
It’s time to reappraise the humble Choose Your Own Adventure book - glassworm
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/the-oulipo-of-the-1980s-why-its-time-to-reappraise-the-humble-choose-your-own-adventure-book
======
cproctor
I'm currently finishing my PhD on interactive storytelling--how rhetoric works
in interactive stories, how they can function as models or simulations of
social realities (and thereby help us understand the dynamics of
positionality, race, etc.), and how they represent a broadened view of what
K-12 CS might look like.

I'd love to talk more if anyone's interested!

* [Unfold Studio]([https://unfold.studio/](https://unfold.studio/)) is a web app for reading and writing interactive stories, using the programming language Ink.

* [A draft]([http://chrisproctor.net/media/publications/proctor_2018_unfo...](http://chrisproctor.net/media/publications/proctor_2018_unfold_studio.pdf)) article offering a conceptual framework, documenting the web application, and analysis of how student authors used it.

~~~
EwanG
A tool I have used in the past (and one of the favorites for folks doing full
Visual Novels) is "RenPy" which is based on Python -
[https://www.renpy.org/](https://www.renpy.org/)

Not involved with the tool itself, but have created a few works with it and
enjoy the fact it can run on so many platforms and target so many others.

~~~
Posibyte
Another one that's been around for decades at this point is the Inform[1]
platform. There's still an active group of people who produce all sorts of
interactive fiction books in the vein of CYOA books that are of surprisingly
great quality.

[1]: [http://inform7.com/](http://inform7.com/)

~~~
WorldMaker
Yet another tool of note for writing CYOA interactive fiction is Twine
([http://twinery.org/](http://twinery.org/)), which has become a defacto
standard of sorts of an interactive narrative writing tool more specifically
for hypertext CYOA.

For example of its growing ubiquity, it was admitted that most of the Black
Mirror Bandersnatch CYOA episode was written and tested in Twine.

------
mysterydip
What rekindled my love of CYOA was the Fabled Lands series of books
(unfortunately unfinished currently). Rather than linear progression, it used
a hub and spoke style to make essentially an open world RPG. Each book
extended the world and you could travel from one book to the other. Plenty of
tasks to complete. This page shows the difference in layout vs a typical CYOA:
[http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=204](http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=204)
And here's the main page: [http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/p/fabled-lands-
gamebooks.htm...](http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/p/fabled-lands-
gamebooks.html?m=1) which also has links to extras to play (even an app). I
recommend anyone interested in CYOA check them out.

~~~
simonh
Fabled lands is great, a real masterclass in building a freely traversable
world with persistent state using very minimal notation. I love how they wrote
little adventures that are triggered in one location in one book, require you
to go to a location in another book, complete some task and the return to the
starting point, all tacked with a few simple check boxes. Great stuff. One of
the authors has a great gaming blog.

[http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/](http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/)

~~~
arcticfox
> require you to go to a location in another book,

That's some very powerful and clever up-selling, but was it not enraging in
practice?

~~~
ironcan
Well, if they haven't included any connection to other books, people could
complain that it's too self-contained, there is no way to win.

------
m-i-l
The only Choose Your Own Adventure book I had was "Inside UFO 54-40". The
objective was to reach the paradise planet called Ultima Thule. Looking
through all the pages in the book, there was a page for Ultima Thule, but
working backwards there didn't seem to be any page "linking" to it. I assumed
it must have been a "bug" (I'd had several low budget paperbacks with missing
pages or other assembly errors by that time), but only found out relatively
recently that it was actually a "feature": "As the series progressed, both
Packard and Montgomery experimented with the gamebook format, sometimes
introducing unexpected twists such as endless page loops or trick endings.
Examples include the 'paradise planet' ending in Inside UFO 54-40, which can
only be reached by cheating or turning to the wrong page by accident"[0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure)

~~~
teilo
So that's where the name Ultima Thule [1] came from! I remember this book, and
I remember stumbling upon the ending and coming to the same conclusion: The
only way to get there is to break out of the storyline imposed by the author.
A nice sophisticated bit of meta-narrative there.

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/31/science/new-h...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/31/science/new-
horizons-ultima-thule-flyby.html)

~~~
StrictDabbler
Ultima Thule was classic/medieval Latin name for a supposed place beyond the
northern borders of the known world.

From time to time the name was used to refer to Norway, Iceland or Greenland
but no real place is really consistent with all the stories that were told
about it. The historian Polybius refers to Pythea "telling us also about
Thule, those regions in which there was no longer any proper land nor sea nor
air, but a sort of mixture of all three of the consistency of a jellyfish in
which one can neither walk nor sail, holding everything together, so to
speak."

Some Nazis also thought it was the mythical origin place of the Aryan race and
there's been some fuss made about that, but Nazis thought (and think) a lot of
stupid stuff.

The CYOA book was just making reference to this mythology.

------
samcheng
It seems like Netflix is thinking the same way. Their "Bandersnatch" Black
Mirror special (released recently) has a choose-your-own adventure
interactivity to it. I'd consider it a spiritual successor to the books.

[https://mashable.com/article/black-mirror-bandersnatch-
revie...](https://mashable.com/article/black-mirror-bandersnatch-review/)

~~~
plorg
I assumed this article was either or written by someone watching or reading
about the episode. It seemed nearly impossible to not know about it in the
internet world I inhabit. For what it's worth, I understood the genesis of
that project to be in the series creator's mind, that it was then brought to
Netflix who developed a system to accommodate the project.

From what I've read I imagine the CYOA conceit leads to the the same kind of
tradeoffs relative to more linear storytelling as in the books. The story ends
up serving the structure, and the necessity of generating more content leads
to a decrease in attention paid to to the stor[y,ies] as a whole. And there's
nothing exactly wrong with that, I guess, since many pieces of art are
dominated by structure over content. In particular, the interactivity leads to
better engagement with the viewer, and may be used to explore concepts such as
free will. Or it can allow there creator or viewer to engage in solipsism. Or
it can just be a cheap gimmick that gains attention (clicks, hours of user
engagement, sales, etc.).

~~~
tialaramex
I don't know for sure, but I don't think Bandersnatch drove the Netflix
interactivity work, rather vice versa. Charlie Brooker (whose previous work
includes reviewing video games and TV shows, both of which underpin aspects of
Bandersnatch, not least the name itself) is an obvious choice for Netflix to
approach to see if this has wings, because if Brooker can't do anything with
it, then it's not going to come off any better in someone else's hands. Also
the Black Mirror anthology style means a misstep is easily forgiven /
forgotten by fans. If you hate "San Junipero" (you are a weird person and
don't deserve love) that doesn't taint "Nosedive" or "White Bear". If you
found "Shut Up And Dance" too awful to think about, you can enjoy "Hang The
DJ" or "The National Anthem" despite that. If "Bandersnatch" failed it
wouldn't change anything else, at worst fans would be annoyed that time was
wasted filming for Bandersnatch instead of some other episode.

Netflix had previously landed several less important interactive works in
2018, such as Puss in Boots, before attempting Bandersnatch. And this approach
is effective at reducing bootlegging - there aren't existing tools that let
"pirates" make an interactive video, so if you want the actual experience
you'll be stumping up for Netflix. That means it helps underpin their
financials.

------
harryf
To me the greatest author of these types of books is Steve Jackson (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(British_game_de...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_\(British_game_designer\))
) who worked on the Fighting Fantasy books and the amazing Sorcery series (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson%27s_Sorcery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson%27s_Sorcery)!
- HN URL parser breaks on this link - add the ! at the end )

His greatest book IMO was Creature of Havoc (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_of_Havoc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_of_Havoc)
) - as a 12 year old I took me and a friend of mine several months to finally
complete - it had game elements which made it very hard to cheat.

~~~
dunham
You can replace the ! with a %21 and the parser will handle it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson%27s_Sorcery%21](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson%27s_Sorcery%21)

Inkle studios did an interesting adaptation for the Sorcery series for mobile.
Their games feel a little closer to CYOA than traditional interactive fiction:
[https://inklestudios.com/sorcery/](https://inklestudios.com/sorcery/)

They've also open-sourced a markdown format for CYOA games along with a
compiler to json and an engine to execute it:
[https://github.com/inkle/ink](https://github.com/inkle/ink)

~~~
StavrosK
I really like those games, I got all of them and they feel very immersive to
play. I would recommend them wholeheartedly.

~~~
Boulth
I agree. I got the first Sorcery game for free when it was available and
frankly I didn't imagine me playing it (text only game didn't look good) but
after 15 minutes I was completely immersed. I bought the rest of the series
and spent weeks replaying them with various choices. For me now they are the
best original mobile games I've ever played (and I buy a lot of stuff).

~~~
StavrosK
That's exactly my experience as well, I never really play mobile games but
Sorcery! had me hooked.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> The simplicity, clarity and imaginative capacity of literature offers
something that games, which immerse the player in immaculately-rendered
environments, can lack.

Right? No matter how many polygons, what analysis, how many months spent
rendering a single tentacle, there will never be a CGI Great Cthulhu that will
make me step out of my house in the middle of the night shining a flashlight
at the shadows _to make sure nothing is hiding there_. But good old H.P.'s
purple, racist prose did that to me. Or, I guess, my own imagination did.

(I was just small, OK?).

~~~
gota
Supposedly, the Monster is never described in detail in Frankenstein precisely
because Mary Shelley agreed with you.

------
JoeSmithson
This article tries to draw some link between CYOA books and adventure games
such as Monkey Island which I don't believe exists at all.

Adventure games, in general, do not have branching narratives of any kind.
They use interactive mechanics to amplify/guarantee the thrill of relevation.
Apart from this interactive twist, they are very close to normal Detective
Fiction (which also tries to deliver similar things through non-interactive
mechanics).

I actually really resent CYOA's influence on gaming. This idea of Audience
Control being a kind of grand distinguishing feature of gaming as an art form
is an absolute cancer.

The actual experience of branching narrative fiction is in my experience,
without fail, shit. To the extent Bandersnatch works at all it's due to the
meta nature of the story. Can you imagine any other Black Mirror story adapted
to this format?

~~~
Cei3oyoh
Much stronger similarity is found in the "Visual novel" style games, although
those are not so popular in the US. That also they have been to some degree
influenced by the CYAO book format seems plausible.

~~~
trothamel
I'd say they used to be unpopular in the west, but that's changed. See
[https://itch.io/games/genre-visual-novel](https://itch.io/games/genre-visual-
novel) for a sampling of games that are mostly made in the west, as well as
Russia and Southeast Asia.

------
javajosh
I used to be a great fan, but now I find this format tedious and anything but
fun, especially for a completist like me. I'm not going to work my way through
all the menus in Bandersnatch to see 5 hours of content just like I'm not
going to really read all of a CYOA book.

The format demands something of you, but it gives very little in return
(except for accessing new content). But novelty hidden in the thing I bought,
when it's locked not behind some clever puzzle but just a wall of time, well,
I'm not interested.

Yes to interactive stories (aka "Games"), No to CYOA tedium. The only thing
worth doing with these things is reading/watching them through and making a
diagram of the branches. Otherwise it's the storytellers job to pick the
branches, and to show me a good sequence.

~~~
lsaferite
Do you also hate games with branching paths? It's the same in the end. Either
you play the branches of the game or you read the branches of the book. Based
on your comments you must hate games like Witcher 3 since you can (and do)
make choices that choose one branch over another.

------
ianbicking
I've had some fun writing interactive stories with my kids lately using
[http://twinery.org/](http://twinery.org/) – it has a very usable interface,
though I've been doing all the typing and helping them organize their thoughts
and the choices.

Here's an example story written with my four-year-old (with some help from her
older sister): [https://ianb.github.io/Choose-Your-Own-
Adventures/Alphabet-F...](https://ianb.github.io/Choose-Your-Own-
Adventures/Alphabet-Finding-Their-Names.html) – if you've had a four-year-old
tell you a story, it makes as much sense as you would expect!

~~~
RobertoG
Tell your daughter that the exploding banana caught me. Next time I will not
trust the monkeys.

------
scarmig
Reminds me of second grade, when I showed my teacher a CYOA book I was reading
and she contacted my parents to warn me about it being a bad influence.
Apparently some Christian sects expanded the fearmongering about D&D to CYOA,
which made it a tool of the devil.

Ah, the days of growing up in the American South!

~~~
themodelplumber
It works without religion, too. I'm a parent of elementary age kids in
California and I've seen both Minecraft and Fortnite completely demonized by
people with no religious concern.

I've noticed that in many of these cases, the parent's conclusion is never "my
kid needs help and IDK what to do," but rather it's always the object that's
_external to the kid and parents_ that's at fault.

------
danso
This article was written well before the announcement or release of Netflix's
"Bandersnatch". While I liked the concept, and probably spent at least an hour
with it, I thought it underscored the weaknesses of the genre, when compared
to traditional linear narrative, such as how the alternate paths/realities
almost necessarily dilutes the themes and characterizations.

In any case, I don't see the need to bring back the CYA book. As video games
get more and more book-like, including the "interactive novel" genre, they
seem to fill the role better than any CYA book ever could.

------
westoncb
This may be unfair, but I tend to not trust the quality of "Choose Your Own
Adventure"-style books to be particularly high just because it's hard enough
to write a great novel to begin with; throw in a maze of branching
possibilities and unless the author is willing to put in vast amounts of
effort (even relative to the massive effort already required to write a great
novel)—it's likely quality will have to be compromised. (I think the exception
may be when the structure of the particular story is somehow related to
branching narratives to begin with, e.g. Bandersnatch.)

That said, I did enjoy reading some Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid
and haven't actually revisited them in close to two decades.

Writing interactive fiction has also appealed to me, but I've been discouraged
from even trying for the same reasons mentioned in my first paragraph.

~~~
rhizome
The same could be said about Hypertext Fiction in the 15+ years ago time, but
that doesn't mean it can't be improved upon (look at cave paintings).

We're still in the silent movie era of internet media and content, where
pretty much everybody could (and did) try something, and there were a
(relative) zillion releases to prove it. Either by attention or chemistry a
lot of it didn't survive, but it eventually built concepts that are still in
use today.

~~~
StrictDabbler
You can't argue from cave paintings. Cave paintings are incredible.

If you found an Unfrozen Caveman Painter you'd put him or her to work at a
design firm with zero hesitation and arguably it took us until the early 20th
century to understand what made cave paintings so powerful.

------
remote_phone
I’m not sure if the author is actually keeping track of things but CYOA are
still popular. I was literally one of the first wave of kids who got the books
(I have a first printing, first edition of Cave of Time) and thought it would
be fun for my kids to read.

But you can’t find it for less than $6-8 per used book, even on eBay. They are
pretty expensive and very popular. Very disappointing from the point of
someone who wants to buy them cheap but it’s nice to see that they are still
appreciated.

~~~
bena
[https://www.cyoa.com/](https://www.cyoa.com/)

They have reissues for most of them through Chooseco.

~~~
codingdave
They have reissues for the books by R.A. Montgomery through chooseco. The
books by Edward Packard are not included. I did a bit of Googling, and found
an interview where he explains that it was a trademark thing, where Random
House let it lapse, Montgomery snagged it and put his books out under the
trademark of 'CYOA', while Packard instead made some into mobile apps under
the name U-Ventures: [http://www.gradyhendrix.com/edward-packard-
interview/](http://www.gradyhendrix.com/edward-packard-interview/)

------
ggggtez
I feel like there is a giant gaping hole of information, which is that visual
novel games in Japan are cyoa style stories, and are very popular. The article
here has a lot of words, but nothing much to say.

------
Posibyte
Choose your own adventure books, notably the RL Stein "Give Yourself
Goosebumps" variety were the books that swept my imagination away and really
lit the spark for reading as a young kid.

There's an art to driving curiosity that I think CYOA books really plays well
with. It's accessible by anyone to anyone without the need for technical
skills, given all you really need is a basic understanding of free text
editors and maybe some mind mapping software to keep structure. We've seen
countless CYOA book-style games out within recent years, including "the uncle
who works for nintendo"[1], "Buried"[2], and I don't know who could forget
"Stories Untold"[3] which to me shows that the art is expandable from the text
form up to a more immersive experience. It lends itself to be improved upon,
from base story to games, movies, and more.

I would be absolutely thrilled to see a CYOA revival, and if somebody did a
kickstarter or indiegogo where they gathered some notable authors to do
something a la "Bandersnatch", I'd happily toss some money at it. It's a facet
of my childhood I feel wasn't properly respected and I'm glad to see it
getting some recognition at last.

[1]: [https://ztul.itch.io/the-uncle-who-works-for-
nintendo](https://ztul.itch.io/the-uncle-who-works-for-nintendo)

[2]:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/434370](https://store.steampowered.com/app/434370)

[3]:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/558420](https://store.steampowered.com/app/558420)

~~~
colomon
Don't forget Ryan North's "To Be or Not To Be: A Chooseable-Path Adventure"
and "Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable-Path Adventure".

------
jackbravo
There is also Julio Cortázar's "Rayuela" book. Which could be read in the
traditional order or begin in chapter 37 and at the end it would tell you
which other chapter to go.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch_(Cort%C3%A1zar_nov...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch_\(Cort%C3%A1zar_novel\))

------
alchemism
One of the most popular (with children in particular I imagine) Alexa
skills[1] is a ‘choose your own adventure’ type interactive storybook.

The parser style of IF lends itself well to the medium, I believe.

[1]([https://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Door-
LLC/dp/B01BMUU6JQ](https://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Door-LLC/dp/B01BMUU6JQ))

------
reaperducer
Very timely for me. My wife bought a bunch of choose your own adventure books
at a antiques store just before Christmas, and she's been engrossed in them
since.

I always thought of them as a sort of offline version of Zork.

------
miccah
I recently got into the CYOA world by trying a text based game and an
interactive story. I found the story a lot more enjoyable because it provided
complex characters and a rich world that would get revealed as the story
continued. The text based game was more driven by the player by choosing where
to walk and what to look at. It was a puzzle game more than a story.

The story I am reading is an app called "Magium." It is a CYOA with an RPG
element. I have really enjoyed it so far as my first CYOA story (it is
currently unfinished and is being released chapter by chapter).

------
Shorel
I think CYOA books and e-book readers are made for each other.

Sadly, I have not know any push on that direction.

------
jimueller
I think they have been revived by one of the original authors [1]. A friend
who bought these for his son mentioned these a while back, but said the books
are no longer violent. I only remember reading one CYOA, but I think I was
burned to death on an electric fence or something. Anyway, something to look
into if you care about that.

[1]([https://www.cyoa.com/](https://www.cyoa.com/))

------
veddox
> “If you decide to fight the squid with your spear gun, hoping to scare it
> off, turn to page 17,” one book says. “If you decide to signal Maray to pull
> you up at top speed, knowing you will get the bends, turn to page 19.”

I died to that very squid when I was 11 :-/ :D Though that was already in the
2000s, our school library still had a couple of CYOA that I quite enjoyed.

------
cjauvin
A couple of years ago I did an experiment to try to mix interactive fiction
with a book from the Lone Wolf series (available freely via Project Aon):
[https://projectaon.org/staff/christian/gamebook.js/](https://projectaon.org/staff/christian/gamebook.js/)

~~~
brandonmenc
I came here to post a comment about the Lone Wolf books, but this is even
better!

------
taormina
I've been working on an text-based interactive storytelling RPG called Danger
World[1] for iOS and Android. If anyone in the HN crowd is interested in
checking it out, I'm happy to send out beta (alpha?) links.

[1] [https://danger.world](https://danger.world)

------
arkenflame
If this piqued your interest in playing one, I wrote a modern audio-based CYOA
and accompanying app to play it:
[https://playroadtripadventures.com](https://playroadtripadventures.com)

It’s great for playing with others while you travel!

------
baud147258
It's funny, I think I've only ever opened a handfull of CYOA books and was
never really interested in the genre, but I've had more fun with forum-based
CYOA games, where one player is writing the story (and doing lots of ass-pull
along the way) and the end-of-chapter choice is voted by the forum members. It
gets really fun, with the interactivity between the writer and the player.

Or even just playing a CYOA style game (we did with sabres & guns of infinity)
like this, we ended getting the worst possible ending short of dying but it
was fun.

------
sevensor
The thing about 80s nostalgia that's strange to me is that it's lasted so
long. It kicked off around 2000 or whenever _The Wedding Singer_ came out,
after what seems like a brief flicker of '70s nostalgia, and somehow it just
keeps going. I'm looking forward to the '90s coming back around, but it
doesn't seem to be on its way yet.

------
alexhutcheson
If you like CYOA books, you might also enjoy playing the Sherlock Holmes
Consulting Detective games[1], which have a similar mechanic.

[1] [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2511/sherlock-holmes-
con...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2511/sherlock-holmes-consulting-
detective-thames-murder)

------
strictnein
There's a board game of sorts, that plays like a CYOA:

Legacy of Dragonholt

[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/234669/legacy-
dragonholt](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/234669/legacy-dragonholt)

Works well in groups of 4 or 5, with people taking turns reading from the
book.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Web platform designed for interactive storytelling:
[https://fiction.live](https://fiction.live)

------
throwawaylalala
We made one in Facebook messenger; people seemed to like it and it helped us
grow our audience.

------
yohann305
The author is mentioning ‘Stranger Things’ as being nostalgic for the growing
old kids born in the 80s, but last time I checked Steanger Things audience are
teens... he got this wrong

~~~
dannypgh
Where/how did you check that? I am in my mid-30s and know several people who
are my age and a bit older who like Stranger Things.

I don't think real data on Netflix viewership is public, is it? My presumption
is Netflix guards that data way too much to share it.

~~~
cgriswald
Yeah, from my experience people from their mid-twenties to mid-forties are
fans. People outside those ranges don't seem to care much. I'm in my early 40s
(I'd have been closest to Will's age I think) and a huge fan of the show.

The best I could find was this:

[https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/stranger-things-
season-2-ra...](https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/stranger-things-
season-2-ratings-nielsen-1202605585/)

> According to Nielsen ... each episode of ... season (2) drew more than 4
> million viewers per episode, and with more than 3 million of those falling
> in the key adults 18-49 demographic within the first three days of its
> release (Oct. 27-29).

The article goes on to quote other statistics (including 15 million + viewers
of the first episode). And then:

> “The data that Nielsen is reporting is not accurate, not even close, and
> does not reflect the viewing of these shows on Netflix,” the company said in
> a statement at the time of the original announcement.

I'm not certain how Nielsen collects data these days, but in the early aughts,
our local Fox station waged a campaign to get younger viewers to participate
in Nielsen studies because the data Nielsen had showed no one was watching
syndicated episodes of the Simpsons, so advertisers wouldn't pay. (I suspect
the advertisers knew people were watching and just wanted a discount.) The
campaign seemed to work (and was also the one and only time I was in a Nielsen
household).

Since then, I still take Nielsen ratings with a huge grain of salt, so I'm
inclined to believe the Netflix statement that we really don't have any idea.

