I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the WITCH FIRE by Brian & Juliet Freyermuth Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Brian & Juliet Freyermuth
Pub. Date: November
1, 2023
Publisher: Middark
Press
Formats: Paperback,
eBook
Pages: 321
Someone is gathering belief, working like little Worm himself, digging under the cities of logic and reason.
That’s the ominous warning Coyote gives Nick after a monster attacks him and his girlfriend, Thelma. Someone has been testing the waters for months now, from the demon attacks to the horror of the Green Man. And now someone has attacked his mother and put her in a coma, and only Nick can save her.
But to do that he must scour the City of Sin for a man who is a myth, even among the many real gods and goddesses of the world. One whose name was whispered in the shadows as Nick fought demons and ancient gods over the last few months: Evan Constantine.
But not even Constantine, crazy goddesses or hulked out demigods can prepare him for the one thing that scares him more than anything.
Family.
So before I share Brian's post I wanted to say a little something about it. Some of you may know that I'm a HUGE video game fan and the Fallout Games are some of my all time favorites! When I found out that Brian worked on the first game I may have freaked out a bit. So now here's Brian's favorite games!
6 Games I Enjoyed Playing That
A Game Designers View On Why Story and Player Choice Matters
By Brian Freyermuth
My top six video games have a couple of things in common: Story and Player Choice. I started writing short stories when I was 10. By the time I met Juliet in high school, I wrote a fantasy novel and a horror novel. I’m pretty sure letting her read the horror novel convinced her to go out with me.
Years later, when I started working as a junior designer on the original Fallout, the producer, Tim Cain, drilled into all of us how important player choice was. Choice in dialog, choice in how the story ends, and even a multitude of different ways to solve puzzles.
Looking back, even the games I enjoyed playing as a kid had a great story and player choices.
So while I have a ton of games I consider great, here are my all-time favorites. And just so I wouldn’t have to choose a number one, they’re in chronological order.
●
Sid Meier’s
Pirates!
I played a lot of games on my old PC, (and I’m talking OLD PC, where we still had games on big old floppy disks) but there are two I remember to this day. The first one is Sid Meier’s Pirates, which took you to the Caribbean to become a world famous pirate. There are ship battles, sword battles, land battles, and you can even romance a governor’s daughter. But the best thing is building up your armada and becoming the most ruthless pirate this side of Blackbeard. It also helped that the ship controls are amazing and are some of the best, even to this day.
I don’t think the original is still around, but you can get the 2004 remake here.
●
Wasteland
The second game I played over and over and over on my PC until I wore out the disks was an old role-playing game called Wasteland. Unlike the other fantasy RPGs out there, this one is set in a post-apocalyptic future, where mutants and robots stalk the deserts of Arizona. It was such a fresh, never seen before setting in a game that I fell in love immediately. (And played it at least five times all the way through).
I was enough of a fan that when Scott Campbell, the guy who helped me get my first job at Interplay, asked me if I’d be interested in attending a meeting to discuss Wasteland 2, I screamed “yes”. And then I corrected everyone in the room about information from the original game. And instead of being fired, they put me on the project. The same project that would eventually change its name to something different… the original Fallout.
A company called InXile bought the rights to Wasteland and released it after 20 years. You can find it, and all its many sequels on steam here.
●
Star Control
2
Another huge open game, but instead of a giant world, you explore the galaxy. Like the other games on this list, Star Control 2 is a game where you could do the entire story completely out of order. The choices were immense, as you fly around the galaxy recruiting allies to fight the evil Ur-Quan. But more than that, Star Control 2 showed me you could have humor and drama in the same game.
The best place to find this old game is called the Ur-Quan Masters, which was a collective of fans that brought the game back, and even enhanced it. Check it out.
●
Fallout 3
I really enjoyed this game, but Fallout 3 also holds a special place on this list for a much more personal reason. The original Fallout was the first game I helped design, and so much of what I wrote stayed in the game at launch, including my character of Harold the Ghoul. The Fallout series did well, but when Interplay went under for the first time, the series disappeared. For the longest time I thought that my favorite little game would be lost in the fog of gaming history, but then Bethesda bought the rights and released Fallout 3, a full 10 years after Fallout 2 had shipped.
You can’t imagine the joy I felt seeing Ghouls and Power Armor and everything from that old game, all nice and pretty in 3D for the first time. And not only that, but if you head far west in the game, you’ll come across the wonderfully familiar face of Harold.
●
Skyrim
I can say with certainty there’s not another game in my entire life that I’ve played as much as Skyrim. Even the older games listed above have nothing on the hours I’ve put into this game. (Somewhere around 200 and counting). The combat, the majestic forests and misty mountains, and the story all came together in this brilliant masterpiece. And then, to top it all off, the fans have been adding to the game for the last ten years.
And no game since has yet to top the rush of fighting a dragon with your trusty magical battle axe.
●
Baldur’s Gate
3
Out of all the modern games, Baldur’s Gate 3 is creeping up on Skyrim as one of my favorite fantasy role-playing games of all time. Where Skyrim reveled in the majesty of climbing a mountain and fighting a dragon in 3D, BG3 revels in player choice. Not since the original Fallout have I seen a game where it feels like you can do anything. Talk your way through fights, go in spells blazing, or sneak your way through a building full of bad guys. Not to mention the fact that you can talk with almost everyone and everything. (Seriously, try the Talk to Animals spell in the game. The animals are hilarious). Your choices affect huge parts of the story, from who lives and who dies, to who you fall in love with. It’s a game I’ve put 80 hours into, and talking to my friends, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen about 30% of the game or less. It's truly amazing what Larian pulled off with this game.
There are many great games I’ve
played over the years. Even some that almost made this list. But if you decide
to dive into any of these, know that their world will become yours, if only for
a little while.
About Brian & Juliet Freyermuth:
Brian and Juliet have been partners in crime for over a quarter of a century. The adventure started back in High School, when the two of them were driven to the prom by a mortician. (Although not in a hearse, their parents said no... they asked.) Now they take their love for writing and plotting a good murder to create the Sundancer Mysteries.
They love going to escape rooms with their son and his wife,
as well as going to art museums and traveling to far off places.
Brian Freyermuth is not only an author, but also the Game Design Director and Voice Over Director at Steel Wool Studios. He began his career in game design working on the original Fallout and has worked as a designer on games like Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, Minecraft: Story Mode, Ozaria, and Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach. He is a member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and Horror Writers Association and is the author of the urban fantasy Demon Dance and co-author of the sequels Mind of the Beast and Witch Fire.
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub
Juliet:
Juliet Freyemuth loves helping people discover their passion
and figure out how to pursue it. She specializes in working with creative
people to find their niche and locate the resources they need to reach their
goals. She’s also the co-author of the Sundancer Mysteries, where she uses her
degree in psychology and social and behavioral science to figure out how
goddesses, vampires, and other mythological creatures survive in a reality that
changes based on popular belief.
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Goodreads
Giveaway Details:
3 winners
will receive a signed finished copy of WITCH FIRE, US Only.
Ends December 5th, midnight EST.
a Rafflecopter giveawayTour Schedule:
Week One:
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11/1/2023 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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11/2/2023 |
Blog Spotlight/IG Post |
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11/3/2023 |
Guest Post |
Week Two:
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11/6/2023 |
Guest Post/IG Post |
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11/7/2023 |
Guest Post/IG Post |
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11/8/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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11/9/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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11/10/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Three:
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11/13/2023 |
Review/Guest Post/IG Post |
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11/14/2023 |
Review |
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11/15/2023 |
IG Review |
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11/16/2023 |
IG Review |
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11/17/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Four:
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11/20/2023 |
IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post |
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11/21/2023 |
IG Review |
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11/22/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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11/23/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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11/24/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Five:
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11/27/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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11/28/2023 |
IG Review |
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11/29/2023 |
IG Review |
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11/30/2023 |
IG Review |
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11/30/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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