Gods Bless Engineers Part Deuce

So this guy, who never takes credit for his work that I can see, has this elegant website analyzing CYOA. I was spending more time on it and I discovered the header is a tiny menu. He has movies of readers finding all the endings of a CYOA that's, like, a work of geek art. But you have to click the tiny PLAY in the upper left. He also has a playable Zork!

I have existed for years hearing detailed adventures of Zork from my guy. It's the mother of all RPG's and he helps me understand it by saying it's a text-based Myst. Every single object in the world is listed. You can pick it up, break it, all these odd commands. I was never interested in Zork, but Myst had a lovely romance subtext and I was enthralled with that game for months. I'd forgotten all about it!

Gods Bless Engineers

I found this dude. He's taken analysis of CYOA to a whooooole new level.

I enjoyed his article even though there were parts I didn't get. But basically he's proven that the earlier stories had more choices and more endings. So my dreadful experience with the mutant ants wasn't a fluke. I need to get hold of one of the earlier titles!

His tree graphs of the choices look just like my first attempt at a non-spoiler numerical index. And he also confirmed my belief and practice of making happy endings rarer than mediocre/unhappy finishes. Interestingly, he is able to somehow calculate how common a choice was, and confirmed that the most likely of choices lead mostly to crappy endings, and the happiest endings are actually harder to find because they are uncommon choices. That is an aspect I never considered when I created my choices, because I wanted to make my choices (significantly fewer than in an old cyoa) ALL be reasonable.

Tagline

Series Tagline:

Take control and brave the fates, for true love is hard to find.

This catchphrase is trying to get at a couple of points.
1. Take control: The reader is going to be in charge
2. brave the fates: There's going to be "danger"
3. true love is hard to find: It ain't gonna be all happy, but romance is here. This also hints at my belief in the deserved rarity of a Fairy Tale Ending.

I'm not really sure if self-published books need taglines. But I've got mine ready.

Associates Part 2

I found more modern riff's on cyoa's. Some aren't romantic or sexual, but I thought it would be nice to feature them, not that I hold a candle to Demian, who I'll blog about later. For my first collection of some modern cyoa's go here and for part 3 go here.

This is a YA social adventure with a sequel as well. The series is called "Do-Over" which I think is perfect.

This series is called a Date With Destiny and obviously wants to be considered a cyoa with hilarious covers. This one is a romcom.

Here's one that might have some romance in it. It too has a sequel, and a NY pedigree that should guarantee some quality. The series is Miss Adventure. *cute*

This series calls itself Just Make A Choice, and heads into comedy territory. His endorsement quotes are from names in the entertainment industry.

What a horrible subtitle: An Adventure Where You Decide The Outcome. Seriously? Why don't you just subtitle it: On Page 12 You'll Get To Choose What the Main Character Does And The Story Will Change.

I suspect only FUBAR stories will come from a series called Choose Your Own Mindfuck.

Now here's a GENIUS series title: ChooseOMatic. The very positive reviews this landed on Amazon should be taken with a grain of salt. Zombie fans are rabid. (pun intended.)

There are 2 in this series, this one was ranked higher. I don't know how I feel about putting the series title so prominently. It's almost like the story doesn't matter, he's selling the experience. True, that's what will make it different, but the story should still be strong.

Now for something completely different. This promises a mashup of several Austen novels, but the reviews indicate mixed success. Points for the fanfic idea though! How about they make it a series and do Dickens next?

"Pick Any Path" gets the prize for most choice insanity. 3,856 story possibilities!!! This is both a graphic novel and a cyoa. It's being marketed to tweens and I think they missed the boat. It belongs to YA manga fans with the sophistication to handle both the design and content. Highly recommended!

Come Again Soon!

Congratulations to Tatiana Caldwwll. Contact me with your choice of my backlist titles and I'll be happy to email you a free story!

Now that my blog has a core of posts, I'm going to be posting once a week. Thanks for following my countdown to summer '11 when Take Control is born.