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Gamebooks ("choose your own adventure")

Discussion in 'Books' started by Vegas Bunny, Jan 30, 2017.

  1. Vegas Bunny

    Vegas Bunny Well-Known Member

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    Anyone enjoy gamebooks? The kind where the story is cut in randomly put-together paragraphs, and you have different choices for different stories?
    Often involves dice and pencil for luck-based encounters or very simplified fighting systems?

    Big series included Fighting Fantasy which had titles going from awesome to terrible, or downright mediocre. You were usually better sticking to Steve Jackson.

    There was your generic medieval fantasy where your goal was to kill an evil sorcerer while trying to find a special item that would expose a fatal weakness in him.
    You could also be a bounty hunter in space. Or a Silver Age comic book-style superhero. Or a Mad Max-style survivor. Or even a mindless bloodthirsty monster who was the one being attacked by adventurers!

    Other respectable series include Lone Wolf, which has a deep and rich universe and good writing.

    I, for one, seldom finished a gamebook "fair and square"!
     
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  2. Baron_Aurr

    Baron_Aurr Well-Known Member

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    I used to devour those when I was younger. Mostly Fighting Fantasy, but a few of the actual Choose YOur Own Adventure books.

    There's also a thing called Choice of Games (https://www.choiceofgames.com/), which is a developer that makes what are basically large CYOA adventures online. Some free, some not.
     
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  3. A Potato Named Vodka

    A Potato Named Vodka AKA Vodka Vodkavich Vodkaev

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    I've only ever read one. It was a long time ago when I was a young'un. But I've always wanted to read more. I think I won that the game in that book.
     
  4. KingGeedorah

    KingGeedorah Look upon ye works and sperg

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  5. Ol Slag

    Ol Slag 'Tism stormchaser

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    I always died at these. I cheated like a motherfucker.
     
  6. Ginger Piglet

    Ginger Piglet CAMAB Male-Presenting Lesbian

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    Ahhh yes, I was into this sort of thing. Collected mostly FF, as it happened.

    There was a comparatively recent parody one that came out called "The Regional Accounts Director of Firetop Mountain," in which, rather than invade the dungeon, kill the big bad, and steal his treasure, you have to invade the office, slay the Regional Accounts Director, and get your timesheet signed. It's rather irreverent and has lots of parodies of corporate and workplace bollox. Also rather than rolling dice to test your skill or luck the text asks you to do things like count up how many fingers you have in previous pages (more than 3 has you deemed an "office coward" and something bad happens), hold the book out at arm's length for 30 seconds (you fail if you someone asks you what you're doing), and take off your shoe and throw it at something on the wall the size of a gorgon's head (this is to slay the Photocopier Repair Gorgon).

    I like it anyhow.

    It also features a bad ending where you can become sexually attracted to office technology, and "soon you will die of a seizure while attempting to bum a fax."
     
  7. Vegas Bunny

    Vegas Bunny Well-Known Member

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    Well, that's... a strange parody concept!

    A series of gamebooks that were also parodic was Grailquest. It was set in King Arthur's universe and you were a young apprentice knight, Pip, who was sucked inside this world by Merlin so that you would go save Queen Guinevere who was kidnapped by an evil sorcerer.

    The series does not take itself seriously: it has a lot of wacky moments, lot of anachronisms, plenty of surrealist jokes and it makes up a lot of new rules for many situations. In other words, it's a lot of fun.

    Example: You find a man eating a carrot. A carrot that is alive and screaming for help. The man says the carrot is a dangerous vampire carrot, while the carrot says it is a princess turned by magic. As you wonder what to do, you see three signs on the wall: they say "SAVE THE CARROT!", "DON'T SAVE THE CARROT!" and "PLAY XYLOPHONE!". If you play xylophone, you will instead attract a dangerous toad-man warrior.

    But it's also quite difficult. You lose hit points like crazy and some fights can be near impossible because of this. Plus, there are some "test your luck" moments with ridiculous odds to "win". (such as having to cast 12 with 2d6 in order to escape angry chickens from a fence)
    So I rarely played these books "fair and square" with dice throws.
     
  8. Kari Kamiya

    Kari Kamiya Onii-chan Complex

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    Yeah, I remember the "Give Yourself Goosebumps" books. I think the only one I've read all the way through was the "Escape from the Carnival of Horrors" book. If I remember correctly, one or two bad ends had the reader being eaten by the monster on the cover.

    Another adventure book I remember reading as a kid was this Super Mario Bros. book where Princess Peach (I mean Toadstool) had these cursed(?) running shoes or something and the Koopalings or just a couple of them were trying to get these shoes back. I think this was it:
    [​IMG]

    I looked this up just now and I definitely remembered the story wrong, but whatever, this was a thing.
     
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  9. yaks

    yaks ♥ Turn down for what?

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    I have a few of the Fighting Fantasy books, but my favorites are my original Sorcery! books (including the spell book, of course) by Steve Jackson.

    I think they were a lot more popular in the 80s and early-mid 90s, but by the 90s they turned into more of just "choose your own adventure" than an actual game. (Fun fact, Jackson also made a version for the telephone called F.I.S.T.)

    If I remember right, there's a ton of them for the old Doctor Who as well.

    Lone Wolf was pretty good, but went out of publication in the 80s until very, very recently with a revival in Europe. The creator also gave his blessing to let the books be put online for a fanmade project prior to that. I wonder with the rising interest in tabletop gaming again if there will be more game novels released. I mean, they already have apps for the Sorcery! books.

    EDIT: I almost forgot the Grailquest series! It was a satire on the fantasy genre and pretty great. It had pretty simple rules comparatively, though.
     
  10. Vegas Bunny

    Vegas Bunny Well-Known Member

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    Oh yeah! I really liked the Sorcery! books, they were delightfully creepy and intense. And a different kind of universe - more Nepal-inspired - than the usual European medieval fantasy fanfare.

    Yeah, I discovered these books in the mid-90s, as they were kinda dying out. I would usually find them old and used in my school's library.
    And play them without dice, just reading the references as I please...

    Yeah, I tried the app, it was nice, although the combat system is weird and kinda simplistic.

    I gotta continue the Lone Wolf books... they have a great narrative and good writing.
    But the series is so long and full of "continuity porn" I don't want to miss stuff like a noob.
     
  11. LagoonaBlue

    LagoonaBlue Spicy Sanchez

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    Do you mean like "Choose your own adventure" type books? I've never used one. I had a flick through one when I was in the library recently but that's it.
     
  12. Vegas Bunny

    Vegas Bunny Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, the kind with numbered paragraphs, and you read them through a certain order as directed by the text according to your choices.

    Kinda like an action-adventure game on a book... although you'd often need a pencil, an eraser and a pair of dice.