Choose Your Own Adventure Books

Duiker

Duiker

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Dec 18, 2022
Let's talk about Choose your own Adventure books. These classic books were great back in the day and I recently discovered that one series Fighting Fantasy is still publishing new books. Whos' played them, and which books? Any good series that I haven't mentioned below?

There's the OG Choose Your Own Adventure series:
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Fighting Fantasy, that had character stats and dice roling, my personal favorite of these various gamelines:
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Lone Wolf, which I haven't tried yet but mean to:
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Give yourself Goosebumps:
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Even Nintendo got in on the action with a couple of books. It even had an inventory system and a way to track your score:
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I had a few Nintendo ones. And a Dr. Who book I got at the Salvation Army. I think it might have been from the 70s. I moved so many times I don't have any of this stuff anymore. Plus my siblings were very destructive. :(
 
My initial experience with CYOA books is with their original incarnations. I especially enjoyed the very first book in the series, The Cave of Time. I liked the art-style as well as several of the endings. I still remember the one where you travel back to the Middle Ages (or the 19th century) and bring a man with tuberculosis back with you to the present. He then becomes a renowned professor. Not to mention the section(s) set in prehistory. The description of your character stepping out into a cool, wide, rolling plain with mountains in the far-distance still sticks in my mind, for some reason.

There are several others that proved memorable, though less entertaining I'd say. Like House of Danger. The Cave of Time offered a fairly understandable premise with varied adventures and misadventures. House of Danger was weird, more than anything. To start with, your character is a supposed child prodigy and a renowned detective. He happens upon a mansion guarded by apes, which can either be holograms or alien experiments (depending on the ending). He can either go back in time to the Civil War or uncover a counterfeiting ring. He can enter the mansion and either be confronted by the ghost of a prisoner who died during the Civil War, or a woman who's part of the ring. While there was a lot going on in the story, that also proved to be its undoing. There was just too much that couldn't be taken seriously. Especially since your character isn't an everyman, but someone exceptional and unrelatable.

I doubt such is the case for every CYOA book, but part of the charm is immersing yourself in surreal but somewhat plausible experiences. Like with The Cave of Time. It sets the scene with you visiting relatives, only to explore a part of the property and stumble upon the cave. Simple and believable. The sort of thing any young child would do. And, as previously mentioned, a cave that takes you back in time is far more acceptable of a premise than what House of Danger offered. The artwork of later editions also seemed worse, somehow. Much rougher and less inventive.
 
I remember borrowing those really worn out Goosebumps books in the library back in elementary school. I specifically remember one about a carnival or amusement park, something like that.
 
I had some Goosebumps ones as a kid, maybe others but I can't remember. They were good fun, and I'd have loved those Nintendo ones but never knew they existed.

I remember playing through a couple of the Fighting Fantasy games for PSP or (Vita?) a while back, I enjoyed them. I wonder if they still publish digital versions like that, I might check them out.
 
I had a few my mother let me read, I can't remember being particularly impressed as a 5th grader, but I remember that about half the endings are you made an innocuous decision and died.
 
The Lone Wolf series made a strong impression on me when I was young.

Your skill choices change the paths available to you through the book (or can give you information about choices you have to make), and each subsequent book lets you learn new skills and carry over items. With each book your character's numbers get bigger and his role in the world grows in a pretty satisfying way. It can be a little galling missing a useful item a number of books back, though. Like, there's a helm with a good passive bonus that you can theoretically carry for 18 books.

Almost all of the books are available legally and free of charge at Project Aon.
 
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There was a superhero one (not Marvel or DC) which I used to love growing up. I will never find it. Had a great cover.
 
My elementary school library had some of the Goosebumps books, I specifically remember a werewolf one. There was another about aliens in disguise or something and the cover scared the shit out of me.
 
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I loved these things growing up. I remember the local library having Star Wars The Clone Wars themed ones which I probably checked out like 100 times.
 
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I remember reading the racing one, and getting caught in a loop
 
Those goosebumps books must have been in every primary school's library or something I swear.

SSj_Ness said:
I wonder if they still publish digital versions like that
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As in Visual Novels?
 
I did find a MEGA ling to a really big cyoa books collection (had a real trove of all sorts of english cyoa series and some uniquely in French and other non-english languages) but i can't find it anymore and I really wish I could find it again
Edit: So i didn't find it but i found something else
 
Zaryiu2 said:
I did find a MEGA ling to a really big cyoa books collection (had a real trove of all sorts of english cyoa series and some uniquely in French and other non-english languages) but i can't find it anymore and I really wish I could find it again
Edit: So i didn't find it but i found something else
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Internet Archive has a collection of gamebooks on it It's better then nothing if the Mega link is never found.
 
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