Choose Your Own Adventure

[RobertX]

Do these kinds of books exist anymore?

For those who don't know, there was a series of these books, where it is like playing a video game in a novel. You are presented with a a story, and it would give you a stream of choices. You would go to a page depending on what choice you make. Say, for example, an intruder breaks into your home and attempted to steal booze. If you decide get a gun and shoot him, turn to page 444. If you decide to use diplomatic skills because of your work in the United Nations and talk him out of his ways, go to page 60. Every action you take invites a set of other possibilities and you would make decisions based on those. The game would end, if you cornered yourself into a wall and, say, get killed, go to jail, or anything that dictates that you lost.

Unlike video games, there were errors in these books in that, because some were poorly written, there was no way to achieve victory. Other times, "cheating" by looking at other scenarios would bring about victory.

I've been reading these books and have some enjoyment in them, despite having to cheat in order to win. If you were stuck in a plane's seven-hour flight with no iPad or PSP, you can kill some time by reading these suckers.

I've yet to see some of these books being talked about anymore. If great care was used to make the game more fair and possible to win, then I'm sure they can boost book sales. But because that's not the case, it was just a fad that ended in the mid 90s.

I would like to see if anyone else here has read these, and maybe might make e-books out of these. Not a request, but just food for thought.

[ill88eagle]

I was into these as a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy - By the looks of it some have been made into computer/console games. There's also a heap of classic text adventure games for c64, amiga and DOS, all abandonware now.

Funny anecdote:

The books were published with illustrations from Games Workshop which, though something Puffin was resistant to accept, Ian Livingstone credits as part of the series' success. However, partially as a result of the covers, the game, along with Dungeons and Dragons, became subject to a moral panic. The Evangelical Alliance issued a warning that the books would lead to players interacting with the devil, while parents reported that after reading their *****ren developed supernatural powers, including one mother who reported that her ***** started to fly. When asked about the controversy, Jackson replied that they were very grateful for it, as it helped their sales figures.

A couple of magnets:

Fighting Fantasy Collection by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone

Fighting fantasy Compendium part 2 All the FF Gamebooks

[RobertX]

Great! Someone here on Earth still knows what I'm talking about!

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out.

By the way, which ones are your favourites?

I read the ones from the Bantam press:

My favourite was "Return of the Ninja."

[ill88eagle]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Traveller was my absolute fave. Never beat it even though i kept "save games" (improvised bookmarks at crucial decision points).