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.

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

Gamebooks range from branching-plot novels, which require the reader to make choices but are otherwise like regular novels at one end, to what amounts to "solitaire RPG adventures" or "adventure gamebooks", which can feature sophisticated rules for battling monsters and overcoming obstacles. That is, in the latter category the story can be decided by other things than the reader's choices, such as dice rolls or running out of health points.

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". 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 generally linear, meaning the reader cannot circle back to an earlier passage, which means the narrative forms what graph theory considers a '' directed rooted tree''. There are many exceptions.

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

Origins

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". 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.

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. 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. 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.

Programmed learning materials, first proposed by B.F. Skinner, have been recognized as an early influence on the development of branching path books. 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.

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). 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.

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.

Breakthroughs and popularization

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.

The US (late 1970s–)

''The Adventures of You'', a two-book series, authored by Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery

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