at "encouraging" her child away from the theatre business, even though nothing causes her to change her mind and the game mentions that she slips away scot free while everyone else is distracted.

    Champion of the Gods 
Written by Jonathan Valuckas. Comprises of Champion of the Gods and Exile of the Gods.
  • Action Girl: Many, if you play as female. The Lieutenant will also be one if you state you're attracted to women.
  • And Man Grew Proud: The First Age of Argossa, where the original humans wielded more power than modern men, and became horrifying lawless monsters in rebellion against their creators while oppressing their fellow men. Their defeat and destruction resulted in the modern age. The story is mostly-true, but not completely. To restrain the excesses of the First Age, the gods created the Weavers, and destiny, which simply alters events to prevent humans from noticing and learning how to harness the awesome power of the natural world to become like the corrupt beings of the First Age, and ensuring only those champions they desire will wield such power.
  • The Atoner: If you got exiled from Argossa, in Exile you can express a desire to redeem yourself.
  • Because Destiny Says So: In Argossa, destiny is quite real, as people's destinies are controlled by the Weavers. Your character can agree with this state of affairs if you have a high Faithful stat, and there is an argument to be made that in the First Age, before destiny, people like you ran amok, only contained when destiny began to tie them down.
  • Become Their Own Antithesis: You can become this between the first and second games, since the twenty year Time Skip resets your personality traits. If you were loyal to the gods in the first game and followed the plan they had for you, you can now playa character who resents the fate they were given and can end up destroying destiny despite protecting it in the first game. If you were exiled, you can play a character who deeply regrets their actions and wishes to redeem themselves to the gods.
  • Beware the Superman: The vestiges of the First Age you encounter are all incredibly deadly and morally-warped beings who have long since lost their humanity to their lust for power and immortal life.
  • Brutal Honesty: Your character can be this if you have a high Brutal stat and a high Integrity stat. However, if you're playing a character who despises the gods and destiny, this isn't a good trait to have: if you openly tell the gods your real feelings too much, then near the end they'll use a control-device around your head to force you to kill their enemy, even if you wish to help their enemy destroy destiny.
  • The Chosen One: You play as a child that was chosen by the gods to fulfill a great destiny though you can choose either to follow their wishes or to rebel against them.
  • Call to Adventure: The first sign of your player character's future greatness is when your village is attacked by a boar, and your character is able to defeat the boar by either great strength, great speed, or great endurance.
  • The Chief's Daughter: An inverted example of the usual connotations of this trope, as rather than the child of the chief being a romance option for the protagonist, you're playing as the chief's son or daughter yourself, as your father is the Archon of your village.
  • Competitive Balance: During the tutorial fight against the boar that attacks your village, you will be asked to choose your character's greatest trait, either in strength, speed, or endurance. Later, you will be asked to choose something you're also slightly good at, which will lead to your remaining stat being your weakest. Your demigod lieutenant will specialize in whichever stat you yourself are weakest at.
  • Divine Parentage: Demigods exist, but they're actually weaker than "champions" like the Player Character, and suffer because they're Immune to Fate, and need to find a great destiny to tie themselves to in order to ever do anything of note. The player's trainer and faithful sidekick is one.
  • Dying Curse: The second major Vestige of the First Age does this after the player destroys him, summoning a terrible plague over the player's adoptive city and kicking off the hunt for the final one.
  • The Evils of Free Will: One of the themes of the game is whether free will is worth the risks that come with it. The gods created destiny to keep humanity in check, because they feared they would destroy themselves and the world if allowed free will, while Daggoras believes that everybody should have the ability to control their fate.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The story takes place in Argossa, a fantasy counterpart of ancient Greece. The gods and goddesses of the setting are also based on the Greek gods and goddesses, though here they have different names and, in many cases, genders.
  • Farm Boy: Chara/Chiron, the shepherd's daughter/son, whose name and gender are determined by the gender your character is interested in. They are the first person you can pursue a relationship with, although when your character is informed of your great destiny, you have to leave them with full knowledge that leaving them will mean the end of the relationship unless you are adamant and insistent enough about not following the gods' will, in which case you can take Chara/Chiron with you on your journey. But doing so will end in him/her being put in terrible peril by your possessed father, and the fallout will ensure they don't accompany you.
  • Fragile Speedster: If your greatest skill is speed, and your weakest is endurance.
  • Glass Cannon: If your greatest skill is strength, and your weakest is endurance.
  • Gray-and-Grey Morality: Ultimately, both the gods and the villain claim to want what's best for humanity—the gods created destiny to protect humanity from those who would abuse great power and prevent another First Age from rising, but at the cost of limiting human potential and leaving mankind in the cruel, calculating hands of the weavers, while Daggoras wants to free humanity from destiny, but at the cost of potentially allowing them do great evil. However, both sides could also be seen as having selfish motivations—the gods wanting to remain in control of the world, Daggoras wanting to increase his own power by filling an orderly world with chaos—and in the end there is no definitive "right".
  • Honesty Is the Best Policy: Played straight if you sincerely follow the gods, but averted if you despise the gods: if you tell them so too many times, then near the end of the game they'll force you to obey their will at a crucial moment using a control device around your head. If you're playing a character who wants to destroy destiny, you'll only be able to do so successfully if you carefully deceive the gods about your true motives.
  • Humble Hero: If the player leans toward the Humility pole, many Non Player Characters will admire their down-to-earth approach to their supernatural powers.
  • I Can Rule Alone: It's possible to help Daggoras destroy destiny then immediately kill him, ensuring that he's not present to benefit from the resulting chaos.
  • Mighty Glacier: If your greatest skill is strength, and your weakest is speed.
  • Necromancer: All three Vestiges absorb the life force of other humans to remain immortal, but the first one fits the best, because her "family" of bone-monsters are fueled by the drained souls of her victims.
  • Older Sidekick: The player character gets one early on, in the form of a local wise person who is accused of being a witch/sorcerer by the superstitious children, but is actually more of a clever mentor figure. They go a bit Out of Focus later on, but stay a part of the narrative to the end, and potentially put themselves into exile by killing the protagonist's possessed father to save them.
  • Order Versus Chaos: The other gods of Argossa are gods of stability and control, but Daggoras is the god of chaos, and their goals are at odds. It is why he is the only god who desires the destruction of destiny, and, consequently, you.
  • Pair the Spares: If the player doesn't attempt to woo the heir, they start dating the demigod.
  • Pride: A low or high amount of pride is represented in this game by Humility and Haughtiness stats.
  • Rasputinian Death: Because of their tremendous vitality, all of the Vestiges will take a lot of killing to make it stick for good.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Potentially. The PC's main love interest, the heir to the throne, is either an iron-willed politician, a warrior and general, or a sensitive artist.
  • Screw Destiny: Your character can believe in doing this if you have a high Heathen stat.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: You and Chara/Chiron are not destined to be together. There's no way to get them in the end, even if you destroy destiny.
  • Stone Wall: If your greatest skill is endurance, and your weakest is strength.
  • Story Branch Favoritism: Thanks to the way the original title was constructed, the prince/princess's Romance Sidequest is much better developed than the other two. It is also the only romance you can get an unambiguously happy ending with, considering that it is impossible to go for the demigod sidekick without one of the two of you cheating on a romantic partner and having a very dark Bittersweet Ending.
  • Taken for Granite: The second Vestige does this to sailors he lures to his island with his Compelling Voice. It's reversible for the fresher ones, but those that have lingered too long and been drained too dry, or just shattered, cannot recover.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The god of chaos seeks to destroy destiny so that mortals can again reach their full potential, no matter how much suffering or collateral damage results. He does seem genuinely sorry whenever you meet him in person, though it's all mixed up in his desire to again be free and allow true chaos and freedom in the world. Arguably, the other gods, who created destiny in the first place, and punish the king's hubris if the player decides to date their demigod sidekick by destroying his kingdom. At the very least, the game refuses to pass judgement on their actions in that first matter, instead leaving it up to the player to decide for themselves how justified it was, and in the latter, the goddess responsible is trying to look out for her child.

    Choice of Alexandria 
Written by Kevin Gold.
  • Action Girl: Queen Berenice is an accomplished warrior as well as queen. The pirate queen Nefertari is also a fearsome warrior.
  • Allohistorical Allusion: Several endings have these. If Alexandria survives as a major power, Caesar sells out Rome to Cleopatra. And two endings have alternate happenings for Hypatia of Alexandria in 415 CE, when she historically was murdered by an anti-pagan mob.
  • Alternate History: Possibly. You can invent technology far ahead of its day, and ensure that the Alexandrian Empire survives into the present day, instead of becoming a Roman colony.
  • Badass Bookworm: You can't be a warrior as such, but with good Techne, you can make weapons that do your fighting for you. With Rhetoric, you can be an effective commander in a crisis, and Medicine lets you be a Combat Medic.
  • Composite Character: The protagonist is a composite of the historical characters Eratosthenes, the tutor of Ptolemy IV, and Heron of Alexandria, the inventor of the first steam engine, among other things (c. 40 C.E.) — essentially, Eratosthenes with the ability to create the inventions of Heron.
  • Dark Secret: Berenice II killed her first husband because she caught her mother and her husband sleeping together. This becomes a small plot point when Berenice asks you if she should tell Ptolemy what happened or keep it a secret from him.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Euclid
  • Evil Chancellor: Sosibius wants to ruin Ptolemy IV and become this so that he can live a life of luxury. In one ending, you make Sosibius look like an amateur.
  • False Friend: Sosibius to Ptolemy IV and possibly the rest of the royal family, if you don't cast enough doubt against him early on in the game.
  • Gay Option: If playing as a female, Berenice II if Ptolemy III dies before her and Nefertari. If playing as a male, Ptolemy III if you cure his illness and Berenice II is executed.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: How Ptolemy feels when you two visit the Musaeum.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Sosibius. However, it's possible for you to influence just how manipulative he is.
  • Meet the New Boss: A Greek revolt against Ptolemy IV is not really a revolution. Ptolemy's death doesn't necessarily mean the end of Alexandria's glory, especially if you save the Library.
  • Occupiers Out of Our Country: Nefertari wants to overthrow the Greek Ptolemies and establish a new Egyptian dynasty.
  • Precursor Heroes: In some endings, inverted. You can become a Precursor Hero for Hypatia, who will take over the role of either Copernicus, Newton, or Einstein in 415 CE if she avoids her historical fate.
  • Royal Brat: Under Sosibius' influence, Ptolemy IV is destined to grow into a useless brat, unless you do something about that.
  • Shining City: Alexandria is the greatest city in the known world. It's a center of art and science, with at least two Wonders of the World, and the military (at least under Ptolemy III) is formidable as well.
  • Shout-Out: This game is littered with them. Every character in the game except for Nefertari actually existed in history, along with the Great Library.

    Choice of Broadsides 
Written by Adam Strong-Morse, Heather Albano, and Dan Fabulich.

A sea and sails adventure in which the player character is the crewmen of a naval ship belonging to a nation suspiciously similar to Britain.


  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: A trio of potential Love Interests you encounter at a social gathering should you decide to look for a wife (or husband).
  • The Captain: You, eventually. How old you are when you achieve it depends on the success of your choices.
  • Fighting Your Friend: You will eventually be sent to capture Villenueve, who you may have grown to be a good friend of yours.
  • Grow Old with Me: Can happen in Choice of Broadsides.
  • Hello, Sailor!: In Choice of Broadsides, you can choose to say that you aren't attracted to the opposite sex. If you do so, the game will note that that sort of thing isn't unusual for navy men or women, but it's not the sort of thing you can generally talk about.
  • Honor Before Reason: Your "Honor" stat, which goes up as you pass by opportunities to be a Combat Pragmatist.
  • Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Choice of Broadsides is set in the royal navy of Albion (Britain), who is at the time at war with Gaul (France).
  • Marry for Love: You can choose to aim for this rather than finding a spouse with connections. If you marry the right person, it'll help towards creating a happy ending but won't boost your score much. However, if you marry the well-connected partner after announcing your intention to marry for love, it'll be a very bad match, while if you explicitly go looking for a bride for reasons of social position, the two of you will get along well and be happy together anyway.
  • Master Swordsman: If you have a high "Fighting" skill, your ability with a blade is unparalleled. It even lets you turn the final fight against Villenueve into a Curb-Stomp Battle.
  • The Mutiny:
    • After Lieutentant Pigot's poor decision-making sees multiple sailors wounded and viciously punished for trying to argue against him, a few of the sailors aboard the ship decide to push him overboard at night, knowing full well that the Captain won't do anything about his tyranny. The Player Character can choose to join this mutiny through inaction, or step in to save Pigot's life.
    • If the player handles their crew's morale and discipline poorly during their first command, a mutiny will occur; the number of hostile sailors varies based on morale and discipline, with extremely low morale and harsh punishments turning the whole ship to mutiny. Depending on your choices this may end in the Captain's death, the Captain deciding to join the mutineers and become a pirate, the game's version of the historic Mutiny on the Bounty, or the Captain narrowly retaining control of the ship after a brutal battle.
  • Nepotism: Your "patronage" score. If you choose to start with it set as one of your high scores, the narration will state your father is an Admiral, it's also possible to boost the score later in the game by marrying another Admiral's daughter. Though you can subvert it by also being competent if you want to.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: You get shot and sliced with a sword in almost every confrontation, how bad the injuries are depends on your fighting ability but none have any lasting effect. You can even lose a hand in the final fight with Villeneuve and it's never even mentioned again.
  • Relationship Values: If you treat Villeneuve well early in Choice of Broadsides, he/she is a viable romantic interest later.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: A game mechanic in Choice of Broadsides. Your patronage stat determines just how much leeway the brass gives you if you don't do perfectly.
  • Shot at Dawn: If the Captain loses the Final Battle (or chooses to retreat) and doesn't have enough Patronage to be discharged in disgrace or exonerated, they're sentenced to be executed by a firing squad and shot.
  • A Taste of the Lash: Doesn't happen to you but does happen to others during the game.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: You can become good friends (and even lovers if you take the Gay Option!) with Villeneuve, an honorable pirate. If you do so and have high enough combat skills, you can choose to merely disarm him/her instead of outright killing him/her, upon which he/she will surrender voluntarily and say that if he/she has to give up his/her ship, at least it's to you. Tends to be much more satisfying than just offing him/her.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: One possible response to finding a sailor asleep on duty is to give them fifty lashes. Doing so kills the sailor, tanks the ship's morale, and turns a significant portion of the crew against you out of fear that you've gone mad. This also almost ensures that a mutiny will take place against you.
  • What You Are in the Dark: The Bloodthirst and Honor stats don't actually do much of anything, and they will often be adjusted based on your reasoning rather than action. Doing the honorable thing simply because you fear the punishment for cowardice... not actually honorable.
  • Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Or Iron Women, if you choose the appropriate option.
  • World of Action Girls: Choosing for your character to be female also makes the navies staffed entirely by women, while men are hidden away to tend to housekeeping and other less exciting tasks. It also gender flips the ruling monarch and the convention of referring to inanimate objects as female.
  • Worthy Opponent: How you and Villenueve can regard each other.
  • Would Hurt a Child: When you find a young boy on an enemy ship, you have the choice of shooting him or knocking him unconscious to stop him from raising an alarm.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Another solution to the situation described under Would Hurt a Child, although the child risks causing an alarm.

    Choice of Kung Fu 
Written by Alana Joli Abbott
  • Armour Is Useless: In Choice of Kung Fu when dueling against the western heavily armoured knights, it's very easy to turn the enemy's armour into a disadvantage.
  • Arranged Marriage: In Choice of Kung Fu, most of the possible romances are begun by meeting the boy or girl's father and being introduced to their child, and the marriage is expressly for the purpose of securing a political alliance or (for the farmer) to ensure that his family will be provided for. However, this isn't a forced marriage, and the partner must be courted and give their consent as well. In addition, should you meet the requirements, a father will allow the protagonist to court their child of the same sex as a "companion," though the irregularity of the situation is noted.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: If you ask the Dragon Sage the right question, you will become the next Dragon Sage.
  • Asian Fox Spirit: Feng from Choice of Kung Fu is a fox spirit.
  • Blood Knight: Sun An is the "wandering martial artist" type, forever seeking new opponents to battle against. In one ending, you likewise become an immortal warrior, accepting all challenges in pursuit of ultimate martial skill.
  • Captain Ersatz: Zhuge Miao from Kung Fu is a gender-flip of Zhuge Liang.
  • Flight: For most of the game, flight relies on Wire Fu empowered by chi and magic, but there is a way to gain the power to fly unconditionally.
  • Heir to the Dojo: If you particularly impress Zhuge Miao, you can be adopted as the heir to the Zhuge family and style of kung fu, abandoning your previous family and martial style.
  • La Résistance: The Blue Scarves, although in an unusual variation of this trope, instead of rebelling against the Empire for abusing its power, they are rebelling because they feel the Emperor is doing nothing with the Empire's strength, even as foreigners invade and drive citizens from their livelihoods.
  • Master-Apprentice Chain: A complex example, because there are a lot of sifus in this story and it's common to learn from more than one. Zhuge Miao trained Master Shen, who then trains you. Then you're sent to learn directly from Zhuge Miao, and after that you take on students of your own, possibly including Sun An.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While there's a lot of open magic in the game, the existence of immortals still fits this trope. Among others, Zhuge Miao and Sun An are both rumored to be immortals, but according to Zhuge Miao, even she won't live forever (though she is Long-Lived), and Sun An is an open question. Of course, there's also spirits and the Dragon Sage, but they don't really count. You can, however, become an immortal for real in one ending.
  • Mind Game Ship: In-Universe in Choice of Kung Fu. One of the possible romance options is Feng, the nine-tailed fox spirit, who is playing tricks on you from your first meeting, and continues to do so even if she becomes your lover.
  • Mundane Wish: In Choice of Kung Fu, one of the questions you can ask the Dragon Sage is "Why do kites fly?"
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: The Magic stat in Choice of Kung Fu combines flight and Ki Manipulation with more straightforward magic, such as divination and command over the forces of nature. It's all part of the same thing.
  • The Four Gods: In Choice of Kung Fu, the challenge where you lift the cauldron sears your wrists with two brands; either the tiger and the dragon or the tortoise and the phoenix.
  • The Rival: Lu Jin is your rival in your martial arts order, but is an unusual example because you can befriend him/her early (Lu Jin's gender is randomized each time you play a new game) if you share his/her political views and if you express approval instead of resignation at being teamed up with Lu Jin on a mission.
    • Later in the story, you get another rival, Sun An, a wandering hero, who challenges your school to test your worthiness. He can be befriended like Lu Jin if you beat him and then invite him on as a teacher in the school.
  • The Three Trials: To advance in the Order, you eventually need to pass at least two out of three trials: making it through a room full of attacking monks, carrying an urn full of hot coals to the river, and retrieving and interpreting a scroll from behind a waterfall.
  • Trickster Mentor: Feng, the nine-tailed fox in Choice of Kung Fu is screwing with your head from the very beginning, but she's quite helpful if you can match wits with her. Also a Stealth Mentor. It's her purpose to test monks and lure them away from enlightenment, but succeeding in the tests builds character.
  • Wuxia: Choice of Kung Fu. One possible character is someone who was a xia before they joined the Order.

    Choice of the Cat 
Written by Jordan Reyne.
  • Affection-Hating Kid: In Chapter 5, if the family decides to keep the protagonist because they love them, Moon complains when her parents kiss during breakfast.
  • And Call Him "George": The protagonist can befriend Moon to the point that she smothers them with rough play, and they can get an achievement for surviving her.
  • Attention Whore: The highly demanding protagonist can strive to draw everyone's attention to them as they compete with Bene for affection around the house.
  • Big Bad: Helmut, the CEO of the music conglomerate who Andre wishes to sign a record deal with but Claire loathes for being an animal abuser.
  • Big Friendly Dog: Bene fits this trope to a T, to a point where the MC is initially thrown off by it, but they can potentially adapt and even indulge Bene's energetic nature.
  • Calling Parents by Their Name: In Chapter 6, Claire chides her mother Nola like this for spoiling Moon when she comes over to dinner.
  • Cats Are Mean: The MC can be an absolute hellcat to their new family, and still be living with them by the end of the game. there's even an achievement for specifically getting this outcome. Maddox also has shades of this trope, but mostly out of the interest of wanting keep to himself, and Claire and Andre are sympathetic toward Maddox despite this because they just rescued him from an abusive owner.
  • Fuzz Therapy: A highly Affectionate MC cat can serve as one to both Claire, Andre, and even their preschooler daughter Moon.
  • Innocent Swearing: Moon picks up a lot of her parents' swears even if she doesn't know why it's bad to say them.
  • The Internet Is for Cats: The protagonist can take the path to fame if they help Andre with his dream job to be a famous musician. They can even become viral on the Internet.
  • Obnoxious In-Laws: Andre dreads it when his mother-in-law Nola comes over to dinner because she hates his passion for music and Claire's activism for rescue cats. He's also reluctant to invite Nola to his birthday party, but the protagonist can rip up her invite for him.
  • Relationship Sabotage: The protagonist can try destroying Andre and Claire's marriage if they wish, and they'll end up divorcing if they succeed.
  • Xenofiction: The story is told from a house cat's POV, who behaves just as how you'd expect of a real cat. They can interact and understand the other animal characters, but none of them can talk.

    Choice of the Deathless 
Written by Max Gladstone. The games share a setting with the Craft Sequence novels.

In Choice of the Deathless, you play as an employee in the Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone demonic-law firm.


  • Aerith and Bob: There are names like Damian Stone and Ashleigh Wakefield mixed with names like Cassoway Chen and Golan Varkath.
    • It's there for the preset PC names, too. You can make names like Jamie Shepard or Ailing Cavendish.
  • A Fool for a Client: The goddess Ajaia is immensely powerful, and thinks that that means that she can win a court case against a firm as powerful as Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone without an attorney of her own. Your firm would like to keep it that way.
  • Amoral Attorney: Your law firm can be extremely ruthless in its dealings and especially its internal politics, and there are plenty of chances for you to act out this trope. Varkath barely comprehends the concept of morality.
  • Back from the Dead: Can happen to the PC more than once.
  • Badass Bookworm: Your PC can easily become this if they have a high enough craft skill.
  • Badass Bureaucrat: Everyone. Manipulating the rules of a contract is an even more powerful weapon than magical combat. (In fact, in many ways it is magical combat, but you can do a lot more with Exploit Loophole than Magic Missile.)
  • The Beautiful Elite: Wakefield exemplifies this trope, being tall, blonde and (metaphorically) sculpted from marble alongside being fabulously wealthy.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: The PC and Wakefield have BST that takes several years to resolve, going back to their college days.
  • Black Magic: As Nebuchadnezzar points out, the Craft is very cruel. The fact that it's powered by sold souls that are traded as currency is just the start.
  • Blood Magic: Blood is used to sign Magically Binding Contracts.
  • Celestial Bureaucracy
  • Crusading Lawyer: Cassowary Chen and possibly the PC.
  • Cutting Off the Branches: R'ok appears in Ruin of Angels, having set up a successful art gallery in Alikand/Agdel Lex, meaning the path where you help him is the canon one.
  • The Dark Arts: Craft.
  • Deal with the Devil: Contracts between humans and demons. Which, of course, requires lawyers to sort out. They can actually be more dangerous for the demon—as R'ok discovers when he realizes there's no time limit on his service contract, a pretty nasty pickle for someone who's immortal.
  • Dem Bones: Skeletal undead are apparently fairly common, but special mention goes to Golan Varkath. Unnervingly, he wears a painted leather mask with glass eyes. You can also be turned into a skeleton if you're injured too severely in the final battle.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
    • With enough stats, you can depose a goddess. This is a Stealth Pun; you're actually taking a deposition from her...but it's a harrowing mental battle on par with the other kind of "deposing a goddess."
    • The final battle allows you to defeat John Smith, an Eldritch Abomination with limitless power due to a broken contract. You can do it yourself, or call on allies to do it. Golan Varkath's method of defeating him would be particularly exemplary if Varkath weren't so powerful himself; doing it yourself without destroying yourself in the process shows everyone how lesser mortals do it.
  • Energy Economy: The currency of this world is "thaums," which are a measure of soulstuff. Used both for the Craft and as currency.
  • Epic Hail: It is possible for you to do this during the final battle. If you helped people, you can call on Ajaja or R'ok's massive family; if you have a high enough Gunner score, you can call on your law firm.
  • Friends with Benefits:
    • Possible with Chen and Vega, with room for a Relationship Upgrade.
    • Wakefield claims that their relationship with the PC is this, if you chose to drop the big L word during their I "Uh" You, Too moment. Though it's quickly obvious to both parties that they don't really mean it.
  • Glass Eye: Nebuchadnezzar has one.
  • Great Offscreen War: The God Wars, from which much of the planet is still recovering.
  • Gentleman Snarker: Ashleigh Wakefield. S/he is almost constantly sarcastic and superior while being polished, dignified, and dressed to the nines.
  • Horrible Housing: The cheapest housing option for the player character is a rickety shoebox of an apartment above a bar in the very worst part of town, which leads to a Funny Moment when Wakefield first shows up for a visit.
  • How We Got Here: The game begins with the PC facing off against the Big Bad and having their body and mind shattered into pieces. It then flashes back to the PC's early days in the firm and works its way forward as the PC tries to piece him/herself back together.
  • Humanoid Abomination:
    • John Smith, a major client of Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone. Until the end where he switches to his real form.
    • Golan Varkath, Deathless King and senior partner at Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone. An undead skeleton who hails from the early years of the God Wars, who has produced children both as father and mother, who wears a mask of human skin, and who barely even comprehends the concept of morality. He also can trivially destroy a being of unlimited power with a quick interpretation of a standard contract.
  • Inappropriately Close Comrades: Your law firm has no rules against fraternization among their people, but Wakefield's does, so if you go to work for Kelethres, Albrecht and Ao, that'll scuttle any romance you have with them.
  • I "Uh" You, Too: All of your love interests give statements to this effect during their confession scene. You can chose to respond in kind, or outright say you love them back.
  • The Legions of Hell: Aren't really bad sorts, just completely inimical to the laws of physics in our universe and vice versa.
  • Loophole Abuse: It's primarily your job to prevent these. Unless it's your job to commit them; being a lawyer puts you on either side of it.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Courtroom drama (admittedly rather awesome even in its unrefined form) that involves magical battles, in a world where you can really sell your soul if you get into a bad contract.
  • My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: When the PC's body and mind are shattered, he/she has to review his/her memories over the years in order to piece him/herself back together.
  • Naïve Newcomer: Cassowary is very new to the lawyering business and makes several mistakes that could prove disastrous for her or the firm. You get to choose whether to help her out or stand by and let her take the fall.
  • Near-Death Experience: Or actual death experience, if your stats aren't high enough.
  • Obviously Evil: John Smith. Everyone can tell that he's up to no good, but he's a valuable client, so...
  • Occult Law Firm: Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone, where the PC, Chen, Ngabe, and Vega are employed. There's also Kelethres Albrecht & Ao, the law firm where Wakefield works.
  • Pride: The goddess Ajaia is well aware of how powerful she is. So powerful that she doesn't think she needs a lawyer to represent her at her deposition.
  • Psychic Powers: Craft can function this way.
  • Really Gets Around: If your PC plays their cards right, it's possible to sleep with all three potential love interests on the same playthrough.
  • Rescue Romance: You have to save Wakefield from demonic possession while keeping him/her in one piece in order to romance him/her.
  • Revival Loophole: You and John Smith are summoned into the demon realm at the end of the game. The summoning is basically a contract defining what the people being summoned are within the rules of the world. Smith arranges to have himself killed, which breaks the contract. When his resurrection amulet brings him back, he has near-infinite power because none of the rules apply to him anymore.
  • Scars are Forever: In this business, your body's as much at risk as your soul. Multiple characters have injuries or lost body parts, or can lose part of themselves over the course of the game. That includes you.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Wakefield and, occasionally, the PC.
  • Shadow Archetype: You can conduct a meeting with a mirror image of yourself that just feels wrong inside the Demon Embassy.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: The PC moreso than Wakefield, who cusses about once or twice the entire game.
  • Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: On the mission to depose the goddess, you're not supposed to win, you're supposed to make your firm look weak so she doesn't retain counsel. That doesn't mean you can't actually win it.
  • Triple Shifter: Working for a law firm does not leave much time for sleep. That goes double if you live in a bad part of town, because you have to spend more time commuting when you could be sleeping.
  • Tsundere: Wakefield is very Type A. Their Establishing Character Moment is sweeping into your house, insulting you, and then asking you out for dinner — just to catch up on old times, of course. And they gain approval even when their tone is very insulting. This continues all the way right up to your Relationship Upgrade.
    Wakefield: Above all else is the question of whether you do or should trust the obviously pseudonymous Mister Smith.
    Player Character: Oh, gods. You're actually worried about me.
    Wakefield: [while blushing] Certainly not. I have a classmate's modicum of concern for your welfare.
  • Uptown Girl: Wakefield can be this for the player character, especially if the latter comes from a poor or beggar background.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: If you want to play as a Crusading Lawyer, you're going to do a lot of this. The most noticeable example is after you discover that the firm was outright expecting you to lose the case against Ajaia. With this information in mind, you can choose to either offer her a chance to get counsel by referring her to Wakefield, or outright leak your battleplans to her so she's on more even footing. Playing this way nets you a lot more opportunities for your PC in the endgame.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: If you're going down the Amoral Attorney route, there lots of opportunities to be a total jerk in the story. If you wish, you can join Stone's slow smear campaign of Vega just to suck up to him, outright force you demon pro-bono client to return to the demon world with his parents, completely ignore Wakefield's Demonic Possession and double cross a goddess in order to get the upper hand in a case. And that's not even taking into account all the mean dialogue choices you can pick...
  • Villain in a White Suit: Wakefield has a penchant for wearing very light-colored clothing, and wears an all-white suit while attending your PC's workshop. Though, their choice of dress in said chapter becomes very ironic when they suffer from Demonic Possession.

    Choice of the Deathless: City's Thirst 
Written by Max Gladstone.

In contrast to the first Deathless game, you play a different Craftsman or Craftswoman trying to secure a water deal for a city suffering from a drought.


  • Artificial Limbs: You can choose to have one at the start of the game.
  • Fantastic Slur: 'Bugs' for the Scorpionkind.
  • Flesh Golem: Jess was built by a Craftswoman to assist her during the Wars.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Caspar Jones. When the player meets him, he's sneaking into the King in Red's estate with a forged invitation, an act that could get him imprisoned or killed, to get a story.
  • Muggle–Mage Romance: The player character is a practitioner of Craft. Two of the potential love interests, Jess and Caspar Jones, are not.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: The player character may be one of these depending on how high the "trauma" stat is and how the player chooses to have their character deal with their trauma.
  • Sleeping with the Boss: The player character can sleep with Alana Mezatchul, a senior executive at Red King Consolidated.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Appears in a few of the possible scenarios offered for war flashbacks at the beginning of the game.

    Choice of the Ninja 
Written by Katherine Buffington.
  • And the Adventure Continues: At the end of a successful playthrough, assuming you didn't switch sides, Lord Matsuya is defeated and Lord Sano's interests are protected. However, General Araki escapes during the final fight and takes his loyal samurai with him, planning a rebellion, so the story ends with Lord Sano tasking you with another job, that of tracking General Araki down and stopping him.
  • Big Good: Lord Sano is a more gray example, as technically your ninja village is only supporting him because he's the village's patron, but ultimately you do find out that Lord Sano is a far kinder and more reasonable man than his enemy, Lord Matsuya.
  • Big Bad: Lord Matsuya is a more gray example, as technically he's only your ninja village's enemy because he's against the village's patron, but ultimately you do find out that Lord Matsuya is a nastier person than Lord Sano.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: It depends on how you play. If you play a martial arts-oriented ninja, you can curb-stomp the enemies you face, but if you focus mostly on stealth and still get involved in fights, the fights are a lot more even and can turn against you.
  • Co-Dragons: Lord Matsuya, the Big Bad, is backed up by General Araki, who killed Maki's parents and is rumored to be getting supernatural help, and by your childhood friend Kaoru, who can optionally persuade the player to switch sides and become another Dragon to Lord Matsuya.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: You can optionally turn on Lord Sano and your allies and join Lord Matsuya.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Subverted. If your character still has feelings for your childhood friend Kaoru, then during the last mission, you get a dialogue option to try to persuade Kaoru to join your side. Kaoru considers it briefly, looking as if in pain, but ultimately refuses and fights you anyway.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: You can optionally play like this if you constantly fight every enemy instead of trying to hide or turn invisible.
  • Ninja
  • Ninja Brat: After you rescue Lord Sano's son Ryousei, you impress Ryousei so much that he wants to be a ninja when he grows up.
  • Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: At the very beginning of the game, your ninja character and all your classmates are put through a "final exam" consisting of finding one of ten hidden coins (which would fail at least half the class, as there are twenty students including you) and then putting that coin into a pot without getting caught. You're allowed to fight people for a coin, lie to teachers and use illusions to get away, etc., the only thing that would disqualify you is if a teacher outright catches you putting the coin into the pot.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Maki wants to do this to General Araki, who killed her parents, and Lady Sano, Lord Sano's wife, will ask you to kill Lord Matsuya since Lord Sano is too noble to do it. It's up to you if you wish to follow this trope yourself.
  • Romance Sidequest: You can optionally romance your childhood friend Kaoru, who is simultaneously both a straight option and a Gay Option, because you pick both your gender and Kaoru's gender.
  • Stock Ninja Weaponry: But not as much as you might think, as most of the fights involve martial arts or swords.
  • True Companions: Your classmates Maki and Kenta, each of whom accompanies you on a mission, and both of them will accompany you on the last mission where, optionally, you can subvert the trope by betraying them if you think Lord Matsuya's on the "winning side".

    Choice of the Petal Throne 
Written by Danielle Goudeau.
  • Adorably Precocious Child: You first meet Rayána, a low-clan cobbler's daughter who nevertheless eagerly applies herself to studying military strategy and who as an adult becomes a potential second-in-command and potential love interest, as a little girl while you are being grilled on how to resist an enemy's "crab" strategy during an exercise.
  • Ambition Is Evil: Inverted if your patron deity is Hrü'ü, for Hrü'ü encourages you to be ambitious and avoid complacency.
  • Back from the Dead: If you choose to let one of your soldiers face the soldier insulting your legion instead of either ignoring him or facing him yourself, Rayána will face the soldier in a duel and fall in battle. However, it is later possible to get a priest to bring Rayána back to life in a ritual, although since the priest is taking a heavy risk, you are asked to pay a lot of money for the resurrection. You even get an achievement for this resurrection.
  • Battle Harem: It's possible to end up romantically involved and married to all of your love interests who love you very dearly and who each have deadly combat knowledge.
  • Blood Knight: If your patron deity is Vimúhla, you're encouraged to act like this.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When asked why an assassin's coming after you, you can reply that you "don't have time to enumerate every grievance brought against me by lesser men." This isn't even a sign of ignoble character — Tsolyáni nobility are pretty much expected to act like this.
  • Combat by Champion: Downplayed. At the beginning of the battle, if you're fighting in the line or on the platform, an enemy insults your legion as a means of delivering a challenge, and you or Rayána can accept. However, this doesn't decide the battle, it's just a chance to show off and collect a worthy prisoner before the real fighting starts.
  • Country Mouse: Rayána is a low-clan cobbler's daughter who is ecstatic to be part of the military she admires. She beams at the chance to play the folkloric hero if you win the battle and then choose to restore order instead of allowing your soldiers to take loot, says her prayers to herself at one point during the investigation of the catacombs (Wave mockingly thinks of her as a "country bumpkin" for this), if she's promoted the officers wince at her forthright ways, and if you marry her, she's nervous at the wedding due to being more familiar with battlefield courage than with social graces.
  • Gambit Pileup: The mission into the Underworld ruins involves three separate agendas. Your mission is to get the artifact deep in the ruins and bring it back to your Prince. Wave, however, is a spy for Emperor Eternal Splendor, and wants to bring the artifact back to him instead. And then Nirun is under orders to kill you over the vendetta that was mentioned at the beginning of the game, and make sure you don't come out of the ruins with the artifact and the glory that comes with it. You can lampshade this if you want.
    Seriously? Is anyone else actually trying to accomplish this mission?
  • Gender-Blender Name: Your character always begins the game with the name of "Tiúni", regardless of whether you're male or female, but you're given a different, gender-specific name later on during the naming ceremony.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Jealousy is one of the few traits that are considered ignoble no matter who your patron deity is; you can raise the Noble Action meter early on by not responding jealously to Wave's description of Mottán.
  • The Hedonist: If your patron deity is Dlamélish, you're encouraged to act like this.
  • Just Following Orders: Encouraged if your patron deity is Hnálla, as Hnálla is considered the supreme deity of stability and values order and conformity.
  • Karma Meter: This game has an unusual variant, as there is a stat called "Noble Action", which increases every time you do something your clan considers noble. The twist is that there are some behaviors that all clans consider noble or ignoble, while other behaviors differ from clan to clan. Jealousy, for example, is considered "ignoble" no matter what clan you're a part of, while some clans will consider conformity to be noble, others consider independence to be noble, etc.
  • Meaningful Rename: In this game's world, when young people reach the age of majority, they undergo a "naming ceremony" where they are given both adult names and adult rights and responsibilities to go with them. This applies to your player character as well, who always starts the game as Tiúni but is given a different name later in their naming ceremony.
  • Noble Demon: If your patron deity is Karakán, while you're still encouraged to be a warrior, more emphasis is placed on being honorable.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: If you're commanding from the platform, winning the battle does not excuse disobeying orders to do so; the chain of command and the status of your commander are more important than something as trivial as saving the battle and capturing the city.
  • Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: In general, a "more traditional role for women" still exists, that of the "good clan girl", but a woman can take up the rights and responsibilities of men if she declares herself aridáni at her naming ceremony. Your own player character's two mother figures exemplify both choices: Mama Halé chose the route of the "good clan girl", although she still has a formidable personality, while Dzái named herself aridáni.
  • Starter Villain: Your first major obstacle in Choice of the Petal Throne (other than the assassin you face in the tutorial, who you always defeat eventually regardless of choices) is an older youth named Mottán, who's partially responsible for Wave getting himself/herself into debt. Mottán is also a Skippable Boss if, instead of choosing to confront him, you choose to either tell the elders about the debt, or to confront the head of the gambling establishment instead.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Inverted if you're playing a female character, as you're made to stay out of the kitchen rather than in, as it was clear from birth that Dzái expected you to name yourself aridáni, take up the rights and responsibilities of men, and follow her into the army. When given a choice of what to think about this, you can either be pleased at the opportunity for glory, that you would've preferred being a good clan girl, or that you're happy not to be stifled as a good clan girl but aren't so sure about the soldier part.
  • Team Mom: If your patron deity is Avánthe, you're encouraged to act like this, with a commitment to justice and a slight dash of Old-School Chivalry and Nature Hero.
  • Victorious Childhood Friend: Your "clan-cousin" Wave (whose gender you can pick, along with your own) can be this if you romance Wave (it should be noted that "clan-cousins" in this game refers to "other children of the clan", so you and Wave are not actually related).

    Choice of the Pirate 
Written by Alana Joli Abbott.
  • The Big Guy: Caesar Lord.
  • Boarding Party: Occurs a few times throughout the game.
  • The Captain: Captain Blackguard in the beginning, but eventually you become a captain yourself. Anne Read counts as well. There are also many other captains throughout the story, though only Blackguard and Anne have main roles.
  • Deal with the Devil: If you die at sea, you can make a deal with Davy Jones for an extra seven years of life serving him as captain of a ghost ship.
  • Dressed to Plunder: As to be expected in a pirate game. As your fame grows, you can choose to have a piece of signature clothing that varies from a coat to a hat and more. Other Non Player Characters are decked out in nearly all of the typical pirate gear.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: You play as an aspiring pirate hoping to rival the Pirate King himself.
  • Functional Magic: Cambiar is the art of altering the world around you through magic.
  • Ghost Pirate: Granny, who will become a useful ally throughout the rest of the game if you manage to defeat her (or convince her to join forces with you) and capture her ship for your fleet.
  • Ghost Ship: The Sea Queen is a ship haunted by the cantankerous ghost of its previous owner, an old woman called Granny O'Malley. A more malevolent example shows up later.
  • Hook Hand: After a battle towards the middle of the game, the decisions that you made during it can cause you to lose a hand. It will get replaced with this. You can even get your Moniker changed to Hook to accompany the new change.
  • Improvised Weapon: Making weapons out of things that are around you is something you will rely on if your Skullduggery stat is high.
  • La Résistance: How you and your crew can be against the Crown.
  • Master Swordsman: If your Pistols & Swords stat is quite high.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: If you treat your crew terribly, they will become this.
  • Privateer: You can choose to be this for the Crown.
  • Port Town: San Alfonso. Justified, everyone is either a pirate or privateer.
  • Scary Black Man: How Caesar can come across during battle.
  • Shout-Out:
    • If you get a hook hand, your moniker is changed to Captain Hook.
    • The treasure of Ishmael the Lost is buried in a chest depicting scenes of whale hunting, suggesting he's the same Ishmael who narrates Moby-Dick.
    • Captain Flint's treasure is a direct reference to Treasure Island and John Gunn, who wants to find it, is named after the book's characters of Long John Silver and Ben Gunn.
    • Anne Read is named after real-life pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read.
  • The Starscream: You can backstab Captain Blackguard at the beginning of the game to become a Captain, and at the end of the game you can kill the Pirate King to take his place.
  • Talk Like a Pirate: Captain Blackguard. Notably, he's the only character in the game who does talk this way.
  • World of Action Girls: There are quite a few female captains sailing and fighting throughout the game, and not only pirates as at least one merchant ship is also captained by a woman. Anne Read is a main character and, of course, you, if you're playing as a woman.

    Choice of Rebels: Uprising 
Written by Joel Havenstone.
  • Alliance Meter: There's a lot of them, due to the complex politics of rebellion in the Hegemony. There's three axes (Compassionate/Ruthless, Devout/Skeptical and Homelander/Cosmopolitan) that display the politics of your rebellion, a stat for your relationship with each of the five classes (aristocrats, helots, merchants, yeomen and priests), one meter for Anarchy, which is a measure of just how much damage your rebels have done to the social order of the Rim, and Notoriety, a hidden stat measuring just how much you've pissed off the Hegemony by your actions.
  • Blood Magic: Theurgy relies on either the blood of the user or on refined blood acquired by Harrowing people.
  • The Chosen One: The in-universe term for this is "Eclect," the chosen of the Compassionate Angels. You can be proclaimed (or proclaim yourself) Eclect, and whether you believe it or are just using it for power is up to you.
  • Corrupt Church: The leaders of the priesthood serve the Karagond Hegemony and the Thaumatarch's corrupt order, and use the Xthonic religion to maintain the Hegemony and justify Harrowing the helotry. Many of the Diakons and even some Ecclesiasts are Good Shepherds, though, and these priests can be convinced that your rebellion serves the Angels' will.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Compassionate Angels of Xthonos are fairly Christian in their priesthood, tithes and such, though actual doctrine and dogma are significantly different. In addition, a major plot element (should your character be involved in religion at all) is that the Karagonds have allegedly altered the true Xthonic scriptures to justify their Hegemony. Finally, one of the options for starting your own religion is directly based on the Protestant-Catholic schism.
  • Defector from Decadence: Several factions of the Hegemonic government have dissidents in their ranks that a player of similar alignment can align with. Simon/Suzane is a rebel noble, as are the Lacconiers and Leaguers, while several priests can join a devout player. A cosmopolitan can recruit a group of Phalangites from Wiendrj as well.
  • Eldritch Location: The Xaos Lands beyon the wards are this, being a barren wasteland hit with Xaos storms, mysterious and dangerous weather phenomena that temporarily warp reality, transmuting objects and people and even bringing inanimate objects to life as horrific monsters.
  • Elite Mook: Phalangites are the trained soldiers of the Hegemony and serve as their standing army. They're both well-armed and armored and have greater training and discipline than the alestors and younger nobles and the like you spend most of the game fighting.
  • Fantastic Caste System: The Karagond Hegemony ideally divides people into aristocrats (who rule) and helots (who serve). There's also yeomen and merchants, who are de facto castes of their own, and priests (who as a social group are largely separate from their birth castes).
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Shayard, where the game takes place, is based off of a mixture of English and French culture. Wiendrj, its western neighbor, is a mixture of Polish linguistics and Afghan social organization, being comprised of numerous clans with various complex relationships. Erezzo is Italy, even being set on a peninsula (bridging two continents in Erezzo's case). Nyrial and Halasur, the rival empire the Hegemony is at war with, are both based off a mixture of Turkish, Arabic, and Persian culture, with Halasur having been founded by people who migrated from Nyrial according to Word of God. Karagond itself is Greece, if Sparta became the dominant power instead of Athens.
  • Hell Hound: The Plektoi, giant dogs mutated by Theurgy to hunt down the enemies of the Hegemony.
  • The Heretic: The Hegemony would like to portray your revolt as inherently heretical, by virtue of rejecting an established theocratic Order. The extent to which you actually engage in heresy is up to you, but a religiously devout PC implicitly rejects the Karagond Canon at several points, which in turn leads them to be seen as champions of the original Shayardene Codex (whether or not the latter exists).
  • Just Like Robin Hood: You can easily take wealth from nobles and merchants to redistribute to helots and yeomen, which can easily get you status as a folk hero.
  • Martial Pacifist: Simon/Suzane is the finest warrior in the Shayard Rim, a Blademaster whose abilities are near the limits of what we'd call human capability (though a couple of tiers down from the top) and who deplores unnecessary violence. They'll fight to defend the rebellion, but they won't seek out battle and will only join a rebellion that's gone out of its way to avoid breaking things.
  • Occupiers Out of Our Country: A Homelander PC is driven by a desire to restore the old Shayard and expel the Karagond occupiers. A Cosmopolitan rebel, meanwhile, is largely assimilated into Karagond culture and fights to liberate all the lands under Karagond rule.
  • People Farms: Helots are not only slave labor, they are harvested by the Harrowers to provide blood for the Hegemony's Theurgy.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Bleys, the tellone (tax collector) is practicing one of the most hated professions in the country and is often seen as a Category Traitor for collecting taxes for the Hegemony and thus supporting the foreign regime. If you point this out to his wife, she'll bitterly remark that he has a crooked spine, which leaves precious few career opportunities for him to support his family. Bleys himself isn't a particularly friendly man, but that's understandable given that the only way to get him to cooperate with your raid on the tax caravan is to kidnap his family. If you successfuly complete the raid and cover for him he can join you instead, albeit reluctantly, as his family will EVENTUALLY face retribution by the overzealous regime even if they already caught someone else for the attack.
  • La Résistance: That would be you and your merry band of outlaws, hiding in the Whendward Pass and scheming against the Karagond Hegemony. That said, a major issue in this book is that you're really not in a position to do much rebelling: At best, you can hit a tax collector, some outlying Hegemony garrisons or noble estates during the winter.
  • Resistance as Planned: This is the role of the Kryptasts: Infiltrate rebellions and stir them up before betraying them to the Hegemony. The Hegemony likes a good rebellion now and then, because it rampages around breaking things, gets the various orders all mad at each other and is then easily Harrowed for more blood.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: You can play your rebellion this way, making brutal examples of Hegemony officials, terrorizing the people for funds and grain, and running around the Rim breaking things just so that the Hegemony will be less able to respond to your actions. It's actually easier than the latter.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: You can certainly try to be this, to lead a compassionate band of outlaws who rob from the rich, give to the poor and avoid unnecessary collateral damage. This is much more difficult, however; you have to feed your bandits somehow, which usually involves collecting grain or gold from someone else. Furthermore, directly attacking the Hegemony's institutions (such as their tax collectors) is a fast road to Anarchy. And remember that the rich have lives too; robbing them won't make them particularly sympathetic to your rebellion.
  • Ruling Family Massacre: The Royal Family of Shayard was killed off during the Karagond conquest of the nation. The Laconiers, another rebel faction, are a secret society consisting mostly of nobles and occasionally yeomen farmers who wish to put the family next in line to the throne in charge and break away from the Hegemony. They're on their second attempt, as their first uprising ended with their chosen heirs killed off too.
  • Unequal Rites: Played with. Theurgy is magic that is granted by the Compassionate Angels, while Goety is magic that is granted by bargains with Xaos, and Wisardry is the old magical art of Shayard. Actually, they're all different names for the same thing, and they aren't granted by bargains with any outside power. The terminology is purely based in politics.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: Holding your band together is a struggle at times. It's a mixture of Helots and outlaws from the neighboring Wiendrj. In addition to their different cultures, your various lieutenants also have different values and ideals that you need to balance. How much power to give your underlings and to whom specifically it should be given to is a major decision you'll have to make.
    • Korczata and his band of Phalangites also have this issue. They're all from various Wiendish clans who all have several blood feuds and other struggles threatening to tear the band apart. The only thing they have in common is hatred for the Hegemony. Korczata is barely holding the band together and believes that the only way they'll last is if they swear loyalty to a new chief and found a new clan, thus allowing the new leader to officiate the feuds or declare them null. If your cosmopolitan is high enough, they'll rally behind you.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Officially, children are exempt from harrowing, and the Karagond faith sees harrowing children as an abomination. This is a major point of contention with rival empire Halasur, who sacrifice the firstborn children of every citizen instead of maintaining a slave caste. There are exceptions however, such as if children are implicated in heresy somehow, which officially gets them declared to be goety, who are always harrowed. This is actually the reason Breden's seditionist group formed, to save a girl named Aless, who was set to be harrowed for her father's actions. Both she and several children who kept her company while she was hidden are captured along with the group. This can be the straw that breaks the camel's back for a player character who's reluctant to rebel.
    • During the Final Battle, under certain conditions, one can overhear a soldier ordering their subordinate to make sure to capture all of the rebels, especially the children. The conversation implies that children actually produce more rarified blood than adults somehow, making the opportunity for these loopholes very valuable.

    Choice of the Rock Star 
Written by Jonathan Zimmerman.
  • All Drummers Are Animals: If neither you nor your brother plays the drums, the game gives you a drummer for free before you start picking other musicians to fill out the band, and she's described this way.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: Inverted with your player character's brother, Casper, who is older. But it's possible for your character to be close to him anyway. If you have a close relationship with him and ask him to split the cost to get into the Battle of the Bands, he'll reveal he has spare cash and pay the entire cost, since you've been so awesome about the whole band thing.
  • But Thou Must!: A very minor example, but when choosing your character's gender, if you pick the "alien from the planet Rocktopia" option, the narration says for the sake of argument that you're assuming a human form and have forgotten life on Rocktopia, and then asks you to pick male or female.
  • Consummate Professional: You can play as this if you have a high Role Model stat and constantly keep practicing and rehearsing.
  • Happily Married: One possible ending, if you agree to support Layla/Marq Gold's goals. This will cause a break-up of your band, but you later have children and start a happy and successful rock-and-roll-family.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: If you choose, as a child, to skip out on your birthday party to go on a joyride because you think the party will be boring and you don't like the classical instrument your parents had you play, you later get grounded and sent to your room without any cake or presents—and one of the presents was to be a record player, something your player character badly wanted.
  • Parental Issues: Both you and your brother have a rocky relationship with your strict, anti-rock music parents (especially if you play a character with high Bad Influence.)
  • The Rock Star: Your goal as the player character is to become this.
  • Sellout: Some people will express fears that you've become this if you sign on to Joey Greenback's company.
  • Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Sort of. You can either play a hard-partying lifestyle (although it's mostly the "alcohol" type of party) with a high Bad Influence stat, or avert the trope and concentrate on high-quality music with a high Role Model stat.
  • Shout-Out: When asked to select your character's gender, you can either pick male, female, non-gendered, or alien from the planet Rocktopia. The non-gendered option is labeled "Bowie", and choosing it has the narration compare you to Ziggy Stardust.
  • Sibling Team: You and Casper play music together and eventually end up in the same band (assuming you don't become estranged from him.)
  • Yoko Oh No: If you sign on to Joey Greenback's company, he helps you start dating Layla/Marq Gold, whose gender and first name are determined by the gender your character is interested in. Layla/Marq is a very creative artist, who even makes his/her own music, but eventually, he/she will ask you to place one of his/her songs on your album. If you agree, this can cause a break-up of the band. You can compromise by having Layla/Marq do backup vocals instead, but this will later lock you out of a possible marriage as Layla/Marq will leave later.

    Choice of the Star Captain 
Written by Dorian Hart.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Lloyd the computer, and the PC has the option to be one too.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: You play a freelance starship captain with a smarmy AI as your companion.
  • Humans Are Bastards: Or at least Strat-Comm are bastards, they staged a war to harvest dead Blobs as a power source. The rest of humanity didn't really know about it.
  • The Quisling: The protagonist can become one if they decide to make peace with the Blobs but fail to actually achieve it. Sure, it is a rather sympathetic variation considering how they were treated by Strat-Comm and that they are planning on becoming an interstellar diplomat... but it still involves taking advantage of humanity getting enslaved.
  • Servile Snarker: Technically Lloyd as he's your computer, thus is either your property or your servant, whichever way you want to look at it.
  • Wrench Wench: Gressle the mechanic, who upgrades your ship.
  • You No Take Candle: The Blobs' attempts at speaking English.

    Choice of the Viking 

Written by Declan Taggart. Choice of the Viking casts the player as a settler in Iceland, and pits them against a rapacious neighbor to keep their farm.


  • Anarchy Is Chaos: If the Althing collapses into anarchy (either by your own desire or simply by failing to get it together), Iceland devolves into the control of regional things instead of an Althing, and the rule of the strong prevails.
  • Courtroom Episode:
    • Your father, who's returned to life as a draugr, has to face a Door Court by a priest who wants to send him to Hel. You can help, send him to Heaven instead, or allow him to stay in the world.
    • The Althing has several trials going on to deal with the chaotic legal squabbling of the Icelanders. Of course, the law tends to go to the powerful rather than the righteous unless you argue otherwise.
  • Crossover Cosmology: There's a lot of gods. The Christian God and the Aesir and Vanir both put in appearances, as do the spirits of the land and of Hel. This even becomes a plot point when you can intervene with the Door Court to argue that a Christian court has no jurisdiction over a pagan draugr.
  • Deal with the Devil: Who Is Like the Lord of Flies will offer you plenty of deals in exchange for sacrifice and general nastiness. Just remember who you're dealing with and the likely fate of those who worship her.
  • Determined Homesteader: You're a chief of a small group from Norway, come to turn an empty tract of Iceland into a prosperous farm.
  • For the Evulz: Snorri will lampshade this if he tries to kick you off your land when you've been his friend and aren't especially prosperous, since there's no actual reason for him to do so under those circumstances.
Snorri: I'm the big bad Snorri Thorgrimmson. Of course I'd throw you out.
  • Gambit Pileup: The meeting of the Althing is an absolute carnival of schemes, as various actors trade votes and argue, both to win their own private disputes and in the constitutional battles that will decide the structure of Icelandic society.
  • Magic A Is Magic A: There's a couple of different kinds of magic shown in the setting, aside from the intervention of the gods themselves. Seidr is the use of power to command spirits, which is a somewhat skeevy art associated with women. The drawing of magic runes is another art, though it's not really seen as magical by the Icelanders so much as another form of knowledge, and is governed by the Learning stat.
  • Nonindicative Name: Your holding is referred to as a "farm," even if you aren't using it for agriculture — for example, it's a center for scholars or a base for viking raids.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: The game mentions that seidr is seen as a skeevy art when practiced by men, but a male PC who practices it suffers no discrimination. Likewise, a woman serving as a priest of the Christian Church isn't seen as unusual (though the Pope isn't around to complain about it).
  • Revenant Zombie: Draugr are humans who just can't stay in the grave. They're still rotting undead and dangerous to have around.
  • Small-Town Tyrant: Thorgrim Thorgrimmson (but just call him Snorri). He's an owner of a big farm who claims your land as his, and he's got a lot of muscle going for that claim.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: Even if you play ball with Snorri from start to finish, he's going to kick you off the farm. If he likes you, he'll make a reasonable offer and let you leave in the springtime; otherwise, he'll try to force you off in the dead of winter. Either way, you'll have to fight if you want to keep your land.

    Choice of Zombies 
Written by Heather Albano and Richard Jackson.
  • Action Survivor: The protagonist can develop into this, along with a hint of Blood Knight depending on choices.
  • Action Girl: If the protagonist is female. The companions will then also all be female, although not all of them is this trope.
  • Bad Ass And Child Duo: If you only managed to save Kayden in the end.
  • Bad Ass Bookworm: Chris/Carrie, sort of. They have some zombie knowledge from various sources, one of which is zombie video games.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: Hard to tell, but during the horde in finale, it can be assumed the protagonist is doing this with Brian/Bonnie. Only if you choose the route to take them as your companion, of course. For the other route, it's harder to tell if the protagonist is doing this with the other characters in that moment, where they choose the route to take Michael/Michelle and/or Lev/Lisa instead, since none of them are straight Bad Ass.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Anita.
  • Blood Knight: Brian/Bonnie are obviously this. The protagonist can be one, too!
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: For an extra buck you can unlock an extra job during character creation: recently retired from Delta Force.
  • The Brute: Luke.
  • Church Militant: Implied.
  • Crazy Survivalist: Brian/Bonnie, sort of, for a very good reason. They have some shades of Great White Hunter, too, though.
  • Dark Action Girl:
    • The female protagonist can be sort of be this. Especially if she treats the other companions in very nasty way, loves doing Kick the Dog moments, and kills zombie more for their own satisfaction than saving other people! Exaggerated if you choose to burn down the church full of non-infected humans.
    • Implied with Anita, with some shades of Faux Action Girl.
  • Dr. Jerk: Michael/Michelle is pretty much this trope. Thankfully, he/she has Hidden Heartof Gold.
  • The Dragon: Laura, to Anita.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: One of the better ways to end up in Zombies, staying behind to fight the zombies alone after you get bitten and giving the rest of your group a chance to get away, as they promise that everyone in the world that comes after the Zombie Apocalypse will know your name.
  • Faux Action Girl: Lisa, who is very smart in setting traps for many zombies, but still needs to be rescued when being directly confronted by a single zombie.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes and The Load: Justin/Jennifer, unsurprisingly. In fact, his/her special role is only telling the protagonist about the exact location of Lev/Lisa, or Chris/Carrie in alternate route, so you can save them.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Lev, or Lisa in female version.
  • Guns in Church: If you choose church as the shelter.
  • Jerkass: Michael (or Michelle in female version), and also Brian/Bonnie in alternate route. Unsurprisingly, the protagonist can be this one, too.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Michael/Michelle/Brian/Bonnie are actually pretty often (if not always) showing this. [[spoiler:Especially if they're concerning things about Justin/Jennifer.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: If you know how to deal with the Jerkasses, it'll be revealed that they're actually this.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Hidden weapon. Can only be used once, unfortunately.
  • Kick the Dog: The protagonist can do this, to an extreme, towards Justin/Jennifer by throwing him/her to the horde of zombies. Doing so will cause your companion lose their faith on you, naturally. Ironically, Michael/Michelle and Brian/Bonnie hardly ever have this moment.
  • The Mall: One of the places your group of survivors can hole up is, perhaps inevitably, in a shopping mall.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • Jerkass characters are naturally have this moment of their own, though perhaps only if you know how to deal with them in right way. The protagonist can have some, such as being nice toward the kid Kayden, and/or later comforting Justin/Jennifer when he/she feels very stressed by the situation.
    • Anita has this moment, too, especially towards Justin/Jennifer. The old lady Laura is also very nice towards Kayden.
  • Too Dumb to Live: The people in the mall. They have no quarantine or even medical examination period of any sort, they don't post lookouts, and they insist everyone store guns and ammo separately. In the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse. Unsurprisingly, it turns out someone was infected and turns, then infects their whole medical ward.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: What the player deals with in this game.

    Creatures Such as We 
Written by Lynnea Glasser.
  • Character Customization: Twofold. Besides the protagonist being any race, age, or gender, so can the avatar in the eponymous video game.
  • Freemium Timer: The free version of the game has a timer that increases by five minutes between chapters, capping off at 20 after the player completes it. They can pay a small fee to skip the timer once or purchase the full game to remove it forever.
  • Game Within a Game: The story opens with the protagonist playing Creatures but getting upset over the ending where the avatar's sidekick Elegy gets killed by Lauress. The avatar also becomes a playable character at several points in the main game.
  • Multiple Endings: As per the Choice of Games standard, but it's also discussed in-universe. After unlocking Story Mode, the protagonist has a philosophical discussion about the ending's meaning with the Cullected Games staff during their tour. They then play Creatures again during their breaks to see if they can get a better ending, but Elegy will always die, even if the avatar tries sending them away to protect them from Lauress. A week after the events of the main story, one of the staff sends a patch update to the protagonist's copy, where they can rewrite the ending themselves with the Level Editor. Whether this is a good thing or not is up to them, and by extension the player, to decide.
  • Story Difficulty Setting: In-universe, the protagonist unlocks Story Mode in Creatures, which lowers the game's difficulty to focus more on the story. They play this mode throughout the main plot to try getting a better ending for Elegy.
  • Strictly Professional Relationship: The protagonist can try dating one of the staff of Cullected Games or try shrugging off their attraction towards them because they have to maintain professionalism as a tour guide.

    Créme de la Créme 
Written by Hannah Powell-Smith.
  • Abusive Parents: Hartmann's parents are emotionally abusive, to the point where a surprise visit from their mother has Hartmann breaking down into tears. Delacroix's parents belittle their child so much that even the stoic Mr. Griffth is taken aback, have no qualms in sending Delacroix to a sanitorium for refusing to abandon their love of the occult, and can even pay Lady Renault to make Delacroix disappear from their lives permanently.
  • The Beard: A protagonist can become one for Gonzalez, marrying Gonzalez as a friend so that the latter won't be forced into a marriage that would demand emotional and physical intimacy from them.
  • Awful Truth: If they're in a relationship with Auguste, the protagonist can have the lovely job of breaking the news to them about their mother's human trafficking scheme. The protagonist can potentially defy this trope if they keep the information a secret from Auguste (either to spare them the heartbreak or because they're working together with Lady Renaldt.
  • Big Man on Campus: Rosario is this in Archambault, by virtue of being the heir apparent to the Zaledoan throne.
  • Black Sheep: The occult loving Delacroix sticks out from the rest of their socialite family like a sore thumb. The divide between them can get so bad that their parents pay Lady Renaldt a significant amount of money to have Delacroix disappear from their lives forever.
  • Blue Blood: The majority of Archambault students are nobility of some sort.
  • Boarding School: Both Gallatin College and Archambault Academy are exclusive, expensive boarding schools. Most characters spent the majority of their schooling in a boarding school, with Freddie (who went to state-funded schools before getting a scholarship to Gallatin) and Rosario (who's education was handled by royal tutors) being the only two exceptions.
  • Confirmed Bachelor:
    • Florin is utterly uninterested in both marriage and romance, to the point where they'll break up with a protagonist who seriously pushes the idea of marriage with them.
    • The protagonist can potentially be the The Uninterested In Love or The Lost Love variants, depending on how endgame plays out.
    • Gonzalez dearly wants to be this, and gets a bit of angst over how hard this will be to achieve in a world where arranged marriages for social and political gain is the norm.
  • The Dandy: The Honourable Florin, a beautiful, shameless hedonist who is always impeccably (and scandalously) dressed.
  • Dating What Daddy Hates: The protagonist and Auguste, if the protagonist is not in Lady Renaldt's good books. The protagonist lampshade this — asking Auguste if they're just dating them just to rebel against their mother.
  • Distressed Dude: Blaise, who is enslaved in the Gallatin mines after being 'expelled', is either this or a Damsel in Distress depending on their gender. The final act of the game is kicked off by them managing to pass an SOS message on to the protagonist.
  • Dumb Jock: Gonzalez, due to prioritising lacrosse at the expense of everything else.
  • Evil Uncle: Gonzalez's uncle isn't above condemning them to a life of slavery if it means that he can get his hands on their inheritance.
  • The Fashionista: Miss Dalca wears a dress for the Winter Ball that makes her look like she's just stepped out of a fashion magazine. A female Auguste also counts, being effortlessly fashionable in all her scenes.
  • Foreign Exchange Student: Rosario, next in line to the throne of Zaledo, who's attending Archambault to both get a taste of normal school life and to experience the culture of Westerlin.
  • Frame-Up: Blaise attempts to get the protagonist expelled from Gallatin by framing them for the theft of Delacroix's necklace. However, Lady Renaldt sees through their deception and expels them instead.
  • The Gambling Addict: The protagonist's parents can be this. It catches up with them by the start of the game, where they're one step away from being completely destitute and are counting on the protagonist to refill their coffers.
  • Get into Jail Free: A manipulative protagonist can choose to goad Lady Renaldt into throwing them into the mines so that they can get a chance to talk to Blaise.
  • Gold Digger: The protagonist's parents strongly and actively encourage their child to be one, as they're counting on them to restore the family's fortune and honor by marrying well. The protagonist can either play this straight (by courting either Rosario or Auguste purely for their wealth and social standing) or defy this trope by marrying someone with no fortune whatsoever.
  • He Knows Too Much: If the protagonist refuses to go along with the Big Bad's scheme after discovering it, they're thrown into the Gallatin mines to make sure they don't talk.
  • If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: If the protagonist indicates to the Big Bad that they're willing to work for them, the very first task they're given is to help kidnap their best friend at Gallatin.
  • I Have No Son!: Delacroix's parents disown them in all but name in certain endgame senarios, even going as far as to order Lady Renaldt to make them vanish without a trace.
  • Impoverished Patrician: The protagonist's family lost their entire fortune thanks to some bad decisions on the part of their parents, which in turn ruined Blaise's family (who had backed the protagonist's parents with a significant amount of money that was subsequently lost forever). Blaise is just a tad bitter about this.
    • The protagonist can come across rumors that the Renaldt family almost became this, but somehow managed to refill their coffers. This sudden windfall was due to Lady Renaldt's human trafficking scheme taking off.
  • Lessons in Sophistication: They make up Gallatin's entire curriculum due to it being a finishing school. Students are drilled extensively on everything a proper high society socialite should know, from etiquette to the arts to how to horse ride.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Auguste, in regards to Lady Renault's human trafficking scheme. The protagonist can deliberately chose not to let them in on the secret, either because they think that the truth will hurt Auguste too much or because they're working together with Lady Renault.
  • Love Across Battlelines: Happens if the protagonist is a prefect and persues Max, or if they're a Starling and enter a relationship with Hartmann. This is lampshaded by either love interest, who are baffled that they're still willingly to date the protagonist despite the latter being on the opposite 'side' of the school conflict.
  • Made a Slave: The people Lady Renaldt makes disappear are forced to work in the Gallatin mines.
  • Marry for Love: A possible aspiration of the protagonist, even though they're under significant pressure to marry well.
  • Maybe Ever After: If neither are romanced, Max and Delacroix are clearly moving towards...something by graduation, but don't wind up engaged.
  • Meal Ticket: Archambault Academy is the home of titled aristocrats, and so it's student's are highly sort after by everyone in the market for a spouse.
    • Two of the biggest meal tickets from Archambault are Auguste Renaldt, Lady Renaldt's only child and heir, and Rosario, heir to the Zaledoan throne.
    • During the course of the game Gonzalez inadvertently becomes a prime one in the eyes of many after a flattering story about them winds up the newspapers — to their absolute horror.
  • The Mistress: Freddie, Max or Delacroix can potentially become the protagonist's mistress, if the protagonist carries on their romance after securing an Archambault student's hand in marriage.
  • The Mole: The protagonist can become this twice over. The first time is when they're roped into Lady Renaldt's investigation of Gallatin's staff, where they can blindside the task giver by working to protect a teacher instead of gathering dirt to get them fired like they were supposed to do. The second opportunity occurs during the climax of the game; they can pretend to go along with Lady Renaldt's kidnapping scheme to buy themselves enough time to gather the evidence needed to bring her down once and for all.
  • MRS Degree: The main goal of most Gallatin and Archambault students is to find a suitable spouse during their time at college. The protagonist is packed off to Gallatin with explicit instructions to do their best to secure the most high profile engagement they can manage.
  • Nobility Marries Money: Hartmann's parents, not content to be one step removed from nobility, are determined to have Hartmann secure a match with a titled aristocrat.
  • Not with Them for the Money: The protagonist, if they genuinely love whichever wealthy love interest they get engaged to.
  • Polyamory: The protagonist can enter a relationship with both Max and Delacroix. The three teachers can also wind up as a trio, but only if the protagonist is successful at encouraging all three parties to follow their heart.
  • Really Gets Around: Florin is notoriously free with their affections. Their reputation is so bad that protagonist gets a reputation penalty by mere association with them.
  • Rags to Royalty: A protagonist who becomes engaged to Rosario goes from being an Impoverished Patrician to the future consort of the next ruler of Zaledo.
  • Rescue Romance: Blaise, who can only be romanced if the protagonist manages to rescue them from Gallatin's mines.
  • Scholarship Student: Freddie, who's from a firmly working class background and would have no hope of paying Gallatin's fees without their academic scholarship.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: A male Auguste. A male protagonist is a slightly downplayed example of this, in that they can only get their hands on one, show stopping, outfit which they then reuse throughout the game.
  • Token Good Teammate: Rosario for the Archambault group, being the only one who doesn't attempt to cheat when facing the protagonist during sports day.
  • Upper-Class Equestrian: Horse riding is part of the core curriculum at Gallatin. Auguste exemplifies this, being Archambault's chosen representative for the dressage event at sports day.
  • Uptown Girl: Auguste, Rosario and Florin for the protagonist. Auguste can also be this for either Freddie or Hartmann.

    The Daring Mermaid Expedition 
Written by Andrea Phillips.
  • Bold Explorer: You can play as an adventure-seeker.
  • Determinator: You can play as this if you have a high Persistence or Passion stat.
  • Karma Meter: In this game, you have a "Credibility" stat that tracks how likely you are to be believed by the Society you seek to join.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different: In this game, the mermaids call themselves the Meramaida, according to the man who interrupts your hearing just before the "free" portion of the game ends.

    Diabolical 
Written by Nick Aires.
  • Affably Evil: Your character can actually be pretty friendly if you play them that way. If you work together with Angel Steelheart and eventually become romantically involved with them they'll admit that they don't think you're a bad person deep down.
  • Ambiguous Gender: You're not given an option to be male or female in this game, and the other characters never refer to you by gender. Even the romance options.
  • Anti-Villain: You can play a villain as this.
  • Armies Are Evil: If you play a villain that uses a soldier's tactics.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: If you choose to have your character's lair be in a volcano, the game itself will lampshade how impractical it is.
    It's expensive. It's hard to get to. The lava is difficult to restock, and your computers keep catching on fire. But the fact is, you live in a volcano, and that's awesome.
  • Back from the Dead: By the end of the game, you have the option to revive one of your dead friends.
  • Big Bad: Dr. Arachnus
  • Bittersweet Ending: Dr. Arachnus is defeated and the world is saved, but most (if not all) of your friends have died, and depending on your actions, Earth may be in a far worse condition than it's ever been before.
  • The Brute: Slog if chosen as your sidekick.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: It is very easy to play a villain like this.
  • Calling Card: You can choose to leave one of these behind. Your options are a single feather, a confetti cannon, a riddle, or a card with your initial on it.
  • Deadpan Snarker: The player character.
  • The Dragon: There's a part that requires you to choose one for your operation.
  • The Dreaded:
    • If you play a villain that strikes terror into the hearts of others.
    • Dr. Arachnus as well.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: In this game, it turns out even the villain community has one villainous act that is explicitly forbidden: killing children. Therefore, when your player character attempts to rob gold bars and finds children on a field trip, your character has to come up with a creative solution, as harming the children is not an option. Threatening the children is an option, but it's a bluff.
  • Evil Genius: Hackmaster, and if you play a villain that specializes in technology, the player character as well.
  • Evil Versus Evil: You're a supervillain who's the only one who can stop another supervillain from destroying the world.
  • Face–Heel Turn: If chosen as your sidekick, Hackmaster will attempt to betray you and join Dr. Arachnus. It doesn't go well for her.
  • Fallen Hero: The Star was originally the most renowned hero of all before being believed to have been killed years ago by Dr. Arachnus. If chosen as your sidekick, you'll find out that The Star's gone insane and grew to be more violent, and is perfectly willing to commit evil.
  • Fission Mailed: When your character undertakes a mission to commit a crime in a rural area, whether you go after the largest ball of twine, the corn maze, or the rural bank, you will always eventually be foiled by the local Sheriff. However, the game continues regardless, as this failed mission motivates your player character to choose a sidekick.
  • For the Evulz: You can choose to play a villain who commits evil for its own sake.
  • Harmless Villain: Nautilus is a Mad Artist who doesn't kill and just wants to make the world a wackier, more wonderful place. Downplayed for a player that tries to keep their Lethality down, since they'll still be stealing stuff and knocking people out.
  • Hero Antagonist: Agent Steelheart acts as one in most playthroughs. They are also a love interest.
  • Kill It with Fire: The ruthless vigilante, The Drake, uses a flamethrower as her preferred weapon.
  • Kent Brockman News: The story sometimes includes TV news reports about the escapades of you and your enemies. These reports are delivered by two anchors who are in the process of (and later finish) divorcing, hate each other, and frequently insult each other and talk about their legal proceedings on air.
  • Large Ham: When you get a chance to speak there's usually one option that lets you ham it up. This goes right from Incoming Ham all the way to jumping out of the window to make your exit bellowing This Cannot Be!
  • Laughably Evil: Thought you play a supervillain, most of the game tends toward the comedic.
  • Playing with Fire: The superhero, Fauxtron, is powered by the sun, allowing him to shoot scorching hot blasts of fire from his hands.
  • Plot Hole: If Slog is picked as a sidekick and your character has a high enough Ingenuity stat, his Heroic Sacrifice during the climax of the game won't occur. Despite that, the game will still treat it as if he died.
  • Poke the Poodle: Several potential actions of yours can be mostly harmless pranks as opposed to causing any major harm. These include covering the Fort Klanx Gold in chocolate, having people share the same opinions as you through subliminal messages, and blackmailing a mayor to walk in public naked.
  • Supervillain: You play as one.
  • The Syndicate: Minotaur is this game's equivalent to SPECTRE, complete with an underling called "The Countess."
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: You can choose to play as a villain who wants to change the world for the better.

    Drag Star! 
Written by Evan J. Peterson.

In Drag Star!, you play as one of twelve (later to be thirteen) contestants in the latest season of Drag Star!, the reality TV drag competition.


  • Affectionate Parody: Has a lot of similarities to RuPaul's Drag Race.
  • Amicable Exes: Diane von Thirstyperm was married to her son's mother for two years but are still friends in the present.
  • Celebrity Impersonator: Darling Ricky, a Prince impersonator.
  • Company Cross References: One of the books the protagonist can read during their downtime in Episode 1 is The PrEP Diaries by Evan J. Peterson, the creator of this game.
  • Confession Cam: There are cutaways where the contestants would give their reactions and/or comments on whatever is happening on the show.
  • Double Standard: Averted in the second episode. For the burlesque show, everyone is required to wear pasties regardless of gender.
  • Drag Queen: Both the competitors and the judges are drag performers.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The Smarts, Humor, Artistry, Daring and Enchantment scale, or S.H.A.D.E Scale.
  • Leg Focus: Tyra Faith's defining feature is her long legs, and she shows them proudly as she gets eliminated in the first episode.
  • Official Couple: Scandal Dupree and Trigga Warning become a couple after the season ends.
  • Proud to Be a Geek: Trigga Warning incorporates Afrofuturism and cosplay into their drag.
  • Punny Name: As to be expected in a drag competition.
    • Two of the contestants are named Armand Hamer and Moment Slater.
    • One of the judges is called Mega Genesis.
    • One of the songs used in the lip-sync battle is composed by Ana Matronic.
    • In Episode 2, Molly X and Moment Slater dress up a mannequin in a superhero getup and call it "Puffy the Glam Fire Slayer".
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: The protagonist chooses their pronouns for their drag persona, regardless of their gender out of it, which is open to interpretation and doesn't affect gameplay.
  • She's Back: Amelia Crave was brought back after her elimination during last season. There is also a chance where you can bring an eliminated contestant back.
  • The Rival: Amelia Crave, who is the PC's rival from their hometown.
  • Wedding Episode: Episode 10 featured the wedding of one of the judges with the remaining contestants taking part.

    The Fleet 
Written by Jonathan Valuckas.
  • Death from Above: The initial enemy attack on your homeworld involves many pod-like ships appearing in orbit and wiping out whole cities with deadly beams.
  • Featureless Protagonist: You're just the Fleet Captain. Not quite a Non-Entity General, as you can become directly involved in personal combat or captured at some points.
  • Gondor Calls for Aid: Your job is to bring the Alliance to reclaim your homeworld.
  • Got the Whole World in My Hand: The cover image shows a giant scaled hand clutching a blue world.
  • Number Two: Lieutenant Demian is loyal but decidedly anti-Alliance and will turn on you after the enemy is defeated in an attempt to strike at the Alliance, if you're not anti-Alliance as well.
  • Space Whale: You encounter a bunch of space-dwelling creatures that begin to eat at your ships. Depending on how decisively you fight them off, they may come back later.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: The members of your fleet hate The Alliance even more than they hate the invading aliens who have taken over your homeworld. Not only that, but the civilians are for the Alliance, which may cause a rift between them and the military personnel.
  • You Are in Command Now: As Admiral Kalla's fleet is getting pounded by the enemy, he gives command of the remaining ships (minus a small squadron) over to you, promotes you to Fleet Captain, and tells you to get out, protecting the civilian ships, and find allies.

    Fog of War: The Battle for Cerberus 
Written by Bennett R. Coles.
  • Ensign Newbie: The main character starts out as a sublieutenant who only recently graduated from the Astral College.
  • Majorly Awesome: The rebel Major Zhang is famous throughout the entire galaxy.

    For Rent: Haunted House (formerly Eerie Estate Agent) 
Written by Gavin Inglis
  • Ambiguous Gender: You don't get to choose in this one, the narration just avoids mentioning your gender at all.
  • Bad Boss: The Crocodile.
  • No Hugging, No Kissing: Unusually for these games, there is no romance option in this one at all.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Your boss. Though the narration tells you her real name, it also tells you that everyone calls her The Crocodile and she's then referred to as The Crocodile throughout.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The TV host running an episode on your haunted house is sucked into the afterlife by the ghosts. No one ever comes looking for her or makes a fuss about her disappearance.

    Grand Academy for Future Villains 
Written by Katherine Nehring.
  • Academy of Evil: You're attending a school that teaches evil masterminds and would-be despots, and is aware of the genres they're being sent to.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: You attend a training school for villains of all genres.
  • Guide Dang It!: Some of the outcomes are devilishly difficult to achieve, but the worse is Become Something Other Than Human. In order to do so, you have to make all the right choices in regards to your grades, your finances, your friendships and your romantic attachments, and then sacrifice all of them towards the end. And that's only if you made multiple correct choices earlier, as if your transformation isn't progressed far enough, even sacrificing everything won't be enough.
  • Villain Protagonist: Well, yeah, obviously.

    Heart of the House 
Written by Nissa Campbell.
  • Byronic Hero: Reaves, who is brooding, attractive, and possessed of dark secrets.
  • Dances and Balls: Reaves throws a massive ball at the house as a way to attract people for it to eat.
  • Dreaming of Times Gone By: When in the Manor, the PC has dreams that are the past memories of Reaves' missing mother.
  • Fourth-Date Marriage: If romancing Reaves, you can either choose to have this, or tell Reaves that you want to wait at least until you're out of mortal danger to talk about weddings and then take things more slowly.
  • Golden Ending: The easiest way is to max out a stat and rely almost exclusively on it while making friends with Reaves (as you will need another pair of hands to save everyone at the ball). You should also investigate as much as you can while you're trapped by the house.
  • The Hero Dies: It is possible for the PC to die if they chose the wrong decision at a low percentage of will.
  • I Will Find You: The story starts with the PC looking for Kent who went missing three years ago.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Oriana is capable of removing certain memories from people, including Reaves and Loren. Should your Arcana stat be low enough you can also fall victim to this.
  • Last-Name Basis: Everyone, including the PC themselves, calls the PC's uncle Kent.
  • Malicious Misnaming: The ghost of Lady Amelia calls Oriana "Lilith".
  • Missing Mom: Lord/Lady Reaves' mother, Penelope.
  • Nephewism: When your parents died, your uncle, Kent, was the one who took care of you.
  • Occult Detective: The PC and Kent are occult investigators.
  • Older Than They Look: Oriana appears to be about the same age as the PC or slightly older, but has spent generations at the house as she is actually a Humanoid Abomination.
  • Pair the Spares: If the PC is not actively pursuing Dev and/or Loren, both will go and have a relationship with each other.
  • Two First Names: Kent's full name is Joseph Kent.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Oriana sometimes removes memories simply to take away pain rather than for personal schemes. You can point out that by erasing those memories, this character deprives people of agency and the ability to learn from bad experiences.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Your character can have a number of fears such as blood, spiders and snakes, to which your nightmares and whatever you see upon entering the creepy tower will be tailored.

    The Hero of Kendrickstone 
Written by Paul Wang. Comprises The Hero of Kendrickstone, with the sequel The Cryptkeepers of Hallowford.
  • Action Prologue: You begin The Hero of Kendrickstone fighting and about to slay a dragon, but it's All Just a Dream, the real adventure happens after your character wakes up.
  • Adventure-Friendly World: Plenty of ruins around to plunder, bandits and monsters to fight, to the point where "wandering adventurer" is a recognized occupation.
  • After the End: 216 years ago, the Flowering Court ruled a magical empire over the lands that are now controlled by the Concordat. Then it vanished, and left behind ruined cities full of monsters and magical treasure.
  • Artifact of Doom: In Cryptkeepers of Hallowford, the Heart is a malfunctioning and dangerous Flowering Court artifact that's also the source of Hallowford's prosperity.
  • Badass Bookworm: Every possible build can end up being this, to certain extent. It's perfectly possible to go through both games as a bard with no fighting ability whatsoever, only wits and eloquence. Played straight in the case of a mage with high magiccal ability and lore stats, or even a knight well-versed in poetry and literature, to the point of being a Genius Bruiser.
  • Being Good Sucks:
    • In the endgame, you have to decide how to punish the captured bandits, who committed hanging-worthy offenses under brainwashing. The compassionate thing to do is to pardon them all, but the crowd wants them hung and isn't interested in excuses. Freeing them will put a serious tarnish on your name. You can placate the crowd by sentencing the bandits to ten years of hard labour — more compassionate than hanging, and it gives the bandits a chance to repair the damage they have done to the city.
    • In Hallowford, the guy who's trying to cover up a Zombie Apocalypse for his own profit, and willing to murder to keep the secret is also the guy who's signing your paycheck. On the other hand, working with the Captain to bring the issue to a vote isn't exactly a negative outcome, as you can get some loot and a massive rep boost for it. No, this trope really applies if you decide to destroy the Heart, stopping the problem for good but forfeiting any reward at all.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: The game's villain is a bad man (using brainwashing to turn innocents into murderous bandits isn't the behavior of an upstanding citizen), but Kendrickstone's elite aren't always nice chums themselves; William of Hallowford is a mafia boss and Isan of Korilandis is an amoral wizard most concerned with his own research. Even Dame Mildred is willing to engage in underhanded behavior to serve the needs of the city, such as ordering her squire to cooperate with William of Hallowford and break into someone's house to catch a smuggler.
  • Character Alignment: Played with. "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil" are available as achievements, and you have two Karma Meters for Compassion/Pragmatism and Order/Freedom. However, the game itself avoids passing moral judgment on your actions. invoked
  • Court Mage: Isan of Korilandis, a foreign wizard who works for the Duke of Kendrickstone.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Korilandis is a counterpart to medieval Mali, ruled by a Mansa and with an economy based on gold and salt.
  • Glory Hound: You, to a greater or lesser extent. Part of your motivation for adventuring is inevitably going to be fame and glory.
  • Keep the Reward: In this game, refusing the reward for a heroic deed is generally not purely altruistic, it's a publicity stunt that earns you fame.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: Dame Mildred of Sonnemerci, Knight of Kendrickstone and the only one of the possible mentors who can be unambiguously called "good." William of Hallowford does make a "Not So Different" Remark, though, in that they both enforce order in the city.
  • Mentors: There are three possible mentors who you can sign up with, each of whom favors a different stat and influencing each of the three quests, though you also have the (harder) option to go it alone. Regardless of who you join, each of the mentors also gives you one of the game's major quests; if you're working for another mentor, they bring their own agenda into each of the other mentors' quests.
    • Dame Mildred of Sonnemerci is a Knight in Shining Armor and defender of the Duke's peace. She offers you a position as her squire if you impress her in your first encounter, and a servant-at-arms if not. Either way, she helps train the Prowess stat.
    • Isan of Korilandis is the Court Mage. If you impress him, he'll take you as an apprentice; if not, he'll make you a servant in his tower. If you're an apprentice, he'll help train your Willpower stat and magic lores. (He's not much help, stats-wise, if you're a servant.)
    • William of Hallowford is a "legitimate businessman" who controls all criminal activity in the city. If you work for him, he'll either train you in Subterfuge or give you a rich piece of the action.
  • Morale Mechanic: Good food, fine clothes and quality alcohol keep you in good spirits, which give you a boost to all of your stats. Conversely, if you live like a pauper, all the privations wear down on your ability to get anything done. Abandoned in the second game.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: William of Hallowford's plan for stopping the Big Bad starts with "s" and ends with "-litting his throat."
  • Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters: William of Hallowford certainly tries to put on a front of this, and he does do a fine job of ensuring that those who buy his writs don't have to worry about criminal activity. He's also extremely willing to chip in to defend the city when it's in trouble — it's his larder he's guarding.
  • Power-Up Letdown: Becoming an "associate" in William of Hallowford's organization means that you get a little more money from your job, but you miss out on the practical training in Subterfuge you might get if you remained as an enforcer and took one of the other rewards from the relevant quest.
  • Shame If Something Happened: The mission in Chapter 5 is undeniably a bit on the skeevy side, and William is not above obliquely threatening to ruin your life if you don't play ball, forcing you to go through with it.
  • Standard Fantasy Setting: Young adventurers go out slaying dragons for gold and glory, using swords and spells. It's a very self-aware one, though.
  • Totally Not a Criminal Front: William of Hallowford is an honest, upstanding merchant of Kendrickstone who provides, among other services, protection from the city's criminal element. Of course, sometimes his men need to remind everyone why they should buy his writs of protection. Order must be maintained in the city, after all. The achievement for joining his organization is even called "Legitimate Business."
  • Zombie Apocalypse: A problem in Cryptkeepers is that the dead are coming out of the crypts.

    Hollywood Visionary 
Written by Aaron A. Reed where you are a movie producer attempting to make your dream project against the backdrop of the Fall of the Studio System and the Red Scare.
  • Acclaimed Flop: Only possible if you're blacklisted. Otherwise, the ending doesn't actually distinguish between critical and commercial success — both roads lead to an Oscar. invoked
  • Adorably Precocious Child: Your niece. When she first appears on the studio lot, your character expects her to ask about the movie stars, but she surprises your character by being an expert in filmmaking lingo and technical jargon as well as the more obscure parts of the movie industry, and she spends time trying to be useful and helpful to those around her. Also, if you have a good relationship with her, she'll spy on Croghan for you to find out if his picture is a rip-off of yours or not. However, there's one subversion near the end: if you spend enough time with your niece, and you promise her that you can keep a secret, she tells you that she doesn't think she's as precocious and smart as others think she is, since she can't read unless she really forces herself, and in fact, she's only been able to turn in homework because she's been paying a boy in her class to write down what she says (but just writing it down; she still comes up with the answers herself).
  • Allohistorical Allusion: Several achievements are awarded for re-creating Real Life films, such as "Master of Suspense" (get Alfred Hitchcock to direct a horror or suspense film with a celebrity lead), "Like It Hot" (get Billy Wilder to direct a comedy with a cross-dressing lead) and "Commanding" (get Cecil B. DeMille to direct a widescreen religious epic in color).
  • Anachronism Stew: The game is set in The '50s. Most of the background fluff (The Korean War is ongoing, The Hollywood Blacklist is at its height, a Congressional committee is actively rooting out Communist agents, the Paramount Decision has opened the door for independent filmmakers to reach a wide audience of theater-goers) implies a setting in the early fifties, but several of the movies listed in the dossiers of actors and directors were released later in the decade, and your niece at one point makes a reference to Leave It to Beaver, considered emblematic of The '50s but not actually broadcast until 1957. That said, most hints indicate the game takes place in 1952-53. "Eisenhower's America" is mentioned in such a way as to imply it's a new thing (he was elected on November 4, 1952, and inaugurated on January 20, 1953), the Korean War ended in mid-1953, and the Academy Awards ceremony in one of the game's possible endings is explicitly said to be the first broadcast on television — which historically was the 25th Academy Awards ceremony, held on March 19, 1953. Oddly, Spencer Tracy, who presents you with your award, was not a presenter at that ceremony in Real Life. The Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954 would precipitate the decline of Communist witch-hunts, making a setting after that point unlikely.
  • Arab Oil Sheikh: Prince Faisal Raqim is an oil sheikh from a small (and unnamed) country somewhere on the Arabian peninsula. Despite being heir to the throne, he's far more interested in the Hollywood social scene, and has made a name for himself as an investor in several film productions.
  • Bad Boss: Lloyd Croghan, who's callous and inflexible, but also competent and ultimately fair-minded.
    • You can become one of these if you mistreat your crew (leading to a strike action).
  • Book Dumb:
    • Your niece, who hates school and would rather spend time on the studio lot. It's later revealed that this is because she's dyslexic.
    • The Grip is also this — a genius film technician who didn't graduate high school.
  • Casting Couch: You can't do this outright, but you can have a relationship with the Actor.
  • Cool Uncle: You can be one, for your niece.
  • Distant Finale: Two of the game's five endings take place decades after the rest of the game.
  • Dueling Shows: In-universe. Around when you get your initial visit from the HUAC you find out that by complete coincidence the studio you just quit is making a big-budget version of the same idea your movie's about.
  • Eternal Sexual Freedom: While Jonathan Creed can ask you about homosexual liaisons, nobody else cares, and you can have a gay relationship of your own or a Queer Romance film without it raising a single actual blip of Communist suspicion against you.
  • Executive Meddling: Invoked. You face attempts at this from the Media Watchdog Jonathan Creed. Later, your backer may make demands in exchange for saving your studio.
  • First Girl Wins: The first character whose gender you can select (usually an indication of a love interest in the Choice games) is the assistant, but the game instead focuses on a Love Triangle with the Actor and the Grip, keeping your relationship with the assistant platonic. However, if you don't end up with either the Actor or the Grip at the premiere, you are presented with an opportunity to start dating the assistant. The achievement for this is even called "You All Along".
  • Giftedly Bad: You, if you choose to work in the field where your skills are lacking. Also, films that really suck in some aspect have a way of becoming cult classics.
  • Greta Garbo: An old friend of your character. You once did her a favor and you have the opportunity to call it in when your studio needs money. As is prominently featured in the game's advertising, one of the ways you can sweet-talk her into giving you more money is to seduce her.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: The assistant, who was your personal assistant at Croghan's studio and followed you after you quit. At numerous points in the game, your character makes clear that the assistant's help is basically the only thing allowing the movie to happen.
  • Lowest Common Denominator: You can choose for your movie to appeal to these sorts of people. The game's stats counter diplomatically describes such films as "accessible" (in contrast to "intellectual"). However, if you do, you'll lose points with the critics, who aren't afraid to call it lowbrow (or worse). invoked
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted, for the most part — real Hollywood celebrities of the era are featured in the game, and you can even cast them in your movie.
  • One Stat to Rule Them All: While you don't necessarily need to have any skill at this (talent can be hired), skillful editing can fix any and all problems that rise up on the set. Do what you need to to get the film made, and work out the kinks in post-production.
  • Only One Name: Your assistant is the only character with a customizable name who doesn't have a last name. You can assign first and last names to yourself, the Actor, and the Grip, but not the assistant. (You can choose your niece's first name, but her last name is always Frazier.)
  • Oscar Bait: If you ignore a film's commercial viability and instead play for critical success.
  • Red Scare: One of the game's overarching plotlines. You can play as a staunch anti-communist or an unapologetic Red — or anywhere in between. If you're unapologetic or uncooperative enough, you will be blacklisted.
  • Seriously Scruffy: The assistant.
  • Shout-Out: To Ed Wood — there's a scene where Orson Welles gives you a pep talk very similar to the one he gives Ed Wood in the film.
  • Smoking Gun: The fire investigation discovers a piece of evidence that the conflagration which nearly brought down your studio was, in fact, arson. It was a Diego cigar, Croghan's brand, leading you to believe he tried to sabotage your studio, but it turns out, he stopped smoking cigars some time before.
  • Start My Own: The game opens with you leaving Lloyd Croghan's studio to start your own, in order to bring your dream project to life.
  • Title Drop: One of the default choices for the name of your studio is "Hollywood Visionary".
  • Troubled Production: It wouldn't be much of a game if your project ran smoothly. This is exaggerated if Crew Stress is high, as a crew that's going insane won't have good Craft. invoked
  • Typecasting: Indulging in this does wonders for the quality of your film's acting. This doesn't work for directors, though — A-list directors will excel at making pretty much any kind of movie, even if you have Alfred Hitchcock direct a romantic comedy or Billy Wilder direct an epic adventure film. invoked
  • Vindicated by History: If you're blacklisted, your film will bomb (theater chains just won't give it a chance), but it can be this. invoked
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Although Croghan is exonerated from arson and industrial sabotage, it's ultimately never revealed who tried to burn down your studio.
  • Workaholic: You can be one. Work too hard and you'll end up having a heart attack.
  • You Get What You Pay For: Across the board, "budget" talent is inferior to A-list talent, though usually their weaknesses can be overcome if you make the right choices during production. But don't scrimp on the film editing — the cheaper the editor, the fewer opportunities you have to alter the film and the more likely an alteration can backfire.

    Ironheart 
Written by Lee Williams.
  • Abdicate the Throne: When Louis challenges your rule over Tebnine, you can respond by giving it up. If you're on the Caliphate side and abdicate because Tebnine is part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, this is seen as well beyond the call of duty, and earns great esteem from the Christian side.
  • Cain and Abel: Louis kills his brother Guillame in an attempt to take control of his fief.
  • Friendly Enemy: When the Christian and Saracen knights aren't fighting, they remain civil to each other and respect each other's nobility. (Usually. Some take the war very personally indeed and treat the other side with no honor.)
  • The Fundamentalist: While King Baldwin and Saladin aren't this, there are fundamentalists on both sides who support oppressing Muslims and Christians and keeping them out of the government of the Papacy and Caliphate, respectively.
  • Giving Radio to the Romans: Vivienne, another astronaut from the future, is known as the Sorceress for the advancements she's introduced into the Middle Ages. You can slso introduce some future science of your own.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: The Christian and Saracen forces can take time out before the tournament for a friendly game of basketball.
  • Historical Domain Character: It's the Crusades, and you can meet a lot of the big names.
  • Humongous Mecha: Archons, great metal constructs powered by starstones. The archon, rather than the horse, is now the steed of a knight.
  • Powered Armor: King Baldwin of Jerusalem, the Leper King, uses a nine-foot-tall suit of armor to be able to move around, and it's said that the armor's plates are the only thing holding him together.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • King Baldwin of Jerusalem is the epitome of just rule, though he's not inflexible about it, and approaches the Crusades with an expert eye for realpolitik and a plan for peace, one way or another. Should you be a Muslim, or even on the Caliphate's side, he will still judge fairly when your right to rule is questioned despite the fact that you're sitting on his land.
    • Saladin is the leader of the Caliphate. He is a wise and charitable ruler, and he's firmly on the side of peace with Jerusalem — though he may not be able to get it. He'll freely accept the fealty of a Christian knight.
  • Time Travel: You awaken in the past after falling from your space station. You're not the only one; Vivienne arrived a while before you did, and futuristic innovations have begun to proliferate across the Holy Land.
  • Trial by Combat: When Louis contests your right to rule Tebrine, you can demand the right to settle it through trial by combat, or King Baldwin can decree that the trial is inconclusive and it should be settled that way.
  • Worthy Opponent: King Baldwin and Saladin have great mutual respect for each other, even as their religions demand that they cross blades. Because of this, a peace treaty is an option.

    It's Killing Time 
Written by Eric Bonholtzer.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The Syndicate is built around lone assassins with unique fighting styles and signature weapons. This style and variety make it difficult for them when they have to train as a group.
  • Big Bad: Jenkin Yoshinobu, the father of the woman who killed herself after you killed her boyfriend in Beijing. It was his idea for the Phoenix to hire Boris to destroy his own crew. Depending on your previous choices, after taking revenge on or forgiving Boris, you may or may not have an opportunity to travel to Japan and decapitate Yoshinobu.
  • The Chessmaster: If you play an assassin with a high Intelligence stat, your character specializes in coming up with clever strategies to pull off your assassinations.
  • Cold Sniper: You can play as this if you have a high Ranged Weapons stat and a high Ruthlessness or high Discipline stat.
  • Cultured Badass: You can play as this if you have a high Intelligence stat, since increasing your intelligence requires a lot of reading of literature, or if you take special enjoyment in the sights and culture of the places you visit.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: If you have a high Strength/Hand-to-Hand stat, your character is better at close-range fighting.
  • The Handler: Usually your boss, Boris, but sometimes it'll be one of your teammates.
  • Hired Guns: Your player character, and everyone in The Syndicate.
  • Hitman with a Heart: You can play as this if you have a high Righteousness stat.
  • Holy Hitman: You can play as this if your assassin player character frequently attends church.
  • The Mole: Later, it becomes clear that someone in your organization is working against you. There are several clues that the mole is Miller, but it turns out this is a Red Herring. The mole actually turns out to be your handler Boris, who was hired by the Phoenix to destroy his own crew, an offer he accepted both because of the enormous amount of money and because standing up to the Fallen Angels would've been suicide.
  • Murder, Inc.: The Syndicate, the group your character works for.
  • My Greatest Failure: Your player character eventually has a dream flashback to a previous mission in Beijing (you can resist having this dream the first time, but the second time you have no choice but to dream about it). Played with, as your character did successfully complete the mission and kill your target; the "failure" was completely accidental collateral damage, as once the target's girlfriend walked in and saw that her boyfriend was dead, she threw herself out the window and killed herself in despair.
  • Only in It for the Money: A possible motivation for your player character if he/she doesn't care who he/she kills, as long as the money is good.
  • Professional Killer: Your player character, and everyone in The Syndicate.
  • Psycho for Hire: You can play as this if you have a high Psychotic level, and also to an extent if you have a high Ruthlessness level.
  • Red Herring: There are a few clues pointing to the idea that Miller is working against you. Miller refuses to talk about his past, you find grenades and a Fallen Angels headband in his bag, and he conveniently shows up late after an attack kills many of your teammates citing the reason as needing to check on his niece. As it turns out, while he used to be a member of the Fallen Angels, he left them when they became too sadistic. Also, while some hoodlums show up late in the story looking for Miller, it's due to an unrelated matter, and Miller has been genuinely on your side the whole time. There is a traitor in your organization, but it isn't Miller.
  • Romance Sidequest: You can potentially pursue a relationship with one of your fellow assassins, though only one of them will agree to a relationship (who it is depends on your choices). The leader of the Fallen Angels, the Phoenix, may also try to tempt you into a relationship depending on your choices.
  • Shout-Out: While in the prologue, your character spots a snake lying nearby. If you opt to cover it, you first lay hands on a beat-up fedora.
  • Talking Your Way Out: Your character is good at this if you have a high Improvisation stat, although there are a few bluffs that may require Intelligence as well such as convincing the man with the harpoon gun during the Bora Bora mission to take only some of your money, thinking he's taking all of it.
  • We Help the Helpless: Your player character can have this as his/her motivation if your player character's motivations center around ridding the world of corrupt bad guys and giving the justice the law sometimes can't provide.

    The Last Monster Master 
Written by Ben Serviss.
  • Big Bad Friend: Your player character was friends with Alumig as a child, and if you were either an orphan or an outcast Alumig was your only friend. But he becomes a main villain later.
  • The Bully: The lanky monster (whose name you can determine) acts like this at first to the small monster and the muscular monster, but you can talk her out of it.
  • The Dragon: Orlich. He thinks he's a (well-intentioned) Big Bad, but he got a lot of help from Alumig, and Alumig had plans of his own.
  • Face–Heel Turn: At the climax, Alumig attempts to cause two of your monsters to abandon you and join Alumig's cause, it will always be the two monsters who have the least affinity for you. However, it's possible to talk your monsters into remaining with you, and you get an achievement for preventing their turn.
  • Gambit Pileup: The last battle is a circus as everyone's attempts to control the monster army crash headlong into one another.
  • Guide Dang It!: How the ending is determined is not explained outside of the code. It depends on your Compassion/Discipline meter and on which of four stats you've trained the most.
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Like all Choice of Games games, you can name your player character, but in a case notable enough to list this trope here, you can name each of the four monsters you train, as well.
  • Hippie Teacher: You can play as this type of trainer if you have a high Compassion stat.
  • Inherent in the System: Humans' treatment of monsters is essentially slavery, but the fact is that untamed monsters are wild and dangerous to humans, and only certain humans have the necessary telepathic ability to communicate with and tame them. It's possible to build a more equitable society once monsters break their chains. It's also rather easy to screw things up.
  • Love Triangle: Eventually, the horse monster and the muscular monster will develop feelings for each other. If you break them up, the horse monster will hook up with the small monster afterwards, much to the muscular monster's dismay. If you don't break them up, the horse monster and the muscular monster will remain together, much to the small monster's dismay.
  • Red Herring: The story begins with you having to calm down a monster named Tansiat from throwing tantrums over frustration with his job. Since your friend Alumig is much more accepting of his position, you're led to believe that Tansiat will become a problem later on. It's actually Alumig who later turns, after hearing the arguments of the foreign monsters.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Both groups of rebel monsters fit. "The rebels" are a Barbarian Horde who want to burn everything down, while Alumig is a would-be fascist dictator. And even if you beat both of them, the monster army will still establish a new system not based on Monster Masters, which can be just as bad as the old system or worse if you don't know exactly what you're doing when raising your monsters.
  • Sadist Teacher: You can play as this type of trainer if you have a high Discipline stat and a low Respect stat.
  • Starter Villain: Your first task is to try to calm down a monster named Tansiat, who is throwing tantrums because he is fed up with his job as Treasure Guardian.
  • Stern Teacher: You can play as this type of trainer if you have a high Discipline stat and a high Respect stat.
  • Title Drop: In the ending, you will always be "the last Monster Master."
  • Villain Has a Point: Alumig is trying to free monsters from human rule. While that isn't entirely a good thing, and he is a Jerkass who's mostly using the cause for his own ambition, he has a point that human treatment of monsters gets oppressive at times.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Late in the story, Orlich attempts to take over Granaugh and enlist the monsters in his army, reasoning that he needs to do whatever is necessary to fight the Brugarnns.

    Lies under Ice 
Written by Joey Jones. A science fiction adventure where you play as the leader of a scientific expedition to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, in search of extraterrestrial life.

  • Anarchy Is Chaos: Libertalia is an alliance of seagoing anarchist communes and a couple of marginal nation-states who've adopted their model. While they're the freest of the three alliances and have a robust democratic system for checking factional politics, they also tend to be rather fractious and their communities break up and re-form all the time. During the Shatter War, the Libertalian Alliance factionalizes, with various groups supporting the United Earth and the G81, while the Libertalian community on Ceres start threatening both sides with Orbital Bombardment.
  • Election Day Episode: Chapter 6 is where your previous actions and future plans will be put to the test, in the form of someone else challenging you for re-election. Best make some friends among the factions.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: Both on Earth and on Europa, all the factions have good points and bad ones. On Europa, various ethical questions about alien lifeforms, control of Europa's research, and what should be done once sentient life is discovered are hotly debated. Even Zoaco, the Mad Scientist Research, Inc., can legitimately claim to have Europa's best interests at heart - while sometimes, what the working class support personnel want is at odds with the colony's mission. On Earth, meanwhile, the United Earth are the Western market states and are on Europa to exploit its resources and biodiversity for their own benefit; the G81 are an alliance of non-Western countries with primarily authoritarian socialist economies, but are involved in the Europa project so that they can have habitat space for their people. And Libertalia are a fractious alliance of anarchist communes who want to terraform Europa into a Water World and make it independent of Earth.
  • Post-Scarcity Economy: Earth has access to cheap replicators, meaning that most goods are potentially free, and in Libertalian communes and on Europa, this trope applies. In the United Earth, though, corporations maintain a capitalist market system and restrict access to their products, while in the authoritarian socialist nations of the G81, fabricator access is controlled by government permits.
  • Research, Inc.: Zoaco, a corporation that joined the Europa expedition to seek out (and profit from) alien life under the ice.
  • Starfish Aliens: As expected, the lifeforms on Europa include some that have no analog on Earth. The sentient aliens are a Mind Hive of jellyfish colonies who send psychic dreams to the colonists.

    Mask of the Plague Doctor 
Written by Peter Parrish.
  • Animal-Motif Team: The player character and their two partners have an Animal Motif each, by the virtue of their masks.
  • Animal Stereotypes: Alice is female, confident, pragmatic and cunning, befitting her fox motif. She lacks the more negative aspects of the stereotype though.
  • Plague Doctor: You play as one, but you get a choice regarding what mask you wear and how much you play into the stereotype personality-wise.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: You can elect to leave the city once things get truly out of hand, a choice Lucia encourages you to make.

    Meta Human Inc. 
Written by Paul Gresty.
  • Aerith and Bob: There are character names like Winston Q and Anaru Katariki, and then there are names like Robert Leach and Philip Mace.
  • And I Must Scream: Don't tick off the board of directors. Just... don't.
  • Bittersweet Ending: If you fail to stop the invasion of the Surgeons but end up getting approval from the executives on how good of a job you did over the course of a year as a CEO. Knowing the certain future really puts a damper on the praise...
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Interestingly, the premise of MetaHuman Inc. is about avoiding this trope—the company that unexpectedly appoints you as CEO has access to supernatural wizardry and super-science technology, and the company is pragmatic enough to sell these superpowers off to the highest bidder.
  • Deal with the Devil: For you, taking the powers offered by MetaHuman is this, binding you to the will of the Board of Directors. If you don't take any enhancements, then if they decide to eliminate you in the ending, they have to back down and let you go free.
  • Do Well, But Not Perfect: Downplayed. If you don't want to remain as CEO, you want to shoot for a medium score. Too high, and the shareholders won't want to let you go. Too low, and the shareholders won't let you go for a different reason. If you like the job, of course, you want to do well.
  • Downer Ending: Dying in the Surgeons' world either protecting Katariki or fighting alongside him as the Surgeons close in due to not having what you needed to stop them. Being trapped in a picture by the board also counts.
  • Epic Fail: Try to get Marc Bonnin to embezzle company money for you when he's actually not guilty of anything, and he'll rat you out to the shareholders. This is not good for your evaluation, though it's possible to partially weasel out of it.
  • Gay Option: Brett Golightly for a male PC, and Robyn for a female one.
  • Happy Ending: Saving the world from the Surgeons' invasion and getting praised for doing such a good job as a CEO. You're even offered to continue working as a CEO. Plus, getting your preferred love interest.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: You, possibly, if you choose to stay behind and cause a distraction with the Surgeons for Katariki so he can close the portal from their world to Earth's world. However, if you go close the portal and Katariki stays behind, he becomes this trope.
  • Honesty Is the Best Policy: How you can choose to run MetaHuman Inc. and be as a CEO.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Robyn Goodchild
  • MegaCorp: Metahuman Inc. fits this, complete with heavily-armed black ops teams who lethally protect corporate secrets and terminate liabilities. While it's institutionally villainous, you can turn it in a more compassionate, candid direction.
  • Mercy Kill: When you travel into a future Seattle in a world taken over by Surgeons, you come upon a human transforming into a Surgeon. He pleads with you to kill him before he turns completely. It's your choice whether you do it or not.
  • Naïve Newcomer: You. You're thrust into a CEO position when the former CEO has suddenly disappeared with no former training and without warning.
  • Not Quite Dead: Anaru Katariki.
  • The Dreaded: The exec board to you and possibly the media, if you're on their bad side. Also, if you rule the company with an iron fist without caring about your employees, this is you to them.
  • The Professor: Professor Nemesis
  • Read the Fine Print: Actually, you can't do this with your contract as CEO, because that would reveal that if you don't take any enhancements, the Board has no power over you.
  • Refuge in Audacity: At the shareholders' evaluation, there's plenty of opportunities to salvage bad results through brass balls. You can even blame the shareholders if they catch you embezzling.
  • The Rival: Aaron Salt, the CEO of your rival corporation, Psion Industries.
  • Second-Person Narration
  • Stealing from the Till: It may be possible to retire with some Metahuman funds resting in your account.
  • Totalitarian Utilitarian: Mathematically speaking, the Surgeons' invasion is a good thing for humanity, increasing the quality of life and reducing the death rate. The price involves sacrificing "a minuscule percentage" of the population to allow the Surgeons to breed. Whether this is ultimately a good trade is up to you.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: You'll always be accused of stealing from MetaHuman Inc. in order to get railroaded into becoming the new CEO of the company.
  • You Have Failed Me: The shareholders do not tolerate disloyalty or incompetence. A low-level failure will just get you fired (which may not be all that bad of an ending), but they will respond if you make a complete hash of things, and you will not like the consequences.

    A Midsummer Night's Choice 
Written by Kreg Segall.
  • Arranged Marriage: The reason the protagonist runs away to begin with is to escape one of these with the aged Lord/Lady Penderghast.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: If the player chooses to romance Prenzie.
  • Childhood Friends: While the protagonist's exact age isn't revealed, the fact that they seem to be rather young and that they have known Prenzie for eight years most likely makes him/her this.
  • Court Jester: Prenzie, who is also the protagonist's oldest friend, is a professional fool who serves the protagonist's father, the King. It is noted that the King hired Prenzie out of the requirement to be a court of importance,
  • Disguised in Drag: If the protagonist is a man, he disguises himself as a woman for most of the game.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: While they are not the Big Bad, the protagonist gets a fairy twin made from ice and snow with quite the sadistic streak.
  • Food Chains: If the player tries and fails to break the grass chains binding them in the enchanted grove, they will gnaw the chains off instead. As it turns out later, this counts as eating fairy food and binds the protagonist to the forest.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: The protagonist is the result of a romantic tryst between the Duke and the Faerie Queene, making them half-fairy.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: The Maroon Knight tries to be this, but usually falls short.
  • Magic Realism: The first chapter is pretty grounded. But once you and Prenzie enter the forest, all bets are off and the game has one foot in reality and one in a dream world at all times.
  • Oblivious Transformation: Morgan's head will be transformed into that of a rat, fox, weasel, or deer, depending on how the player answered a question in an earlier chapter. Morgan doesn't even notice until he/she has it pointed out to him/her, and it eventually goes away on its own.
  • Optional Sexual Encounter: The protagonist can have an implied one with their snow twin if they go along with their flirtations. One Fade to Black later, the player is putting their clothes back on with the twin sleeping nearby with a smile.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage: If the player chooses to romance the Maroon Knight, who is Lord/Lady Penderghast in disguise.
  • Screw Yourself: As mentioned above, the protagonist can have an implied Optional Sexual Encounter with their snow twin. There's even an achievement for it.
  • Show Within a Show: The story is presented as a play, and the protagonist partakes in a play in one chapter. The chapter is even named "The Play Within a Play".
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: If the protagonist is a woman, she disguises herself as a man for most of the game.
  • Woman Scorned: The ill health of the protagonist's father is due to a curse placed on him by Faerie Queene after he left her.

    The Mysteries of Baroque 
Written by William Brown.
  • First-Episode Resurrection: The game starts with the protagonist waking up in Dr. Holofernes' laboratory after having been dead for a year.
  • Who Dunnit To Me: The protagonist knows that their cousin Vincent plotted for their death but they have to discover who his accomplices were.

    Neighbourhood Necromancer 
Written by Gavin Inglis.
  • All Girls/Guys Want Bad Boys/Girls: If the PC romances Max.
  • Betty and Veronica: Sam is the Betty to Max's Veronica for the player's Archie.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: The PC can attempt this during the climax.
  • Jerkass: As part of the premise, many of the people in the player character's hometown are this. A woman cuts in front of you in the haircut line, you're overcharged for a soda while buying fish suppers for your father, etc. You can play as one yourself if you play a character with a high Corruption stat.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: If you invite the vampire who visits later into your home, he turns out to be this (you even get to choose his name, since your character doesn't know the Transylanian Saxon necessary to pronounce his real one). You can ask him a couple of questions about vampires, and he can even help you get past the gate of The Base, though only as far as that.
  • Mama Bear: The bean nighe/banshee towards your horde, full stop. The player can also potentially be this (or Papa Wolf) toward them, or go the complete other route.
  • Perky Goth: "Perky" might be a stretch, but Sam is a much better person than sociopathic Max.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: If your relationship with your horde is low enough, they will turn on you when the Kendall kids take the bone from you, and you will subsequently be raised as a zombie yourself in service to the Kendalls.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Friendly Neighborhood Vampire will pull this if the PC brings the wrath of the army down on the town.
  • Seen It All: The police officer PC McMurdo, who's seen some strange things in his day, but considers them all vulnerable to good old-fashioned police work, which he explains to you if you bolt from him if he investigates your house.
  • Single Wo/man Seeks Good Wo/man: If the PC romances Sam.
  • Take That!: You can ask the visiting vampire what he thinks of pop culture's portrayal of vampires. He likes Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee's portrayals, cannot understand "that lady" who writes sparkly grumpy teenage vampires who cannot communicate (he is referring to, and insulting, Stephanie Meyers and the Twilight novels), and he finds the Buffy franchise to be very funny and sad, though he thinks they got vampires confused with The Incredible Hulk. And finally he says Joss Whedon is a vampire himself.
  • The Bully: The three Kendall kids, and they go even further than most examples of this trope as they attack an off-duty soldier and kill him.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Or rather, "The Reason Your Shop Sucks" Speech in this case. If you command the dead to take revenge on the fish and chips shop, and if you win, then instead of killing them you have the option of lecturing them on all the ways their shop sucks and could improve.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: After your first day commanding the dead, you'll get a minor one from the bean nighe, or "banshee" as she lets you call her, since you've been commanding the dead without seeing to their hygiene. She gives you another one later, for not letting the skeletons relax on the Day of the Dead despite them putting aside the afterlife to work for you for free.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: Part of the premise. You're a kid in a suburb full of rather unpleasant people; then, circumstances give you the ability to command the dead and possibly take revenge.

    NOLA Is Burning 
Written by Claudia Starling.
  • Big Bad: The Pitt, a rival gangster who has kidnapped your boss's wife/husband. Your player character and The Pitt used to know each other, but The Pitt has hated you ever since you stopped him from doing something especially heinous (you can choose what it was, such as torturing animals, burning down a neighbor's home, etc.).
  • Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: The premise of the game casts your player character as a "headcrusher" for the New Orleans mob, and you can decide your character enjoys this if you choose.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: If you attempt to kill your boss, The Bull, after rescuing Elle/Luke from The Pitt, then Elle/Luke will betray someone, but who she/he betrays depends on which option you picked when the narration asked how sure you were of Elle/Luke's feelings. If you answered that you know she/he loves you, then Elle/Luke will betray The Bull and help you kill him/her, allowing you to take over the New Orleans mob. But if you answered that you aren't sure if Elle/Luke loves you, then Elle/Luke will betray you and help The Bull kill you.
  • In Love with the Gangster's Girl: Possibly played straight or Gender-Inverted. Depending on player choice, your boss, The Bull, is either married to a woman named Elle or a man named Luke, and since your character is in love with Elle/Luke as well, you can choose to retrieve Elle/Luke from The Pitt only in hopes of coaxing them to leave The Bull for you.
  • The Mob Boss Is Scarier: As a "headcrusher", your player character is scary in his/her own right, but it was your boss, The Bull (whose gender you can pick), who taught you your trade.
  • Mob War: Since The Pitt has kidnapped your boss's wife/husband, your boss, The Bull, is threatening that if his/her wife/husband isn't safely returned by 6AM, The Bull will turn New Orleans into a war zone. Thus, your player character needs to get Elle/Luke back safely from The Pitt before the night is over.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: You can choose for your player character to being growing sick of his/her "headcrusher" job and of the endless violence, with plans to retire from the mob for good once your mission to retrieve Elle/Luke from The Pitt is over.
  • Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: You can play as this if your player character consistently chooses to use words over violence.
  • Theme Naming: The Bull and The Pitt, as in pitbull terrier.
  • What You Are in the Dark: Your goal is to save your boss's kidnapped spouse — who you've been seeing behind their back. But who's betraying whom? (see Et Tu Brute).

    The ORPHEUS Ruse 
Written by Paul Gresty.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: No faction in this game is completely clean. The Ryker Foundation try to protect psychics from humanity and maintain The Masquerade while living among them, but they also take children from their parents and erase people's memories to protect their secret. ORPHEUS want to protect psychics by controlling humanity, but they also fight against the Ryker Foundation's above-mentioned crimes. Then there's William Doone, who's a mass-murderer who's lived over a century through Body Surfing and murdering his descendants.
  • Body Surf: The power of metempsionics, like the player character, is to possess other people's bodies. You can move between bodies pretty much at will, but you do need to return to your own body after a while. Which becomes problematic when it's stolen.
  • Everyone Is Bi: If you tell Annika that you're not into girls when she comes onto you, she argues that sexual orientation isn't so clear-cut for metempsionics and that the host body's desires also play a part. This is a purely self-serving argument, and you promptly reject her again.
  • Meaningful Name: ORPHEUS is named after the Orphics, who sought immortality through communing with the gods and transmigrating between bodies — just as you and William Doone do.

    Pendragon Rising 
Written by Ian Thomas.
  • Action Girl: Should you play as Arta, all the women in Gwynedd are this.
  • Anti-Villain: Cerdic/Cerda is just trying to win some land for his people, a nation of Invading Refugees, and would like to do so with a minimum of bloodshed. Cynric/Cynna, however, has aligned himself with dark powers.
  • Artificial Limbs: Bedwyr/Blodwyn is maimed at one point in the game, preventing them from becoming Monarch because a maimed ruler must step aside. You can give them a metal arm; while it isn't actually an effective limb, it symbolically means that they're not maimed, and can contend for the throne.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Morgan, at times. After the feast in the first chapter, he/she asks if you've "had your fill of warriors boasting and farting at you?"
  • Gay Option: Gawain/Yvaine.
  • Handicapped Badass: Near the end of the game, Bedwyr/Blodwyn gets injured and loses his/her hand. Should you not become the Pendragon, Bedwyr/Blodwyn goes into the last big battle with a metal hand fashioned to fit him/her in the place of his/her real one.
  • Happily Adopted: Cai/Gaia
  • Medieval European Fantasy: The setting of Pendragon Rising is a land called "Gwynedd", and it borrows heavily from Arthurian lore, right down to the player character being Arthur/Arta himself/herself (depending on the gender you select).
  • Pregnant Badass: If you choose to sleep with Morgan in the beginning of the game as Arta, later on you find out that you became pregnant (if you're female and Morgan is male) or that Morgan became pregnant (if you're male and Morgan is female). This doesn't stop you from going into the hardest battles of the game, though. A few extra scenes pop up regarding the situation, but it doesn't dramatically change the gameplay at all.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Inverted. This game is one of the few Choice of Games where you have to choose to be one gender or the other, and whether you're a male or a female decides if you're the bastard son or daughter of the current ruler of the land, if men or women in the world will be the fighters or not, and more.
  • The Rival: The heir to the throne, either Bedwyr/Blodwyn depending on your gender. You two are half related by your father or mother, and constantly bicker with one another and your parent has times where they favor you over your sibling and vice versa. If you become the new Pendragon, they begrudgingly start to listen to you and do what you order them to do.
  • Religion is Magic: The rites of the druidic faith of Britain have magical powers. Christian prayers, by and large, don't. Except in the Battle of Badon, where a proper recitation of the Trinitarian formula can dispel Saxon mind control.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Utta/Uther deserve a special mention, as they continue to rule and even fight despite getting incredibly injured during the first few minutes of the game. Arthur/Arta and Bedwyr/Blodwyn count as well, along with the other kingdoms, so long as you manage to persuade them to join you for the final battle against the Saxons.
  • Surprise Incest: Should you have sex with Morgan, it'll later be revealed that you two are half-siblings after you become pregnant (if you're Arta and Morgan is male) or after Morgan becomes pregnant (if you're Arthur and Morgan is female).
  • The Un-Favorite: You.
  • World of Action Girls: When playing as Arta, the women are the ones that fight in all the wars, while the men take a step back are more involved in religious and mystic like activities.

    Psy High 
Written by Rebecca Slitt. Consist of Psy High and its sequel, Psy High 2: High Summer.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: If Carl is male. Jen certainly wanted a bad boy, until she broke up with him thanks to the Vinculum and if you want, you can take her place.
  • Alpha Bitch: Mackenzie. You can even choose the reason for the animosity: either it's because she resents you for having more people come to your twelfth birthday party than to hers, because you resent her for being mean to your friend Alison/Andrew as a child, or because, well, you just don't like her.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: This is how Alison/Andrew, your best friend, confesses their feelings to you.
  • Arc Words: "Model citizens". That means "brainwashed into being a straight-A student and total conformist".
  • Big Bad: Randall Pierce, the principal, who's out to brainwash his way to political power using the school as a platform.
  • Book Dumb: Possibly you, if you have a low Academics score.
  • Brainwashed: Mr. Pierce and Ms. Clay are using the Vinculum to brainwash the students. Mr. Pierce is using this for his political ambitions, Ms. Clay honestly believes that making the students into "model citizens" is what's best for them.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: Alison/Andrew, should you choose to pursue them.
  • Clairvoyance: Your primary psychic power.
  • Cool Teacher: Ms. Rivera.
  • Cutting Off the Branches: An ending save feature to carry over data was added to the first installment with the release of the sequel. However, you are prevented from doing so with certain playthroughs that can not possibly lead into the sequel, such as losing your powers or going to jail.
  • Damned by Faint Praise: The player character's narration notes that the football team is, "to put it charitably, enthusiastic. To put it uncharitably…okay, they suck."
  • Delinquents:
    • One of the four possible love interests, Carla/Carl, has a free-spirited attitude and even sells drugs.
    • You, if you have a high Rebelliousness stat.
  • De-power: The Vinculum's mind control also screws with your powers if it affects you.
  • The Dragon: Janet Clay, one of the teachers.
  • Drugs Are Bad: Upon finding out that Carla/Carl sells drugs, you can either play this trope straight or not, depending on how your player character feels.
  • Eldritch Location: The Nexus of the Moon, or Nexus for short, a magical tidepool formed when witches tried to get rid of their leftover magic by throwing it in the ocean.
  • The Exotic Detective: You're a detective with psychic powers.
  • Face–Heel Turn: You have an opportunity to perform one if you personally investigate the detention room; one possible choice is to voluntarily submit to the Vinculum and become a "model citizen". If you do, you can pursue an ending where you help Pierce and Clay with their plans to turn the rest of the class into "model citizens".
  • Gentleman and a Scholar: You can play as this if you have a high Academics stat and a high Altruism stat.
  • Girl Next Door Alison/Andrew Faulkner (whose gender and first name are set by the gender your character is interested in).
  • Good Parents: The player character's parents are very supportive despite having little money, and are very invested in your player character's future. However, they're totally out of the loop on the game's plot, so you may have to work around them at some point. It's possible for them to ground you later or even throw you out of the house, but you may or may not deserve it.
  • High-School Dance: Junior prom, the single most important event of the year! Because Pierce is going to take control of the Nexus during it and turn the junior class into model citizens.
  • I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: This is your player character's reaction if you successfully win over the heart of your longtime crush, Taylor/Tyler (whose gender and first name are set by the gender your character is interested in).
  • Insufferable Genius: You can play as this if you have a high Academics stat and a high Selfish stat.
  • Jerk Jock: If you play a character with a high Athletics stat and a high Selfish stat, you can play a character of this type.
  • Lovable Jock: ...or you can play this type, if your character has a high Athletics stat and a high Altruism stat.
  • Logic Bomb: This is one way to defeat Mr. Pierce's "model citizens": when he tells them to attack you, you can point out that although Pierce may be their principal, what he's telling them to do is assault and battery, which is illegal. They spend long enough trying to figure out what to do for your friends to arrive and take control.
  • Lovecraft Country: The story takes place in Kingsport, Massachusetts.
  • Mass Super-Empowering Event: In one ending, you use the Nexus to empower the entire junior class.
  • Mind-Control Device: The Vinculum, and once your player character finds out about it, it's also the MacGuffin that drives the larger plot.
  • Mundane Utility: In one ending, phenomenal psychic powers are very good for cheating on college admissions.
  • No Social Skills: Your character is this with a low Social stat.
  • Only in It for the Money: Possibly why you work as a detective.
  • Popularity Power: Popularity is a stat in this game that means how well-known you are and how much others like you. If this stat is high, it can help you win allies later.
  • The Social Expert: Your player character is this with a high Social stat, which determines how well you can talk to and persuade people and how well you can "read" people. Interestingly, in this game, it's a separate statistic from Popularity, which means how well-known you are and how much others like you.
  • The Starscream: Ms. Clay can sabotage Mr. Pierce to take over the school. She's not a nice person, but she does care about the school for its own sake instead of as a platform to Take Over the World, making her A Lighter Shade of Black. She's even a good ending, if you don't object to the whole "model citizens" thing.
  • Starter Villain: Your very first case has you tracking down the thief who stole Haley's iPhone.
  • Third-Option Love Interest: If you don't have anyone by the time of the prom, you can go with Haley, and she can become your love interest if you choose.
  • Troubled, but Cute: Carl/Carla. He/she's the typical high school bad boy archetype (even though he/she can be male or female), is often in trouble and even sells drugs, but he/she also is really a kind person and has a softer side evident if you pursue friendship or a relationship with him/her.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Janet Clay is honestly trying to do what she thinks is best for her students and the school, and she thinks that making students into "model citizens" will help them succeed in life.
  • What the Hell, Player?: The game subtly calls you out if you start dealing drugs with Carl/a.
    You're selling drugs. Congratulations?
  • You Are Grounded!: You can be grounded if you get Caught Coming Home Late or fight with your parents too aggressively.

    Ratings War 
Written by Eddy Webb.
  • Asshole Victim: Although it's up to your player character whether or not your character actually had a negative opinion about this person, but Tasha, the woman who knocks you out with a pipe in the prologue, is later murdered, and as your next scoop you have to investigate Tasha's murder. There are a couple of opportunities for your player character to voice whether they believe Tasha deserved what she got, or whether they believe it's a senseless waste of life.
  • Fission Mailed: Regardless of your choices in the prologue, you will receive a beating from Tasha, receive an Infraction for using a forged press pass to access the crime scene, and be let go from your original company. However, you recover in the hospital, and the company that hires you wipes your infraction clean, giving you a new start, and the game continues.
  • Gender-Blender Name: In most Choice of Games games, potential love interests have their names and genders determined by the gender your character is interested in, but in this game, while Tracey Bellamy's gender is determined by the gender your character is interested in, their first name will always be "Tracey" regardless of whether they're a man or a woman.
  • Glory Hound: You can play as this if you primarily make choices around advancing your character's career and making yourself a star.
  • Honesty Is the Best Policy: You can play as this if you consistently choose to pursue the truth above all else.
  • Intrepid Reporter: You can play as this if you have high Integrity and/or Factual stats.
  • Karma Meter: In this game, it takes the form of "Infractions": you receive an infraction when you do something unprofessional or unethical. There's one plot-mandated infraction in the prologue, but this infraction is eventually wiped clean for a fresh slate.
  • Paparazzi: You can play as this if you have high Ambition and/or Flamboyant stats.
  • The Rival: Early Roberts, short for Erlendur Robertsson, a reporter from Iceland who is significantly more experienced than the player character, though it's possible for the player character to either be cordial to him or to maintain the rivalry.
  • Romance Sidequest: A Choice of Games staple. In this game, it is possible to strike up a relationship with Tracey Bellamy, your player character's editor, whose gender is determined by the gender your character is interested in. If you don't romance Tracey, and if your character is attracted to men, you can also flirt with your rival Early Roberts, but in the epilogue, after dating for a few weeks, the "spark" fades and you amicably break things off, though Early says it was fun while it lasted.
  • Take That!: At the beginning of chapter seven, during an especially freezing night, your character briefly fantasizes about going back in time, finding whoever said climate change was a myth, and punching them in the mouth.
  • 20 Minutes into the Future: Portable devices have become ubiquitous, and as a result the privacy laws surrounding them have turned draconian, so the only people allowed to save video captured by camera are people with licenses.

    Reckless Space Pirates 
Written by Rachel Zakuta.
  • Alien Abduction: How you end up meeting the space pirates.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Captain Zoa does not understand altruism, compassion, or emotions of any sort.
  • Future Slang: "Groundsiders" are people who live on planets, "Shippers" are people who live on ships, and "Stashies" are people who live on space stations. An old saying is mentioned a few times: "Stashies lazy, Shippers crazy".
  • Happily Adopted: Zeeber in one of the endings.
  • Improvised Weapon:
    • The Medusae yell at one of the pirates, resulting in the pirate being hit by a nonlethal electrical discharge. Once they figure this out, they start yelling at the pirates as a means of defending themselves.
    • You can grab a needle from a medi-bed at one point to use as an improvised weapon.
    • You can hack the speechbox to mimic the Medusans' shouts.
  • Insanity Defense: If your Empathy is low and your Infamy is high, and you are taken into IHP custody, the sentencing committee will decide that you've been contaminated by living on a pirate ship and sentence you to Groundside rehabilitation.
  • Lightworlder: Ny-bat is from a human colony where gravity is 3/4 of Earth norm. S/he is tall and lanky with all features stretched out. However, s/he is far from being weak and is the best hand-to-hand combatant on the ship.
  • MegaCorp: "Spider" is a Medusa conglomerate that has a monopoly on vermite trade with outsiders.
  • The Captain: Captain Zoa is a 60-something woman who kidnaps prospective crew members and forces them to prove their usefulness and loyalty. She is the only one who can keep Krantic in line.
  • The Cracker: If your Hacking skill is high enough, you can solve many problems if you're near a console.
  • The Metric System Is Here to Stay: A variation. Shippies and Stashies don't use "minutes" and "hours", preferring to keep everything in multiples of 10. So, their equivalent of minutes would be "kiloseconds" (1000 seconds = 16 minutes 40 seconds). Groundsiders still use the old-fashioned time units.
  • Organic Technology: The Medusae are masters of this, and their "vermite" substance, capable of altering its shape and density on command is highly valuable to human ships and stations, as they can quickly seal hull breaches.
  • Parental Substitute: Gao may become this in some endings.
  • Space Is Cold: Averted and lampshaded. If you opt to escape your cell by going outside the ship, you will muse that such things as boiling blood and instant frostbite that Groundsiders think are the first thing to be afraid of are not a concern for a short spacewalk without a suit. It's the lack of pressure and oxygen. You must breathe out before attempting such a spacewalk.
  • Space Pirates: Your kidnappers.
  • Starfish Aliens: The so-called "Medusae" are a race of fungus-looking aliens who communicate by electrical discharges in their highly-moist atmosphere. They are frequently referred to as "Mushrooms".
  • Torture Technician: Krantic is a sadist who loves to inflict pain on others even when torture doesn't provide useful results.
  • Translator Microbes: The speechbox allows humans to communicate with the Medusae, although the translation has a feel of somebody running it through Google Translate (i.e. you still have to guess at the meaning, as grammar is terrible).

    Runt of the Litter 
Defy the law of the land to raise and train your very own gryphon.
  • Aloof Big Brother: It's never commented on one way or another, but there's a strong possibility that Coldtalon — Neeris' barn-owl-and-snow-leopard gryphon — is this to a runt the PC "adopts" from Silent Winter, the barn-owl-and-snow-leopard gryohon mother.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The three Councilors you meet over the course of the game: Nistarii wears a black-and-red military uniform, Inte wears a blue-and-silver diplomat's robe, and Janil, the apparent leader of the group, wears a white-and-gold tunic.
  • Dragon Rider: The PC's country, Vaengrea, is at war with them. You might even encounter one later in the game.
  • The Exile: Once their gryphon is discovered, the High Council promptly exiles the protagonist.
  • Face of a Thug: Keenvision, the vulture-and-cougar gryphon mother. While she does have some admittedly gross, vulture-ish traits — a preference for meat that's been rotting for a few days, leaving maggoty carcasses all over her nest — she's explicitly stated to be the sweetest and gentlest of the gryphon mothers, and is the only one who doesn't treat her rejected egg with indifference or hostility — instead, she picks it up very gently from her nest and places it at the PC's feet. Truth in Television, as Real Life vultures are very intelligent and affectionate birds.
  • Fantastic Caste System: Vaengrean society is split into Gryphon Keepers and Thralls, with former being the superior caste and the only caste allowed to partner with gryphons. Thralls are the servants, period, and any who go against the natural order and dare to partner with a gryphon can be punished by death, as the protagonist nearly finds out firsthand.
  • Inter-Class Romance: If the Thrall protagonist romances a Keeper.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Neeris and Eini.
  • Large and in Charge: Gryphon keepers in general are described as tall.
  • Nice Guy: Arvo and Taisiir.
  • Our Gryphons Are Different: The player can only pick from one of six pre-made options at the beginning, but gryphons in this world seem to come in any possible bird-and-wildcat combination. It also doesn't seem to affect their size any — a hypothetical sparrow-and-ocelot gryphon would be about as big as your traditional eagle-and-lion, although the Player's runt is naturally a bit smaller. Also, the cover art implies that they might be closer to Opinici, with the head and wings of a bird and the body of a cat.
  • The Plague: Many of the country's gryphons are suffering from Dropfeather, which in addition to the obvious apparently leaves gryphons blind even if it doesn't kill them. It's possible to find a cure while in exile and earn your return to Vaengrea be bringing it back.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Neeris apparently looks a bit like her parent, Janil, mostly through the eyes and expressions.
  • Uncatty Resemblance: Personality-wise, if not physically. Gryphons tend to take after their keepers.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: Unner. If you help save his and his gryphon's lives, he immediately brings the High Council down on you.

    The Sea Eternal 
Written by Lynnea Glasser.
  • Amicable Exes: You and your ex-human lover, though you can get back together if you want.
  • The Atoner: The PC has some guilt over bringing their human lover beneath the waves, since doing so trapped them there forever and brought about the ruin of their relationship.
  • Deal with the Devil: The whales are willing to use their magical abilities, but you always have to give them something in turn. They're more Ambiguously Evil than truly evil, though. Except no, they really are evil.
  • Gilded Cage: The mermaid city ended up being this for your human ex. Sure, they'll live forever, and sure, it's underwater and that's very neat, and sure, there are lots of neat activities and parties...but they can never return to the human world, and they can't leave without being escorted by mermaids.
  • Hive Mind: The squids belong to one.
  • I Just Want to Be Free: Some mermaids are of the opinion they should break free from service to the whales, potentially including you.
  • Immortality Hurts: The only way to kill a mermaid is to starve them to death, which takes centuries. Anything else—being stabbed, shocked, eaten alive—won't do the trick. Since mermaids are embroiled in an eternal war against squids on the whales' behalf, it kind of sucks since there's no hope of escape.
  • It Can Think: The injured squid you discover is capable of talking independent from the squid hive mind.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: The entire race of mermaids is under this.
  • Manipulative Bastard: The whales. They approached humans and made them tempting bargains, but left out the tiny little detail that accepting it would cost them their memories. When the humans accepted and were transformed into mermaids, their lost memories were replaced with memories of eternally promising to serve the whales, effectively becoming a race of slaves.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different: They're immortal, have no actual genders (just picking one to identify by) and look nothing like the beautiful sirens of lore, having blue skin, green or purple hair, black eyes, and sharp teeth.
  • Sapient Cetaceans: The whales are somehow able to communicate with humans, and have magical abilities that can do almost anything.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: A very prominent theme of the game is whether the costs of the mermaids' eternity—having to live in service to the whales, having to follow a very strict set of rules, slowly losing your memories due to natural decay—are worth the benefits.

    Showdown at Willow Creek 
Written by Alana Joli Abbott.
  • Cowboy: As this is of the Western genre.
  • Cowboys and Indians: Played straight or subverted, depending on whether your player character dislikes the Utes as much as some of the townsfolk, or whether your player character sympathizes with the Utes instead.
  • Driving Question: The plot is driven by the mystery of Victoria Frye's disappearance: did she leave on her own, or was she kidnapped? And if she was kidnapped, by whom?
  • Gay Cowboy: You can play one, if you choose a love interest who's the same gender as your character.
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Summer Rain, one of the possible love interests for the player character. She's actually called a "soiled dove" in the game itself, but this is a euphemism for "prostitute", as the nickname is a reference to the Soiled Dove Plea.
  • The Rival: Deputy Winslow, who you have to work alongside to solve the case but behaves like he should run the investigation.
  • Romance Sidequest: And like many Choice of Games games, the romance options are available regardless of what gender your player character is.

    Silverworld 
Written by Kyle Marquis.
  • Alternate History: The game world's Byzantium is a very unusual one, from the Aztec Triple Alliance to Clock Punk Zipangu (Japan), and centered around a colonial Byzantine Empire where Orthodoxy exists but Christianity doesn't. Our world also exists, and can be brought about by the fall of the False Icon.
  • The Chief's Daughter: Keimia is the daughter of Chief Kothis and a fierce warrior woman of the Silverworld. She defects to the False Icon early in the game, but can be won back to the River People with the right words, and that can lead to a romance.
  • Cool vs. Awesome: The Timeline Collider achievement is earned for crashing an airship into a dinosaur or vice versa.
  • Deal with the Devil: The False Icon's got plenty of gifts for devoted worshippers, in exchange for increasing its control over their actions.
  • Do with Him as You Will: One option when dealing with Stralchus, after capturing him, is to give him into the hands of either the River People or his slaves. Neither ends well for him.
  • Evil Colonialist:
    • Stralchus wants to destroy the Silverworld and go home. To do this, he establishes a slave empire through Byzantine technical knowledge so that he can recapture the False Icon.
    • The Empress is a purer example. Her interest in the past world is simple: there are solidi to be made. Alexius starts this way, but can develop otherwise.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Stralchus and his slave empire at the Ziggurat oppose the False Icon and its ophidian servants. Neither of them have any concern for the lives they ruin for their ambitions. A major game mechanic is that the harder you hit one side, the stronger the other becomes (it's zero-sum), so unless you plan to side with one or the other, it's advised to hit them both about equally hard (which can mean just staying out of their way as much as possible).
  • Giving Radio to the Romans:
    • You can upgrade the River People's village with Byzantine knowledge. Given the timeframe of the game, it's more on the level of Bamboo Technology and cultural innovations, but these can still cause sweeping changes and evolve the River People into a nascent city of a thousand people.
    • Through a combination of future technology and slavery, Stralchus builds the Ziggurat, the foundation of an Iron Age empire. Since he's not bound by morality or the future Byzantium's bureaucracy, he's even faster at introducing innovations than you are, and in no time at all a force equipped like Greek hoplites are raiding the tribal peoples of the Silverworld. Should you choose, in the endgame you can take over the Ziggurat and continue his work without the slavery and cruelty.
  • Global Currency: Your wealth is measured in Byzantine solidi, though you don't actually have the money — it's a measure of the value of the Silverworld's trinkets.
  • Hollywood Prehistory: Eleven million years in the past, the Stone Age River People contend with the ophidians and their horrifying monster, the Tyrant.
  • Horse of a Different Color: The ophidian lizard mounts are riding dinosaurs.
  • I Choose to Stay: Assuming the new world isn't destroyed, you can remain in the past and either become one of their people or become the ruler of the Ziggurat.
  • Lizard Folk: The ophidians, an advanced nonhuman civilization in service to the False Icon.
  • Merged Reality: One of three possible endings, and arguably the "good" one, as the other two result in either most of the beings in the past dying of hunger and cold, or them being erased from existence. The past created by the False Icon is retained, but still leads to a world similar to (but not identical to) that from which the MC came.
  • Mighty Whitey: While you're not entirely "white" by Byzantine standards (you're a foreigner), you are from a far more advanced and modern society than the River People. If you successfully win their admiration and lead them to victory, you can become their defining culture hero.
  • Planet of Hats: In the modern Byzantine era, each of the other nations you can hail from has its own stereotypes that Alexius (himself a Persian by birth) will cite to you on meeting, and you can play to them or subvert them as you please.
  • Right Hand Versus Left Hand: If you ally with the False Icon, it's still kind of hard to get the ophidians to accept that you're on the same side, and they'll want Human Sacrifice in exchange for working with you.
  • Satanic Archetype: The False Icon is an enemy of the other Icons, and promises power in exchange for binding yourself to its will. It's not entirely evil; it rewards your service well and its victory isn't necessarily a bad thing for humanity, but it's very much not a nice being.
  • Stealing from the Till: The money that the Empress is generously allowing you to send home is yours, not hers. It's just being banked and invested... unless you fail to impress her. If that happens, the Imperial bureaucracy will arrange "necessary deductions" or outright plunder your funds. Even in the best case, the Empress is still getting a zero-interest loan from you and profiting from the investment.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Usually, affecting the world of 11 Million BC will not affect the future. The False Icon falling, however, will alter the timeline and create our world in place of Byzantium. It's a god, so it doesn't play by exactly the same rules as the rest of the time travel. Likewise, Stralchus remaining in the past will mess up the present, according to Dr. Sabbatine. And several endings indicate that elements of the Silverworld bleed into Byzantium's reality regardless.
  • T. Rexpy: The Tyrant is a monstrous dinosaur controlled by the False Icon.
  • With This Herring: The Empress is extremely stingy about what she'll allow Dr. Sabbatine to send back to support you, as she isn't interested in a native uprising armed with modern weapons. Getting a single bullet sent back costs several hundred solidi.
  • Zeppelins from Another World: Byzantium is an alternate history; accordingly, it's got airships.

    Sixth Grade Detective 
Written by Logan Hughes.
  • Alpha Bitch: Vitessa, though you can become something approaching friends by the end of the game.
  • Anti-Villain: In the second case, which has you attempting to find out who stole Shanti's gamebook, it turns out that the person only stole it because the person accidentally ruined the book by knocking it into a mud puddle, and even bought Shanti a replacement book in secret. You can either choose to keep this secret, or to tell Shanti who stole the book.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: Your best friend A.J., whose gender you select, is a possible romantic interest.
  • Cloud Cuckoolander: Shanti is a very mild example of this trope; she's described as sometimes being dreamy and off in her own world.
  • Dark Secret: In one of the cases, your classmate Finnegan asks you to uncover the reason behind what Finnegan feels is suspicious behavior coming from Evan, for the sake of the newspaper club. Subverted, Evan's secret is that he's a talented makeup artist.
  • Gang of Bullies: A gang of bullies is involved in one of the cases.
  • Honesty Is the Best Policy: There's an achievement for finishing the game having told no lies. Also, if Corley is your date at the dance at the very end of the game, Corley will tell you that the fact that you never lie has inspired Corley to be more honest.
  • Insufferable Genius: The other characters consider Finnegan to be this. Your player character can either choose to agree with this assessment, or be nice to Finnegan and genuinely share his interests, even asking him to tell you more about ornithology.
  • Kid Detective: You play as this.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If you persuade Evan to tell his secret to the school by saying that he's got to be Evan, Evan will reappear later with food and drinks in his hair from being picked on for his talent, and he'll be miffed at your advice.
  • Pscyhco Supporter: Your best friend A.J., whose gender you can select. A.J. is mostly a good person who has your back, but A.J. will also usually favor less honest solutions to mysteries. If you keep A.J.'s secret in the first case, and then say that you kept the secret because A.J. is important to you, you can start a romance with A.J. early. Otherwise, you have to wait until before the dance, like the other potential romances.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: He keeps it secret, but Evan is a talented makeup artist.
  • Secret Admirer: The summary of Sixth Grade Detective on the website hints that one of the cases will be figuring out your secret admirer. It's the very last case; just before the dance, someone sends you a love note. However, unlike the culprits of the previous cases, the identity of the "culprit" in this case can vary; the love note will usually be from the student you have the highest relationship with.
  • Shrinking Violet: Corley.
  • Starter Villain: Your first case has you track down whoever stole A.J.'s second bike, the Great Brown Ugly, which A.J.'s mother bought as a replacement for the also-stolen first bike, the Red Lightning. Subverted, A.J. himself/herself arranged for his/her uncle to sell the bike without telling A.J.'s mother.
  • Sweet and Sour Grapes: Your player character's parents finally buy you a brand-new bike near the end of the game, but they didn't know that the bike is really the Red Lightning, the first bike that was stolen from A.J. Your parents give you the choice of either keeping the bike or returning it to A.J. If you return A.J.'s Red Lightning, your parents are so impressed with your honesty and character that as a reward, they buy you another bike—the Green Tornado.

    Skystrike: Wings of Justice 
Written by E. Chris Ambrose. A superhero game where the reader returns to their home city, and finds themselves needing to save it from an emotion-manipulating villain encouraging the downtrodden to overthrow it.
  • Animal Motifs: The player's is a falcon, the villain's is a rat (although it's more about "breaking out of the rat race").
  • The Chosen One: Depending on how you say you got your powers, it can be said you're the chosen envoy of some kind of falcon spirit/god (it's vague).
  • Life Simulation Game: While there's plenty of crimefighting to be done, there's a surprising amount of emphasis on balancing their avatar's relationships and protecting their secret identity as well.

    The Superlatives 
Written by Alice Ripley. Consists of The Superlatives: Aetherfall and The Superlatives: Shattered Worlds.
  • Dating Catwoman: Your character and Lady Dusk can get romantically involved — to the point that she'll pull a High-Heel–Face Turn on her father.
  • Shout-Out:
    • There are various alien races mentioned in the book, including at one point Martian ice warriors and Silurians.
    • A more subtle one is the two main groups of Superlative heroes: the Society for the Advancement of Individuals of Superlative Talent and the Protection of the Queen (the one you belong to, Society for short), and the League of Concerned Citizens and Superlatives United in Defense of Public Order (League for short). The Society is presented as a venerable old institution while the League is portrayed as a somewhat more recent and relevant group compared to the Society. Thus we'd have a reference to the Justice Society of America, the first comic book superhero team ever, and the Justice League of America, its younger counterpart.

    Tally Ho 
Written by Kreg Segall.
  • Classy Cat-Burglar: The mysterious Light Fingered Lou, also known as Haze.
  • Creator's Culture Carryover: It's supposed to be England but there are several jarring Americanisms in the text. There's also the fact that Rory somehow has a class ring, from Eton if Rory is male and Roedean if Rory is female, when neither of those schools (nor any other school in the UK) has ever provided rings.
  • Hideous Hangover Cure: The 'Electric Current Fizz'. The usual recipe is six egg whites, a good deal of sugar, and fresh-squeezed lime juice, which would be bad enough on its own but your PC has also added pureed habanero peppers.
  • Interclass Romance:
    • The romance between Mopsie, the cousin of Rory, the PC's employer, and Figs, a bohemian artist.
    • Also, between the PC and their employer and/or their betrothed if you choose to aim for that and pull it off successfully.
  • The Jeeves: Depending on the player's playing style, the PC can be this or a subversion.
  • Love Triangle: The PC can be in one if they have feelings to their employer and/or their betrothed.
  • Moustache de Plume: Used by Romance novelist Fifi Buttercup, who is really Colonel Firesnuff.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: The game can abruptly end if the PC does not give the appropriate code name to Regina.
  • Polyamory: Between the PC, Rory, and Frankincense in one possible ending. Though it’s not the easiest ending to get.
  • Shout-Out: When naming Aunt Primrose's boat, some of the preset names are similar to some of the games found in Choice of Games or Hosted Games -such as Gunwhales of Infinity.

    The Fog Knows Your Name 
Written by Clio Yun-su Davis.
  • Acquired Situational Narcissism: Rex dumps his old friends like garbage once he gets a taste of the popular life, and becomes outright antagonistic to them as time progresses. If you chose to be nice to him despite all of this on the night of his death, you can see that he's feeling pretty guilty over the whole thing, and his ghost later confesses that he deeply regrets his choices.
  • Agent Mulder: Both Kirill and Diego are very open minded regarding the supernatural, as is the protagonist if they have a high Otherworldy stat. This sometimes brings them into conflict with Addy.
  • Agent Scully:
    • Addy, the most supernaturally skeptic of the group and the very last one to come around to accepting that the Fog Beast is real.
    • Anuja also starts out wanting to find rational explanations for things but quickly becomes a believer after she manages to capture some of the Fog Beast's victims on camera.
    • You, if you have a high Grounded stat.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: You turn into a social pariah overnight after the town comes to blame you for Rex's death. Everyone gossips about you, your peers bully you, and when you return the meaner residents can even pick fights with you.
  • Astral Projection: Diego can hypnotize you into having an out of body experience in an attempt to scour the spirtual realm for information about the Fog Beast.
  • Barred from the Afterlife: The spirits of the Fog Beast's victims are forever trapped in the fog, unable to pass on. However being stuck in limbo means that they can potentially make their way back to the world of the living, if they find a way to weaken the Beast's hold on them.
  • Big Jerk on Campus: You and your friends see Rex as this, as he's been rather nasty to all of you ever since he fell in the with popular kids. However to the rest of Arbor Isle he is more alongthe lines of BigManOnCampus, which is why the entire town shuns you after they believe you're involved with his death.
  • Boy Meets Ghoul: A romance between you and Rex, which only starts to blossom after his death.
  • Convicted by Public Opinion: Most of the citizens of Arbor Isle are absolutely convinced that you were involved in Rex's death, even though the police could never find anything that would justify an arrest. You leaving town in the aftermath only added fuel to the fire, with most seeing this as a direct admission of guilt.
  • Dead Person Conversation: Rex's spirit starts trying to reach out to you the moment you return to Arbor Isle, which eventually leads to the two of you having several conversations in dreams, over the phone, and finally in person.
  • Disappeared Dad:
    • Your father walked out on you and your mother when you were in second grade
    • Anuja's dad disappeared without a trace five years ago. He was murdered by Wyatt Michaels after he got dangerouly close to busting the latter's drug operation.
  • Electromagnetic Ghosts: In the weeks after Rex's death, you can notice that the lights in a room start to flicker when you say his name. As Wyatt's hold over Ennis gets stronger, the interference is strong enough to knock out all the streetlights she passes.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: The general reaction of your friend group when their buddy Rex ditches them to go hang out with the cool kids. It's exacebrated when Rex then turns around and starts acting like a massive jerk to them.
  • Fatal Flaw: Pride, for Rex. It's what causes him to lash out at you and your friends when he thinks that you're becoming a threat to his popularity, and his ghost bitterly admits that his pride made even the thought of begging the group for forgiveness far too humiliating. Both of these factors make him a prime target for the Fog Beast.
  • Fog of Doom: The Ominous Fog of Arbor Isle quite literally has a mind of its own, and it's absolutely determined to stomp out all liars.
  • The Heart: You become this to your friend group if you're highly empathetic, often jumping in to smoothe over disagreements when the various Scullys and Mulders start to butt heads. Rex can lampshade this in the last conversation the two of you have before his death, outright admitting that it generally fell down to you to play peacekeeper.
  • In with the In Crowd: Rex transforms from random nobody the the de facto Big Man on Campus in his freshman year, after he found success on the school wrestling team, befriended its star player and started dating the most popular girl in school.
  • I See Them, Too: If you succesfully get through to Ashley when interrogating her for information about Ennis, she'll reveal that she has also been seeing the spirit of Rex Keller. Later on, Barry Michaels can admit to seeing the spirit of his father Wyatt whenever the fog rolls in.
  • Jerk Jock: Rex becomes this once he starts running with the popular kids, with you and your friends bearing the brunt of his malice. Caleb has shades of this as well, since he is the heavy lifter in most of Ennis' schemes against you.
  • Kids Are Cruel: Rex is rather nasty to you and your friends before he dies, at least part of the nastiness was him retaliating after certain members of your group spread malicious gossip about him — you can potentially be doing so on the very eve of his death. The students at Ashbrook High launch a campaign against you in the aftermath of Rex's death (which can be the main reason why you fled Arbor Isle), and Ennis and Caleb start it up again when you return to town.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: The Fog Beast chosing to prey on liars means that it inadvertently doles this out quite regularly; it's most recent victim before Rex was Wyatt Michaels, who was lying to cover up the fact that he murdered Karna Basu.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Rex is carrying a lot of guilt over how he treated his old friends, which becomes very apparent if you still act nice to him despite everything. Unfortunately for him, his pride causes him to dig his heels in and refuse to accept any blame, which leads to the Fog Spirit taking his life as punishment.
    • If you push Rex off his boat on the night he dies, then you're consumed by guilt when his drowned corpse turns up the next day.
  • Never My Fault: Rex adopts this mentality regarding the terrible relationship between him and his old friend group, partly due to his pride seeing grovelling for forgiveness now as humiliating and partly as a coping mechanism to stave off his true feelings about the matter. If you try to be nice to him then he'll go off on a guilt-ridden rant about how it's really ''your'' fault that the relationship between him and the others went down the drain, because you weren't likeable enough to be able to soothe the hurt feelings that he left in his wake.
  • Peer-Pressured Bully: Rex, who's harsh treatment of you and your friends stems from him doing what he thinks needs to be done in order to keep his place in the social pecking order. When he confronts you on the night he dies you are able to tell right away that his heart is not in it, and if you manage to de-escalate the situation peacefully you discern that he's actually greatful that he didn't have to play to the crowd.
  • Phone Call from the Dead: The first concrete piece of proof that something supernatural is afoot is when you start getting phone calls Rex, six months after his death. He later moves on to texting after struggling with the terrible reception in the afterlife.
  • School Idol: Ashley, the most popular girl in school. Her starting to date Rex causes his popularity to skyrocket to even further heights.
  • The Unapologetic: While the folk tales and urban legends surrounding Arbor Isle differ on what exactly happens to those who fall prey to the fog, the thing that they all agree on is that those targetted are people who are gulity of wronging another without confessing to it. This is because the Fog Beast is determined to damn all liars.
  • What Does She See in Him?: None of your friends can understand what Ashley sees in Rex. Everyone is stunned if you decide to court Rex, including Rex himself.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Rex used to be a part of your crew. After he leaves and a rift develops between him and the others, your reaction to him can vary between hating his guts or desperately wishing that the two of you could go back to what you used to have.

    Thieves' Gambit: The Curse of the Black Cat 
Written by Dana Duffield.
  • Always Someone Better: The game's description, as well as the prologue, mentions that you're the second greatest thief. So who is the first? Bouchard, your rival, who has never been met in the flesh; all anyone has seen of them is their calling card. They could be a man, a woman, or even a group of people, although since the newspapers call him Maurice Bouchard, there is a strong possibility that he's a guy. You do find out who Bouchard is near the end of the game, and Bouchard is indeed a guy and he's someone known to you.
  • Book Dumb: If your character has a low Intellect stat but you still successfully complete the game without getting arrested.
  • Classy Cat-Burglar: If your character is female and has a high Honor stat.
  • Gentleman Thief: If your character is male and has a high Honor stat.
  • The Handler: Reg Claythorne, your right-hand man with a British voice, who speaks to you through your earpiece.
  • Phrase Catcher: Every time Bouchard comes up in conversation, either the narrative or someone speaking will state "That bastard!"
  • Refuge in Audacity: If your character has a high Flash stat.
  • The Reveal: You finally find out who your rival, Bouchard, is near the end of the game, because Bouchard is none other than Nick, who's on your side until you actually get the jewel, at which point he attempts to steal it for himself. However, there's a way to figure out who Bouchard is in advance and thus prepare yourself: when given a choice of reading material before the heist, choose to read up on Bouchard's Venice heist. Since Nick said earlier that he was in Venice, and he has a similar build and haircut to the person in the foggy photo, your character will realize that Nick is Bouchard.
  • Stupid Crooks: If your character has a low Intellect stat and you get arrested.
  • Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Inspector Marie Leclerc from Interpol's Cultural Property Theft Division, who has made you into one of her special projects and is described as "scarily competent."

    Top Villain: Total Domination 
Written by Brandon Greer. The reader controls a supervillain embarking on a humorous journey of world domination.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: There is, of course, an army siege on your island lair later in the game.
  • Bad Boss: One of the issues in expanding your empire is keeping your army of henchmen loyal, and you can rule through intimidation if you want.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Given the humorous nature of the narrative, it's not out of place to see this happening sometimes. Like when the villain's traveling through the mojave desert, it lists off a bunch of species of cacti they see, and adds "Only three of those are made up".
  • Captain Ersatz: While attending Villain-Con the player meets the guest Dean Joan Thomas, who's a pastiche of Dean Cain. From how he starred in a live-action superhero show in the 90's (and he's giving away fridge magnets that say "You're super, man".), and went on to host Ripley's Believe It or Not! on basic cable.
  • Daddy's Little Villain: Your character's a supervillain who had supervillain parents.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: One of the reader's henchmen sells them out to the forces of justice for rejecting their idea for new uniforms.
  • Drill Tank: Among your villainous accoutrements is a signature vehicle, with one of the options being one of these.
  • Island Base: You have one, and even get to pick which ocean it's in for some cosmetic effects.
  • Indubitably Uninteresting Individual: One potential love interest is a reporter whose favorite color is grey (not gray) and runs a blog on paint drying. She uses these boring personal touches to decompress from her pulsepounding work chasing down news about superheroes all day, every day.
  • Polyamory: Has the unique romance option of you dating two people at the same time who know about each other, as well as the possible but tricker triangle, where you're dating two people who are in love with you and also in love with each other.
  • Strike Episode: After the first sequence of a bank robbery that serves as rolling up your character, the player comes back to their lair to find their minions are on strike, and have to settle that dispute.
  • Unobtanium: Needed to power the doomsday weapon, of course. And referred to by the more self-aware name of mcguffinite.
  • Villain Protagonist: You play a moderately successful supervillain trying to get powerful enough to take over the world.

    Tower Behind the Moon 
Written by Kyle Marquis.
  • Above Good and Evil: One possible Ritual of Transcendence allows you to become simultaneously compassionate and ruthless, able to freely act in accordance with both impulses and use magics associated with either.
  • Affably Evil: Xiphaigne, Demon Queen of Whispers and Promises, is a reasonable sort for an archdemoness. She'll try to corrupt you, of course, but if you can manage to successfully negotiate with her, she'll happily help you ascend while hoping that you fail.
  • Alchemy Is Magic: The Subtle Art is largely a lost art in the Sublunar World, but you can resurrect it. It's particularly useful in transcending your mortal limitations prior to full ascension.
  • Appeal to Force: A Magically-Binding Contract has power, but only to a point. There are multiple situations where you can refuse to obey its terms, and instead just kick the other party's ass.
  • The Archmage: You are the greatest archmage in the world. There are several others in the story, though none are quite at your level; most are experts in their particular field, while the Speaker of Llyrit Skel (the second strongest mage in the world) is the last kingpriest of the pagan gods.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The objective of the game, coming in myriad flavors depending on your magical discipline, morality, power, and any deals you may have made.
  • Bargain with Heaven: A compassionate archmage can cut a deal with the Dragon King for aid in ascension, in exchange for becoming His angel if you fail. The Dragon King will also offer you a job as an angel if you only partially ascend; being a high-ranking angel is a tempting alternative to being a minor godling.
  • Beyond the Impossible: Some of the Finishing Moves you can use in the final battle violate the rules of the setting in some Loophole Abuse way.
    • Atoms can't be divided. It's a rule of the Sublunar World. But you can move the moon down below your current position.
    • No mortal can destroy a soul; only the Throne of Thrones, where the Dragon King sits as he judges the dead, has such power. However, you can invoke the Throne yourself.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality:
    • An archmage with a high Inscrutable score fits into this. They don't think like ordinary humans do, they can understand and sympathize with omnicidal rival mages, and many of them view compassion or ruthlessness as more of a tool for developing their magical nature than as part of a moral code.
    • One possible transcendence allows you to become simultaneously compassionate and ruthless, able to use either or both as tools of power.
  • But Now I Must Go: In nearly all endings, you leave Harpe; for one reason or another, you can't stay. The only exception is for fully-ascended vitalists, who can absorb Harpe into their living continent if they want.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Dragon King rules the worlds from the Throne of Thrones, is worshipped by most of the Sublunar World, encourages compassion in His followers, and is generally hostile to "pagan" deities. (The fact that He's helping you become one is part of The Plan.) He isn't the creator of the worlds, though; other, stranger beings held the Kalyos Kalynon before Him.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Being a necromancer or a summoner doesn't force you to be evil, though they do tend toward ruthlessness.
  • Dawn of an Era: One possible result of a successful ascension is that you inspire a new age of magic and wonder.
  • Deal with the Devil: Xiphaigne isn't "Queen of Whispers and Promises" for nothing. She'll agree to empower you if, should you fail to ascend, your soul will be hers.
  • Deity of Human Origin: Your objective is to become one, in a form appropriate to your magical path. Becoming a god, specifically, is the domain of summoners who aren't especially ruthless, but the other paths lead to becoming a being of equivalent might.
  • Divine Conflict:
    • The Dragon King doesn't like other deities meddling with the Sublunar World, which drives His conflict with the Speaker of Llyrit Skel, the last of the pagan kingpriests.
    • The gods who your rival has allied with are fighting against the Dragon King, as well as seeking to prevent new ascended gods from coming into being. Should you ascend, they'll still be your enemies.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Speaker of Llyrit Skel is only known by his title.
  • Good Is Not Nice: The Dragon King favors and rewards compassion. However, His responsibility is the defense of the entire Sublunar World, and He's not above killing you if you become an obstacle to His plans. He prefers to help you get out of the way by ascending, though.
  • A Hell of a Time: Xiphaigne rewards good service from the damned, and being one of her demons is not really a bad afterlife for an archmage. You get to continue your research, or continue fighting against the gods who attacked the world, if that's what you want.
  • Informed Attribute: If you die with neutral Acclaim and Legacy, your tower and the Battle of Harpe created a change in the world and shaped the future even more than the rise of the Dragon King eons ago, but exactly what change you inspired is unclear even to your chronicler.
  • Inspirational Martyr: If you die with high Acclaim, Legacy or both, then your death at the Battle of Harpe will inspire a time of peace, an age of magical wonders, or both respectively.
  • Kangaroo Court: A kangaroo civil court occurs in one outcome of the Deal with the Devil with Xiphaigne. When you're trying to defect to the Dragon King and discover a loophole in the contract, Xiphaigne demands a court hearing, only to hear that it'll involve her enemy, the Speaker of Llyrit Skel. When she appeals to a higher court, the Dragon King grants one and rules against her.
  • Karma Meter: One of the five stat pairings is Compassionate/Ruthless. Compassionate archmagi have increased abilities with healing and defense, while ruthless archmagi tend toward magics of dominance and energy-draining.
  • Last of His Kind: If you die with low Legacy and low or neutral Acclaim, then after your death, you'll be remembered as the last archmage, in an age where magical knowledge is a shadow of what it was in your time.
  • Loophole Abuse: This is possible when you've got a Magically-Binding Contract. A Surprisingly Realistic Outcome applies, however, in that attempting to exercise a contractual loophole requires an appropriate court hearing, and the relevant courts are not unbiased.
  • Lost Technology: Alchemy is largely a lost art, though your PC may have resurrected its secrets, and may possibly become the first alchemist of the age to ascend, fully revitalizing the school.
  • Master-Apprentice Chain: In one ending, you meet your apprentice's apprentice, and help them ascend.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Oracles aren't limited to divination magic, though they do that better than anyone else. They channel Star Power and crystal magic to as many ends as any other mage.
  • Our Angels Are Different: Angels are servitors of celestial deities, most notably the Dragon King. One such angel comes to help you ascend...or strike you down if you fail.
  • Our Liches Are Different: A necromancer who ascends becomes one of these. Specifically, a necromancer who partially ascends becomes a lich; a truly ascended necromancer becomes something far greater and darker.
  • Red Baron: A couple of archmages are only known by their epithets, such as the Shadow of Elephants and the Nomad Bride.
  • Shout-Out: One of the five stat pairings is "Subtle" and "Quick to Anger".
  • Sorcerous Overlord: These normally don't exist in the Ocrocine Remnant, though the Speaker of Llyrit Skel is an exception (he's identified as a priest-king rather than a wizard-king, but he is an archmage). In one ending, you can begin conquering the Remnant for yourself. In another, your death leads to a war between wizards and muggles, inspiring other wizards to become this.
  • Star Power: The path of Prophecy. Oracles channel the power of the stars and crystals, and seek to ascend to become a starry archon or a living star.
  • Time Crash: It's possible for you and someone else to get a Mutual Kill with spells that erase each other from time. Time, cause and effect locally break down, and only settle when one of you manages to finish the other off.
  • When the Planets Align: You can only ascend when the moon and stars align in a Conjunction.

    Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck 
Written by Christopher Brendel.
  • Action Hero: If your character's expertise is "tactical."
  • Beast Man: Shelou from Treasure Seekers is the bird variant.
  • The Captain: Isan is the captain of the titular Lady Luck.
  • Cute Mute: Taloo from Treasure Seekers.
  • Guile Hero: If your character's expertise is "infiltration."
  • Insectoid Aliens: Rallix is one.
  • It's Personal: Detective Garce's sister is Isan's wife, who is clinically dead but is still powering the Lady Luck's engines. This is the real reason why Garce is so adamant on arresting Isan.
  • Living Shadow: Kraska is from a race of people called the "Shadow Fiends".
  • Plant Person: Thisi from Treasure Seekers
  • Plot Armor: wherever you are when your spaceship suffers a crash, you will be the only survivor rescued by the Lady Luck.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Lady Lucks crew.
  • Science Hero: If your character's expertise is "science."
  • Slave Race: The Vervoo. However, you later find a transport vessel named the Andax Theta that was owned and operated by Vervoo, so not all Vervoo are slaves. This revelation causes Vervoo crewmember Borion to feel conflicted.
  • Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Detective Garce. Subverted at the end where you find out that, rather than hunting down Captain Isan for being the leader of a crew of pirates, as Garce claimed, it's actually for a personal reason, as Garce blames Isan for the death of his wife, who is Garce's sister.

    Trials of the Thief-Taker 
Written by Joey Jones.
  • The Apprentice: Jack Cyrus deconstructs this. He was bound into service against his will, and became a thief to escape a virtual slavery that society told him was a golden opportunity.
  • Artful Dodger: A female version named Clouting Jill who first appears stealing your handkerchief. If you decide not to take action against her for theft, she can be helpful later on.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: Jack Cyrus' final appearance has him claim he wants to to die on his own terms, suicide by jumping from a roof rather than being hanged by the law.
  • Bounty Hunter: Thief-takers, like you and Nia, fill warrants and bring in thieves for pay.
  • Dirty Cop:
    • Nia Maddox is a thief-taker and the ruler of the biggest criminal empire in London.
    • The PC can use their position as a thief-taker to take bribes and involve themselves in lucrative criminal ventures.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: As an alternative to working alone, you can have a gang of followers. How many of them is up to you, but there are eighteen possible gang members throughout the game (including three starters) and an achievement is unlocked if you manage to recruit all of them.
  • Gentleman Thief: Henry Shaver steals the hearts of noblewomen, along with sentimental items of value.
  • Hanging Judge: This is the time of the Bloody Code, where mere shoplifting can get you a short drop and a sudden stop.
  • High-Class Call Girl: You can play as one, courtesan is an option as your prior profession if you're playing as a woman.
  • My Local: The Grey Swan.
  • Never Found the Body: Jack's apparent suicide by jumping. If you have a high fleet-footedness score, you can catch him and he'll be lawfully hanged. If you don't (or if you decide to let him go on his own terms) he'll jump. However, if he jumps, his body can't be found afterward, implying that it was just another one of his tricks.
  • No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Jack Cyrus is based on Jack Sheppard, a carpenter’s apprentice turned thief from eighteenth century London who was notorious for repeatedly escaping from prison.
  • Prison Escape Artist: Jack "the Lad" Cyrus is one. He escapes prison three times during the course of the game.
  • Still Wearing the Old Colors: Old Lamprisado the nightwatchman used to be a soldier in his younger days and makes a habit of still wearing his red army coat.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: You can find one in Newgate prison to join your gang, if you pay enough prisoners' bail money. You can also play as one, though it doesn't really affect the gameplay much.
  • To Be Lawful or Good: There are a few times you can choose to do something decent rather than following the letter of the law, such as letting a small child off for stealing your handkerchief or not bringing in an old lady for shaving gold and silver trimmings off of coins, which is technically treason and will get her burned at the stake. If you go the good route, you’ll make friends and contacts who can help you out later, and choosing the lawful route will keep Justice of the Peace Mr Cuffin on your side.
  • Worthy Opponent:
    • You and Jack Cyrus to each other, assuming you're not working together. You can even visit him as a friend in prison after taking him in yourself.
    • You and Nia Maddox if you're successful enough at thief-taking.

    The Versus Trilogy 
Written by Zachary Sergi, author of Heroes Rise. Comprises of Versus: The Lost Ones, Versus: The Elite Trials and Versus: The Deathscapes.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Breeze, from the planet Millenith, has blue skin; Lady Venuma, who has gold skin, and then there's Mama-Na in Book 2 is usually some kind of blue-green color. Cadet Gadget himself has tan skin, but his eyes, hair and teeth all glow.
  • Blow You Away: Breeze has the ability to manipulate winds. They can also use it to carry themselves and others.
  • Cliffhanger: Book 1: The Lost Ones ends with the PC being qualified for the Elite Trials.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Book 2 reveals that the pilot who crashed in the MC's backyard during their childhood is actually from the planet the PC created during this book.
  • Condescending Compassion: If there was a picture of her, Lady Venuma would be the page image.
  • The Dreaded: The Constructive Versus inhabitants are so terrified of the Bominate that they refer to it as "The Un-thing." Empress Vaccus also counts for Prisca.
  • Dream Walker: When the PC fully absorbs someone, they can explore the memories of the people they absorb. It also lets them watch the Versus Match at the end of Book 1 while being comatose.
  • In-Series Nickname: Rosae, the PC's Wormingbird, calls the PC "Priscy".
  • Killed Off for Real: Every three days on Versus, someone will be voted off to fight to the death with someone from the Destructive side. This also includes the PC.
  • Meaningful Name: "Bominate" can be short for 'Abomination'.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The PC's mother is a harsh Commander General of Prisca while the PC's father is a caring medic. It's even reflected in their thought patterns; the PC notes that their mother's pre-battle thoughts are jagged and edgy while their father's are smooth and rounded.
  • Mysterious Stranger: Dhanthik. You don't even know who exactly he is or how he looks like as he can't remember his true identity and is instead masquerading as someone else.
  • Power Copying: The PC can absorb the abilities of others.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: Otherboard and Multiplicity. Multinarians qualify as a whole, really; it gets them some serious hate from both humans and robots. See Fantastic Racism above.
  • Sadistic Choice: Choose to allow Todrick to volunteer to fight in the Versus match against the Bominate, and he will die. Choose to convince him not to do so, and Breeze dies in the match instead.
  • Small, Secluded World: Prisca. Priscans believe they should protect their Collective Consciousness from "culturally impure" alien knowledge, so travel on and off the planet has been forbidden for generations.
  • The Stoner: Otherboard and Multiplicity, technically. Memory-traveling Otherboard reveals that Multinarian personality programs are addictive.

    Welcome to Moreytown 
Written by S. Andrew Swann. This game shares a setting with the Moreau Series novels.
  • Darker and Edgier: It's basically a grittier imagining of Zootopia.
  • Interspecies Romance: There's a romanceable human, and odds are you won't be playing as the same species as the anthropomorphic love interests either the first time through.

    A Wise Use of Time 
Written by Jim Dattilo.
  • Absent-Minded Professor: Dr. Oden has elements of this, such as turning up to a meeting with you in her yoga gear.
  • Action Girl: If you play as a female character and have a high Fortitude stat, you can be this. Alisha proves to be this if you convince her to help you fight Barnabas: she'll brandish a sword and possibly kill him with it.
  • And I Must Scream: Fail to defeat Barnabas in the final battle and he'll permanently freeze you in time, conscious and able to think but completely immobile.
  • Bank Robbery: You find yourself caught up in one. You can use your power to disarm the robbers, steal some things yourself so the robbers will be blamed for the missing items, or simply leave unnoticed.
  • Big Bad: Barnabas, a fellow time controller who believes that killing other time controllers lets him absorb their powers. He's wrong, but that doesn't stop him.
  • Captured Super-Entity: You, if you're exposed and reluctantly agree to submit to the authorities.
  • Descent into Addiction: Raj begins the story as a gambling addict, and only gets worse as the story continues. Without your interference, he will spiral further and further into debt, with a gang threatening his life and livelihood if he doesn't pay up. Refuse to help him and he will eventually disappear without a trace, meaning that he either fled to start a new life or was killed by the debt hunters.
  • Disappeared Dad: Near the beginning of the game, it's revealed that the player character's dad went missing. You can decide whether or not you find out what happens to him.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • Partway through the game you'll come across a distraught man called Jeremy, whose time controlling powers have only just developed. Unfortunately, he's terrified of them and believes that he's incurably ill. You find him sitting on the edge of a bridge, contemplating whether to jump or not. You can convince him not to, or push him off yourself.
    • If you investigate enough information on your father's disappearance and interrogate Barnabas during the final battle, he'll reveal that your father killed himself out of shame for being conned.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Dr. Oden will sell you out to the government if you don't keep your abilities quiet.
  • Fan Convention: Olivia takes you to a tattoo convention in New York. There you'll meet her idol, Malaya Mercado, a famous tattoo artist and fellow time controller.
  • False Friend: Dr. Oden can possibly be this if you're too visible, seeming helpful and enthusiastic throughout the game and helping you develop your powers, only to sell you out to the authorities at the end.
  • For Science!: The main reason Dr. Camilla Oden is helping you.
  • The Gambling Addict: Your friend (and possible lover) Raj is a gambling addict who finds himself in massive debt because of it. You can help him pay his debts, advise him to get therapy or leave him to it. The latter results in him disappearing without a trace, and it is implied that the gang threatening him finished him off.
  • Healthcare Motivation: Olivia is revealed to have a painful liver condition that puts her life at risk. Fail to get her the funds for a replacement organ or just get her the organ, and she will die.
  • Kick the Dog: You first meet Barnabas in a busy subway station, where he pushes an old man in front of an oncoming train and stops time to get your attention. After you have spoken, he offers you the chance to save the man. Try to do so and Barnabas restarts time just as you're about to pull the man to safety, meaning that the man is hit and killed by the train. The only reason Barnabas does this is to intimidate and upset you, as he usually only kills other time controllers in the hopes of absorbing their powers.
  • Older Than They Look: Thanks to her ability to slow time around herself only, the ninety-seven year old Malaya Mercado looks no older than thirty.
  • Pair the Spares: If you don't romance Olivia or Kate, you can introduce the two to each other and, when Kate displays an interest in Olivia, encourage them to hook up. If you later ask Kate how it went, she'll coyly reply that Olivia is "a good kisser" and imply that the two are going to get together.
  • Parental Abandonment: Prior to the start of the game your father disappeared without a trace. No one knows where he is or even if he's still alive.
  • The Professor: Dr. Oden.
  • Romance Sidequest: A staple of Choice of Games. You can romance both male and female love interests and choose to be straight, gay or bisexual.
  • There Can Be Only One: It's possible to kill off all the other time stoppers. The game awards you with the Highlander quote if you do.
  • Time Master: You play as a normal office worker who suddenly develops the power to stop time.
  • Time Stands Still: The main focus of the game is you developing the ability to freeze time. It is not just you who has this power: you meet at least four other time controllers throughout the game, though it is implied that they are very rare. It turns out that you're not actually stopping time, simply slowing it down to a near-frozen state. Your character continues to call it 'stopping time' for the sake of convenience.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: You can use your power to save people from burning buildings, catch a child falling from a climbing frame, prevent a man from committing suicide, stop a robbery...
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: ...Or use it to steal, cheat at casino games, backstab your friends, frame people for crimes they didn't do, pull off cruel pranks, pry into people's private files and even straight-up murder.

    Zip! Speedster of Valiant City 
By Eric Moser, author of the Community College Hero series.
  • Old Super Hero: Not exactly decrepit, but the player's avatar is 38 years old, and it's getting hard to pull off your most impressive feats anymore.
  • Thematic Rogues Gallery: The player's hero is fast, while the villain who's their archenemy is slow.

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