4 ms·

I used to love these books as a kid. I suspect they're not as popular now with all of the non-linear video game options that kids have. But in their time, these

by yucky 4y ago

I used to love these books as a kid. I suspect they're not as popular now with all of the non-linear video game options that kids have. But in their time, these were a complete game changer in storytelling.

paulluuk 4y ago
I've actually been "playing"/"reading" a lot of them from https://www.choiceofgames.com/ https://www.choiceofgames.com/. They also offer a scripting language called "ChoiceScript" that allow anyone to make their own games. I'm sure it's not super popular, but they have their niche audience.
- suoduandao2 4y ago
  Thanks! I've had the idea of writing a scientific theory in this format, and having a hard time with how I'd do it. maybe choicescript would be helpful in that regard!
  - paulluuk 4y ago
    That sounds really interesting! Good luck!
baud147258 4y ago
you can find them nowadays as video games, some with just text, some with higher production values. And I've also taken part in forum-based CYOAs, where one poster writes the adventure and the other posters vote on which option to choose, which can be quite fun and can be more reactive, as sometime the players will think of solutions the author didn't think of.
- ZanyProgrammer 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure at least some were made into video games back in the day-I could've sworn I played the Escape series as a game on a Commodore 64 back in the 80s.
  - baud147258 4y ago
    There's been some recent ports too: Steve Jackson's Sorcery, Fabled Lands, Deathtrap dungeons and others
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  It goes the other way too - there were definitely a few CYOA-style books set in the Zork! universe. Although I will say the Zork ones did let you make arguably cruel decisions.
bombcar 4y ago
Sadly the adventure books often have much more detail and different outcomes than many supposed “non-linear” games. They also has the ability to “quick save” and go back to a decision point and try again. Some would even let you loop.
abecedarius 4y ago
I semi-recently read one of the original series (about UFOs) and a much newer one by a different author (still an official choose-your-own-adventure, "#39: Curse of the Pirate Mist"). The first was much better. Suggests another reason for the decline.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  #39 was right in the heyday of CYOA books. There are split opinions on the original CYOA authors. Pretty much everybody agrees that Edward Packard made very tight and well constructed stories. Many folks hate RA Montgomery's stories because they are weird and meandering, almost psychedelic. Personally that's why I always enjoyed them, even as a kid, but I think I'm in the minority. At any rate I don't think many people feel the series started to decline until maybe #100+
  - abecedarius 4y ago
    I don't know what the deal is with the #39, but it's copyright 2011 and by a different author than most of the originals. The #39 does seem to conflict with the copyright year.
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      Yeah, some of those books were revised in the 2000s. I think the settings were modernized a little, that kind of think.
      - abecedarius 4y ago
        Thanks for the correction!
Apocryphon 4y ago
The visual novel genre is a huge non-Western electronic version of CYOA gamebooks. Wikipedia states "Visual novels originated in and are especially prevalent in Japan, where they made up nearly 70% of the PC game titles released in 2006." They descend from '80s early adventure games, and not paperback CYOA, though. Similarly, in the U.S., the popular 2010s licensed titles from Telltale Games were essentially electronic CYOA as well, since they were heavily narrative-driven and had simpler gameplay mechanics than traditional point-and-click adventure games.
- redwall_hp 4y ago
  Visual novels' popularity really can't be understated. They're adapted into anime the same way manga are. Steins;Gate is not only consistently one of the highest rated anime shows of all time, it's an adaptation of a visual novel. The Fate series (Fate/Zero, Unlimited Bladeworks, etc.) also stems from a visual novel.
- userbinator 4y ago
  Apparently they're so popular that people who don't even know Japanese have been motivated enough to create tools for reading them which extract the text and put it into various machine translators and dictionary lookups; and more recently, someone even trained an ML model to do it: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/rzhbdz/from_sugoi_translator_developer_i_present_you_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/rzhbdz/from_s...

by yucky 4y ago

paulluuk 4y ago

I've actually been "playing"/"reading" a lot of them from https://www.choiceofgames.com/ https://www.choiceofgames.com/. They also offer a scripting language called "ChoiceScript" that allow anyone to make their own games. I'm sure it's not super popular, but they have their niche audience.

suoduandao2 4y ago
Thanks! I've had the idea of writing a scientific theory in this format, and having a hard time with how I'd do it. maybe choicescript would be helpful in that regard!
- paulluuk 4y ago
  That sounds really interesting! Good luck!

baud147258 4y ago

you can find them nowadays as video games, some with just text, some with higher production values. And I've also taken part in forum-based CYOAs, where one poster writes the adventure and the other posters vote on which option to choose, which can be quite fun and can be more reactive, as sometime the players will think of solutions the author didn't think of.

ZanyProgrammer 4y ago
I'm pretty sure at least some were made into video games back in the day-I could've sworn I played the Escape series as a game on a Commodore 64 back in the 80s.
- baud147258 4y ago
  There's been some recent ports too: Steve Jackson's Sorcery, Fabled Lands, Deathtrap dungeons and others
selimthegrim 4y ago
It goes the other way too - there were definitely a few CYOA-style books set in the Zork! universe. Although I will say the Zork ones did let you make arguably cruel decisions.

bombcar 4y ago

Sadly the adventure books often have much more detail and different outcomes than many supposed “non-linear” games. They also has the ability to “quick save” and go back to a decision point and try again. Some would even let you loop.

abecedarius 4y ago

I semi-recently read one of the original series (about UFOs) and a much newer one by a different author (still an official choose-your-own-adventure, "#39: Curse of the Pirate Mist"). The first was much better. Suggests another reason for the decline.

JohnBooty 4y ago
#39 was right in the heyday of CYOA books. There are split opinions on the original CYOA authors. Pretty much everybody agrees that Edward Packard made very tight and well constructed stories. Many folks hate RA Montgomery's stories because they are weird and meandering, almost psychedelic. Personally that's why I always enjoyed them, even as a kid, but I think I'm in the minority. At any rate I don't think many people feel the series started to decline until maybe #100+
- abecedarius 4y ago
  I don't know what the deal is with the #39, but it's copyright 2011 and by a different author than most of the originals. The #39 does seem to conflict with the copyright year.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    Yeah, some of those books were revised in the 2000s. I think the settings were modernized a little, that kind of think.
    - abecedarius 4y ago
      Thanks for the correction!

Apocryphon 4y ago

The visual novel genre is a huge non-Western electronic version of CYOA gamebooks. Wikipedia states "Visual novels originated in and are especially prevalent in Japan, where they made up nearly 70% of the PC game titles released in 2006." They descend from '80s early adventure games, and not paperback CYOA, though. Similarly, in the U.S., the popular 2010s licensed titles from Telltale Games were essentially electronic CYOA as well, since they were heavily narrative-driven and had simpler gameplay mechanics than traditional point-and-click adventure games.

redwall_hp 4y ago
Visual novels' popularity really can't be understated. They're adapted into anime the same way manga are. Steins;Gate is not only consistently one of the highest rated anime shows of all time, it's an adaptation of a visual novel. The Fate series (Fate/Zero, Unlimited Bladeworks, etc.) also stems from a visual novel.
userbinator 4y ago
Apparently they're so popular that people who don't even know Japanese have been motivated enough to create tools for reading them which extract the text and put it into various machine translators and dictionary lookups; and more recently, someone even trained an ML model to do it: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/rzhbdz/from_sugoi_translator_developer_i_present_you_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/rzhbdz/from_s...