User blog:Jacked Maverick/Why I Finally Decided To Delete Choices

The following contains spoilers for Endless Summer, Book 2 and both Blades of Light &amp; Shadows and It Lives in the Wood’s ending.

Wednesday, June Third. Twenty-twenty.

The day Blades of Light & Shadow, Book 1’s final chapter aired… and also the day I finally deleted Choices: Stories You Play.

One thousand, three-hundred, and ninety-one (1,391) days with the app.

This blog post is just to express myself and thoughts.

I don’t even know where to begin here. I guess it would be best to start where things started getting dim for me.

The End of the Beginning (Ride-or-Die: A Bad Boy Romance)


2019 is considered by many to be Pixelberry’s worst year. With the onslaught of gender locked romance books and canceling fan-favorite series. None highlight the beginning of the end as much as Ride or Die: A Bad Boy Romance, Book 1.

The mere announcement of this book had people deeming Choices a “sellout” and comparing them to others like the app in the market. Such as “Episode” and “Chapters”. Even the subtitle had people raging.

I gave it a chance, and it was… not good.

I didn’t hate it as much as others did. And I definitely didn’t see why other people thought it was purely amazing. I gave up on it when we were in the hotel escaping the brotherhood. That’s when I tuned out. Sure, at the moment I absolutely hated it, but now with all the shenanigans Choices has done, it’s whatever.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of what you thought of it, it’s irrelevant. The silent majority spent enough money on it to warrant a sequel. Much to the dismay of the vocal minority, I’m assuming.

If you like this book, more power to you. I admit there are some books I like that others don’t. Not trying to drag you down.

The Second Half of 2019 and 2020 So Far
Say what you want about Ride-or-Die, but at least it made people care. People got mad enough to protest it’s announcement of a sequel. With Baby Bump getting renewed, it just left people with a simple “Oh no… not again… why…?”

Distant Shores is the first “gender-of-choice” book that I have ever given up on at chapter one! For comparison, I gave up on Nightbound at chapter 13 and Across the Void at chapter 8. That means I recognized Distant Shores was bad before all of the rest. That bad, people. That bad.

Now, the wiki is a ghost town and the new social media posts Choices uploads does not as much traffic as it did.

Witness: A Bodyguard Romance makes me sad about this new direction of diamond choices Pixelberry is doing. Having said that, I actually like this story. Hahaha. It's not good at all, but I just find it entertaining. For the wrong reasons maybe.

The Nanny Affair is just… we gave up The Elementalists for this?!

There’s just nothing to look forward to anymore! The upcoming stuff is the same type of mendacity we’ve come to expect over the last couple of months.

The Beginning of the End (The Elementalists and Nightbound)
Those of you who know me probably expected this to pop up sooner or later. I don’t know what more I can say about this that I haven’t already. This won’t be a long entry as I’ve already beaten this with a club multiple times. Dead horse, dead horse…

The Elemantalists is a franchise I hold close to me. It is purely great! Of course, when Choices decided to cancel it within 48 hours of Nightbound, that officially killed the app. When a lot of people finally tuned out. I’m not gonna act like I liked Nightbound (I really didn’t :( At all) but at least it was different. Different from the pure genderlocked romance stuff we got. If it got a sequel, I would have given it another chance.

I still haven’t even played Winters Past. I’m that upset.

Blades of Light and Shadow, Book 1 (And How One Scene Ruined It)


Sigh

This was it. This is the last chance for Choices to redeem themselves. After six months of not having fantastical adventures since The Elementalists, Book 2.

Before I talk down about this, let me start off by saying I’m glad it got a sequel. I really am! However… my disappointment and being upset at the announcement nullifies any joy. The fact this was the first book in history to have a sequel confirmed before it ended is astonishing.

I wanted to wait until the final chapter of book one aired before I officially deleted it. I do not know why I did. With the way Blades of Light & Shadow was going, I wasn’t expecting anything to convince me to stay. Or read Book 2 for that matter. I still had hope. A tiny sliver of hope that the ending would be as amazing as Bloodbound, Book 3’s finale was.

I guess it's because there was only one chapter left, and I thought to myself "Hey, I have gotten this far. There is only one chapter left, so I might as well see how this all ends."

But my gosh. The ending was… *stands up and picks up a pillow. Walks behind my couch and screams muffled into it*.

I did not know what to expect from the ending, but I knew it could not have gotten worse than what we have gotten before.

And then the ending happened.

Any positive feelings I felt about this book went out the window.

When we were given the option to kill Nia, I thought this book was finally getting on the right track. Sure we were at the end, but it was better late than never.

But of course, it was a cop-out. Nia was revealed to be perfectly fine a few seconds later after gorgeous artwork depicted her getting stabbed. That was it. That snuffed out any spark of hope I had of ever returning.

I’m not saying I would have been happy if Nia died, either. But stick with it at least! Or if Nia was going to live, use that story line for Book 2!

That sacrifice where we had to stab her is now meaningless!

“Woo-hoo! No consequences!”

At least in Endless Summer, Book 2 when Quinn died, we had to go out on a quest to try to save her. Sure, the quest was only a chapter long, but you know what? They EARNED it. Finding the cure for Quinn was beneficial to her story arc and it felt deserved that we found a way to save her. Nia’s? No. She got saved via deus ex machina.

Oops. Wrote that wrong.

Nia got saved by a macguffin. Not by the action of a character, but by an inanimate object that was not known to have that kind of power before.

At that point I just gave up. I didn’t want to read the rest of the chapter. I fast tapped to collect the three diamonds and promptly deleted the app.

The build up to this story was really something. Pixelberry was even teasing it for a few months! And what we got was… not bad. But that’s the problem. It’s “not bad”. Sometimes that’s even worse than being straight up awful.

The only reason I didn’t give up on it is because it’s “better than Distant Shores” and “not awful like Nightbound”.

When I was reading Blades of Light & Shadow week by week, I just thought it was good, but not great. And it stayed that level of quality throughout. Again, except for the ending. Where all the goodwill I felt was snuffed.

One thing is certain: I will not be playing Book 2. No matter how good people say it is. People say Distant Shores, Nightbound, and the Royal franchise is just great (among others). As you already know, I do not like either of them.

I just feel very sad & depressed that this was the one that finally broke me. Not Ride or Die. Nor the over saturation of the Royal Franchise. Not even goddamn Baby Bump.

Update: *Clears throat* In all fairness, it wasn't just Blades of Light & Shadow that broke me. It was mostly just everything leading up to this story. This book was just the latest example. The final nail in the coffin alongside other gruesome nails.

The Royal Franchise
I don't have much to say, but Pixelberry has been milking Cordonia for every drop. The Royal Masquerade was, I think one of the worst examples of apathy I had for Choices. I was excited when they announced a renaissance book! But when it was revealed to be genderlocked, all the empathy I had for it turned into... well, apathy.

And really? The Heir sequel trilogy? This is the new Freshman.

Old LI’s vs. New
Speaking of Nia… I don’t like any of the love interests now. Not just Blades of Light & Shadow, but in general. The female love interests (in non-genderlocked stuff at least) are not what they once were. Their personalities are just bland and not that attractive. I’m sure if Blades of Light & Shadow was released a few years ago, I would have lost my mind over Nia (or maybe Imtura?) the way I love Maria Flores and Quinn Erin Kelly. But nobody is doing anything for me now. The last one I actually loved was Bianca Sandoval, but even then she was too little, too late. DX

I love The Elementalists a ton, but… Shreya Mistry is one of my least favorite love interest in anything. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not awful, but she is nothing more than a default female love interest. There are only four women (in non-genderlocked books, at least) I put below her (whom shall remain nameless)!

On Reddit, I saw a post made that really made me think. New LI's are more pay walled than they have been before. With the older ones, we still knew what they were like and they were still seen as three-dimensional. But now, the new ones require diamonds to get to know them. Sure, the older ones also had scenes like that, but they were not necessary. You could still feel what they were like without getting a single diamond option.

Love Interest's quality do not necessarily translate to good books, but they are at least nice to have!

Future
There is just nothing to look forward to anymore! Blades of Light & Shadow was the promised egg that gave the chef a cholesterol heart attack. It’s so sad to think about the good times Pixelberry and I had before they devolved to just another interactive story book. I’m not saying I will never reinstall it, but after Blades of Light & Shadow failed tremendously for me, this blemishes my views on any new releases. The upcoming Untitled Mystery Book? I could not care any less for that one. Even if we can choose our gender in that one.

These are the only things that will make me reinstall it (in no particular order):

Here is a brief rundown on what I have planned to write during quarantine (In No Particular Order):


 * Blades of Greatness & Despair: Ten Reasons Why I Hate Blades of Light and Shadow, Book 1 (And Ten Why I Like It).
 * It Lives In The Woods: Why it’s better to let Noah live.
 * Untitled Perfect Match, Book 1 Analysis.

There is just better stuff out there. Telltale, Lovestruck, just to name a few.

Conclusion
I’ve been with Pixelberry even before Choices was a thing. Back when High School Story Prime and Hollywood U was all the rage. Do I regret discovering them? No. I’ve fallen in love twice (two different real life European people), made some amazing friends, and felt blessed with the greatness of Endless Summer.

But I just haven’t been feeling it in a while. There is nothing right now. The Elementalists was the last amazing franchise we got (October 2018) and Bloodbound, Book 3 was the last singular book we got that was truly above & beyond.

As much as I loved Mother of the Year, it will have be the last surprise for me. I'm sure upcoming genderlocked books would be excellent, but with the way Choices is going now, I will not be given them a chance. No matter how great the premises are. Same goes for non-genderlocked content.

It feels weird to not have the app anymore to mindlessly fast tap for diamonds while watching TV or counting down the twenty-two hours for daily diamonds.

I’m just really devastated. It’s the end of an era. My “no more mutants” moment.