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I’ve noodled with a CYOA table top game premised around a nuclear standoff. Set up a red rotary telephone to ring, play a prerecorded dialogue and offer options
by germinalphrase 7y ago
I’ve noodled with a CYOA table top game premised around a nuclear standoff. Set up a red rotary telephone to ring, play a prerecorded dialogue and offer options from which you - the president - must select the best course of action. Stress induced by the complexity of decisions to be made and the lack of control over how soon the phone rings next/who will be calling. A different tempo than Space Force, but similar feeling. I don’t have the technical know-how to build the phone, but writing it would be a hoot.
- smogcutter 7y agoSo write it. Make a deck of cards to use instead of the phone. Or a CYOA booklet. The phone part is fun but it doesn’t sound super necessary. Get the game part right is the important thing. But also you could mock this up pretty easily, just rip the guts out of an old phone and replace it with a raspberry pi. Use a keypad phone instead of rotary, it’ll make your life way easier.
- Psyladine 7y agoEasy way would be to build an RNG system into the gamebook, such as "you must enter a 3 digit pass code" and have whatever number is the first digit 'seed' the RNG options. then later you can ask the reader to validate whichever of the 3 digits, and if they get it 'wrong' it acts as a seed update for new choices.
- reificator 7y agoA few alternatives to building a phone have been put forth in this thread, but I haven't seen anyone suggest building a website with animation and sound. Then your players phones become the phone. Having a physical phone is certainly cooler, but a website is much easier to build and distribute en masse.
- ourmandave 7y agoYou could add expansions, like a Dr. Strangelove adviser that gives wildly bad advice and hidden Soviet spies.