Runt of the Litter
Step into the gaming world with Runt of the Litter, one of the top $4.99 games in the App Store! Crafted with creativity and innovation by Choice of Games LLC, this captivating Books game is bound to grab your attention. With its content rating of 9+, it caters to a wide audience. Ever since its release on 23rd February 2017, it has been constantly updated, with the latest version rolled out on 27th June 2023.
Whether you have a liking for Books, Adventure, or Role Playing games, Runt of the Litter is sure to keep you hooked!
User Ratings
Join the crowd of 36 gamers who have given their verdict on Runt of the Litter.
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Dive into Runt of the Litter
Steal and raise a baby war gryphon! Will you fight dragons together to save the empire, or defy the empire and lead your people to freedom?
"Runt of the Litter" is an 150,000 word interactive fantasy novel by Kelly Sandoval, 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.
The gryphon keepers hold all the power in the Empire of Vaengrea. They make the laws, patrol the borders, and only give gryphon eggs to their chosen heirs. As a poor stable hand, a "thrall," you know you’ll never have a chance to prove yourself.
But then, you find the egg. Small, neglected, nudged out of the nest by a disapproving mother. But you can feel warmth growing inside.
Now your gryphon is in terrible danger, both from the other gryphon keepers and from a deadly plague that’s wiping out the Empire’s gryphons. Can you keep your gryphon safe? Where will you hide your new hatchling? Are you skilled enough to hunt its food or clever enough to steal it? Which of the gryphon keepers can you trust? How will you shape the young gryphon’s mind?
Wyrm riders invade from the north on their fire-breathing dragons, the natural enemy of the gryphons. Will you and your gryphon fight in the war, seizing your place among the elite? Or will you defy the empire and lead your fellow thralls to revolution?
Can you keep a runt gryphon safe with the whole world against you? The life of your gryphon, and the fate of an empire, is in your hands.
- Play as any gender and as gay, straight, or asexual
- Choose from a variety of unusual gryphon breeds
- Raise your gryphon with a gentle hand or demand obedience
- Find romance among your fellow thralls or steal the heart of a gryphon keeper
- Rise to the rank of gryphon keeper or lead your fellow thralls to freedom
- Battle fire-breathing wyrms to protect your empire
- Find a cure for the devastating gryphon plague
What’s Fresh in the Latest Update?
Discover what’s new in the recent update of Runt of the Litter on 27th June 2023:
Bug fixes. If you enjoy "Runt of the Litter", please leave us a written review. It really helps!
Hear from the Players – Runt of the Litter Reviews
Find out what gamers are saying about Runt of the Litter:
Its 2021, the boring year. We just found this game a week ago and we LOVE IT it is rich in story and truly beautiful. There are so many ways that you can really make to story change. You can be a mean selfish thrall only wanting to have everything for themselves or you can be a kind supportive thrall whos everyones friend. And there are many more options too! You can have many different breeds of gryphon (for those of you who do not know it is just another way to spell griffin) (my favorite is personally the Owl-snow leopard, we named her Snowsong)And for those of you who play this game and love it like us, games from then we would recommend are Choice of the Dragon which is free, and a kitsune fox-spirit game (sorry we forgot the name) which is about the same price as this one. Anyways, Im sorry about the lengthy review, we just felt like there was a lot to say. If you got a bit bored and just skimmed the whole review, here is the short review: Short review: we highly highly recommend this game to any fantasy lovers. We think it deserves 5 stars. DOWNSIDES Just telling you all, this game can be hard, especially because you can just click the wrong thing on accident kind of easily with a new update of swiping to choose. Again, so sorry for such a lengthy review, Im not sure if it will even let us post it, but we again, had a lot to say, even if we repeated myself a bit. We hope this helped!
We luv this game we replay it all the time. (SPOILER ALERT) our fav story was when we had a secretary and cheetah gryphon we named Quickfeather and had a romance with arvo and discovered the cure to dropfeather. Overall great game.
Very well written! The fantasy world is an excellent backdrop, and explores the world of human and griffins well. We’ve played multiple times, and each time discover more about each of the characters. One of our issues with other stories released by Choice of Games: the gender you choose for the main character affects the gender of other characters. Since gender does affect how (and what) a character will say, this created some unlikely dialogue. This story avoids that trap: it has well drawn supporting characters who have distinct personalities, no matter the gender of the main character. We look forward to more stories by this author!
We enjoyed this so much. It sucked us in and we couldn’t put it down.
We personally think that this is your best one yet(even though we only did one other-the dragon one, which we think should be longer.)Anyway, we love how you can make friends with the characters in the game( Eini was our favorite friend!) we also really like your gryphon the most, of course! We think you should make a second one, and at first run you through a quick quiz at the beginning, saying stuff like:"what was your name in our last book?","who was your closest friend?", "what was your gryphon’s name?",and "what did you choose to be your goal at the end of the last book?",finally,"what breed of gryphon did you have?"so then that would have a effect on the next part of the story. Anyway, please take our advice and make a "Runt of the litter 2"!
This is the first game that was bought we love the stories you make but Im kinda sad that we finished this in such a short time we wish it was longer other than that we love it Im going to replay it for a while.
We really liked it, the weird pronouns were awkward and out of place but the rest of the story was enjoyable.
The story was fair to moderate, but the writer needs to understand that without pictures we are left to imagination. If 50 % of the characters are non gendered and use random non gender pronouns then you have given us little to imagine, it was a big distraction. Very few people in real life claim to have no gender at all, if you create a low tech society filled with androgynous drones then you should explain why, it needs to make sense somehow so that it is part of the story and not just an unnecessarily jarring disruption in the flow of your story. Every element of the story should further the story, making a strong presence of sexually androgynous Characters didn’t further the story and just smacked of politics.
The other two bring Choice of robot and choice of court. Highly recommended.
Growing up, we switched from reading choose-your-own-adventure books to playing interactive fiction games that focused on solving puzzles. The books provided suspense and intrigue–What happens if we make this choice versus that choice? With the games, we experienced that intense sense memory–sights, sounds, sensations, and emotions–that we love so much about reading. Years later, we remember the grim choices required in Infocom’s Planetfall, the ash-tongued feeling that came after we completed the puzzle. Kelly Sandoval’s interactive novel, Runt of the Litter, rekindled our memories of those immersive experiences. We played a thrall, essentially a serf, in the service of an empire of gryphon riders who face invading wyrm riders and Dropfeather, a gryphon-killing disease. Somewhat stressfully and quite satisfyingly, the novel requires choices almost at every turn. We managed friendships with a group of four other characters, raised a gryphon, dealt with Unnar (he’s a sh***y person who happens to be a gryphon rider and therefore has power over the main character), and explored the greater world. We’ve played the novel once, enough to get a sense of the world while still leaving plenty for us to explore. We’ve discovered the cure to Dropfeather, encountered wyrm riders, and made sacrifices. We’ve started a second game, intent on exploring other options and outcomes. (I’d like to live this time.) we strongly recommend the game. It leaves open the possibilities for relationships with the different characters, and there’s quite a lot that we have yet to explore. Unlike the interactive fiction games we used to play, this novel contains many possible outcomes. Rather than puzzles to solve, there are relationships to build (possibly with the wyrm riders, or the exiled gryphon keeper, or people we’ve yet to encounter).
The story was absolutely amazing, we genuinely felt attached to Lostsong (My Gryphon) and all the characters involved. Careful Spoilers So many feeling went through us in our experience with this. Even with the little time we had, we found myself forming real bonds with the characters. When our final moments came and we had to sacrifice myself to save Lostsong, and the wyvern egg, we felt waves of emotions we didn’t even know we had. To some the adventure up as a masterpiece, still isn’t doing it justice. We would with out a doubt recommend this, absolutely astounding!
Wonderfully written and full of beautiful gryphons. Wish it was longer but our choices left us satisfied at the end.
We loved the story! So worth the movie, it was like your own "how to train your dragon " movie :)
These stories are always so good.
A little abrupt with the ending, but exceptionally written with an original setting and judicious application of common tropes.
Good concept. Reasonable telling of the story BUT the story makes a few leaps in time that you don’t really "feel" as a reader. Simple stat mechanics. A short story BUT it did have some meat for the ending and that’s always our number one complaint for choice games. So what would be a 3 star is now a 4 star.
This was OK but nothing great. Very low replay value and even though the story was written well it wasn’t that long and not the best of stories. We will give it three stars.
Playing a young servant who has to decide between being diplomatically submissive or getting lectured by haughty superiors is not a fantasy to get excited about, and it’s the role you’re stuck in for most of the game.
While we thought this was a decent concept, we feel like the author didn’t put enough time into it. Playing through the second time made us realize how little you can change the story. We don’t expect too much from apps, but being able to change anything other than your stats is not too much to ask.
The game will be over before you know it. Not a lot of depth.
It’s super short. Like really REALLY short. Throughout most of it nothing really significant happens and doesn’t really have a lot of replay value. We were surprised when the ending came so suddenly. And to be honest it doesn’t even feel like you actually get that much in the means of interacting with anyone not even your gryphon aside from some key story moments.
We’ve played the game twice now and nothing really changed. We mean you can change the personality of the gryphon and various relationships but overall it’s still the same story. (Mini spoiler ahead) Not really worth 2.99. It would have been nice to have more options and different paths when going about your exile. Overall it’s fun the first time and interesting as a story.
Game was alright but really really short. Beat it in little more than an hour and don’t really want to play it again. Feel like decisions weren’t as important with the ending coming up so fast. Decisions were also more difficult than other choice games because your own status compared to others is poorly described. Ex: the part with the ladder, it doesn’t say how high you are so how am we supposed to know how safe it is to jump vs throwing things at/yelling at keepers gryphons when we dont know how they will react to a thrall interference either. Needs to be cheaper for how little you get out of it if not free to get people into the others like the Choice of Heroes, which was awesome and we highly recommend.
Finished in an hour with no desire to replay.
We understand that companies are getting in trouble left and right for not being politically correct but we honestly believe this was done out of pure laziness it’s not illegal to write his,him or her but instead we you put zer even when it’s clear that the character is male or female just so you don’t have to make two pages one with her one with his.