Rent-a-Vice

Choice of Games LLC

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this game

What doesn't kill you...kills someone else, and leads you down an ethical rabbit hole. In the near future, paying users can rent the "virtual experiences" of other people. These "feeders" sublet their own bodies, at the risk of their own lives, so that customers can safely enjoy extreme, potentially self-destructive vices, like binge eating, cliff diving, or worse.

"Rent-a-Vice" is a 150,000-word interactive cyberpunk-noir mystery novel, and 2018 Nebula Award for Game Writing Finalist, by Natalia Theodoridou, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

You're a private investigator with a bad habit, an ex, and mountains of debt--troubles so deep that you stand to lose custody of your kid. When a mysterious client asks for your help finding their missing lover in the seamy world of virtual experience, it's up to you to gather evidence, experience the technology for yourself, and solve the case.

Delve into the darkest corners of the clandestine Rent-a-Vice industry. If you believe the etho-politicians, VE compromises the well-being of society, and normalizes vice and disorder. But what are users after? Is it entertainment, or something deeper? And is there anything in it for the feeders, other than profit?

As for you, will you resist your own vices, or go all in?

• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, or bisexual.
• Fight or embrace your personal demons, struggle against the machinery of power, and find friendship in unlikely places.
• Save those in trouble or extort them for your silence, or go rogue and burn the entire industry to the ground.
• Expose corruption or exploit it for your gain.
• Test your skills as a PI while you share other people's experiences of life and death.
• Trade favors to retain custody of your child; reunite with your ex, or find romance with someone new.
• Become a champion for the marginalized, usher in a new ethical standard, or step on corpses to climb to the top.

Ratings and reviews

The premise was great but after the first chapters, it completely falls off. The dialogue is bland at best and robotic at worst. Characters seem to "bond" with the player based on maybe 2 interactions and are locked away if not chosen with no way to retry later in the story. The climax of the story is incredibly strange and had barely anything to do with what had been happening so far so much so that it feels as if it was the easiest way for the author to get the story done and over with. 3/10

Story has a lot of heart and hard choices, but overall it feels a little hollow. Choices barely seem to matter in the end. Also stats were weird and messed with the story in weird ways. At times I wasn't sure which stat was being utilized and it caused failures in dialogue that impeded the investigation. Interesting concept though.

I have to say, this involves moderate themes(with warnings) of self-harm or suicide. But it's part of the story. Now the story isn't that long. All those chapters feel like just one 2 chapters. But still the idea is intriguing, the philosophies are valid. Love interests aren't worked on much but better than nothing. I think overall, this isn't bad but also not amazing. It wasn't the best, but it was good to play. Stats are weird tho, I feel like they don't factor into the story too much.

What's new

Bug fixes. If you enjoy "Rent-a-Vice", please leave us a written review. It really helps!