I remember some books that were explicit about tracking the state. There was an old space adventure story I read as a kid where you wrote your stats out on a p

I remember some books that were explicit about tracking the state. There was an old space adventure story I read as a kid where you wrote your stats out on a piece of paper: shields: 100 lasers: 100 troops: 100 hyperdrive: 50 days: 0 As you read the book it had you encounter hostile threats and even roll dice and do lookups on tables at the end of the book to decide what happens next. There would be places like "To hyperjump over the rift you need at least 40 hyperdrive points left, add 3 days and turn to page 88. To go around add 7 days and turn to page 41." There were even fights against enemy ships where you had to roll for both sides and do chart lookups to see how many troops you lost in the boarding actions and how badly the ships were damaged. You could even lose a fight and end the run right there. The plotline involved you racing to some planet to deliver news of an impending invasion or something and if you didn't get there within I think 30 or so days the news would be too late and you would lose. However, being the nerdy kid that I was I mapped out every single possible route in the book and then simulated all events going perfectly on each route and there didn't appear to be a single way to actually win. The author had not done the math right and the absolute fastest you could finish was like 40 days even if you got crazy lucky with the dice.