Terror Fest

For all you horror, thriller, and slasher lovers out there -- this upcoming launch is for you! With that said, we're here with the Terror Fest book team to give us a deadly look at tomorrow's release. 

So where will this slasher story take place? 

Bre’Anna: You’ve traveled home to the New England town of Morilec Island to reunite with your high school friends at the town’s annual Terror Festival, but when residents start dying, it’s up to you to clear your name and uncover the killer… before becoming a victim yourself.

Jay: Are you saying people can die in this book? That’s a little scary, just saying.

Sounds like it. Welp, we better get prepared... Can you tell us a bit more about the cast and who you're excited for players to meet?

Bre’Anna: I’m pretty ecstatic about the whole gang, because not only do we have a bonafide friend group in this book, but they’re mostly all Love Interests! There’s Tyson for anyone who likes a cinnamon roll; Koda to whet your sarcastic, bad boy whistle; Lucky for some strong, independent woman energy; Zaire, who scratches our friends-to-possible lovers itch; and Allen/Alana for some good old fashioned, “will they/won’t they”, blast from the past, high school romance angst. Your older sister’s there too, but… eh. Siblings, amiright?

Jay: I am so excited for y’all to meet Zaire, our first nonbinary Love Interest! We even got a fresh new body type for them! This character is near and dear to my heart and I am so happy we were able to have them be a part of the story.

Jo: I’m actually gonna say Stabby Joe. Aren’t the villains always the coolest?

Jay: I mean Stabby Joe is always slaying.

This book has so many Love Interests! How do you balance the different romantic arcs and create distinctive characters?

Bre’Anna: We leaned really heavily into horror tropes to nail down some of the more traditional character personalities (Allen/Alana’s our golden boy/girl, Lucky’s our jock, etc.), but as we fleshed them out, they got backstories that informed why they are who they are, what role they would play in their collective friend group, and why that version of them would be interested in MC.

Jay: Who you do and don’t romance also has a pretty big impact on the story…so uh…kiss carefully, or kiss everyone, as long as you’re having fun lol.

I've seen the new features for this book and they look amazing. Can you tell our players more about it?

Jay: Yes, this book will be the first introduction to Tappable Screens! Which means that…well, we'll let y'all experience it for yourselves;)

Bre’Anna: Yeah! The feature allows us to get really creative, so there are some fun scenes that are more interactive than we usually would do.

Bee: Players will be able to poke around and investigate things on their own- make sure to choose wisely~! We’ve been excited to finally get the ball rolling on these, so we hope you have fun with them! 

Jordan: We also have some cool new screen camera fx’s.

Jay: I really love the blood splatter fx. Jordan and our animators did a great job on that one! Paired with the blood splatter sfx, I had a visceral reaction when I played it for the first time.

Choose wisely, noted! What is the process of designing game mechanics in a visual novel format?

Jay: Bre’Anna came up with a lot of cool mechanics in this book that I had fun coding. The Run For Your Life minigames were an especially fun challenge because there are quite a few things to track. You’ve got weapons and previous choices affecting each portion of the minigames. Your choices definitely do matter here hehe.

Bee: The tappable screens also open a whole new avenue of gameplay that’s been really fun for us to explore and play around with. 

Jay: We had a lot of conversations on how to translate a normal text-style choice into this new visual format. It’s especially difficult in scenes where we are trying to keep a quick pace and also tutorialize, but I’m hopeful that we were successful!

Bee: There were a lot of kinks to sort out too ദ്ദി(*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

Jay: Let's not talk about that. I'm still recovering.

Jo: I put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making this work!
Haha, now we've got to see exactly what y'all are talking about! Horror, and especially the Slasher subgenre, has so many classic tropes. What
kind of research did the team do while developing Terror Fest to be authentic to the genre?

Jordan: Definitely Jason vibes, Thanksgiving on Netflix, or the game Until Dawn.

Jay: I’m the kind of person who can’t walk down dark hallways, but my friend did

recently get me to watch Scream, which I did thoroughly enjoy and I feel Terror Fest definitely hits a lot of those campy slasher vibes. 

Bre’Anna: For me, there were definitely some rewatches of the classics like Scream 1 & 2, Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2, plus some newer-ish releases like The Cabin in the Woods and Final Girls. It helped not only to capitalize on the horror elements, but also to see how they handled issues like giving all of the characters enough plausible deniability to keep them suspicious without painting a target on their backs. 

Any wise words for players before they face the ominous Stabby Joe?

Jordan: Hide!

Jo: Don’t look behind you! Or do…?

Jay: Y’all are giving terrible advice.

Jordan: Call 911?

Bre’Anna: How about… everything isn’t what it seems, so keep your eyes peeled? 

Oh we will! Thank you team for the killer details. And thank you to all of you who have been super excited for this slasher story. We can't wait to hear what you really think about this Terror Fest release!

Last but not least, we have an Instagram Filter for all of you: Go to Reels > Effects > Type in "Choices Terror Fest" > take a pic or record and be sure to tag @choicesgame!

<3 The Community Team