Gamebook
A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not follow paragraphs in a linear or ordered fashion. Gamebooks are sometimes called choose your own adventure books or CYOA after the influential Choose Your Own Adventure series originally published by US company Bantam Books. Gamebooks influenced hypertext fiction.[1]
Not to be confused with Playbook (disambiguation).Production of new gamebooks in the West decreased dramatically during the 1990s as choice-based stories have moved away from print-based media, although the format may be experiencing a resurgence on mobile and ebook platforms. Such digital gamebooks are considered interactive fiction or visual novels.
Description[edit]
Gamebooks range widely in terms of the complexity of the game aspect. At one end are the branching-plot novels, which require the reader to make choices but are otherwise like regular novels (this style is exemplified by the originator of the gamebook format, Choose Your Own Adventure, and is sometimes referred to as "American style").
At the other end of the spectrum are what amounts to "solitaire RPG adventures" or "adventure gamebooks",[2] which emulate a tabletop RPG in novel form and feature sophisticated rules for battling monsters and overcoming obstacles. The story can be decided by factors other than the reader's choices, such as dice rolls (or other randomization mechanics, such as leafing through the book to arrive at a random paragraph number), the lack (or presence) of equipment or other items, or by various statistics, such as running out of health points.
The latter style is most commonly associated with the British Fighting Fantasy (FF) franchise (started in 1982), which originated, codified, and popularised much of the more advanced format that many later gamebooks would follow (the geographic dichotomy led to this type of gamebook sometimes being analogously referred to as "British style"). CYOA and FF are the two most popular, successful, and enduring gamebook franchises of all time, rendering them the archetypes of their respective, clashing styles and positions on the complexity spectrum. Later series like Lone Wolf and Fabled Lands, typically from Britain, would take the FF formula and push the limits of what could be achieved with printed text narratives (leading to, for example, twenty-book arcs in which the same created character could be taken sequentially from one to the next, or four or more books that contain interlocking references to each other in order to create one huge world map).
In all gamebooks, the story is presented as a series of sections of printed text. These are often but not always numbered. Branching-plot novel sections often run to several pages in length, whereas solitaire and adventure gamebook sections are usually no longer than a paragraph or two. These are not intended to be read in order. Instead, at the end of a text section, the reader is typically given a choice of narrative branches that they may follow. Each branch contains a reference to the number of the paragraph or page that should be read next if that branch is chosen (e.g. to go north turn to section 98). The narrative thus does not progress linearly through the book or follow the paragraphs in numerical order. The story continues this way until a paragraph or page which ends that branch of the story. Many solitaire or adventure gamebooks feature a single "successful" ending, and the remainder are "failures".[3] Thus, a gamebook becomes a "puzzle" since only a few or even one branching paths lead to victory. Branching plot novels, on the other hand, tend to be more concerned with narrative resolution rather than winning or losing, thus often have several endings which may be deemed equally "successful".
Gamebooks are typically written in the second person with the reader assuming the role of a character to experience the world from that character's point of view (e.g. 'you walk into the cold and dark forest').
Many gamebooks form series with a common theme, trade dress, and/or ruleset. While each book is typically a stand-alone narrative, there are gamebook series such as Steve Jackson's Sorcery! that continue the narrative from the previous books in the series.
History[edit]
Origins[edit]
There are several examples of early works of art with branching narratives. The romantic novel Consider the Consequences! by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins was published in the United States in 1930, and boasts "a dozen or more" different endings depending on the "taste of the individual reader".[4] The 1936 play Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand, about a trial, is unusual in that members of the audience are chosen to play the jury and deliver a verdict, which then influences the play's ending: guilty or not guilty.[5][6]
Also quite early on, the possibility of having stories branching out into several different paths was suggested by Jorge Luis Borges in his short story "An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" (1941). This story features an author whose novel is a three-part story containing two branch points, and with nine possible endings.[7][8] Another story by Borges, titled "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941), also describes a book with a maze-like narrative, which may have inspired the gamebook form.[8][9] The children's book Treasure Hunt, published in 1945 in Britain under the name of "Alan George" (probably a pseudonym), is another early example of a story with multiple paths for the reader to follow.[10]
Programmed learning materials, first proposed by B.F. Skinner, have been recognized as an early influence on the development of branching path books.[11] This learning method was first applied in the TutorText series of interactive textbooks, published from the late 1950s up until the early 1970s. These books present the reader with a series of problems related to a particular area of study, allowing him or her to choose among several possible answers. If the answer to a problem is correct, the reader moves on to the next problem. If the answer is incorrect, the reader is given feedback and is asked to pick a different answer. This educational technique would form a basis for many later narrative gamebook series.[12]
During the 1960s, authors from several different countries started experimenting with fiction that contained multiple paths and/or endings. Some literary works in this vein include the French-language novel L'ironie du sort (1961) by Paul Guimard, the Spanish-language novels Hopscotch (1963) by Julio Cortázar and Juego de cartas (Card Game, 1964) by Max Aub, and the works of the French literary group known as the Oulipo (1967).[13][14][15][16] Other early experiments include the short stories "Alien Territory" and "The Lost Nose: a Programmed Adventure" (both 1969) by John Sladek, the novel The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) by John Fowles, and the collection of short stories titled Tante storie per giocare (Many Tales to Play With, 1971) by Italian author Gianni Rodari.[17][18][19]
Taken together, these influences may have contributed to the development of several pioneering gamebooks in the 1960s and 1970s. These include Lucky Les by E.W. Hildick (1967), State of Emergency by Dennis Guerrier and Joan Richards (1969), the Swedish-language book Den mystiska påsen (The Mysterious Bag, 1970) by Betty Orr-Nilsson, and the French-language book Histoires comme tu voudras (Stories as You Want Them, 1978) by Marie-Christine Helgerson, among others.[20][21][22][23][24][25]
Breakthroughs and popularization[edit]
The first gamebook series proper appears to have been Tracker Books, published by Transworld in the UK between 1972 and 1980. This series includes adventures in a variety of genres such as science fiction, mystery, and sports. Meanwhile, in the US, The Adventures of You series appeared in 1976–77, with two titles that would later become part of the groundbreaking Choose Your Own Adventure series: Sugarcane Island by Edward Packard and Journey Under the Sea by R. A. Montgomery.
Tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons were another early influence that would contribute in major ways to the development of the gamebook form. The first module which combined a branching-path narrative with a set of role-playing game rules was Buffalo Castle for the Tunnels & Trolls system (1975). Buffalo Castle was innovative for its time, as it allowed the reader to experience a role-playing session without need for a referee. It has been followed by many other solitaire adventures for the T&T system, as well as solos for other tabletop role-playing games.
The first commercially successful series of gamebooks was the Choose Your Own Adventure series establishing the "American" gamebook tradition. The "British" tradition, as exemplified by the Fighting Fantasy series, was, by contrast, slightly younger. British gamebooks differ from the American tradition by having rules more strongly influenced by the game mechanics of roleplaying games.[26]
Online adaptations[edit]
Given the similar structure to html links between the pages of a website, numerous efforts have been made to create a digital equivalent to the gamebook format, with varying degrees of success. These include visual novels, story websites, and various experiments with audio CDs (such as TSR, Inc's short-lived "Terror TRAX" line).