What Ever Happened to Choose Your Own Adventure? 

Heh, I remember as a kid, trying to convert a CYOA book into a BASIC program. The programming was dead simple, but I gave up halfway through because transcribing the book was boring and taking too long. But I think even back then (circa 1985) kid me recognized that computers were going to be the future of interactive stories.

Amazing retrospective. Reading these books as an elementary kid is probably what led to me being a Dungeon Master and game designer now. I guess i owe CYOA a lot.

I had totally forgotten about this series! You did a great job making the history of this decades long franchise into a cohesive story. Cool to learn about Choosco, will make great gifts. Can't wait to see more videos.

In the 80s I was all about CYOA, the similar Time Machine series, and Encyclopedia Brown

in Germany those books are currently having a revivial with the old Lone Wolf books and even newer ones are being produced (even a survival horror book) Also due to the German Roleplaying game "The Dark Eye / Das Schwarze Auge" most of my generation were introduced by solo adventures by this game (TDE has SEVERAL solo adventures) and yeah it was bigger than D&D in the 80s till early 2000s

What happened, the man asks? Simple: the format never left. It just became more widespread and (on mobile, anyway) more financially accessible

Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks were a lot better, and from the UK. Very similar to CYOA, but somewhat darker in a lot of places, used a D6, and are still going. There were even books from way back when that let you make games, and do multiplayer games...

Who Killed Harlow Thrombie

Ah yes, I remember getting eaten by a Ninja.

8:25 HOLD ON!!! ... this reminds me of RedAlert 1... special ops. There was literally a mission in which you fought against, drumroll, giant mutant spider ants (not turtles)! I wonder... was this before all those silly "giant mutant x creature" or after? ... though I imagine great minds think alike and ants just make for compelling enemies... (smart buggers

I saw this on the reddit and as a fellow CYOA-video-maker, it's so neat to see other people doing videos on this!

My first “Choose your own adventure” style books were from the Animorph series, and it was magical. (Also a video about that series would be pretty darn cool! KA Applegate has even been pretty active on Totally-Not-Twitter before too… just tossing that out there. 👀)

WRT Fox's Choose Your Own Adventure: The Movie, I suspect not so much Netflx's shows stole the thunder; but rather the lawsuit that scared the Exec's

I would highly recommend the CYOA books to anyone with young children. It really does help foster a love of reading and provides some quality bonding time if you read together. When they get a few years with the Adventure books under their belt, upgrade them to the Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf series. Great video as always, keep up the good work.

Loved these books! While I will say it compelled me to read more as a kid, it also turned me into a weird sci-fi nerd. War With the Evil Power Master, UFO 54-40, Space and Beyond, Invaders of Planet Earth and Hyperspace turned me into the abstract loving person I am today. One of these days I will start hunting down these books and try to get them all!

Ever heard of "Magical Kitties Save The Day!"? It's a tabletop RPG where players read through a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style story at the beginning to establish their character's backstory and initial stats.

People still make cyoa games to keep that type of gaming alive

Thank you so much for making this video! I loved the in-depth research and the historical perspective you've given me (I'd actually love to know more about historical interactive books). I absolutely love Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books! Here, in Bulgaria, they came in the 90's. My best friend and I loved these books. They captivated us in a way that video games never could. While we loved video games and the worlds they let us explore, the magic of CYOA books was always a lot more tangible. See, with a video game there's a wall between the virtual world and the code that makes it all work. It's all "uder the hood", so to speak. But with a CYOA book, you can see how the world is constructed - it's all in the book you're holding in your hands. And yet, there's this intricate web of possibilities and chains of events that's completely hidden. It's an absolutely magical feeling of holding something that has so many hidden possibilities within it. Unfortunately, both of us were born in '93, so by the time I could read, the fad was already on the decline. We had a really hard time finding new CYOA books. Still, we used make our own adventures, where one of us was the player and the other one was the storyteller (essentially the DM, although at the time none of us knew any of these terms). In addition to giving me some of the fondest memories I have of my childhood, these experiences gave me a unique appreciation for storytelling, which is a skill I've applied to my everyday life, and even to my job. And it all started with these simple Choose Your Own Adventure Books. I really love the fact that here in Bulgaria, CYOA books are making a bit of a comeback. Granted, they're very niche, but this video reminded me of how much fun I had with them as a kid, and I'm actually going to buy one for my 7-year-old sister who just learned how to read. They're going to really help her with her reading skills, and serve as great gateway to actual novels and short stories :)

I read these books as a kid and loved all the crazy adventures I would go on whilst sitting in my room. Today I have a very nice collection of the vintage releases, the newer rewritten remakes I feel don't have the same nostalgia. One called Super Computer was about what we know today as AI written in 1982- Wild stuff.

I can vividly remember coming to a choice, leaving my finger in between the pages to mark my place and turning to the page that corresponded to my choice. If that page was a paragraph or two long....NOPE... going right back. I didn't even need to read because I knew I was about to die. I loved these books as a kid. But the pacing could have been a bit better in some books. Ending the story 20 minutes into reading it never felt good. I feel like there shouldn't have been a story ending choice until you are like 3/4'ths of the way through the story.

For me, the peculiar hobby of Jumpchain is what scratches my CYOA itch.

Ay wowzers!! I've never knew anyone else that had read the books so this was just such a trip ❤ My first was the Aztec book that I bought at my first bookfair as a little kid. Such a great memory

I loved choose-you-own-adventure books…. I had a Star Wars one that I kept betraying my friends in 😂

Before there was Visual Novel games

Yes! Really great info. I didn't know most of that.

Loved these!!

Ah, I remember this CYOA series from hanging out at the local library back in the day. Later moved on over to the superior Fighting Fantasy book series by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. Also, the just as brilliant Lone Wolf and Way Of The Tiger series. All Choose Your Own Adventure structure books with dice based combat and puzzle solving. 😊

Thank you. That was so fun.

*Baldurs Gate 3* ... enough said. (7:55 snrk. exactly! ... 10:05 but only one brief mention Oo seriously?! It slaps the other games so hard its not even funny^^) I was legit dumbfounded - outright baffled - how many options I had to solve one simple task. Not even main story but 'some guy I met on the road! Dozens of options and that's before you start breaking the game to any degree! ... and many of those can affect the game in the long run meaningfully. (losing/gaining a companion/item/quest) 5D chess for sure. The game is overwhelming at first but once you get the hang of it~ you feel like a jungle explorer! With new strange stories about your exotic journeys ♥ ps. BlackMirror took a good shot at it on Netflix^^ I had a good time. Not the most compelling story telling but certainly enjoyable and unique! ... - you gotta admire imagination.

I've been delighted to find YA and adult versions of these recently. Chuck Tingle has a series of "Select Your Own Timeline Adventure" books that are a bit trashy, definitely strange, and a lot of fun. There are a bunch of others, with varying degrees of maturity and quality, called things like "choose your path", "interactive", "what if", or "your rules".

Fighting Fantasy was better!!