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Retro fun: Choose Your Own Adventure books

post #1 of 58
2/19/09 at 12:50pm
Thread Starter 
Anyone else old enough to have been a fan of these (and their many many knockoffs, from Pick-A-Path, to Find Your Fate, to Time Machine, to Be An Interplanetary Spy and on and on)?

I loved any and all iterations of the CYOA seriesand spent a large part of my early reading childhood devouring every single one I could get my hands on.

It's wierd tho, as far as I remember they never really 'caught on' down here in that they weren't everywhere and most reading kids I knew didn't read them - but those of us that did were rabid fans.

A nice little precurser to the world of immersive storytelling in video games (and a good gateway drug to the solo-role-playing awesomeness that was Jackson & Livingstones Fighting Fantasy books, but they deserve a thread of their own I reckon) and in my opinion a fantastic way to get kids to read books - at least back in the eighties dunno if they'd hold up with the young'uns today.

I still ocassionally find myself grabbing one and having a flick through and they're great little stories with no 'right' or 'wrong' answers, simply choices that could take you all the way through the story or kill you when you decide to open the door and turn to page 37...

Some of my favourites (including the Indy Find Your Fate in my avatar):







...and the first one I ever had bought for me was always my favourite:


Were other chewers around here as obsessed with these during childhood as I was?
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post #2 of 58
2/19/09 at 12:52pm
I remember reading a few in my day (They are known as Choose your Adventure Books up here. Scholastic book orders anyone?) and enjoying them. But I was a Boxcar Children man myself.

I remember this one involving this kid who recieves an alien signal and one of the endings is where the kid gets transported to the alien world and becomes one of them. It looked so cool at the time.
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post #3 of 58
2/19/09 at 12:54pm
The best things about these books were the crazy deaths you suffered. I remember one where I found myself doomed to the "slow, painful death of dehydration". I blame these books on my indecisiveness.
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post #4 of 58
2/19/09 at 12:56pm
I still have almost all of these books. 'Vampire Express' was notable for the fact that the internal numbering was totally off: The pages that many of the choices sent you to were totally incorrect.

Favorites: 'The Race Forever', 'Escape', and 'By Balloon to the Sahara'.
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post #5 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:03pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
I still have almost all of these books. 'Vampire Express' was notable for the fact that the internal numbering was totally off: The pages that many of the choices sent you to were totally incorrect.
Oh GOD YES!! I remember mine came with a little printed slip of paper stuck in the front saying "The Vampire Express has gone off the rails" and then it told you the pages you should turn to on the fuck up pages.

I remember getting really upset and thinking I'd got a bung copy so mum went through it and simply wrote over the mistakes with the right page numbers in pen.

It probably should have occured to me even then that my version may not be the only one so afflicted.
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post #6 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:07pm
I bought my copy of 'Vampire Express' before the errors had been caught. I spent some time going through it to try and figure out the correct pages, but I think that I gave up on a few of the errors.

By any chance, do you have a copy of the slip of paper that you could send me? I'd love to slip that inside my book if possible. Could you scan it or something?
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post #7 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:11pm
Thread Starter 
Unfortunately Judas that one hasn't survived the last 25 years, which makes me sad I must say.
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post #8 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:13pm
Who knew that a Choose your Adventure Boook had to have a number guide ala James Joyce's Ulyssees(sp?).
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post #9 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:14pm
Rain Dog: If I ever decide to sell my collection of these books, I'll give you first option to buy. Offhand, I'd say that I have 70% of them.
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post #10 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:18pm
Thread Starter 
Nice, thanks mate.

That said tho, do hang onto 'em - they're gold. You have kids dontcha?
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post #11 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:20pm
I absolutely loved these books as a kid, though unfortunately I don't remember any specifics about them. Then again I can barely remember stuff I read last week, so maybe I should get my brain checked out.
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post #12 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:20pm
Rain Dog: No kids, and no plans on having any. All of my nephews and nieces are too old to enjoy them, so I'd love to pass these on to someone who'd appreciate them and share them with his kids.
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post #13 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:22pm
Thread Starter 
No kids here and no plans either sorry pal.

That said I'll give some of the few I have left to my niece and nephew in a few years (theyre only both 4 and 5 now) and if they dig em, I just may be sending you a PM
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post #14 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:26pm
Passing it on to the next generation. I love it so.
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post #15 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:29pm
Rain Dog: Sounds good. I'm curious as to which ones/how many of them that I have, so I'll try and do an inventory of them and post it here. These are great books to get started on when you're a kid, so I'd love to pass them on.

Are these books actually worth anything? A lot of sites are blocked here at work, so I can't do any research now as to any collectible value that they might have. I know that alot of mine are first printings, especially the early ones that have different spines.

God, I feel old.
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post #16 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:31pm
I imagine not. If it's cheap shit you can get at a used book store. Then no.
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post #17 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Strange View Post
The best things about these books were the crazy deaths you suffered. I remember one where I found myself doomed to the "slow, painful death of dehydration".
I'm pretty sure that was Deadwood City (#8). Much like the HBO series, it was full of violent deaths. You died in the desert, got bitten by a snake or simply shot down.
There's a new website for the series. It offers new books and reprints. But it looks like the relaunch is run by author RA Montgomery, so only his books are available. I was always a Packard fan myself. No matter, I've still got twenty some copies of these in the attic.
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post #18 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:43pm
I seem to remember seeing a reprint of 'The Race Forever' a few years ago that had updated cars in it. Maybe that's one of the ones that Bob's referring to.
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post #19 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:45pm
I loved these books. I've always been a big reader and I think one of the reasons is because of fun books like this that my parents would buy me as a kid or get from the library. The CYOA books were the best. The one I always remember was about the spy named Johan and the whale mission. That, and I believe the sequal to the Cave of Time where the character ending had me living 15 minutes ahead of the rest of the world in some kind of weird time error.
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post #20 of 58
2/19/09 at 1:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdHocken View Post
They are known as Choose your Adventure Books up here.
Is this a typo?
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post #21 of 58
2/19/09 at 2:12pm
I remember the skateboarding one having almost no choices to make. It was totally and completely lame.

I read these religiously. I wonder if my library still carries them...
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post #22 of 58
2/19/09 at 2:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
I seem to remember seeing a reprint of 'The Race Forever' a few years ago that had updated cars in it. Maybe that's one of the ones that Bob's referring to.
http://www.cyoastore.com/category/show/1341
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post #23 of 58
2/19/09 at 2:20pm
Thanks, Bob. It's a bummer to see that the Lancia Stratos get replaced with an Audi TT, but oh well.
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post #24 of 58
2/19/09 at 2:33pm
I checked and EBAY has a ton of these for sale and often in reasonably priced bundles. I'm going to keep an eye on them and maybe pick some up. I'd love to have these for when my son is older.
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post #25 of 58
2/19/09 at 2:34pm
I remember trying to write one of these myself back in the 80s and not realizing how hard it really was.

My friend and I used to play this all the time:



You'd each have a book, one for the X-Wing, one for the Interceptor, and you'd start on a simple start page that had a set of maneuvers you could choose from. You'd give your opponent the page number next to the maneuver, and that page in their book showed a picture of what was going on and had maneuver options for them. Then they'd pick a maneuver, and so on back and forth until someone blew their opponent up, or the two ships rammed together and both players lost. Pretty fun little time killer.
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post #26 of 58
2/19/09 at 2:35pm
Judge: I'll inventory what I have and post the list on here. Rain Dog has first option to buy, but if he passes you can probably buy them.

Richard: I remember those books as well; they were GREAT fun.
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post #27 of 58
2/19/09 at 2:55pm
I found one of these when we moved to a new house recently. The Deadly Shadow - a bond style spy story.

The wife thought I was mad going through it again but it was still fun.

I love the fact if you go to the casino and play roulette you ether die or become mega rich and retire....
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post #28 of 58
2/19/09 at 3:04pm
I had some "GI Joe" ones. I discovered I was a terrible leader and led the Joes to their deaths on numerous occasions.

Ever tried reading one straight through? It's like "Pulp Fiction."
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post #29 of 58
2/19/09 at 3:18pm
I remember the first time I picked up one of these back in 83. I was in third grade at the time and it was on the shelf with a few others in the back of my math class. After the first one, I was hooked. After I was finished with each one I would seek out more.

After they started to die out, I switched to Zork books, then to this series called Lone Wolf, which was more like an RPG book. You picked out which abilities you wanted before you started the adventure, and some of the choices you came across would be based on the abilities you chose. It suggested using dice, but it had a handy number grid in the back that you would close your eyes and point your pencil at to "roll" if you didn't have any dice handy.

Man, this all brings back memories. I miss reading those kinds of books.
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post #30 of 58
2/19/09 at 3:35pm
Here's a graphical map of The Mystery of Chimney Rock.

Whenever we went to a bookstore when I was a kid, I'd usually spend most of the time flipping through those books just reading all the different ways to die. I still have my collection of the awesome-but-short-lived Explorer and Indiana Jones Find Your Fate series.
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post #31 of 58
2/19/09 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Sodium View Post
LOL "suffocate in closet"
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post #32 of 58
2/19/09 at 4:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ Fischer View Post
Is this a typo?
If it was, it wasn't intentional. I can be very much a broken english iliterate at times.
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post #33 of 58
2/19/09 at 4:06pm
I think Chimney Rock is the only one I had.
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post #34 of 58
2/19/09 at 4:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don S. View Post
After they started to die out, I switched to Zork books, then to this series called Lone Wolf, which was more like an RPG book. You picked out which abilities you wanted before you started the adventure, and some of the choices you came across would be based on the abilities you chose. It suggested using dice, but it had a handy number grid in the back that you would close your eyes and point your pencil at to "roll" if you didn't have any dice handy.
Ha, I had the Lone Wolf books as well. Reading your post reminded me exactly of how it worked with the dice/pencil act. I remember that I would always cheat when making my character's initial attributes. The Indy Find Your Fate books were also pretty good IIRC.

I would assume there is nothing like these still out there today. Sadly I think 20 years from now people will be remembering some kind of kitschy DS title series the way we remember these books. So, so sad for so many reasons...
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post #35 of 58
2/19/09 at 4:21pm
The Dungeons and Dragons based CYOA books were pretty good too. They didn't involve any dice-rolling or attribute creation, but they were fun in much the same way that the original CYOA books were.

For a very short time in the early 80s, these books were king.
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post #36 of 58
2/19/09 at 7:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Sodium View Post
What could "Burned as a Mouse" possibly mean? Incinerated for being a mouse (sort of like a rodent version of the Salem Witch Trials)? Incinerated while being in the form of a mouse? My mind is racing here.
Quote:
I still have my collection of the awesome-but-short-lived Explorer and Indiana Jones Find Your Fate series.
Embarassing story: When I was a wee Indiana Jones fanatic, my mom bought me "Indiana Jones and the Curse of Horror Island", the first of the Indy Find-Your-Fate books. I had never heard of these books and never read a Choose Your Own Adventure. So, being a sensible kind of lad, I did what you would do with every other book on earth: I started with page one and began to read each page in order. After puzzling over why nothing was making sense and rereading pages to see if I was missing something, I finally gave up. It was only days later that my mom figured out how the whole thing worked and explained it to me. After that? magic.

...shut up, I was like 6 at the time.
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post #37 of 58
2/19/09 at 7:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Savage View Post
I found one of these when we moved to a new house recently. The Deadly Shadow - a bond style spy story.

The wife thought I was mad going through it again but it was still fun.

I love the fact if you go to the casino and play roulette you ether die or become mega rich and retire....

Does anyone remember the officially licensed James Bond Choose Your Own Adventures? They were really similar to the Indy ones and came out around the time of View to a Kill. The only one I vaguely remember was called (I think) Win, Place, or Draw.
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post #38 of 58
2/19/09 at 7:22pm
I read a lot of these, but never actually enjoyed them. In fact, they were quite nerve-wracking. Dying was too sad. The tang of failure, the cruel caprice of fate.
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post #39 of 58
2/19/09 at 7:27pm
My old favorite (course I'm partial to William Stout's cover, I have an original dino sketch of his and his autograph, books, etc):



My daughter and I have had fun reading these old books of mine lately (she's 4). I let her choose what we do.

The Evil Wizard (CHoose Your Own...)
The Ring, the Sword, and the Unicorn (TSR's Fantasy Forest)
Giants, Elves, and Scary Monsters (Which Way Secret Book)

EDIT: Apparently there's DVD versions now for the newer generation. Nobody reads anymore!
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post #40 of 58
2/19/09 at 7:28pm
I'm surprised there aren't more of these online. The webpage is the perfect medium for such adventures; you could make them as long and complex as you wanted, and you wouldn't have to worry about making them kid or publisher-friendly.

With suitable leadership I bet the Chewers could make a splendid CYOA.
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post #41 of 58
2/19/09 at 7:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nekkerbee View Post
I'm surprised there aren't more of these online. The webpage is the perfect medium for such adventures...
Links would help keep the cheating to a minimum (and you wouldn't see pics of pages you weren't reading). See also: Powerpoint (for those that aren't web-savvy).

EDIT: I'm remembering one that my sister and I read to each other. We were scared to death when her cat jumped in the middle of a session (she had a bunkbed with a tent flap and we'd read them with a flashlight). It involved a haunted house, bleeding walls, a broken mirror (where a face appeared in all the shards)... any ideas?
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post #42 of 58
2/19/09 at 8:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nekkerbee View Post
I'm surprised there aren't more of these online. The webpage is the perfect medium for such adventures; you could make them as long and complex as you wanted, and you wouldn't have to worry about making them kid or publisher-friendly.
I'm sure they exist, but I bet the problem is they're terrible.

I liked all these. CYOA, Time Machine, Lone Wolf and Cub, the D&D ones, but my favorites by far were the Indiana Jones ones. I read them over and over, so much so that they were just as much Indy as the movies were. I've been meaning to comment on your avatar, RD, because that one was my favorite. In fact, I think my familiarity with, and enjoyment of, mediocre Indiana Jones FYF adventures probably accounts somewhat for why I didn't hate Indy IV like everyone else. They weren't easy to find where I lived, I remember, and I never ever managed to get Indiana Jones and the Mask of the Elephant, despite always looking at the local Waldenbooks. I'm going to try to find it online right now, so thanks for this thread.
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post #43 of 58
2/19/09 at 9:18pm
Rain Dog: Here are the ones that I have -



Somewhere along the line, I picked up a duplicates of a couple of them.
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post #44 of 58
2/20/09 at 12:12am
Thread Starter 
Nice Judas, there's some gold there.

Just had a check at what few of these kinda books I have left and would you believe it, a Lone Wolf book is there as well.

Since this threads gotten a bit broader and we're including stuff like Lone Wolf, I think I will include the Livingstone & Jackson Fighting Fantasy books in here as well, cause I adored them as much as CYOA. They were essentially one person role playing games for all intents and purposes, with the book itself acting as DM. Any other big fans of them? They were english, so I donlt even know if they made it to the US.

I remember particularely loving City of Thieves, Temple of Terror, Trial of Champions and Robot Commando - but I adored all of them.
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post #45 of 58
2/20/09 at 5:37am
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post #46 of 58
2/20/09 at 5:44am
I would so read a book in which I am a black kid fighting space vampires.
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post #47 of 58
2/20/09 at 6:22am
Loved these things as a kid. Id get kinda disapointed if I completed a narrative in the first go...loved dying in these things.
There was a multiple outcome science fiction book written by Douglas Hill; a pulpy english writer whose stuff I used to breathe in like air as a kid I thought was the best thing ever at the time. It was slightly better written than the CYOA stuff. Had totally forgotten all about it until this thread. Nostalgia.
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post #48 of 58
2/20/09 at 6:23am
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post #49 of 58
2/20/09 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCallaghan View Post
Notice that it doesn't say how many possible endings there are.
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post #50 of 58
2/20/09 at 2:39pm
It might not say how many, but I'm sure they were bloody.
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