14 replies to this topic

[SoulBlazer]

When I was a kid in the 80's, I was a big fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series.  For those of you who have not had the chance to read one, it was basicaly a book with a adventure in which you played yourself and got to decide how the story went, by flipping to certain pages when persented with a choice.  There were many other copy cats on this formula over the years -- some quite good -- but this was the original.

As a kid also with very limited income, I also recall seeing advertised in the back of some of the books two Choose Your Own Adventure computer games.  These were 'new and original' games not based on any of the existing books, but designed to play like one.  They were available for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, with a list price of (I believe) $35 each.  That was more then I could afford in the day.

Over the years, I've tried to find copies of these games to try them out with no success.  Never seen them online, nor talked to anyone who has played them.  I'm starting to wonder they never got released.  No clue who was designing or publishing them either.

Does anyone have any info?

[save2600]

I always thought of regular text adventures as "choose your own adventure" book-games.  

[SoulBlazer]

I suspose you could argue that.

These games were specicaly called 'Choose Your Own Adventure' in the title and were susposed to operate in the same way as the books.  I'm just feeling they were announced and never released, despite the fact the C64 and Apple II were peak gaming platforms in the late 80s's.

[The Usotsuki]

(Message zapped.)

Edited by The Usotsuki, Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:13 AM.

[SoulBlazer]

Just curious, why the zapped message?

I was thinking about it last night and I think I also recall seeing the game announced for the IBM.  Not sure of the exact year, but I want to say sometime in the late 80's.  The publishing house was probaly going to be Scholastic, who had done games in the past.

[Asaki]

http://www.mobygames...ook-adaptations

Didn't take long to find, looks like there's just the two of them.

Cool that they have graphics, I was expecting them to be text-only. But I guess that makes sense, since the books always had a few illustrations.

[SoulBlazer]

Wow, thanks!  I swear I checked Mobygames.

Must not have sold in large ammounts.

[The Usotsuki]

I made a comment that wasn't relevant to the topic, but was about the idea.  So I thought better of it and zapped it.

[desiv]

Takes me back...
I remember being a big fan of those books, and when I got my Vic20, one of my (in not the) first BASIC programming project I did was to convert one of my books to a text adventure...

Lots of prints, and if GOTOs..

Can't remember if I ever finished it, but I remember starting it..

desiv

Edited by desiv, Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:00 PM.

[S1500]

If you wanted to make your own choose your own adventure-type game in any language or platform, I bet it would be easier than porting Pong. Just simple logic statements & print statements. Wallah, you are an instant game developer.

You could then sprinkle in things like hit points(certain entries gain/lower hit points) and such.

There was the CYOA books, but in the mid-80s,copycat books started to show up. Then some took it further to put in RPG elements. My favorite was the Grail Quest series. You needed a dice & character sheet to play it. Another one, I think it was Wizards, Warriors & You used coin fiipping. Some got really elaborate.

[Mirage]

Cool! I'd never seen these before. I have a good sized collection of the old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, I'll have to look in them for the ad for these. I don't recall ever seeing it. I have a bunch of the Twist-A-Plot and other CYOA-type books too. I always thought of all text adventures of being the computer version too, like save2600 said.

[Mirage]

By the way, it lists four of them:

Games in group:

The Abominable Snowman

,

The Cave of Time

,

Escape

and

Return to Atlantis.

All of those are titles of CYOA books (oops, sorry Return to Atlantis was "Journey Under the Sea" as a book).

Edited by Mirage, Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:08 PM.

[asponge]

desiv, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:00 PM, said:

Takes me back...
I remember being a big fan of those books, and when I got my Vic20, one of my (in not the) first BASIC programming project I did was to convert one of my books to a text adventure...

Lots of prints, and if GOTOs..

Can't remember if I ever finished it, but I remember starting it..

desiv

That's awesome.  I remember doing exactly the same thing when I was learning BASIC.  I don't think I ever finished either.  I couldn't type very fast back then.

S1500, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:17 PM, said:

If you wanted to make your own choose your own adventure-type game in any language or platform, I bet it would be easier than porting Pong. Just simple logic statements & print statements. Wallah, you are an instant game developer.

You could then sprinkle in things like hit points(certain entries gain/lower hit points) and such.

I created a simple Zork style text adventure when I was younger.  On the surface it seems easy, but creating a proper text parser to "read" the sentences from the player is quite a bit more challenging than tracking a few sprites on the screen.  I didn't really understand how to do it right back then so in the end it was pretty difficult to get anywhere because the game never understood what you were trying to do.  If I recall correctly there is an implementation of the Zork parser for download out on the internet somewhere.

S1500, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:17 PM, said:

There was the CYOA books, but in the mid-80s,copycat books started to show up. Then some took it further to put in RPG elements. My favorite was the Grail Quest series. You needed a dice & character sheet to play it. Another one, I think it was Wizards, Warriors & You used coin fiipping. Some got really elaborate.

I had a friend that was into those.  He let me borrow some sort of Ninja adventure book.  It was pretty complicated.  I remember you could run out of throwing stars and whatnot which would affect how far you could get or where you could go.  Good times.

[cimerians]

My favorites were:

CYOA (especially the Edward Packard stories)
Fighting Fantasy
Lone Wolf

The FF books are out on modern machines and IOS I think. Some came out on the C64 and Apple. Lone Wolf remakes abound. On the Nintendo DS as well.

Edward Packard has released some of his stuff on IOS:
http://www.edwardpackard.com/
http://u-ventures.net/

Return to the Cave of Time:  http://itunes.apple....d374250592?mt=8

Edited by cimerians, Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:31 PM.

[Asaki]

desiv, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:00 PM, said:

I remember being a big fan of those books, and when I got my Vic20, one of my (in not the) first BASIC programming project I did was to convert one of my books to a text adventure...

I was going to do that on my IBM PC Jr., but I was trying to make my own game instead of porting a book. I didn't get very far though, didn't have very many ideas.

S1500, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:17 PM, said:

My favorite was the Grail Quest series. You needed a dice & character sheet to play it.

Sounds like Fighting Fantasy.