Alex is now available to play.
We’ve just added Alex, Jess, and Maria to the Choice: Texas web site, meaning all characters are now playable. You can see Alex pictured above. As always, the game is free to play online.
Paste gives Choice: Texas a 9/10 rating
We are so pumped about this review from Jed Pressgrove at Paste. It’s the first formal review of the game since we launched last month, and it’s a great one:
More universal than a political manifesto, the game is a reminder that humans are defined by their response to struggle. Choice: Texas emphasizes that a pregnant woman’s decision — as well as the responses of family and friends — is guided by conflicting emotions, practical concerns, and spiritual questioning, not by the philosophical ramblings of loudmouths in the U.S. abortion debate.
And, of course, if you haven’t played the game yet, Latrice and Leah’s stories are free to play online now. Go here to play.
Play Choice: Texas
Choice: Texas is an educational interactive fiction game addressing reproductive healthcare access in the state of Texas.
Choice: Texas is live! Both Leah and Latrice’s storylines are playable. Check it out, tell your friends, etc. Thanks to everyone who made this possible — by donating funds, by sharing stories, by playtesting, by copy-editing, by asking hard questions, by supporting us through social media and word of mouth.
This has already been an amazing experience, and we look forward to doing the work to complete our remaining characters in the coming months.
Choice: Texas is coming to Different Games
We’re beyond thrilled to announce that Choice: Texas will be part of the Different Games Arcade in Brooklyn from 6-10 p.m. on April 11, 2014.
The Friday event is free and open to the public but you have to register here. Saturday’s events, which include conference panels and workshops cost $20 for the whole day; some sliding-scale registration is available dependent upon availability.
Different Games is an annual student and volunteer-lead conference on diversity and inclusivity in games presented by NYU School of Engineering’s Integrated Digital Media Program in partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Digital Media Program.
As game designers, academics, journalists and players operate in separate spheres, we see Different Games as an opportunity to share across and outside of professional boundaries. By presenting games, scholarship and hands-on workshops engaged with issues of diversity and inclusion we seek to build new connections and foster a unique dialogue between artistic, academic and commercial practice. We welcome folks from all corners of the games community invested in games as creative, critical tools and committed to seeing games reflect the complexity, depth and diversity of all involved.
We’ll have Latrice and Leah’s stories up and playable for anyone who wants to try them out in person. And, we’re thrilled to be in such excellent company. While we’ve taken bits of the early game to F.R.O.G. 13 in Vienna and SWPACA in Albuquerque, this will be the first time any of the completed stories will be publicly displayed. We hope to see some of y’all there.
Choice: Texas trailer
Choice: Texas has a game trailer! The game’s first launch will be in the next few weeks, and we are so excited. And, to top it off, all Indiegogo perks were shipped as of February 28, 2014.
And, if you’re jut learning about Choice: Texas, here are the basics:
Choice: Texas is an educational interactivefiction game addressing reproductive healthcare access in the state of Texas. Players navigate the states reproductive healthcare system trough one of five fictional Texas women. The game’s characters include Latrice, a Houston attorney with a long-term boyfriend, a high-pressure career, and a number of family obligations; Leah, a small-town bartender living with her parents as she saves money and plans for her next steps; Alex, a promising high school student weighing her options for college and trying to live up to her family’s expectations; Jess, a young Austin-area professional looking forward to starting a family with her husband; and Maria, a LVN and mother trying to create comfortable home and future for her children. Each character is a composite, reflecting and combining the real, live experiences of Texans.
The game is set for release as a free-to-play web game. It is a collaborative development project by game studies scholar and historian Carly Kocurek and writer an activist Allyson Whipple, and it features original illustrations by artist Grace Jennings. Choice: Texas was funded through Indiegogo and built using Twine.
Please reblog and share widely! We are so excited about the upcoming launch.
Quick update
Perks are shipping! Some of you have probably already gotten yours, and if so, we hope you are enjoying them. The remaining perks will ship in the next two weeks.
On a less positive note, our initial web designer fell through, so we are facing some delays in production. We are currently working to find new team member, and we’ll have the game up and running as soon as we can.
In the meanwhile, Carly will be talking about Choice: Texas as part of the Game Studies, Play, and Practice area at the annual SWPACA meeting.
We look forward to launching the game as soon as possible. We have most of our assets in place, an we’re definitely itching to get the game out in front of an audience.
Perks are starting to ship
If you backed our IndieGoGo campaign at the Friend level, guess what? Your postcard is in the mail! We’re so excited to start sending out all the neat stuff we’ve put together for our backers — and it’s not just because it’s taking up real estate in Carly’s basement.
Also, if you backed our campaign at a level that includes a custom illustration (that’s the Benefactor and Sustaining Benefactor levels), please check your e-mail; we need reference images to get your artwork in production.
Choice: Texas postcards
The Choice: Texas postcards have landed! Carly took this picture with her cell phone, and we’ll be bustling to get these in the mail ASAP to our postcard-level supporters. A lot of our other perks are in production, so we hope to have all kinds of things in the mail to our IndieGoGo contributors soon.
Brief, exciting news
We will be sending a full newsletter update in the next week. But, at the moment, we’ve been working on swag for the folks who contributed financially to our IndieGoGo campaign. Postcards, travel mugs, and tote bags are all in production, and buttons and stickers should be in production in the next couple weeks.
And, of course, we’re still hard at work on the game. More news on that front soon.
Choice: Texas newsletter
Hi folks! Choice: Texas now has an exciting newsletter, where you get updates about game production. We won’t send you more than a couple e-mails a month, and you’ll be the first to know about all kinds of exciting news. We also promise to only contact you about Choice: Texas, and we won’t ever give anybody else your e-mail address. So, please sign up right here.
The game is coming along according to schedule, so we’ll be hitting some pretty big benchmarks in the coming weeks. We’ll keep posting updates here, but the newsletter will give you more detailed information.