I'm a self-described gamer, although truth be told, I don't have a lot of time for games these days. It's been almost a year since I was "a hardcore raider." I try to keep track of gaming news. I'm genuinely interested. Well, that and I have a 17 year old son.

One gaming company that's caught my attention has been Choice of Games. Choice of Games writes text-based, multiple choice games. They have two games available free online and on your smartphone: Choice of Dragons and Choice of Broadsides.

I haven't played much of either game, I confess. But Choice of Games continues to pique my interest for a couple of reasons nonetheless.

Primarily, of course, it's their blog. In general, I'm a big fan of a company blog that is open and transparent about some of the challenges and triumphs they face when making business, creative, and technical decisions. And the Choice of Games blog is terrifically smart, with fairly lengthy examinations of different programming and plot decisions. The blog has explored of the meaning of "authorial intent" in interactive fiction, for example, along with the power of writing good choices in stories and questions of gender and sexual orientation of the games' characters.

But what's also great about Choice of Games is its use of a pretty simple programming language, ChoiceScript. The code available for download for free with a non-commercial license. And Choice of Games has an easy-to-read instruction guide on how to get started with the language and how to program your own multiple choice game.

I downloaded the source code tonight, and I'm going to play around with it. It seems like fun programming project, particularly if you're a fan of choose-your-own-adventures, which I definitely was as a kid.