A new technology allows users to access the experiences of "feeders" who perform extreme, potentially self-destructive activities. As a private investigator, you are called to delve into the darker corners of this clandestine industry. A battle is raging between those who seek to legalize and those who wish to ban Virtual Experience. The service is expensive but relatively safe—or so the ads claim: you can binge on your favorite foods without having to worry about the calories, jump off a cliff without ever leaving your sofa, or wrestle wild animals and be back in time for dinner without so much as a scratch. If you believe the ethopoliticians, VE is compromising the wellbeing of people already in the margins, while normalizing 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?
Rent-a-Vice is a 150,000 word interactive novel 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.
Gather evidence, experience the technology for yourself, befriend or romance feeders and users (not that you would ever romance a person of interest…would you?), save those in trouble or extort them for your silence, or go rogue and burn the entire industry to the ground. In the process, you may even find out who you are and how far you are willing to go. Ultimately, this is a tale about the nature of addiction: is life itself a vice you rent?