Battle for love as a gladiator in this epic romance of swords and sandals!
Heart of Battle is a 255,000-word interactive gladiator romance by Fay Ikin, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
As a prisoner of Coritan City, you had two options: rot in a dungeon or battle in the gladiatorial arena. You chose to fight—and as a star gladiator, you have the power to sway public opinion as nobody else does.
The city is divided, ruled by the glittering Illustrious who use their wealth and status to maintain their power over the struggling masses. A lucky few have access to magic as well: it can be used to heal, but it can also be used as a weapon, or to reinforce the bars of prisons.
Below them, rumors of revolution simmer—and nowhere more strongly than among the gladiators. Former soldiers, political prisoners, and prisoners of war now bide their time, plotting to rise up. Some just hope to escape to their own freedom; others want to bring down the entire oppressive system. Yet others seek to work within the hierarchy, currying favor among the Illustrious in the hopes of having their freedom bought by a wealthy patron.
In this treacherous web of alliances that you must navigate, the one certainty is your own heart. Will you find love with a gentle healer, haunted by a tragic past? A wealthy patron who could promise you a life of luxury? Or even one of your fellow gladiators, whose muscles and martial skill you admire through every battle: a fervent ex-revolutionary now condemned to the same servitude as you, or a bold daring warrior who seeks fame and glory.
What skills will you bring to the battlefield: domineering strength, agile cunning or force of personality? Will you accept your fate and build a reputation as a respectable, honorable fighter, relying on the aristocrats to free you? Or will you throw in with the rebels? Victory can mean a better life for you and your beloved—but what will you do if you find yourself on the opposite side of a gladiatorial match from the one you love? Or on the opposite side of a revolution?
Play as male, female, or non-binary; trans or cis; gay, straight, bi, demisexual, asexual, or aromantic.
Romance a gentle healer; a glory-hound gladiator; a wealthy patron; or an ex-revolutionary.
Choose your weapon: fight with sword, mace, bow, daggers, or bladed gauntlet.
Negotiate your way through relationships with your superiors, walk the balance of power between gladiators and guards, and clash with a bitter rival.
Win battles with honor, or scheme and cheat to take down your enemies.
Incite a riot—or even a revolution!
As you probably know, Punish A Muslim day is coming up on the third of April. Any Muslim who lives in England is in danger so please stay home. Don’t send your children to school. DON’T GO OUT on the 3rd of April. My non Muslim friends, please reblog this, one of your followers could benefit from it.
surprise? i know it’s been a while but chapter seven of When Twilight Strikes will (finally) go live publicly june 3rd at 1pm EST. the password is already up for those of you in the midnight tier on patreon, and will be released for the twilight tier this sunday.
(if you’re thinking of pledging for the demo, i’d suggest doing so and cancelling once you get the password unless you plan on sticking around for june, as my patreon charges every 1st of the month).
in this chapter…
meet Mirai, who, honestly, is a pain in the ass
learn more about the ros’ backgrounds and struggles
enter some dangerous situations, including one where you can be in close proximity to your chosen ro
use those fight or flight instincts
make some crucial choices…
thanks for sticking by me everyone <3
I used to think scifi was off limits to me because I can't subtract 15 from 50 without having a minor mental meltdown... but then I remembered my brother has a masters in astrophysics and I'm very good at bullying him into doing what I want.
Coming soon. Written by me but with all the maths and science done by someone smarter than me.
Werewolves in Space!
This post is a joke. Unless...
you asked for angst, i delivered. i’m happy to say that chapter eight is officially out on itch.io now!! saves will and should work so play to your heart's content (and trust me, some of the ros scenes are worth reading).
IN THIS CHAPTER.
face the consequences of your disastrous night at crimson rouge
discuss what you learned and what you’ll do next (while ignoring the complaints of a certain warlock moaning about going home)
witness some bickering between K and Rylan (they’re simply a variant of A and Blane, just saying)
see sebastian again (how is he doing you ask? not that great. he appreciates it though)
experience, uh, some blood
STATS.
word count. 355,422 (+76k)
LINKS.
ko-fi
patreon
please email me (evertidings@gmail.com) for large bugs and issues or shoot me an ask if you catch something! otherwise, enjoy and let me know what you think (i’m dying to hear). as always, thank you for your support <3
Hello! Yes, the time has come: the Infamous demo is out! First I want to say that the response has been so unreal and the fact that people are so excited for this makes me both happy and nervous haha but I’m glad people have become invested in the characters that I love dearly!
The demo includes:
✮ PROLOGUE ✮
Audition for BOTB and attend the after-party hosted by Misfit Alley…and try not to get in trouble in the process.
Meet some new (and familiar faces) and spend the night three different ways.
Maybe have that long awaited conversation with your ex friend/partner that wants nothing to do with you :)
The prologue can be a bit NSFW-ish, if you so choose, so be wary of that!
✮ CHAPTER ONE ✮
Find your new drummer to replace Jazzy.
Kick off the tour!
⚠️ NOTE ⚠️ As there is quite a bit of variation and coding, it’s very hard for me as a one woman show to find every single error (trust me, I tried.) so for that I will be kindly outsourcing you guys as my makeshift alpha testers, if that’s alright (ha!).
If there are any errors, typos, or any passages that feel like they are out of context due to the game not reading the coding, please please let me know so I can fix it! Ideally I’d like the demo to be 100% polished before the next update!
Also, stat pages like Characters and Band Codex will be created next update so ignore that haha!
Band and character playlists will be up soon and I will share an update on that!
Also I would like to credit @magiciansvoyage for the pronoun template adapted from @hpowellsmith ! It is amazing and I’m very thankful for your generosity!
here it finally is!
HOLY SHIT WHAT???
OK, so I was messing around with chatGPT is an AI model that’s truly terrifying (try it here), and I made it write haikus for me. I’m not sure if this is amusing or scary, but it’s also ironic that in the process of registering an account with ChatGPT I was asked to identify photos with chimneys to prove that I’m not a bot, and failed 3 times.
College Tennis
Out on the green court, Racket swings with precision, Ball flies through the air.
Merry Crisis
Merry Christmas cheer, Suddenly disappears, Crisis on the rise.
this whole situation is very funny
credit to @cryptvokeeper for the idea!
Welcome to The Rosebush
Welcome! We’re very happy to announce the preliminary launch of The Rosebush, a new online magazine for interactive fiction theory and criticism. The purpose of this preliminary launch is to let the interactive fiction community know that we exist, and to invite submissions. We hope to begin publishing early this summer, perhaps in June.
Learn more below, or you can also read this post on our website.
The Rosebush will be a free online magazine dedicated to publishing longer form articles about interactive fiction. The interactive fiction community already has well-established channels for reviews of individual games, and several people have well-read blogs, but we’ve been lacking a good platform for in-depth analyses, theory articles, discussions of craft, interviews, historical pieces, and so on. The Rosebush aims to be this platform. It will publish substantial articles that increase our understanding of interactive fiction, from individual works to design patterns, community structures and historical trends. The intended audience consists of both players and authors of IF.
Interactive fiction is a term with many uses. The focus of The Rosebush lies on digital works in which a player interacts with a pre-written story where text is the main medium. In particular, The Rosebush will publish about both parser-based and choice-based interactive fiction. While tabletop role playing games, computer role playing games, visual novels, and choose-your-own-adventure books are also interactive fictions in a sense of that term, they are not our primary topic.
Most of the organisers of The Rosebush come from the communities around the Interactive Fiction Competition, the Spring Thing, the IFDB, and so on; but we explicitly also intend to publish about the works of adjacent communities, such as the ChoiceScript community and the retro text adventure community.
Articles! See the submissions page for the detailed call for articles. It is possible to either submit a pitch, which we will check to see whether the topic is suitable for The Rosebush, or an article. Links to submission forms can also be found on the submissions page.
Most importantly, a place for disseminating your articles. The Rosebush will maintain its website and ensure that all articles are also stored on the IF Archive, the best guarantee for perpetual availability in the current world of interactive fiction. In addition, the editorial team will work with you on your article, which can range from simple spelling/grammar editing to more substantial ideas and feedback on improving your piece.
The Rosebush is an entirely volunteer effort. There are no plans to offer a monetary compensation to authors of articles.
The editorial team currently consists of:
Aster Fialla (se/er)
Benjamin Slade (he/they)
Daniel Stelzer (they/them)
Drew Cook (he/him)
Josh Grams (he/him)
Kiana Lee (she/her)
Lisa Fox (she/her)
Mike Preston (he/him)
Mike Russo (he/him)
Victor Gijsbers (he/him)
Zee (they/them)
Who makes the porn bots. Where do they come from. What do they hope to achieve.