Did you ever play Choose Your Own Adventure books? Poll

[CharlesX]

This poll asks how many - if any - Choose Your Own Adventure series books you have played before, with the option to vote again if you ever played some of the spin-off series* such as say Choose Your Own Adventure For Younger Readers. The definition of playing is up to you, but to me it's not just looking at the cover and reading the endings in the store (browsing imo) but maybe doing at least one playthrough. even if you play it once and personally dislike it.

   The poll results will not be visible until it expires, which is November 13th 3 P.M., a long deadline which will make it 9 months since a similar poll was taken.

[CharlesX]

It's great some people have responded, but it'd be even better if more people responded and we had a bigger picture. Or leave some replies here about your experience with Choose Your Own Adventure.

   I've a feeling the slight lack of enthusiasm and activity is because some newer members might not have heard much about Choose Your Own Adventure - I think I'm more into the series (big fan growing up) than many others here, who might think it's a bit childish. But without voting and replies, we've no way of knowing!

   I have to say, as well, while we've sometimes criticised Choose Your Own Adventure as childish, inane, and simplistic, they definitely had some really good books imho - they could be humorous, exciting, dark, and creative. Edward Packard's books were some of my favourites.

[scouserob]

Hi Charles
I did play Choose Your Own Adventure as our school library had a few of them.

Unfortunately I have little to no memory of playing them at all.
(Which may be another reason for the low poll uptake.)

Looking through the covers the only one which strongly rings a bell is The Cave of Time, which I’m pretty certain I played.

My memories of them are obviously vague but I remember enjoying them to begin with especially as I believe some of the endings may have been a little grim.
(Not gory perhaps.)

[hallucination]

Mine‘s a similar experience to report. Definitely played a bunch of these as a kid: almost certainly somewhere within the 3-9 quantity. But I have no idea which titles, and I have no memory of anything more specific. Would’ve gotten them out the library; I don’t remember ever owning any as a kid. Just that I liked them, and that these books plus the Give Yourself Goosebumps series (which as a kid I thought were superior, and of these I have memories!) got me excited about pick-a-path style books which then got me into FF.

A few years ago I found an old copy of the first CYOA title at a secondhand bookstore for a couple bucks. I bought it less out of nostalgia and more out of curiosity for a forgotten but probably influential childhood experience - presumably there is a distinction to be made there. My then reading of it, though, thinking back to it now, turns out was equally forgettable

[CharlesX]

Less than 6 days to go before the end of the deadline if anyone else wants to vote or comment.

   While I enjoyed Choose series books growing up in the '80s, I had a similar experience to our Fighting Fantasy in the '90s - seeing new Choose Your Own Adventure books, once an exciting experience, became something perhaps out of curiosity, nostalgia, and mild interest. I don't think they were just replaced by computer games such as Monkey Island (which were really good) either - they were just big for a moment or two in the sun in the '80s through mid '90s, and the world moved on, I guess to things like adult cartoons, superheroes and vampires.

[CharlesX]

Analysis Corner:

Even spread, really, I think the people who have "never" played Choose Your Own Adventure or "only played 1 or 2" possibly simply didn't grow up the '80s and '90s when Choose books were best-selling and spread all over book clubs (rather than anything to do with their literary quality, which I'd say was variable). I know Choose continued to print new titles maybe a year longer than FF, and in the 2000s they had a so-called revival (an underwhelming, niche one like the gamebook apps of today), as well.

   Do they deserve to be read? I say some don't, others are well-written. They were written to entertain kids, not to be masterpieces. That the series lasted so long arguably testifies to something. OTOH, I don't think it was necessarily the best gamebook series, despite being perhaps the first (maybe Fabled Lands, Lone Wolf, Gamebook Adventures, or Golden Dragon). I personally thought Choose Your Own Adventure, and its sister series Endless Quest, were great for kids, but when I grew up I became aware not only of the skill with which some were written, but also their laziness, cliches, and a lack of sophistication (perhaps inevitable when your target audience is under 10).

   Thank you everyone who participated, this has been great!

[a moderator]

CYOA book 1, The Cave of Time, has a copyright of 1979, though the UK edition appears not to have come out until 1982. However, the first 10 Tunnels & Trolls solo adventures came out between 1976 and 1978, so they pre-date CYOA as a series.

Mind you, on technicalities CYOA book 62, Sugarcane Island, pre-dates the lot of them, being a partial rewrite of a book written back in 1969 (though not published until 1976).

As for the merits of the books, they vary. Some are infantile drivel (and even that's an overly positive description of War with the Evil Power Master), but some of them are better at pushing the boundaries of the genre than the vast majority of FF and its bandwagon-jumpers.

[pip]

I've only ever played one CYOA book, "Supercomputer" by Edward Packard. I had vague childhood memories of it, and only recently stumbled upon it again, so I finally got to reread it. It really is on the short side, but it's an appropriate length for a kid. I remember the first ending I got back then was a bittersweet one. As a grown-up, I did not have it in me to read through the whole thing to explore every different narrative, but I browsed through it and read all the ending references, and I appreciate that the concept is more about telling a story than about "winning". I noticed that there were a few bad endings, a lot of "meh" ones, and a few good ones, although none of the good ones have a "You've won! You've really won! Best ending!" vibe either. I don't know if this is specific to this book or if it is the general vibe of this series.

[CharlesX]

Mar 31, 2024 22:26:25 GMT pip said:

I've only ever played one CYOA book, "Supercomputer" by Edward Packard. I had vague childhood memories of it, and only recently stumbled upon it again, so I finally got to reread it. It really is on the short side, but it's an appropriate length for a kid. I remember the first ending I got back then was a bittersweet one. As a grown-up, I did not have it in me to read through the whole thing to explore every different narrative, but I browsed through it and read all the ending references, and I appreciate that the concept is more about telling a story than about "winning". I noticed that there were a few bad endings, a lot of "meh" ones, and a few good ones, although none of the good ones have a "You've won! You've really won! Best ending!" vibe either. I don't know if this is specific to this book or if it is the general vibe of this series.

The series is variable, but in general the first half\early of CYOA had more endings, and more positive ones, than the second half\later. I believe there are definitely a few CYOA with an ending ratio such as you describe but they are more a minority. Edward Packard is easily one of the better CYOA writers, by the way. 

[kieran]

Mar 31, 2024 22:26:25 GMT pip said:

As a grown-up, I did not have it in me to read through the whole thing to explore every different narrative, but I browsed through it and read all the ending references, and I appreciate that the concept is more about telling a story than about "winning".

I like this about the series. Quite often your decisions shape the narrative to the extent it can go off in completely different directions. Whereas in FF the narrative is essentially fixed with your decisions being limited to what corridor you want to explore or how you want to bypass the five-headed ogre.

The series that I think best represents a nice combination of the more gameplay-heavy aspects of FF with the ability to actually impact the story with your decisions to a significant degree is the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons gamebook series.

[The Editor (Alex B)]

Played the handful my school library had - the never had FF (!).