Games like The Choicer Voicer

The Choicer Voicer is a specific taste: a voice-impression party game — a game show where you listen to a line, mimic it, and computer judges score the impression — with a Dub Mode that plays community-made video packs, a Twitch mode for streamers, and room for a few players on a couch. It is a pay-what-you-want download from itch.io, $5 minimum, for Windows and Linux. If it is your game and you want more of it, the honest news is that the genre is tiny. The useful news is that what exists breaks down cleanly by which part you are there for.

It descends from Choicest Voice, the voice-mimicry minigame in Mario Party: Island Tour — and the auto-generated “games like” lists will not tell you that, because at the time of writing the biggest of them ranks Quiplash and an aquapark game as its nearest neighbours. So here is the real list.

If it is the judges

Nearly every party game that has you perform settles the result by a vote of the room. The Choicer Voicer's computer judges are the exception, and that part is nearly unique — with one door open. PartyDub's ranked mode deals every player the same scene, has everybody voice every character in it, and scores the performances against the original — timing, intonation, dynamics, rhythm — rather than asking anybody to vote. Ours, so consider the source; but as far as we can find, it is the only other dubbing game where a machine rather than the room calls the winner, and the scoring is written up in detail if you want to check whether it is judging what you want judged.

If it is the packs

Voxalike is the nearest neighbour: free, in a browser, and built on the same pack idea — so close that its per-line files are the same format as The Choicer Voicer's. What differs is the video container, which is why Voxalike's own import screen warns against loading a Choicer Voicer pack without converting it first. Converting is one ffmpeg command, and packs for either game can be made, opened and retimed in PartyDub's editor, which reads and writes both formats — declared interest again, but that is what it is for.

If it is free, in a browser, tonight

The free, nothing-to-install corner of the genre is two games: Voxalike and PartyDub. The Choicer Voicer is not in it — it is a Windows and Linux download, and the free browser versions you will find under its name are not run by its developer, who has said so plainly. PartyDub's difference is where the scene comes from — the host brings a clip of their own rather than picking a prepared pack, it goes straight to the other players without touching a server, and guests join with a six-character code, no account. A free room seats two and a supporter's seats ten, so it scales past a couch if the party is bigger.

The paid cousins

What The Dub?! and RiffTrax: The Game are the pay-once end of the same idea: supplied B-movie clips, polished presentation, Steam and consoles. They are compared in full in games like What The Dub — including which of the two has you perform and which has a robot perform for you.

The short version

• —The judging: PartyDub's ranked mode — the only other scored dubbing we know of.
• —The packs: Voxalike — same line format, different video container.
• —Making and fixing packs: PartyDub's editor, which reads and writes both.
• —Free in a browser tonight: PartyDub or Voxalike.
• —Supplied movie clips on a console: What The Dub?!.

And if none of them quite replaces it — fair. The Choicer Voicer is a particular little game, and the best supplement to it is more packs for it. Those you can make yourself, it is easier than it sounds, and there is a guide for that too.