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Anyone ever make it through a choose your own adventure book?

Trogdor1123

Trogdor1123

Member
I’ve never made it through without cheating. Not once. I always end up dead or eternally lost. So of the pages I’m not even sure how in the hell you are supposed to make it to them.

Anyone ever make it through legitimately?
 
ssringo

ssringo

Member
Cheating? Huh?

Just bookmark the page (fingers are useful), pick an option and see where it leads. Even bad choices usually led to interesting end states.

That said i haven't read one since the 90s so I dunno what a modern one looks like or if they even make new ones.
 
Doom85

Doom85

Member
I remember Goosebumps had a ton of them, but there were a few that went above and beyond. Like you would actually gather items you would have to write down, and depending on your route you might get screwed if you didn’t go the way or made the choice to have the item to deal with a certain obstacle. I only owned one of those extra complicated ones (had a few of the standard Goosebumps choose adventure books, and of course several dozen of the mainline Goosebumps books. Man, Scholastic Book Fairs were fucking awesome!), and good luck getting the good ending (as there was exactly ONE) legitimately with those odds against you.
 
J

jason10mm

Gold Member
I feel like a lot of the CYOA books were kinda poorly written to where it was blind luck getting through. But others, like Find your Fate and the TSR Endless Quest books were more story focused with logical consequences and were kinda doable without cheating.

But really, whats the fun in that?

Then of course there are things like the Fighting Fantasy books which were basically solo role playing games with dice, stats, and inventory to track, those were a fatal funnel like no others, no way, IMHO, to actually beat one straight through the first time.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Cyberpunkd

Member
Trogdor1123 said:
I’ve never made it through without cheating. Not once. I always end up dead or eternally lost. So of the pages I’m not even sure how in the hell you are supposed to make it to them.

Anyone ever make it through legitimately?
Click to expand...
Em, yes? If you are eternally lost it seems like the loop in the book is bad/broken.
 
NeoIkaruGAF

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
You mean, the books in the actual CYOA series? They don’t have a “true” ending - a big selling point was that they boasted a number of different endings.

Now other gamebooks with one true ending, yeah, some were actually impossible without cheating because they had RPG elements in them and some were horribly balanced. But many could be finished legitimately.
I’ve read literally hundreds of gamebooks. I was obsessed with them for a few years in my youth. I blame gamebooks for my constant desire to be able to go back to the “sliding doors” moments in my life and try an alternative route. Actually, I’m still reading new ones, and I’ve officially translated some in Italian in the last few years.
 
NeoIkaruGAF

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Paasei said:
Never heard of this before. But they are stories combined with games?
Click to expand...
They were all the rage in the 80s, especially in the UK and Europe.
CYOA are just branching stories, but many other books of this kind were solo RPG adventures using simplified D&D-style rules.
There were series including one-shot adventures (like Fighting Fantasy) and others where every book was a chapter in an overarching story (like Lone Wolf or Sorcery!).

By the way, FF and Lone Wolf are still in print today, and Lone Wolf and the aforementioned Sorcery! have dedicated apps available on multiple systems. They’re not the actual books, but reinterpretations of the books with new features and rules more fit for a modern gaming app.

There’s still a following for this kind of books. We’re far from the halcyon days of the genre, but new ones are being released and there’s some really good ones.
 
AJUMP23

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
6a0120a85dcdae970b0120a86db856970b-pi-300x249.jpg


My brother and I had a bunch of these in the 80s, and we had a lot of fun with them.
 
Daneel Elijah

Daneel Elijah

Member
I did, but only one or 2 out of the maybe 10 books I was reading as a kid. I often decided to take the " best" decision and got punished a few times for it. 2 moments I remember are in historical CYOAs: one in the french revolution I have to do a friendly spar. If I do a critical, I kill my friend and get instantly killed in revenge by the others. And the second in the invasion of Britain in 1066. If I am in the saxon side, I have to figth many opponents, then 4 bodygards of the conqueror. If I win this inwinnable fight, I get instantly killed by the hundreds of people around him(of course). Still funny memories.
 
S

Seraphym

Member
jason10mm said:
Then of course there are things like the Fighting Fantasy books which were basically solo role playing games with dice, stats, and inventory to track, those were a fatal funnel like no others, no way, IMHO, to actually beat one straight through the first time.
Click to expand...

House of Hell and Deathtrap Dungeon were particularly brutal...
Sorcery was great as the story continues in subsequent books, but not from "page" 1.
 
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RavageX

RavageX

Member
I miss those books, they were some of my favorites. I always like choice, its kinda why i like games more than movies.

Sometimes i am in the mood to see or read a story, but to me the illusion of having a choice that will make a difference will always be more fun.
 
FunkMiller

FunkMiller

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
Um, all you had to do was choose different options every time until you reached a good ending. It wasn't that hard to win at those books lol
Click to expand...

That's why Choose Your Own Adventure was for sissies. Little pant wetters they were, all of them.

If you played a Fighting Fantasy book you needed dice. And you had to fight things.

We were men. Dice wielding men.

Fun fact: Fighting Fantasy contributed to the creation of Warhammer, because it helped fund Games Workshop through the 1980s.
 
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Neolombax

Neolombax

Member
You mean like the Lone Wolf books? I cheat all the time. Never finished them honestly, because it usually ends when I forget the page I came from, and then I just read the final outcome.
 
S

StabbyStabStabStabStab

Member
Choose the left or right path

I choose left

Oops - dead, fell off a mountain.

Had a few Steve Jackson books back in the 80s, and no - never got anywhere close to finishing one, nor even barely dented one. They were grossly unfair, bordering on child cruelty. Actually found a couple at the folks house and bought them back with me with the view I'd give it another go some 40 odd years (not quite) after last trying it such as this bad boy:

na6ulLl.jpeg

This time I will however cheat the fuck out of it.
 
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C

ClanOfNone

Member
StabbyStabStabStabStab said:
Choose the left or right path

I choose left

Oops - dead, fell off a mountain.

Had a few Steve Jackson books back in the 80s, and no - never got anywhere close to finishing one, nor even barely denting one. They were grossly unfair, bordering on child cruelty. Actually found a couple at the folks house and bought them back with me with the view I'd give it another go some 40 odd years (not quite) after last trying it such as this bad boy:

na6ulLl.jpeg

This time I will however cheat the fuck out of it.
Click to expand...

These books were great, and as you pointed out insanely difficult and unfair. Not only was the combat Fromsoft hard, you could easily get yourself in the dreaded OG adventure game “walking dead state,” where you missed items that were key to completing the books and have no way to “go back” and get them.
The Sorcery! Series was particularly vicious with this, as you could miss items in earlier books that were necessary in later ones. I never did “legitimately” beat that series.
Hell House was another infamous stand alone Fighting Fantasy book that was brutally difficult and surprisingly gory for a kid’s book.

The software adaptation of Sorcery! is actually pretty cool, and perfect for playing on a tablet.
Haven’t tried the Lone Wolf one as it looked to actiony for my taste.
 
S

StabbyStabStabStabStab

Member
ClanOfNone said:
These books were great, and as you pointed out insanely difficult and unfair. Not only was the combat Fromsoft hard, you could easily get yourself in the dreaded OG adventure game “walking dead state,” where you missed items that were key to completing the books and have no way to “go back” and get them.
The Sorcery! Series was particularly vicious with this, as you could miss items in earlier books that were necessary in later ones. I never did “legitimately” beat that series.
Hell House was another infamous stand alone Fighting Fantasy book that was brutally difficult and surprisingly gory for a kid’s book.

The software adaptation of Sorcery! is actually pretty cool, and perfect for playing on a tablet.
Haven’t tried the Lone Wolf one as it looked to actiony for my taste.
Click to expand...


Yes indeed - as Enid would put it these were absolutely beastly. In todays age where kids running in school sports races all get a medal because 'they're all winners in a way', these books taught us to keep trying and failing, and then to just except failure or cheat (patience was never my thing though - generally threw the towell in far too quickly). Interesting though the Socery! series still lvies on in a digitised format - maybe that's the way to revist.

Never tried Hell House :< Probably not my bag if its a bit heavy on the gore though as I used to find horror top trumps a little unsettling.

One I did have which I'd like to revisit is this one though:

p2uBXyh.jpeg


Fond memories of that one even though never got anywhere with it...
 
C

ClanOfNone

Member
I would highly recommend the Sorcery! digital game, it is a great way to revisit the series and has some much more forgiving options that you can enable so you don’t die every five minutes.

The writing is essentially the same stuff you read when you were a kid, it has only been slightly adapted to apply it to the gameplay format. It uses all the original artwork, which is a huge plus for me.
 
S

StabbyStabStabStabStab

Member
ClanOfNone said:
I would highly recommend the Sorcery! digital game, it is a great way to revisit the series and has some much more forgiving options that you can enable so you don’t die every five minutes.

The writing is essentially the same stuff you read when you were a kid, it has only been slightly adapted to apply it to the gameplay format. It uses all the original artwork, which is a huge plus for me.
Click to expand...
Intersting - just checking it out on the app store. Seems to have garnered some pretty positive reviews, so worth a pop for sure.
 
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