Benjamin Nossin, creator of Choose Your Own Alternative, shares his story in this interview.
Origins
What’s the story behind you and F(r)ictions Ludiques?
During summer 2023 I was doing an internship at a serious game company, and we all wanted to keep working together afterwards. I went freelance to do this, and also to keep helping other devs with game design in a more official way.
The studio was inspired by both the serious games space, entertainment and what can be called “games for impact”. That is why telling memorable stories via gameplay and addressing topics that matter in real life was in the DNA of the studio right from the start.
What made you go independent and start making games?
When graduating one year later from french videogame school RUBIKA, finding a job in the industry was very difficult and freelancing alone wasn’t viable. I wanted to create my own experiences from a very young age (I actually wrote science-fantasy stories and worldbuilded as a hobbyist for many years).
After failing an application at Asobo Studio right at the last phase of the recruitment process, I took a step back, realised that I really wanted to make my own things and decided to go fully indie. Early ideation on Choose Your Own Alternative started around August 2025.
Game Concept & Inspiration
What is Choose Your Own Alternative about?
The eye-catching way to put it would be close to what’s on my Steam page: “a text-based adventure about exorcising your friend’s Inner Demon, by analyzing objects in an ever-reshaping palace”. But in reality, it’s a game about empathy, listening, and the terrible tension I think we all have between following rules and following our heart.
This is just one of the many tensions we are faced in life, for many different reasons. And as tension creates gameplay, I decided to root the game experience in that.
What was the lightbulb moment that made you realize this was the project you wanted to build?
There wasn’t really a lightbulb moment in the sense of something sudden. I’ve been obsessed with this kind of theme since childhood and it just grew up with me. What would you do if you could forget painful memories? If you could get rid of some emotions or things you don’t like about yourself?
If I can talk about a lightbulb moment, that would be when I realized what could be the dark side of many positive psychology and life coaching content I was reading over the years: some “eugenism of the mind”, if you will. I’ve been passionate about the works of psychologist Martin Seligman and Richard Ryan, along with Persona 5’s approach to post-traumatic growth, for quite some time. By summer 2025, I just felt this is the type of project I wanted to make.
Development Journey
How does your game stand out in its genre?
When starting out the project, uniqueness wasn’t the first thing I had in mind, at least not consciously. Many people had already told me they enjoyed my writing, worldbuilding, and crazy game concepts I came up with, so I felt this was enough to start working on the game. Back at my videogame school, we were always asked this kind of question and to me it was really stressful. So, I decided to stop bothering about it beforehand and trust my creative process. That the game would grow up to find its uniqueness over time, with no pressure to set itself apart from the get go. Like kids taking the time to grow up!
Now, I think that what stands out in this game first and foremost is its worldbuilding. I’m deeply inspired by a French literary sci-fi movement called Merveilleux Scientifique. They had a crazy approach to the blend of technology, magic, social and human science that I have never really found again later beyond very few exceptions.
Secondly would be its take on the investigation gameplay. I can’t say much more without spoiling it, but underneath its simple design lies a lot of meaning that I hope you’ll be able to experience. It recontextualizes the core mechanic, and I love games that do this such as “Little Inferno” by Tomorrow Corporation or “Train” by Brenda Brathwaite.
What's been the most surprising or unexpected part of bringing Choose Your Own Alternative to life?
People’s response to the game! It’s a very niche title as I expected, so there is not a massive amount of players trying it or festivals taking it in, but those who do really seem to enjoy it and resonate both at the strategical and emotional level as the game experiences wanted to.
I’m happy to see there are other people out there who are asking for novel gameplay, embodying new types of characters and roles. That motivates me to keep carrying on with this kind of game and to get better at making them.
Community
Who is your ideal player?
Someone who enjoys taking their time. I think we are highly threatened by all things “fast”: fast-food, fast-fashion, fast-work, fast everything. Social media doom scrolling provides fast-dopamine, and many game’s design fall into that trap.
Animation does the same, with increasingly fast editing and you can really see this with some modern kids shows. I’m really worried about what all this cheap and fast fun will do to us, like junk food. So yeah, my ideal player would understand what I’m trying to achieve with this game and with all the next ones I make.
What do you want players to take away from your experience?
I never think about anything I want my players to take away, as if there was a hidden message. My games have themes, values, all the culture and cognitives biaises I have as anybody else. I simulate my own vision of the world via the game’s audiovisuals, rules and systems, but I hope they don’t see any of it as statements about how things are.
My only hope is for them to live a memorable experience and nurture those new learnings in a positive way. What they do with it is theirs to decide.
How are you building a community around Choose Your Own Alternative?
I’m not actively building a community at the moment, because that can become a full-time job and being a solodev is already highly time consuming. But I try to be present for anybody who enjoys what I make and I’m always eager to chat.
I’ll see how things go from here, but I like the organic and chaotic growth of self-organised communities. And I always have my social media, newsletter and Steam Hubs for more structured groups!
Looking Ahead
Once Choose Your Own Alternative is released, what's next?
I’d like to keep working a bit on it and ship some UX and Quality of Life updates, along with French localization and maybe even a Linux port. In parallel, I’m also taking some time to improve my tools, code architecture, production, art and design skills.
That’s postmortem time basically, and I think it’s super important to do that before starting work on my next project (I actually have 25 pages of postmortem thoughts that I wrote over those last months).
I also have like 100+ demos on my backlog to play, and exciting digital festivals are coming up with even more to try out. I’m already ideating on my next projects, so hopefully you should hear more about them around this summer. Spoiler alert: it will be a narrative RPG with some quirky worldbuilding and gameplay.
What advice would you give to aspiring Indie Devs?
Don’t listen too much to what people say should be the right way to make a game, what is or isn’t a game and so on. History is filled with folks who told us about what should be literature, cinema, science, theatre, economy, etc… and of course videogames.
It’s not bad in itself, but you have to take a step back and don’t take it at face value. Critical thinking, listening and self-trust is crucial for indie devs. Always reframe everything you learn about within your own needs. As long as what you do makes sense to you and you take the time to make sure you’re not just fooling yourself, it will find its way.
Where can people find your game and follow your work?
The best way is to follow me on my Steam Creator page and by joining my mailing list!
But you can also find me on:
