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Choice of the Pirate

by Alana Joli Abbott

Fantasy
2016

Web Site

(based on 3 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

Plunder ghost ships for cursed treasure! Battle the Crown Navy, sea monsters, and other bloodthirsty pirates on a quest to rival the Pirate King himself!

"Choice of the Pirate" is a fast-paced swashbuckler of an interactive novel by Alana Joli Abbott, author of "Choice of Kung Fu" and "Showdown at Willow Creek." Your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—165,000 words, without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Rise from a deck-swabbing sailor to fleet commander over five years of piracy in the tropical paradise of the Lucayan Sea. Command the winds with magic, or board enemy ships with your cutlass in your teeth.

Will you play as male, female, or nonbinary? Find romance as gay, straight, bi, or poly, or pursue friendships and alliances instead? Will you join the Crown as a privateer and bring pirates to heel? Will you parley with the Pirate King to protect the Lucayan from the navy's rule? Or will you duel the Pirate King and claim his power for yourself?

Buckle yer swash and set sail for adventure!

• Develop your skills as a swashbuckler, sailor, diplomat, scoundrel, or weather-mage.
• Explore a chain of tropical islands where buried treasure and secret pirate camps are hidden.
• Face pirate curses, haunted ships, terrifying monsters, and the wrath of the sea herself.
• Spy for the Crown or become a double agent to support the Pirate King.
• Become a celebrated hero or a ruthless villain.
• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, bi, poly, or asexual.


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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
The simple pleasures of pirating, March 19, 2021
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

Alana Joli Abbott is a prolific Choice of Games author, having written Choice of Kung Fu (a very good game), Showdown at Willow Creek (very short but fun), and Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts, which I felt had good ideas but less exciting execution.

Also, I had previously played another pirate game (by a different author) from choice of games, "7th Sea: A Pirate's Pact", which I thought was fun but that didn't highlight the exciting parts.

This game, for me, improves on Abbott's other games and on the other pirate game, because it's fun. It highlights all the best parts about the pirate life. We get ghost ships, flamboyant and treacherous captains, refined but insidious Crown operatives, sea monsters, owning a fleet, getting a hook for a hand, etc. Very little time is spent on the trivial or boring.

The stats are great, too. They're clear to understand, you have many opportunities to increase them, and they're clearly differentiated early on.

There are some things I didn't like too much. I tried to get a haunted ship at the beginning, but failed too many checks in a row and lost miserably. But the game handled it with optimism and reassured me as the player that things would be okay despite my setback, and that gave me the confidence to keep playing without retrying.

I'm not sure exactly how much branching there is; the way it's written and the wordcount given makes me think you largely experience the same set of events each playthrough, but the game offers you a lot of freedom in your intent. And there is definitely some branching; I completed the entire game without finding the identity of one of the people in the relationship bars (probably because I refused to work with the Crown at all).

Overall, lots of fun, can recommend.

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Choice of the Pirate on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Choice of the Pirate appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Simulation games by SpesKnight
Games that simulate something, not just IF stories but kind of management games made with IF engines




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