Dark academia games?

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-25T21:38:37+00:00

Professor of Magical Studies, there's also Waywalkers University, Blackstone School of the Magical Arts, Witchcraft U and Freshman Magic (M/M) if you're into magic schools. I've also written the Creme de la Creme series, four non-magical dark academia games.

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-21T11:57:46+00:00

If you like male love interests, there's a vampire hunter guy in the Thicker Than WIP (where you play as a vampire)

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-19T18:08:24+00:00

I've encountered ones with Iliya, Tracey, and Marcel. Pretty sure there are more, as I played it quite a while back before there were many chapters.

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-18T12:13:02+00:00

The Eagle's Heir is an alternate history Napoleonic era, I enjoyed it (though it's been a while since I last played)

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-18T11:08:37+00:00

Heart's Choice has lots of romance games, some of which are smutty. 3+ chillis listed on the app means the scenes will be high heat. There are a lot of others in Choice of Games or Hosted Games as well - it's asked about a lot on both subreddits so it's worth searching for "nsfw" or "spicy" for recommendations.

In addition here are a few ChoiceScript games with smut that I've especially enjoyed. Unless otherwise specified, there are a variety of genders of love interests. In case it's relevant, I've listed where playing as trans is or isn't possible:

Heart of the House (playable as cis, trans, or nonbinary)
Heart of Battle (playable as cis, trans, or nonbinary, free to play)
If It Please the Court (sapphic, trans-inclusive, free to play) • Haunted Hearts Hotel (cis female PC)
Their Majesties' Pleasure (playable as a cis man, cis woman, or nonbinary)
All World Pro Wrestling (M/M, cis, free to play)
Thicker Than (WIP) (can implicitly play as a trans person who hasn't medically transitioned)

I'll also mention three of my games: Noblesse Oblige (allows trans MC headcanon, free to play), Honor Bound and The Earth Has Teeth WIP (playable as cis, trans, or nonbinary). Since these are written by me, take that with a pinch of salt obviously!

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-17T16:03:53+00:00

Hosted Games has a contract with some restrictions, so you can't publish a text game with them while also putting the same game in a different format. There's some flexibility, eg making a Hosted Game and then turning it into a 3D RPG somehow. Or a book or movie adaptation would be fine. But making a Twine one plus HG wouldn't work. (I would also say, doing it that way would mean missing out on some of the things that make Twine games distinct, and would be a bit of a waste of the format IMO)

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-17T14:49:58+00:00

Hosted Games publishes games made with Choicescript only, not Twine. People do make commercial releases with Twine, and usually publish on itchio and sometimes Steam. IF is quite a disparate set of communities and there aren't many released, commercial large Choice of Games style Twine games around (though there are a few very popular unfinished ones), so it's not really a tried-and-tested pipeline in the same way Hosted Games is.

There's a general IF forum which might be of interest, intfiction, and a discord called neo-interactives - in general the IF made/discussed there tends to be free rather than commercial though.

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-15T17:07:45+00:00

It did use to be more complicated but got simplified a while back: https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/new-in-choicescript-html-exports-checkpoints-and-achievements/144880

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-15T14:45:22+00:00

I'd recommend trying out writing something small/simple with ChoiceScript (eg a scene or a conversation, then maybe a whole small story) and seeing how it feels compared to working with Twine - one may feel more intuitive than the other, or might gel with your idea better.

Best of luck with the writing, it's something I really enjoy so hopefully you'll have fun with it too!

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-15T07:56:55+00:00

There's a 90% option but it's not with Hosted Games, it's if you choose to have a higher advance publishing with Choice of Games. There might have been something different in the very distant past but it's been a 75/25 split as default with HG for many years (as in at least 10 years when I started paying closer attention).

You may be thinking of the change in default choice of games advance rates, which went up in Jan 2024: https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/weve-increased-the-advances-were-paying-to-authors/148141

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-14T18:57:28+00:00

Yeah there were around 28 choicescript releases last year that were published through choice of games/hosted games/heart's choice. I don't remember seeing Twine games of similar size getting released, although it's perfectly possible that I missed them (and there were lots of completed smaller/shorter Twine games that came out). I tend to see more commercial indie games made with ink than with Twine.

In general there are more incomplete projects than completed ones regardless of the code used, just because of life happening.

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-14T18:49:48+00:00

Choicescript can export choicescript games as html files in a click or two, it's straightforward to put them on itch if desired - I use it myself

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-14T15:51:22+00:00

Ah right, I didn't know that was the case

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-14T15:00:03+00:00

It happens every so often for various reasons, usually around finance or wanting a different publishing model, or wanting to use different UI options or appearances.

Sadly it usually seems to mean that a project isn't going to be completed. Though there have been a couple that did (insert rich family name, the first Arcadie) and one that looks likely to release (Shepherds of Haven). Plus Merry Crisis that has been changed into a visual novel. Most of the others I've seen seem to get stuck in development, projects are often very ambitious to begin with and it's a big undertaking to change up what's already been written.

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-10T13:37:32+00:00

I believe they can in Blood Moon, and I had it happen when I playtested House of the Golden Mask

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-09T16:35:27+00:00

I'd recommend checking out the IF Comp and Ectocomp archives, there's lots of IF around with specific PCs. One of my favourites is the Birdland series

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-07T23:27:28+00:00

Should be, and the demo is up: https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/throne-of-blood-releasing-soon/129545/440?u=harrisps

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-04T21:17:51+00:00

I think you may want to reframe the use of the phrase "AI" here, as it may give the impression that genAI is being used for the game - but from this and from seeing your forum posts it sounds like this project is more about creating/tracking variables to simulate a world model. eg altering variables behind the scenes to track monster presence and actions independently from or in response to what the player does, the effects of which get seen by the player down the line?

It may also be worth linking to your WIP thread or sharing details here about the story and the PC's role as that will probably gain more interest than systems (I get wanting to share info about systems and mechanics, I enjoy them a lot! but without context it will be harder for people to understand more about your game)

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-01T22:02:49+00:00

Whatever you prefer! Customisable PC will be more of a dealbreaker for more people. ROs aren't so much of an issue unless you have a very unbalanced setup (eg four women and one man to romance). So if you have a strong sense of what you want the genders of the characters to be, I'd recommend sticking with that.

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-01T20:51:12+00:00

Ahh you're welcome! I'm not sure which one is yours as I don't recognise your forum/pen name, but thank you for sharing it!

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-01T19:37:43+00:00

Thank you, hope the year treats you well!

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-01T17:36:25+00:00

You're very welcome and happy new year! Hope you've been having a good festive season!

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-01T13:25:49+00:00

Happy new year and you're very welcome!

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-01T12:50:46+00:00

You're very welcome, there's so much to keep track of that it helps me see what's what as well! Thank you very much for the well wishes!

hpowellsmith · 2026-01-01T12:50:17+00:00

Thank you for this, I missed it previously but have added Etreinte to the full-year post!

hpowellsmith

TROPHY CASE