<aside> 💡 Calling all history nerds, gossip queens, and interactive fiction fans! Do you have a niche interest in Tudors-era history that you’re just dying to live out? Are you in your element when you’re spilling some serious tea and trading in the latest hot goss? Or maybe you’re just sick of yelling at your screen during your latest Bridgerton binge watch and ready to make your own perilous choices in court. Yeah. It’s like that. Check out how we took historical revisionism all the way from woke to bespoke with Eric Avery’s Save The Queen - or else it’s off with your head!

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Lifelong Fantasy and Mystery Writer, Eric Avery

Listen, we could spend all day talking about this title, just from the premise alone.

You play as Emma, a recently appointed lady-in-waiting to the legendary Queen Anne Boleyn. As a reader, you have the chance to divert history and keep Queen Anne’s head firmly where it belongs: attached to her neck.

As Emma, though, you have more than a few… we’ll say, personal reasons to be invested in the Queen’s head-on-neck relationship.

Because that’s what we’re really here for: the intrigue, the espionage, the royal secrets!

With your new position as lady-in-waiting to the queen, everyone and their mother is interested in using you for your close proximity to the monarch herself.

Who do you ally with?

Who will you betray?

And whom will suffer as a result of your choices?

In a setting where everyone knows everyone’s business, every choice counts, and secrets aren’t just valuable - they’re currency.

Literally.

Avery’s game design blends perfectly with the branching prose as readers are able to horde & trade secrets and information with members of the court in order to further their personal aims. Readers are periodically ushered into mini-game scenarios where they are asked to navigate any number of historical scenarios to best success: maybe you need to talk your way into a party, discover who is blackmailing a prominent court member, or successfully remember which hairstyle you’ll need to prove you’re on top of all the trendiest trends.

Success in mini-games translates to more secrets, more power, and more nobles on your side… whereas failure holds equally interesting consequences for Emma and her family, whose health and safety depend on her success in court.

The good news? No matter how the mini-games go, you’re guaranteed more drama on the other side.

This commodification of secrets and gossip puts you right in the center of the drama, holding all the cards on what to do next.

That’s historical revisionism, baby.

Don’t just revise it, let your readers rewrite it.

And with a high degree of story branching comes high replayability: rewrite it again and again and again.

In addition to making choices around how and when to spend secrets, readers are able to customize Emma’s storyline about her hobbies and interests through dialogue choices. Secrets or not, in an era where appearances and etiquette mean everything, choosing what to say - and sometimes what not to say - can change everything. With interactive fiction, it does change everything.

Save The Queen is a truly immersive experience and the first of its kind in the historical fiction field. From navigating the treacherous web of court socialites to uncovering royal betrayals and altering the course of history, if we got any more immersive than this we’d have to break out the chamber pots.

You’re welcome.