Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Part 1


Time for another episode of Spanish Schlock!  22 Minutos:  Tibicenas is a gimmick CYOA by Álvaro Loman where each CHOICE is meant to represent a minute in the story.  Since each section will likely be shorter, there may be fewer direct quotes than the other playthroughs in this thread.


Our story starts on September 20, 2017 on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.  Appropriate, since "tibicenas" are a kind of demonic dog in Canary Islands folklore.


I drive as fast as possible through mountain highways "that I know like the palm of my hand".  I apparently stayed late at work (has salido tarde del trabajo), and have to go home, eat, and return for the afternoon shift.  Is this part meant to represent a Spanish siesta?  Seems so, since "You put the pedal to the metal to gain those precious seconds so you can rest before returning".


These plans are interrupted when someone runs in my direction, shaking her arms.  It's a young woman with torn clothes and wounds on her face and arms.  She makes a gesture, as if she wants me to stop.


CHOICE #1 at 13:31 is to "brake and analyze the situation from far away", "continue, avoiding problems", or "approach as quickly as possible to ask questions".


There wouldn't be much of a story if I didn't talk to her, right?


So I park as close as possible to the woman and open my car door.  She jumps inside and shouts "Get moving!"  (¡Arranca!)  I look at the forest around the highway.  I don't know what's there, but something's moving in the undergrowth (maleza).  The woman swears at me before asking "What are you waiting for?"


CHOICE #2 at 13:32 asks me to either ask the woman to explain her situation before leaving, or accelerate the car without asking questions.  Given that there's probably something weird in the forest, I'll accelerate.


I accelerate just in time to see an "immense black creature" striking the side of the car.  The whole vehicle begins to sway, and I fight to maintain control.  A wolf as large as a person is following us.


This wolf has an "completely unnatural black color".  It shines in the light, like car paint instead of animal fur.  Instead of eyes, it has 2 orange flames.  The wolf catches up to me, and one of its paws breaks the glass on the passenger's side (copiloto).


CHOICE #3 at 13:33 is to either swerve (dar bandazos) or brake in hopes the wolf will be thrown off, or continue to accelerate.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Part 2


All of CHOICE #3's options sound dangerous in their own way, making it a good CHOICE for a CYOA.


Swerving could run me off the road, braking might give more time for the wolf to attack, and accelerating could make me crash into another car.  As for my decision, let's try the Speed Racer way.


The wolf is still holding onto the roof of the car.  I speed up, but it's not enough.  The wolf doesn't fall off.  Its claws nail the roof and begin to penetrate into the vehicle.  The woman shouts "Don't fall off!' and "Do something!"


But I don't know what to do.  We've just reached a curve, and I can't stop without losing control of the car.  The woman opens the window and begins to hit the wolf.  I hear the wolf growling, and the sounds of fighting.  Its claws are beginning to move away from me and towards the woman.


CHOICE #4 at 13:34 asks me to either help the woman fight the wolf, or concentrate on driving.  The text mentioned the curve coming up, and there's probably no chance I could fight a supernatural wolf that can pierce metal with my bare hands.


The woman is doing surprisingly well in the fight, even after being bitten.  Blood begins to flow on the windshield (luna delantera).  I hear a howl, and then a jet of blood "as if a glass had been tipped over", falls on the glass.


The woman places her whole body inside the car.  She's now missing an arm.  This amputation is semi-cauterized by the flames in the wolf's mouth, but she has still lost a lot of blood.  She begs me to continue driving.


There's another wolf just behind the curve.  I avoid it and continue driving.  The wolf on the roof jumps off while chewing on the woman's arm.


CHOICE #5 at 13:35 is to either attempt to cauterize the arm wound, or keep driving.  I have no idea if my character has medical training, and besides, it's more important to get away from these wolves.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Part 3


I speed up until I no longer see the wolves, and make the turns as fast as possible.  But I know this road well.  It's a zigzag mountain path.


I "swallow saliva" and look at the woman.  She's "murmuring things in her dreams", embracing a bundle that's hanging like a "type of doula". 


I take the woman's pulse without stopping.  So far, it seems she's still alive.  Unfortunately, the road's on fire!  For CHOICE #6 at 13:36, do I accelerate and try to cross the fire, or brake and make a tourniquet?


Well, I don't want to stick around for the fire or the wolves, so I'll keep going.


"You arm yourself with valor", and I accelerate through the fire.  Remember that phrase from the dodo book?


The wind blows the flames from one side of the highway to the other, and I can't see well about half a meter from the car.  "But you are confident in your skill with the steering wheel".


I look at the woman to explain what I'm going to do:  take her to a hospital and lead her there.  But then, there's a "knot in my throat".  She has her eyes open, but they're dead, and she probably is too.


No decision here.  Just go directly to 13:38.  It seems to be a forest fire, and I don't see any wolves.  My eyes are starting to hurt, and the steering wheel is very hot.  It's likely the engine will fail at any moment.  But I continue driving.


CHOICE #7 at 13:38 is to either slow down and try to have "something of a margin to react", or accelerate, hoping that the fire goes away.  The hints in the text suggest speeding up is a bad idea, so I'll slow down.


This may have been the right decision.  I can see a tree falling onto the road, blocking it completely. 


"You can't keep going.  You're in a prison of fire ruled by wolves".


CHOICE #8 at 13:39 is to either try to escape on foot, or stay in the car and turn around.  The threat of wolves makes me want to stay in the car.


Handling the car is difficult.  The road is narrow and the heat is getting closer.  One wolf hits the car in the middle of a turn and makes it sway.  It growls, but is soon unable to follow me.  Even in the other direction, the fire is still there.  "The blaze (llamarada) begins to lick the side of the vehicle".


CHOICE #9 at 13:40 asks me to either drive through the fire, or get out of the car and flee on foot.


I guess my time in the car is finally up.  Time to take my chances by running.


"The car is devoured by flames at the exact moment you leave".  I jump on the rail of the highway (barandilla), and continue running and jumping.


Our CHOICE #10 is at 13:42, and asks if I want to "continue running, ignoring all those feelings", or "If, even knowing that it's no use, you try to put out the fire".

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Part 4


As if I'm going to try to put out a fire started by magical wolves!


Now that I'm out of the fire, I sit down.  My whole body hurts, and it's clear I need "a cold shower, that lasts at least half an hour".


But soon I hear "a howl that freezes your blood".  It's coming from far away, and there are about a dozen of these "black creatures" walking in single file, returning to the forest which seems to no longer be on fire.


"It's very strange to see them walking like that, like children going back to class after recess".


CHOICE #11 at 13:43 is to either "ignore the wolves and continue your path far from the fire", or "you enable your curiosity and decide to follow the wolves".


If the wolves hadn't try to kill me for the past few minutes, this wouldn't be such an obvious trap!


"Now you have nothing left.  You've seen a woman die, you've lost the car, you have serious wounds, and you don't think you can salvage this day".


"Ten minutes ago, you couldn't have believed what happened.  You consider it a victory and continue walking".


Something is shaking the ground, which makes me stop.  It seems to be a minor earthquake, but the vibrations are lasting too long.  "The wolves' howls are intensifying far away, as if they celebrated the earthquake".


A tree to the right falls and buries my knee in the ground.  As soon as the tremors started, the stop just as quickly.  "An ominous silence comes over the place".


CHOICE #12 at 13:45 says "If nothing matters to you more than fleeing", with the alternative being to examine my surroundings to find out what the tremors' source is.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Part 5


I continue walking, ignoring another booming sound greater than the first. 


I'm near a town, and it almost seems the nightmare is over.  My cell phone is vibrating, which startles me.  I had forgotten about it.  Many messages on whatever social networks I joined start to appear.


CHOICE #13 at 13:46 is to either warn the firefighters about the forest fire, or "you prefer to watch your surroundings, looking for enemies that are stalking you".


This is such a blatant hint that I'll pick the latter.  Besides, this was a magical wolf fire, not an ordinary wildfire.


"You look around, and the cell phone falls out of your hands.  The whole world falls at your feet, really."


"An immense demon with jet-black (azabache) fur, shining like marble (mármol), is on foot among the trees".


Smoke comes out of its mouth, and its "chilling horns seem to scrape the sky".


"You don't know where it came from, but you know that any atom of hope just disintegrated before your eyes.  You flee".

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Part 6


I run, and lose both my shoes.  A branch also hits me.  "It doesn't matter.  You can forget your shoe and also leave your pride to the side".


The instructions at 13:48 tell me to "Leave your pride and click here".


At 13:49, my character bursts into tears, but thinks about what would happen if someone saw them like this.  Another branch hits me on the foot, and I don't care.  The next set of directions tells me to "Leave your dignity and click here".


I pass by some hikers? (excursionista), but they don't see me.  They're looking at the fire and taking photos.


I'm grateful that they won't see me, because the wolves will eat them instead.  Now, it's night at 13:50, probably because of wolf witchcraft.


"Think only about yourself and click here".


I run into the darkness.  It hit something, but it doesn't matter, much like everything else.  ("te da igual" is the phrase translated as "it doesn't matter".  It appears often in books from Spain.)


I see Cruz de Tejada at the bottom, which has a road leading to it.  Some lights are beginning to turn on in the small town.  I hit another tree and pick myself up.  While I'm walking, I'm laughing at the situation.


My feet and hands are bleeding, and I can't stop laughing until I'm crying. 


"Save what remains of your body and click here".

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas CANONICAL ENDING


"You fall on your knees.  You aren't capable of taking another step.  You crash onto the ground and think.  You cry and laugh at the same time, but crying begins to take over.


You feel exhaustion with your whole being.  Parts of your body begin to hurt that you didn't know you had hit, and you begin to see flashes of what happened.  You cry harder and shout.  You shout at the top of your lungs, but you don't know what you're doing.


You begin to suspect you've lost your mind.  That something clicked in your brain, and you haven't been able to pull yourself together (sobreponerse).  You're alive, but you don't know the price you've paid."



ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:  ENDING #1:  "Lose everything except your life".


So I survive the adventure, but lose my sanity in the process.  The woman dies too.  Perhaps I could learn her name on another route.  I consider this a Bad Non-Death Ending.


The intensity of the split-second decisions in this book probably isn't conveyed all that well in my posts, but this is actually a good CYOA so far!



Results So Far


0 Good Endings

0 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Ending

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Alternate Endings Part 1


Let's rewind to CHOICE #13 at 13:36 and call the firefighters.


I make the call, still running.  My feet hurt.  My character wants to cry and tell everything about what happened, but I know the firefighters won't believe me.  I only tell them that there's a "terrible fire" and hang up.


ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:  CALL THE FIREFIGHTERS


CHOICE #14 at 13:47 is to either continue running, or "examine the situation around you".  Doing the former leads to the CANONICAL BAD ENDING, just with another ACHIEVEMENT.


Taking the 2nd option makes me see "a black hand the size of a house".  But it's also far enough away that my character doesn't seem to be in danger.  The hand is "grabbing the sun".  Not only does it grab the sun it also pulls it out of the sky as if it were a light bulb.


CHOICE #15 at 13:48 is to "flee, leaving any trace of pride", or "if you prefer to do something useful and fight against the fire around you, ignoring what you just saw".  The former leads to, you guessed it, the CANONICAL BAD ENDING.



Our 2nd option leads us to 13:49.  "Giant wolves and demons that grab stars in the sky are too much for you, but a fire is something you can manage".


I grab a palm leaf and begin to "strike the fire".  "You don't know if you're going to achieve anything, but at least you feel useful".


CHOICE #16 allows me to either continue fighting the fire with the palm leaf, or try to think of a better strategy.  Let's wave at the fire with leaves like an idiot!


"The fire begins to suffocate you.  You put out a bush? (matorral).  You smile.  You hit another bush.  You put it out too.  You pass by a tree, smothering the small fires on it with your feet.  You begin to fight against the fires for a good while, and you see that the small branches are losing their flames.  You're winning.  You're winning!


Then you notice fire on your back.  You don't realize that there were more flames behind you."


Go to page DEATH #3.


"First you feel pain.  A lot of pain.  The flames grow larger on your skin, and you're begging to die.  So the suffering can stop.  Unfortunately, it's not going to be that fast.


You scream, and it's the worst thing you can do.  The fire burns your larynx, and you believe blisters are bursting.  Your lungs are filled with blood.  That's not the worst.  The worst is that the flames reach your lungs and you feel your chest being consumed.  How your lungs are collapsing like paper.


The agony continues for seconds.  But it feels like years.  You don't see a white light, nor feel any kind of peace.  You don't see anything because your eyeballs (glóbulos oculares) had been consumed.  You have empty eye sockets (cuenca), and your face melts to cover them."


ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:  DEATH #3.


More gruesome than the usual CYOA Deaths, no?



Results So Far


0 Good Endings

1 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Ending

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Alternate Endings Part 2


Let's think of a better way to fight the fire in CHOICE #16.


I see that both sides of the highway are covered in flames, but there's some hope if I climb a tree.  If I manage to break off the burning branches on the side that's less dangerous, perhaps it could work.


CHOICE #17 at 13:50 asks me if I want to put out that fire to keep the flames from spreading, or "drag the branch to avoid making the flames jump".


The first option leads to DEATH #3, the same as in the first Alternate Ending post, when one of the branches falls on me.


Taking the latter route lets me put out some of the fires with the heavy branch.  The flaming branch that would have conked me in the other CHOICE #17 option falls harmlessly to the ground in this timeline.


The only fires left on my side are small, and perhaps they'll go out on their own. 


Our ending reads like this:


"You sit down on the highway, incapable of looking back, or looking at that demon.  You only observe how the fire doesn't advance in that square meter.  You know it's false hope.  Just beyond the flames already reach both sides of the highway.  The fire won't stop just because you took action.


But you decide to look at your work.  You decide to center yourself on the small square meter without fire.  You think about the seconds you've won and about the problems that, in the long term (a largo plazo), you've managed to solve. 


It's very dark.  You haven't become aware of (percatarse) this due to the light of the flames, but you focus on how the sun isn't shining its light.  It's much darker than it should be.


It doesn't matter.  You continue looking at your small accomplishment.  Your square meter.  Your small gap (mella) in the immense wildfire."


ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:  ENDING #2:  "Small actions".


This is a weird Inconclusive Ending.  My character puts out fires within a square meter and then sits back and stares at the minor firefighting accomplishment.  This isn't a Death because those are explicitly labeled as such.


Results So Far


0 Good Endings

1 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Ending

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

22 Minutos:  Tibicenas Alternate Endings Dead Ends


Trying to examine the tremors in CHOICE #12 leads me to an alternate 13:46.  It's apparently obvious where the noises are coming from, because the trees are falling and there's much more fire in one zone.  "You see it and you feel that any trace of hope has disappeared from your body".


A black demon that's 3 times as tall as the trees is rising.  It has black horns, and its roar gives me goosebumbs (te pone la carne de gallina).  It's 10 times worse than the earlier sound, according to the narration.  It spews a Fire Blast from its mouth.  ("Llamarada" is the Spanish name for Fire Blast in Pokemon, so I had to use that bad joke somewhere!)


The demon's slowly standing up, and produces "a terror that has no logic, like a shadow in your bedroom when you were 6".


CHOICE #18 at 13:46 is to either flee from the demon, or approach it. 


ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:  "Discover the nature of the second crash (estruendo)".


Trying to flee leads me to 13:47, and redirects me to ENDING #1.  We do get some new narration, though.


"If at some moment you could have done something, that moment has passed.  The demon seems triumphant.  It smiles, and the smoke that leaves from its mouth seems like its taste of victory".


This time, I'll go closer to the monster.  In this alternate 13:47, "the heat is unbearable.  The wind rises, and the flashes of air burn your eyes and skin."  This redirects me to CHOICE #15.


Evidently, once you reach the first 13:45, it's too late to do anything other than lose your sanity or be an ineffectual firefighter.