The Parenting Simulator: A Family-Themed CYOA

[hustlertwo]

My second interactive fiction title released today on iOS, Google Play and the Amazon App Store. TPS is a fairly unique title where you take a child from birth to adulthood through a series of events where what you choose helps to shape who they become. I’m pretty proud of it, as it is the best thing I have created outside of my two actual children. And really I only get a co-author credit on them.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...simulatorGames

I don’t really know if it’s okay to post about your own games on this page, but I figured I would give it a try. Interactive fiction has a hard time getting a lot of attention precisely because it falls in such a gray area. For example, book reviewers won’t touch it because it’s not physically released and game reviewers won’t because text-only doesn’t exactly make for dynamic screenshots. It is a RPG, but it’s also a story. Take from all that what you will.

[danzibr]

Interesting!

However, I tried to find it on iOS App Store and couldn’t. What’s the actual app name?

Also, iirc you’re not supposed to advertise, but it feels more like sharing personal accomplishment/game discussion. Or if it’s free you’re 100% good.

[hustlertwo]

On the iOS store you have to download the Hosted Games omnibus app first. I know it sounds wonky, but it’s not a scam or a freemium-type thing, it’s a free app and then you purchase stories within it while still doing the actual buying from your Apple account. Apple cracked down on what they call template-based apps having separate releases early last year. I really wish I’d gotten to see either of my stories have an individual app release on Apple, so I could see if they could have made the top ten list for RPGs on there for a week or two. But so it goes.

It’s not free; you can read the first five chapters as a trial, and the rest is $2.99 to purchase until the 7th and $3.99 after that. But while this is advertising to a degree, it’s also me wanting to show off something that only exists because of my time here on this forum. Both from the writing experience that play by post D&D and PTA gave me and the literal fact that I only found this publisher I work with from a recommendation in a thread I made here in 2017 looking for a coder for an unrelated game idea.

[danzibr]

Downloaded!

Started it, even. Done goofed though. Named my child, went straight for the nickname before getting to the page after that. May want to clarify that?

Regardless, I like it so far. Doesn’t exactly line up with my experiences, but I imagine everyone has it different.

[hustlertwo]

Downloaded!

Started it, even. Done goofed though. Named my child, went straight for the nickname before getting to the page after that. May want to clarify that?

Regardless, I like it so far. Doesn’t exactly line up with my experiences, but I imagine everyone has it different.

Good idea, I will put that in my list of possible things to change if an update ends up being needed or asked for by the company. Glad you're enjoying it, and while I tried to make it as realistic as possible, it is sort of what I call an 'idealized realism'. In that I hew as close to how things really are as I can while omitting the biggest horrors. They can't choke to death or get leukemia, there's no teen pregnancy or abduction, you won't have the option to get drunk and slam them around, that kind of thing. A bit less how things are and more how we wish they could be.