#playchoices

Like many of you, I woke up to the AI slop It Lives Within "TV show" on the Choices app. Having spent thousands (no joke) of loving hours on the fan-made It Lives Within, I admit it felt like a bit of a kick to the gut, especially since I'd stayed up until 2 AM the night before, meticulously working on improving the programming of textbox animations for the updated version of the game.

But at the end of the day, the people are what own stories. It doesn't matter what PB puts out, especially when it so blatantly disrespects a series we all hold close to our hearts. We can choose what to support, what to value, and what to be our true version of these stories.

As such, I wanted to provide an update for "It Lives Within: The Obsidian Cut." We are working extremely hard to finish rewrites, and I apologize it's taking so long - but real work takes time. We take so long because we don't use AI to do our work for us. Our testers have found hundreds of bugs, which have been corrected. I'm currently working on some rewrites for chapters 21-22, and once that's finished, I'm going to play from start to finish with different MCs to include more complete personality variants for your MC.

While our game was highly beloved (which I am still so wholly grateful for three years after the final episode aired), I know some of you tried the original version and decided it wasn't for you. Others maybe never heard of it. But, with the news of AI It Lives Within dropping today, I just wanted to invite everyone to give our fan version a chance. If you tried it before and gave up, or haven't played it yet, I recommend waiting until Obsidian airs to experience that version for the first time. And if you did play the original, stick around! You'll love Obsidian when it airs. All of our testers are highly enjoying it and say that it improves on the story with every change, while still be the story they knew and love.

AI It Lives Within is frustrating and offensive, but ultimately, we never needed their blessing, and neither do you. Our story started small, with a team that never made any money. Everything was done out of passion and love for this series and these characters, and we were and still are, devoted to creating truly player-drive stories where your choices matter. A LOT. That passion is something that can never be generated in any machine. Stories from the heart speak to the heart, "canon" or not, and what really matters is how theses stories impact and inspire us.

Literally never use Tumblr aside from occasional reblogging (sorry for the DM's that I have struggled to respond to in um.... YEARS, I am SO sorry) I just want to say how much I miss older PlayChoices.

I haven't picked up the game in ages, I used to play pretty much every day. I jumped ship around the time Alpha was being released I think? I would maybe make a yearly appearance on the app to replay old books like ILITW, D&D, TC&TF, etc. The app used to share intriguing adventures in fantasy settings, historical dramas/mysteries and campy stories about rising to stardom. It started to almost exclusively create more smut oriented stories (which is fine but I feel like it really deterred good portion of the fan base, myself included)

I remember stories like Open Heart, Desire and Decorum and Blades of the Light and Shadow updating and the PlayChoices tag trending at number 1. Fan art, fan fiction and edits were being posted DAILY. Theories, speculations and memes would circulate, inside jokes would form, heated debates about yet another book using OH faces for MC would spark discussions. It felt like a thriving fandom bonding over different stories that were being produced by Pixelberry.

I don't know when momentum truly started to slow down on the app as I had abandoned ship before it truly became obvious, but I can't help but feel like the use of AI generated assets really stomped the passion a lot of fans had for the game. I also feel like a large portion of the fan base were maybe deterred from the overwhelming amount of smut books and lack of other genres being explored. Smut sells, I don't blame Pixelberry for this decision, but I feel like it was a really polarizing action on their part. Books like ILITW, BOLAS and ES really showed how a story doesn't have to rely on the romance aspect for it to be received positively by its audience (I would like to mention that I am aware that there were some books displaying relationships in more harmful and dangerous lights without calling them out within the narrative, such as Witness. If I recall correctly my experience reading it presented a possessive dynamic that was never discussed further, there was toxicity that was never confronted within the narrative, creating an unhealthy message to the player/reader)

I look back and think of how the Playchoices tag would trend a few times a week and smile. I think back to the community it made, how artwork of various mediums were created inspired by the books that were being released at the time. The excitement for a new book sequel to release, the dread (affectionately) of yet ANOTHER TRR book being released. I think back to how the characters in the older books and the fan artists of the community inspired me to pursue my illustrations more seriously and see my art in a new way and push myself to draw in a way that really resonated with me. It was truly heartbreaking to see Playchoices turn to AI slop instead of actual artists for their assets. I would take reused OH faces for the 1000th time over the genuine horror slop I've seen on my feed.

All this to say, without this app and its fandom I may not be where I find myself in my personal and professional art journey, for that I will be eternally thankful.

Thank you to anyone scrolling this tag and takes the time to read my ramble, sorry if it is all over the place and is read in a negative light. That's not my intention rather.... disappointment? Longing for old PB? Reminiscing perhaps? Idk but I just wanted to write a virtual message in a bottle and send it off into the virtual Tumblr sea I suppose.

I hope you have a good day to who ever is reading :3

"Remember that night together in the forest glade? Our kiss? That was real, Aerin. And it's still real." He swallows, uncertain. "You would still have me? Even as I am?" You step right up to him and reach out, touching his sickly cheek. You should attack him... ...but you hesitate. And that second of hesitation is all Aerin needs. "Liar."