Hi ya'll!

So a long, long time ago before there were digital toys to keep us all brain dead there were BOOKS!  Yes, BOOKS --words upon words of juicy black and whiteness!  Now some of you school kids will evidently hear that excruciating teacher/librarian voice in your head saying, "Books are your ticket to ADVENTURE!" --in which case a good number of you non-bookworms are responding, "Yea RIGHT! Books are those annoying little things that I refuse to read for Homework!"

Well, sorry to burst your bubble kids but some books are just that -- tickets to adventure! I'm speaking of Solo Game Books! (although CyoA was a popular offspring)

Non-bookwork kid: "Say WHA!!! That's Cray, Cray! You must be trickin' Yo." 

Yes, it might seem like that to the inexperienced and techno-nerd and no I'm not tricking --They Exist!

So here's my question(s):

If you've played one what's your favorite? and why does it so fondly stay in your mind?
If you don't have a favorite, which ones do you recall that you liked?If you haven't played one, go look one up, come back here, and tell us about it!If this thread gets a full page I'll tell my fav!

WandererExiled :   I do remember reading a few of the choose your own adventure books back in the day, but I can't think of the names.  I honestly prefer fantasy books to anything else and I don't think I ever came across one of those in this style

I don't know about the Solo Game books because the series I read was never called that.

I'm a fan of Joe Dever's Lone Wolf series.  It's where you take the role of a hero and you battle bad guys across this continent and you can select a limited number of skills and powers that come in to effect during the game.  There's a page with random numbers so you can use that instead of rolling any kind of dice.

It's basically a Choose your own Adventure with swords, bows and arrows, magic, and some really fun stories.  Those were popular back in the day and I blasted through those books from the late 80s to the early 90s.

I'd have to find them again.  I've been remotivated.

lordbelial669 :

I'm the same way. I love me some fantasy novels! You're in luck, though, since a most of the Solo Game books happen to be  Fantasy with YOU being the main character! Plus, you actually have to survive your games just like the regular character (based on things like skills, physic, weapons, and even luck).

Here's a list of Solo Game Books. You might be surprised to see what it includes!

Ghostbear1111:

Muhahaha! I made you catch the Solo game virus! Spread! My little buggies spread!

I had never heard of Lone Wolf until you mentioned it but after a little bit of research I discovered it was one of the most popular Solo Games back in the day! Makes me feel horrible for missing them.

The genre goes by a lot of different names but Gamebooks, Role-Play Adventure Books, and Solo Games were the most popular. Some folks get confused with Choose Your Own Adventure was born at the same time and is basically the same as the Solo Games but removed the gaming system.

Anyway, if you find those Lone Wolf Series on the Internet, please let me know where so I can get into them, thanks!

With that:

~In Dwarven voice~ "DEATH BE TO YOUR LITERARY FOES!!!"

I always used to love these.
I admit though, I used to cheat and check what happened in both choices to make sure I didn't die. xD

I'm pretty sure I remember doing this long ago but forgot the one I used to do a lot...what you said to loardbelial may be the ones I did back in the day. Sadly I don't remember much because I have a short term memory....

Vanelan :

I use to go back and do everything I didn't do in the first place to see what would happen. What is your favorite ones in particular?

Its been such a long time since I played/read one of these...
One that I can think of that I have read (not necessarily my favorite) was based on the NES game Blaster Master.

WandererExiled :   There are so many.  I read through a lot of the list and the ones that say Japanese, are they in the Japanese language?  There were a few that sounded pretty interesting, like Doom and Dragon Warriors.  I will look into those more for sure

I totally remember these. I would always end up cheating by finding the best result and then working backwards if I couldn't find the best answer by just playing.

I think the thing I disliked was that it could seem like you were doing great and then one wrong decision and you were dead. I guess that makes sense considering the environment you were usually in but it frustrated me at the time.

Vanelan :

I believe your talking about this book. I think I remember playing the game but not the book.

lordbelial669 :

Yes, back in the 80s and 90s Solo Books were very popular. Stuff like D&D and other electronic games were sometimes hard to get. So as an attempt to reach out to the crowd that didn't have Tabletops or consoles, book/gaming companies in other countries (especially Japan) began printing out Solo Game books. A few Animes have been made out of a few of them.

I hope you enjoy your finds and remember to come back and tells us your experience!

geeogree :

lol I use to do that with the Sherlock CyoAs. Find an outcome and then try my best to get to it.

WandererExiled : Yup! That's the one. It's buried somewhere in my "video game closet."
There might be the Ninja Gaiden one in there too...

I think I should get back into doing this just for the fun of it. I mean who wouldn't? XD

Eniitan :

"Who wouldn't"

That gave me an idea about this board. It wouldn't be easy and we'll need some dedicated writers, artist, some good mathematicians and Admin approval but we have all the tools we need here except dice which Random.Org could provide.

example format:

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As for stats, we could just use those seemingly useless User stats that are found on profiles:




Artist(s) could create a good map, writers could work up some good story paths together, and the math folks could create a simple combat system. In theory it could all be placed in a single thread by an NPC account. The hard part, other than probably finding volunteers, is time, creating a simple combat system that would scale to User Level, and getting Admin approval.

If we could get it done it would allow some fresh bloods a chance to experience the awesomeness of Solo Games without having to go buy one of the official ones first.