Choice of Robots is a 300,000 word interactive sci-fi novel by Kevin Gold Ph.D. and was developed and published by Choice of Games. The game is entirely text based.
In Choice of Robots, you start as a robot maker in graduate school. Robot characteristics are dependent upon choices selected during the story. You can make a robot graceful or clumsy, empathetic or indifferent, obedient or autonomous. The game also has other character personalization options to select gender and sexual orientation.
There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to the storyline and outcome. Some outcomes I have come across during gameplay include robots that served humans, singularity, marriage with a robot, designing military robots for war, razing a city in Alaska, robots with the ability to vote, and intelligent robot cars (think KITT). These are only brief examples. I won’t give any of the major story points away!
This story also references other games such as GTA V, MegaMan, and Civilization IV. Another good feature of the game is the achievements on Steam. The achievements almost act as story highlights. For example, during chapter 2 you can opt to provide a K-12 education for your robot. A discussion regarding Hamlet’s age-old question is initiated (Shakespearean achievement). The story is detailed with some outcomes seem unexpected and effected not only the robots but the world around the characters. Decisions made affect stat points and relationships. The review stats screen is simple and also provides a summary of each completed chapter.
Choice of Robots include 4 different versions of Chapter 6 :
Choice of Robots does not have a save or load feature. While I can see why a save feature was not implemented, it would be nice to have an option to save (such as a game mode that allows players to save) for the times I had to step away from the computer for an extended amount of time. Closing the game does not always result in starting from the page the game was closed on.
Overall, I thought Choice of Robots was a great game to play. If you are into chose your own adventure type games or books, Choice of Robots is worth picking up. A demo version of the game on Steam allows you to play the first two chapters if you are still on the fence about purchasing the title. Choice of Robots is a game with a dynamic storyline, several options to advance the story and enough details to leave parts of the story to the imagination.
Some things are in our control and others not.
-Epictetus
