The Golden Rose: Book One

Hosted Games

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this game

You are a recent member of The White Company, a mercenary guild on the far side of the law. Your job consists of hunting artifacts and roaming ruins that the Church has forbidden to mention. One of your expeditions, however, leads you down a path that is much deeper than you ever anticipated.

"The Golden Rose: Book One" is a thrilling 1.2-million-word interactive fantasy novel by Ana Ventura, 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.

Juggle friendships, new alliances, and flames of romance in this epic adventure that will take you to a Europe where History took a different turn.

• Play as male or female; straight, gay, or bisexual.
• Find romance, friendship, or rivalry with a cast of colorful characters.
• Hunt down the thief that stole your forbidden maps!
• Fight against bandits and city guards while trying to stray away from the all-seeing Eyes of the Church.
• Explore ancient ruins and the cobble-stoned streets of the medieval city of Tarragona. Step into a grand cathedral, a sprawling market, a multicolored harbor, the dark gates of the city, or an aqueduct that no one dares to come close to.
• Bond with a stubborn old horse.
• Choose to ally with a street urchin or the feral captain of the Guard.
• Uncover what is true in a world where denial reigns supreme.
• Start to unravel your own mysterious past.
• Immerse yourself in a world rich with characters, story, and lore.

Do you believe in Destiny?

Ratings and reviews

I've been playing and reading Interactive Fiction for several years now, and the Golden Rose ranks amongst the best, up there with Tin Star and the Infinity Saga. I think what elevates it the most is the characters. The book/game takes place in the real world and is very fun to explore. It is written with a very flowery prose, but I enjoy it all the more for that. If you're thinking of reading it, I recommend you do so. Alessa ftw

Half of the 1.4 million words are literally just filler. The author is incessantly dawdling. Even when you choose an option like "I keep walking, I don't care about the decor," they throw three more paragraphs of decor description at you and THEN say something like, "But the decor does not concern you." I'm a longwinded writer myself and I appreciate some good scene-setting, but this is stuffed with pages upon pages of the most boring and redundant descriptions I've read in a long time.

The most immersive Hosted Games piece to date. Its only crime is that I do not know what will happen next! This work does brilliantly at balancing an MC (you) with depth while offering plenty of choices for your reasons, motives and actions. For once, I truly felt like I was making my choices based on what I want my MC to think and believe, rather than just wanting to ensure that they are of a certain personality/for stat check purposes. Highly recommended.

What’s new

You can now choose a font in the Settings menu. Switch to Helvetica for crisp sans-serif text, or try the OpenDyslexic font, designed against some common symptoms of dyslexia. If you enjoy "The Golden Rose: Book One", please leave us a written review. It really helps!