Choose Your Own Adventure Books - Precursor to Adventure Games

[ddq]

Everyone remembers them. Made popular in the 80's, CYOA books could be thought of as the natural precursor of adventure games. It would also be quite simple to adapt one into a game with AGS; add a few graphics, maybe some animation, and voila, retro-gold.

I was wondering...
a) What your favorite CYOA is/was.
b) Are there any good AGS games in this style?
c) Have any links to online CYOA's?

I wrote a CYOA a while ago and am planning to convert it to AGS in my spare time. Unfortunately, I don't have any of that nowadays. If you feel compelled, you can read it here: http://ddq5.com/choose-your-own-adventure/

Thanks!

[Dualnames]

Leitor's Edge will be at that style..

I'm also attempting to make a game this style..

[Calin Leafshade]

Those things were the fucking bane of my existence

the choices were so arbitrary

Do you go through the left door or go down the steps?

I dont know? which way smells the nicest?

[Ali]

*** You have Died ***

Sorry Calin, you chose not to pick up the magic nose.

[Snake]

My favorite of all time was The Mystery of Chimney Rock. I read that book a million times over and it never got old. I've actually still got it

When I first joined AGS (back on the EZBoard forums) one of my first games was going to be an adventure game version of this book. Never did it of course, but that's another story... or the story of my life. Whichever.

[Wyz]

Actually, Dualnames held a CYOA themed contest a few weeks ago. There are a few entries you could read here (click)

[Dualnames]

I've forgotten about that, yes it was a really cool competition and the level of entries was really high.

[Stee]

I also member those little filofax things that were made popular around the late 90s, that were similar. I had some spy one, and then I remember some other agent one I had. If I recall you bought the little ringbinder, then bought the parts to it I think. The agency one came with tapes, All I remember was that it was the same concept as those books.

*********

You didn't take the viagra, go to page 46 to progress with Princess Mylfthrin of Mordor's advances

***Turns to pages 46***

Unlucky, your purple headed womb ferret failed to materialise. Mylfthrin did not bear an heir and you've been scheduled for execution by the King. Maybe if you thought more about your organ rather than dressing up in silly superhero costumes and attending geek conferences, you might get somewhere in life


***The end****

[Calin Leafshade]

I also member those little filofax things that were made popular around the late 90s,

I remember those, I had a monster theme one. It had a joke in it that i can still remember.

What does a vampire use to clean his house?
A victim cleaner.

[TerranRich]

Oh my God... an old CYOA called "The Magician's Rings" was a personal favorite, and would've made a great adventure game (in fact, I was planning on making it into a parody of Lord of the Rings). Basically you were searching for the titular Magician's Rings, but you had no idea what exactly they were. The different endings had them be different versions of "rings"... For example, the 3 rings of a circus, rings you wear on your fingers, audible rings (the kind you hear), and even rings of fire. It was an amazing, well-done book that I really need to find again.

EDIT:

Fuck yes! Here in an image of the cover! http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/ff_tmr.jpg?PHPSESSID=f9976d4353909ed4d848c3fcb33446e9

God I miss that book! And it was just one ring.

[Ponch]

Ah, Choose Your Own Arbitrary Death. Man, I loved those things as a kid.

My personal favorite was Space Patrol.
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Patrol-Choose-Your-Adventure/dp/0553233491

In fact, thanks to this thread, I just ordered a copy from Amazon. Will it be as amazing to my 36 year old self as it was to my ten year old self? I guess I'll have to turn to page 54 to find out...

I'm not sure I would have started make (bad) text adventure games and later AGS if these books hadn't shaped my young psyche in the way they did. And since I was Star Wars crazy in the early 80s, this book was the best of the lot. In fact, the (as yet unseen) Master Computer in the Barn Runner series was modeled after the ship's computer H.E.N.R.Y. from this book.

Thanks for bringing back some pleasant memories, ddq.

- Ponch

[Intense Degree]

That's funny, just the other day I came across an old copy of The Forest of Doom at my parents house, which brought back a few memories! Not strictly a CYOA I know but similar.

I could never be bothered with the dice rolling etc. but the arbitrary deaths and seeing-how-many-fingers-I-could-have-in-different-pages-in-case-I-went-wrong cheating came flooding back!

[jetxl]

I got all 29 reprints of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com/gamebooks.htm (#30 is a special edition of the first book so I skipped that one), yet I haven't read a single one (not much spare time lately).
Also 2 Golden Dragon gamebooks which I prefer.
And a Star Challenge game book, because I like sci-fi.
I also owned a gamebook by TSR, Mirror Mountain or something, but it was too much focused on children so I gave it away to a childish friend.

They are indeed perfect for adventure games, and it's a shame nobody recreates them in a new media (like those electric book devices?). Maybe because kids today choose not to read...

[Kweepa]

A couple of months ago I bought and played the four Zork CYOA books from abebooks, just because they were written by Steve Meretzky.
They were fun but aimed a little young, and so missed out on some of Meretzky's humour.
Space Patrol looks interesting. I might give it a shot.

[LUniqueDan]

Scorpion Swamp : Explore the swamp, draw the map, the boom take your path in account (This is clearing number 22. If you have been here go to the 123), and three different quests to choose. That was one of the best.
http://www.gamebooks.org/show_item.php?id=45

My favourite serie was still the Mystery Squad, but to tell the thruth the books were more like child novels with some question to know if you follow the story and observations puzzles. Too bad, 2 of them never get released in North America. (My soul to grab one)

[joelphilippage]

My favorite was The Search for Aladdin's Lamp as the lamp could turn out to be so many different things. Chivalry is not dead is the closest game I can think of in this style.

[OneDollar]

Space Patrol looks familiar.

I may still have a couple lying around the house somewhere. My friend had a bunch of Sonic the Hedgehog ones where as well as choosing where to go you collected and had to keep a record of the number of rings you had. Then you'd be able to do different things if you had enough rings (or probably got killed if you didn't).

I also had one called "The Famous Five and You" which was exactly the same plot as the first Famous Five book, except in CYOA style. There were no deaths or dead ends, but if you made the wrong decision you collected red herrings (and the worse the decision the more red herrings it gave you). I think the first question was whether to go to cousin George's by train or car - and if you chose train they got out a train timetable and discovered there was nothing suitable. Plus one red herring, and you go by car anyway. At the end of the book it graded you on how many red herrings you'd picked up.

I wrote a very simple editor that made CYOA game files and a player to play them with over a week or two one summer. I've still got the files but unfortunately my knowledge of Delphi was so lacking that the file path of the editor was hard coded, and I can't remember what it was supposed to be, so it just gives me a friendly error message when I run it... It was quite fun to do though, so one day I might make one in AGS.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I remember there was a series of actual 'interactive novels' that allowed you to roll hit points for your character (it used 2d6 for everything including attack and damage), choose equipment from a list that you might need (the book had optional paths and puzzles) and even allowed you to find equipment as you went along.  I wish I could find the one book from the series I bought because it was great fun.

[LimpingFish]

Sounds like the old Fighting Fantasy books, ProgZ. My older brother was a fan of those, and I played them on the ol' hand-me-down.

EDIT: Or the Sorcery! spin-offs, which were hard as nails.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Not quite, though it did help me find the series I have!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GrailQuest