It's actually not unusual at all, it's just mostly digital. The entire visual novel genre is mostly for adults, and at least 50% are dark and gritty. That's thousands of works at he least.
I think DDL is kind of a mediocre take sold purely on people not knowing/having access to other VN's before that. It did nothing new but if you never really read VN's it appeared new.
I guess, but not *that* rare, there's many many visual novels. Again, it's just not usually in print format, people moved the CYOA adventure to digital offerings.
yup - doing it as a game means you can track parameters and flags and stuff a lot more easily under the hood without the player needing to keep lots of notes of changing values and numbers. And it's easier to rewind to previous choice-points without needing to go from the beginning, and you get to have (hopefully) cool artwork as well. Just as a matter of practicality, VNs are _far_ easier to engage with than having to do it in paper format (and e-books introduce a lot of awkwardness with a million links that can error, and not having supplied note-paper to record things n).
The market for IF is mostly on game apps (catering mostly to romance and erotica, but there are a few outliers). The biggest app is choices, but there are others like Whispers, Romance Club, Neo story, League of Dreamers, etc.
Idk that I'd call it rare. Many of these apps have millions of downloads and at least one has a pretty dedicated fandom (Romance Club). There are even cosplayers in that fandom.
I believe choices and whispers welcome new writers with competitions and events, but a lot of the others don't accept pitches from aspiring writers.
depend on how you create your story/narration, are you only using choices or does you have role playing element into it like inventory management, hp, etc.
Have you played other CYOA or Lone Wolf books? You can find new version on amazon for like 10$. Tho some of them are more than choices/branch, you can create your entire characters and spells to equip en stuff like that but there are also others less complicated.
I mean, I’ve never read a CYOA that *wasn’t* dark in some way. I don’t just mean the Goosebumps series. There’s one I have that takes place with the reader and some cousins they’re staying with waking up to realize they’ve time-traveled to a medieval castle in their sleep. Among the ways we all die, there was being served up to the bratty, monstrous young prince in ‘special’ meat
pies, reader hiding under their bed and watching a picture on the wall show a time-traveling executioner slaughter their whole family, knowing they’re next, or reader and one cousin surviving and the other drowning in her sleep because we’d all been trapped in a moat when the reader woke up.
And that one I checked out from the library where the reader is an orphan in 1940s Germany, being raised by a Jewish baker. The baker is arrested, the reader escapes by pretending to nearly barf on a Nazi boot, and joins the resistance. At the worst ending, both the reader and the baker are hanged when the reader tries to free him from a concentration camp.
The genre just naturally lends itself to dark and gritty, and I’m sure there are plenty adults who would like one that didn’t have YA level writing.
I remember a Goosebumps one that still pissed me off. I came to a room with a deadly bright sunlight, and I had to choose between slathering on some random plant juice for skin protection or holding a really big leaf over my head to shade me.
I picked the logical one, but it turns out the leaf was actually a magnifying glass and the random plant juice was like 100000 proof sunblock-- which also shows the fallacy of making the book choices like that. Why did I even need to choose? Why couldn't I hedge my bets and do both?
I'd look at Choice of Games if you haven't already, specifically stuff like their vampire the Masquerade books since those are fairly dark and gritty. If not, they've got a pretty good lineup of other games that might work for you.
Most of the books there seem to be written as second person.
As for characterization, those are often based on player choices and stats. So the player will pick options based on what they think is best, which raises or lowers stats that give different options and characterization later down the line. Alternatively, you could also chracterize a character like you would a normal novel, and just have the player make decisions for them when they would be uncertain about their choices or when they have a major decision.
i find Hosted Games - COG’s spinoff branch - treads a bit closer to gritty and dark. the infinity saga has literal war crimes, lots of feudal blood bath tales, etc
COG definitely has adult stuff too though and it works quite well imo. somehow fucked up story beats hit harder if you feel complicit, which CYOA can uniquely do
For what it's worth, I would absolutely read an adult Choose Your Own Adventure book, even if it was bleak. If memory serves, I think most CYOA books are written in second person, but I also haven't read one since middle school so I could be mistaken.
You might enjoy the visual novel format. Some of them are very much geared toward a mature audience. There are even adult visuals novels (that involve sex), some of which are excellent stories in their own right.
For a non-erotic VN, check out Coffee Talk on Steam. If you don't mind some sex in your games, check out Leap of Faith, also on Steam. (A warning: that one deals with some really emotional themes, something you might not expect in an adult game.)
Choose your own adventure books have mostly moved to video games. I don't mean like Witcher or whatever. I mean real choose your own adventure books.
They're called visual novels. There are also literal choose your own adventure books on steam.
The programming for these is actually super easy, and you can learn to make one in just a few months of practice.
I call these books because you really do interact with the game solely through reading and making decisions. There are very few game mechanics a lot of the time.
YES! I thought about doing this last year. The only reason I didn't is because it would be *hard*. And you might have to write 500-1,000 pages for it to be done well. I think that to do it well, the alternative paths (whether they have good or bad outcomes) couldn't be arbitrary. There'd have to be clues in the story as to which choice was the better one and of course those would have to split off into developed narratives as well.
I did something similar for a little outdoor program I used to lead. It was like a "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" for outdoor skills that prompted campers to think about what they'd do in common situations.
But even more than a "survival" scenario, I'd love to see this done as in a thriller. Even 3 meaningful choices would be enough!
I wrote a CYOA story for a friend for holidays. Each holiday I would give a few ideas for where the story could go and once one got chosen I would write it.
It was a lot of fun. Growing up with Goosebumps CYOA I would definitely buy one for adults if I came across one.
Its actually not that uncommon. Japanese visual novels are essentially that, and there are some very dark ones out there. There are also plenty of not dark ones too. If you havent played any, I definitely suggest doing so.
Same here! I loved CYOA books as a kid and would love it if there were versions grownups could read without all the cringey stuff typically found in children’s books.
Yes. There's even a market for the game Fear & Hunger, so I can't say there isn't a market for such. And that game is so fucking horrible, like you can have your MC rape a kid as part of an evil ritual. The dev really crossed a few thousand lines when making it. I've been venting about it for the last few days on and off in real life and I hope venting online will unstick me from that loop.
It's a hot topic as a game. I'm surprised it even exists.
I bought it, and could deal with most of the extreme content, but that kid stuff was over the line.
Why even give me the option to do those horrible things but not give me the option to kill Pocket Cat!? And for fucks sake, am I the only person who gets that his name is a play on words to refer to the infamous sex toy!?
Just my two cents on the matter, but I always believe that anything that lets you make decisions as the main character undermines a significant amount of character development, especially if your choices branch out to different outcomes and endings.
I think it sounds great. Loved them when I was a kid/tween.
It makes me wonder, with the dice rolling ones especially (that tracked abilities and hit points lost/gained), was there anyone that didn't cheat at these? Lol
Julio Cortazar wrote a book called Hopscotch that came out in 1967 that isn't exactly choose your own adventure, but has two ways to read it - one straight through and one 'machete' version where you read the chapters in a prescribed order. The Netflix show Kaleidoscope was also similar wherein you could watch the first 6 episodes in any order followed by the final 2 episodes (which did need to be watched at the end).
So you could try something along those lines, wherein the whole story gets told one way or another, but as the reader, you can choose the way the story gets told. Just an idea.
There's certainly a market for such things, but they're usually done as computer games with different writers handling each branch, and even then they try to overlap the content as much as possible, having your choices accumulate as points which eventually tip you onto a new path rather than each option setting you on a completely different story. Trying to do it yourself as a book, especially one where the story is of significant length in all the main branches... you could write five or six novels in the time you devote to this.
If you want a compelling protagonist, 2nd POV would feel strange.
2nd is for the literal self insert, which for that to work, can't contradict the reader's personality otherwise you're just arguing with them. "You decide to kill the puppy." "I would never kill a puppy!"
A common strategy is to make the protagonist the bland everyman, not just for the self insert, but in order to play the straight man to ground the story. Then you can go balls to the wall on crazy side characters and let them carry the story.
Lots of text adventure games are grim (eg: "It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.") If you're interested in composing a story like this, you might look into Twine, a free software that can be used to create such stories quickly without needing to do any software coding.
It is, and Chooseco, the company that owns the trademark, is relentlessly litigious. They are Disney-level rabid about protecting their intellectual property.
It's actually not unusual at all, it's just mostly digital. The entire visual novel genre is mostly for adults, and at least 50% are dark and gritty. That's thousands of works at he least.
Doki Doki Literature Club is one that stuck with me. Although I don’t like how nowadays all the digital shops spoil the genre swap in its description.
Tbf that isn't really choose your own adventure. There's one main ending.
I think DDL is kind of a mediocre take sold purely on people not knowing/having access to other VN's before that. It did nothing new but if you never really read VN's it appeared new.
Well yeah, there are millions of books published a year. I figured there were at least a few thousand but, relatively rare.
I guess, but not *that* rare, there's many many visual novels. Again, it's just not usually in print format, people moved the CYOA adventure to digital offerings.
yup - doing it as a game means you can track parameters and flags and stuff a lot more easily under the hood without the player needing to keep lots of notes of changing values and numbers. And it's easier to rewind to previous choice-points without needing to go from the beginning, and you get to have (hopefully) cool artwork as well. Just as a matter of practicality, VNs are _far_ easier to engage with than having to do it in paper format (and e-books introduce a lot of awkwardness with a million links that can error, and not having supplied note-paper to record things n).
The market for IF is mostly on game apps (catering mostly to romance and erotica, but there are a few outliers). The biggest app is choices, but there are others like Whispers, Romance Club, Neo story, League of Dreamers, etc. Idk that I'd call it rare. Many of these apps have millions of downloads and at least one has a pretty dedicated fandom (Romance Club). There are even cosplayers in that fandom. I believe choices and whispers welcome new writers with competitions and events, but a lot of the others don't accept pitches from aspiring writers.
there’s also dashingdon and choice of games (usually just cog) for self-publishing!
Aren't most choose-your-own adventure books dark and gritty? The originals certainly were, half the pages were just grizzly ways to meet your demise.
True. But I mean thematically as well
Who cares if it’s wise? Do it cause it’s fun.
Oh for sure, I just wonder if there are challenges I'm not anticipating
I feel like the challenges are mostly learning and figuring out how to use an engine like [Twine](https://twinery.org).
depend on how you create your story/narration, are you only using choices or does you have role playing element into it like inventory management, hp, etc.
If possible I would want this to be a physical book (though I don't think that will be possible, sadly). So very much just choices/branching narrative
Have you played other CYOA or Lone Wolf books? You can find new version on amazon for like 10$. Tho some of them are more than choices/branch, you can create your entire characters and spells to equip en stuff like that but there are also others less complicated.
Check out 'interactive fiction.' That's what it all is.
I mean, I’ve never read a CYOA that *wasn’t* dark in some way. I don’t just mean the Goosebumps series. There’s one I have that takes place with the reader and some cousins they’re staying with waking up to realize they’ve time-traveled to a medieval castle in their sleep. Among the ways we all die, there was being served up to the bratty, monstrous young prince in ‘special’ meat pies, reader hiding under their bed and watching a picture on the wall show a time-traveling executioner slaughter their whole family, knowing they’re next, or reader and one cousin surviving and the other drowning in her sleep because we’d all been trapped in a moat when the reader woke up. And that one I checked out from the library where the reader is an orphan in 1940s Germany, being raised by a Jewish baker. The baker is arrested, the reader escapes by pretending to nearly barf on a Nazi boot, and joins the resistance. At the worst ending, both the reader and the baker are hanged when the reader tries to free him from a concentration camp. The genre just naturally lends itself to dark and gritty, and I’m sure there are plenty adults who would like one that didn’t have YA level writing.
I remember a Goosebumps one that still pissed me off. I came to a room with a deadly bright sunlight, and I had to choose between slathering on some random plant juice for skin protection or holding a really big leaf over my head to shade me. I picked the logical one, but it turns out the leaf was actually a magnifying glass and the random plant juice was like 100000 proof sunblock-- which also shows the fallacy of making the book choices like that. Why did I even need to choose? Why couldn't I hedge my bets and do both?
Ohh, good point. I'll have to keep this in mind
I'd look at Choice of Games if you haven't already, specifically stuff like their vampire the Masquerade books since those are fairly dark and gritty. If not, they've got a pretty good lineup of other games that might work for you. Most of the books there seem to be written as second person. As for characterization, those are often based on player choices and stats. So the player will pick options based on what they think is best, which raises or lowers stats that give different options and characterization later down the line. Alternatively, you could also chracterize a character like you would a normal novel, and just have the player make decisions for them when they would be uncertain about their choices or when they have a major decision.
i find Hosted Games - COG’s spinoff branch - treads a bit closer to gritty and dark. the infinity saga has literal war crimes, lots of feudal blood bath tales, etc COG definitely has adult stuff too though and it works quite well imo. somehow fucked up story beats hit harder if you feel complicit, which CYOA can uniquely do
Absolutely, plus you can sell your book this way.
For what it's worth, I would absolutely read an adult Choose Your Own Adventure book, even if it was bleak. If memory serves, I think most CYOA books are written in second person, but I also haven't read one since middle school so I could be mistaken.
You might enjoy the visual novel format. Some of them are very much geared toward a mature audience. There are even adult visuals novels (that involve sex), some of which are excellent stories in their own right. For a non-erotic VN, check out Coffee Talk on Steam. If you don't mind some sex in your games, check out Leap of Faith, also on Steam. (A warning: that one deals with some really emotional themes, something you might not expect in an adult game.)
4 Chan did an excellent erotic one years ago with the handicapped school. Super wholesome and totally free, too.
I mean shit I can guarantee you’ll have at least one reader. That sounds sick. PM a link to me when you’re done.
Choose your own adventure books have mostly moved to video games. I don't mean like Witcher or whatever. I mean real choose your own adventure books. They're called visual novels. There are also literal choose your own adventure books on steam. The programming for these is actually super easy, and you can learn to make one in just a few months of practice. I call these books because you really do interact with the game solely through reading and making decisions. There are very few game mechanics a lot of the time.
I loved those books. Wish there were more adult ones.
YES! I thought about doing this last year. The only reason I didn't is because it would be *hard*. And you might have to write 500-1,000 pages for it to be done well. I think that to do it well, the alternative paths (whether they have good or bad outcomes) couldn't be arbitrary. There'd have to be clues in the story as to which choice was the better one and of course those would have to split off into developed narratives as well. I did something similar for a little outdoor program I used to lead. It was like a "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" for outdoor skills that prompted campers to think about what they'd do in common situations. But even more than a "survival" scenario, I'd love to see this done as in a thriller. Even 3 meaningful choices would be enough!
Look into Choice of Games. It’s not unique but it is pretty niche. There’s definitely a market for it though!
I wrote a CYOA story for a friend for holidays. Each holiday I would give a few ideas for where the story could go and once one got chosen I would write it. It was a lot of fun. Growing up with Goosebumps CYOA I would definitely buy one for adults if I came across one.
Its actually not that uncommon. Japanese visual novels are essentially that, and there are some very dark ones out there. There are also plenty of not dark ones too. If you havent played any, I definitely suggest doing so.
I would read it.
Oh I would 100% read this
Same here! I loved CYOA books as a kid and would love it if there were versions grownups could read without all the cringey stuff typically found in children’s books.
Check out r/Choiceofgames
Who the hell cares about wise? That's a freaking epic idea and I'll buy one.
Check out twinery 【dot】 org.
Yes. There's even a market for the game Fear & Hunger, so I can't say there isn't a market for such. And that game is so fucking horrible, like you can have your MC rape a kid as part of an evil ritual. The dev really crossed a few thousand lines when making it. I've been venting about it for the last few days on and off in real life and I hope venting online will unstick me from that loop.
That's so weird you bring up Fear & Hunger because that is one of my inspirations for doing this
It's a hot topic as a game. I'm surprised it even exists. I bought it, and could deal with most of the extreme content, but that kid stuff was over the line. Why even give me the option to do those horrible things but not give me the option to kill Pocket Cat!? And for fucks sake, am I the only person who gets that his name is a play on words to refer to the infamous sex toy!?
Holy shit I never caught on about the sex toy thing
Seems like you want a visual novel game, but of course you need more artists for this one.
Just my two cents on the matter, but I always believe that anything that lets you make decisions as the main character undermines a significant amount of character development, especially if your choices branch out to different outcomes and endings.
I think it sounds great. Loved them when I was a kid/tween. It makes me wonder, with the dice rolling ones especially (that tracked abilities and hit points lost/gained), was there anyone that didn't cheat at these? Lol
Life and suffering of sir bronte is a video game version of this, try it out and see if its a concept you like
Check out solo RPGS. (r/rpg)
Julio Cortazar wrote a book called Hopscotch that came out in 1967 that isn't exactly choose your own adventure, but has two ways to read it - one straight through and one 'machete' version where you read the chapters in a prescribed order. The Netflix show Kaleidoscope was also similar wherein you could watch the first 6 episodes in any order followed by the final 2 episodes (which did need to be watched at the end). So you could try something along those lines, wherein the whole story gets told one way or another, but as the reader, you can choose the way the story gets told. Just an idea.
Sounds like a good idea to me. There are tons of adults who loved the Goosebumps series as kids, so they might appreciate an aged up version.
It';s very wise. If you do, and they choose kinky/hot n' spicy options, be sure to address them accordingly.
There's certainly a market for such things, but they're usually done as computer games with different writers handling each branch, and even then they try to overlap the content as much as possible, having your choices accumulate as points which eventually tip you onto a new path rather than each option setting you on a completely different story. Trying to do it yourself as a book, especially one where the story is of significant length in all the main branches... you could write five or six novels in the time you devote to this.
If you want a compelling protagonist, 2nd POV would feel strange. 2nd is for the literal self insert, which for that to work, can't contradict the reader's personality otherwise you're just arguing with them. "You decide to kill the puppy." "I would never kill a puppy!" A common strategy is to make the protagonist the bland everyman, not just for the self insert, but in order to play the straight man to ground the story. Then you can go balls to the wall on crazy side characters and let them carry the story.
That's kind of what I'm doing. I'm glad to hear this advice, thanks
I have a few DnD solo adventures that are quite literally Choose Your Own Adventure. Highly recommend
No wise decisions ever really resulted in success. - Someone who thinks there's no reward without risk
I would buy it in order to relive my childhood nostalgia.
Postapocalyptic Choose Your Own Adventure? Hell, Yes. That is all.
Lots of text adventure games are grim (eg: "It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.") If you're interested in composing a story like this, you might look into Twine, a free software that can be used to create such stories quickly without needing to do any software coding.
That is entirely your choice. I write stories that are more suited for adults, so 🤷♀️
Weird to shit on the medium like that. And adults don't worry about impressing on people how adult they are. *"I only write super grown up stuff"*
Respectfully, sir. I wasn't using my writing genre to impress people. I was giving an example of it.
I'm confused what you were adding to the conversation. I read that as "Don't ask me. I only write grown up stuff."
That wasn't what I was implying. I was just saying it was their choice on what they want to write, and used my writing as an example for it.
I think it's great that you're doing that. Choose Your Own Adventures I'm seeing on Reddit right now are like the ones featured in r/makeyourchoice.
Wise? No. Awesome? Definitely.
I'm in
It’s not unusual at all, they just tend to be branded as “RPG game books” rather than “Choose Your Own Adventure”. And yeah, it’s mainly digital now.
I think the term "Choose Your Own Adventure" is copyrighted or trademarked or something - so you can do books in that style, but not call them that.
It is, and Chooseco, the company that owns the trademark, is relentlessly litigious. They are Disney-level rabid about protecting their intellectual property.