"Heroes Rise" is now the first text adventure on Steam

We’re proud to announce that both games in our bestselling “Heroes Rise” series of interactive novels are now available on Steam. These are the first text-only games ever to be released on Valve’s platform.

“Heroes Rise” is an epic interactive novel series by Zachary Sergi, where your choices control the story. The games are entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination. (There are some gorgeous visual novels on Steam, but there has never been a game on Steam without graphics or sound effects.)

Today’s release includes both Heroes Rise: The Prodigy and Heroes Rise: The Hero Project, clocking in at 100,000 words and 177,000 words respectively. In a single playthrough of each game, players will typically read more than 50,000 words, the size of a 200-page manuscript.

A Huge Discount at Launch

During the first week of launch, each “Heroes Rise” game can be purchased standalone for $1.99, a 33% discount off the full $2.99 price. In addition, Steam buyers can purchase one $0.99 upgrade for “Heroes Rise: The Prodigy” and two $0.99 upgrades for “Heroes Rise: The Hero Project,” or buy both games plus all of the in-app upgrades for just $3.99, 55% off the full price.

We Need Your Help!

If we’re going to bring any more interactive fiction to Steam, we need “Heroes Rise” to do well. The third game in the “Heroes Rise” trilogy, “Heroes Rise: Herofall,” will be finished and released later this summer, and we’ve committed to making it available on Steam, allowing Steam players to finish the trilogy on the platform of your choice.

After that, we’d love to bring our entire catalog to Steam, But much of that depends on Valve, and how many copies of ‘Heroes Rise’ we can sell this summer. If “Heroes Rise” flops, we might be the first and last interactive fiction we can get on Steam.

We’re asking all of our fans to buy Heroes Rise on Steam today, even if they already own the game on other platforms, to show their support for Choice of Games and interactive fiction on Steam.

We’re also asking you to spread the word as far as you can. Post about it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Reddit, or wherever you can find people who enjoy Steam games.

Together, we can bring a new genre of games to Steam, and making it possible for a new generation of interactive-fiction authors to make a living.

How high will we rise?

Hurrah! Was this through Greenlight, or through VALVe directly?

Congrats!! So did Depression Quest not make it onto Steam in the end?

Depression Quest has sound effects though, right?

What’s with the user reviews that say “this isn’t the complete game”?

As far as I know Depression Quest is coming but it isn’t on yet.

They’re all for Heroes Rise: The Hero Project, so they may have just bought that one.

I’m very confused by the complaints that “Heroes Rise: The Hero Project” isn’t the complete game. Maybe they don’t realize it’s a sequel?

Yeah, Depression Quest doesn’t show up when I search for it. It had every right to be the first text adventure (I’d count it, certainly) but it looks like we squeaked in before them.

I snagged the bundle and will try to get a review up at some point.

Query: I finished part 1, but when part 2 asks regarding save game the only option is to import from choiceofgames.com. Does that mean continuing a save is impossible in the Steam version?

That’s not expected. It should have allowed you to save your game in part 1, and the saved game should appear in the menu in part 2. Can you email us at support@choiceofgames.com to follow up?

I see. You have to click on “The End”.

That is…counter-intuitive for sure.

That’s not expected either. I think Part 1 may have had an error when saving to Steam, so just reopening Part 1 and closing it again may have helped. Anyway, I just uploaded a new build with some bulletproofing around the save/restore code, so this issue should be fixed for everybody. (And, if it’s not, please do email us at support@choiceofgames.com.)