posted July 30, 2015 09:28 PM            

Though one thing I don't like about many of them is that they have no coherent sense, that is it's all just random so that characters you encounter who are heroic if you make one set of choices are base villains if you choose another (and it has nothing to do with you it's just that there's no real story and that they're completely different people with different motivations). A lot of the endings can be ridiculous and random, though I've found just how terrible some of them are to be darkly amusing (I think my favorite was where hiding in a cave you meet a mountain lion and freeze in fear, and then you turn the page to where it explains an archeologists finding your remains and that of the mountain lion and writing down that it seemed the two of you stared each other to death ) and some are surprisingly grim. Really stupid choices can be rewarded and smart choices can be arbitrarily punished, which would be okay to me IF there was a coherent story rather than it being so random.

I got to wondering about this because I just remembered Mystery of the Maya which was surprisingly new age with extraterrestrials (even contact with aliens from Venus, IIRC) among other things. It's been many years since the last time I looked at this so I don't recall too much. (I do recall they got surprisingly grim at times, one was shudder worthy though it was more very insinuative than graphic despite the nightmare worthy drawing that went with it.)

Inside UFO 54-40 was one of the better ones in that it wasn't so random but what makes it stand out is a very zen-like possible ending...but only if you don't make a choice! (Heh, this paradoxical bit is just something to see.)

It's hard to say which is my favorite of the CYA series specifically, offhand I'd say Mystery of the Unicorn or The Forbidden Castle (which seem to have a consistent background story in mind which stays the same no matter what choices you make). But I generally liked other series better, probably my favorite series is Time Machine which are also educational (while aimed at kids).

Sheesh, I just found out they have erotica gamebooks! I've never come across those, but I have come across romance gamebooks aimed at girls which tend to be impossible to get a bad ending and you always end up with a guy...IIRC, it was possible to find a bad ending in the HeartQuest series but it was hard and usually ended on a note "that maybe you'll get rescued." It's been about 15 years since I read one of those.

I got one now that's about Baba Yaga and you do more than make choices, you also then roll dice and based on your roll as well as your choice you turn to the appropriate page.

This one, IMO, was actually scary: Invasion of the Black Slime. It gave me the feeling of being in a nightmare and reading the reviews I see I'm not the only one. (Far scarier than Give Yourself Goosebumps, but then Goosebumps is even more silly than scary most of the time, or Plot Your Own Horror Stories.)

Btw, if any want to check these out the library is usually a good place to find them (though you may have to talk to the reference librarian about having another library send it, but if you're lucky this will be free).