Choose Your Own Adventure Books Return

KermodeBear writes "Eight of the original 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books are to be republished this summer. From the Article: 'First published in 1979, the books let readers remix their own stories - and face the consequences. [...] the original titles return to bookstores, revamped with 21st-century references (cell phones!).'" For me, it's all about 1987's Space Vampire , by series originator Edward Packard. "Do you eject the vampire through the airlock?"

Replaced by computer RPG

[johnnywheeze]

Isn't that pretty much what RPG console games are now? A series of canned responses to a limited choice of options, but with some combat graphics thrown in?

These were fun when I was a kid, but that was before computer games really took off. I don't see the young whipper-snappers these days being excited by a book with simple either/or choices.

Still if the came up with a good story that was interesting and compelling, (I seem to remember the plot of these things being pretty weak, even as a kid) I don't see why they wouldn't be successful.

Actually having an interesting and compelling story could sell a few console rpg's too, or movies, or tv shows, etc. etc. It all comes back to that in the end, not the gimmick.

Hated them

[caseih]

I absolutely hated Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was in junior high. Instead of spending 200-300 pages on plot and character development, these books were basically just a serious of 4-page stories. Even if you did find a longer path through the book there was just no substance there to keep your attention. Besides, I ran out of fingers trying to mark all my places so I could go back whenever I died. Basically the books had all the plot and storyline of a first-person shooter game without any of the graphics or weapons.

W3b 2.O Kr3w

[obsol33t]

"the books let readers remix their own stories"

Can we please stop using unnecessary buzzwords and buzzimplementations-of-words in article descriptions?

Re:Hated them

[djrogers]

Perhaps your boredom was due to the fact you should have been reading them in third grade rather than junior high? These books set a pretty low bar for their target market... I recall reading them in second and third grade along with the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries and my Hardy Boys collection. Not at all boring when you're in teh right age group.

In a word: No

[sysrpl]

RPGs usually present you with a series of linear game choices. You can either accept, or refuse a quest/mission/whatever series. The steps along the series are almost always the same with no choices offered except maybe choosing the reward of a wand or sword at the end.

With choose your own adventure, the paths that you take close other paths, and you are offered two or three or more choices on about every other page. Some choices lead to a happy endings, some to a sad endings, with varying story lengths among them.