Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 8


Opting not to use the knockout-gas pen in CHOICE #9 opens up more of the talking chimpanzee plot.  The ape tells me to enter an underground garage where other chimps are loading boxes into vehicles that look like giant eggs.  There's an illustration for this part.  Anyone reading this thread who doesn't have the book is missing out on bizarre drawings.


My captor takes me through hallways lit by bulbs that make my skin "look purple", and goes through a few doors with his keycard.  In my new cell, I hear a man who sounds just like the voice on the phone from the beginning.  He says he and his assistant Jethro escaped the cell after the apes questioned them.  Jethro may be the corpse outside the House of Danger.  I got the call because Jethro's cellmate was desperate and tried a random number before the chimps captured him again.


Jethro's cellmate is none other than Marsden.  But he's not a 19th century ghost in the "solo run" timeline.  Instead, he's a professor who tried to create "superhumans" in his experiments using the apes.  As anyone could have figured out, he made "superchimps" instead.  The prison ruins are still relevant in this reality because the prisoners dug a tunnel that happens to lead from the cell to Professor Marsden's laboratory.  You'd think unnaturally intelligent chimps would check for any escape routes before throwing us in jail. . .


The apes became smarter due to Marsden's "super-energizing chamber that will give anyone advanced mental powers".  How he thought this would change a chimp's DNA and anatomy to that of a human is beyond me.


CHOICE #10 is whether to use the super-energizing chamber or not.  Marsden can't try it because his heart isn't healthy enough.  Even for a teenager like my character, "there's a risk of cardiac arrest, and permanent damage to your brain function".


Professor Marsden uses the "alpha force", and my character says "It's like every cell is jumping up and down!  Woo-hoo!"   Woo-hoo probably wouldn't be my real reaction to being experimented on by a mad scientist while magical talking chimps are banging on the door outside.    


My new powers include clairvoyant vision for miles through solid objects, telekinesis, and mind reading.  This isn't Heart of Ice, so I don't have to add the ESP and PARADOXING Skills to a character sheet or worry about finding a Psionic Focus.


CHOICE #11 is to use my new powers to try to stop the chimps, or go back through the tunnel and ask Professor Marsden about how they work.  Fortunately, I don't need alternate universe Marsden to tell me about my magic, because I already know that intuitively.  I can feel the apes' anger, and I create a force field to hold them back.  Those reading along will see an illustration of apes attacking the door labeled Laboratory with shoulder charges and pounding on it with their fists.


The chimpanzees are psychic too, for the record, but my powers are greater than theirs because "you have started out on a much higher level".  No more context is given.  Is it because I'm human?  It's certainly not because I have more practice.


My telekinesis catches a box when one of the chimps throws it at me, but this also means I can't maintain the force field anymore.  An ending ensues.


"You release the suspended box and refreeze the chimpanzees.  The howling behind you stops as suddenly as if a radio had been turned off.  The box comes crashing down on the concrete floor of the garage.  It breaks open, sending a cascade of money into the air.  You don't have to examine the money to know that it is counterfeit.  Your heightened senses tell you that.  You mind-scan the underground complex again.


This time you find the engraving equipment, the printing presses, and the trimming machines-everything needed to produce counterfeit money.  And you see huge stacks  of counterfeit bills.  There's currency from virtually every country in the world.


'The chimps developed these egg-shaped flying machines you see in the garage', says the professor.  'They planned to use them to fly all over the world, dropping money from the sky on many countries and destabilizing all the world's economies-the ultimate 'gorilla' warfare.  After this, they had planned to become the controlling power in the world.'


The struggle to escape your force field has destroyed all the chimps' special powers.  Now they're nothing more than ordinary chimpanzees.  But you will keep your heightened powers for some time.  The End".


If you thought the counterfeiter hideout featuring a geriatric hypnotist Elvis Presley for no reason in Once Upon an Island was odd, you haven't read House of Danger!  Expecting to fool the world's banking systems and governments by having talking chimpanzees drop money out of the sky from unidentified egg-shaped aircraft is outlandish even for a CYOA.  You can't accuse House of Danger of being boring.


Were the chimps responsible for the hyperinflation of the Zimbabwe dollar in this world?  The idea of temporary psychic powers is intriguing.  Does the protagonist keep his abilities for months?  Years?



Results So Far


5 Good Endings

2 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 9


Going back to our cell after I use the super-energizing chamber doesn't kill us.  Professor Marsden included a handy self-destruct feature for the controls of the super-energizing chamber, and makes a large explosion in the laboratory.  This eliminates several of the apes, but the others are probably combining their powers to make a force field in order to crush us.  Marsden tells me to imagine a disc spinning on my brain that generates mental energy.  Yes, it's represented as an illustration in the book.


When I break the chimps' force field, it sounds like "the filament of a light bulb. . .but much louder".  But the apes aren't the only peril in the House of Danger.  There's a "strong energy source" coming from somewhere else.  CHOICE #12 is to either search the house with my mind, or follow Marsden's plan of leaving as quickly as possible because using my powers would "take an awful lot of energy".


Don't listen to Professor Marsden.


"You turn your mental powers against the door of the cell.  You stand straight but not rigid, and focus your psychic energy on the locking mechanism.  You feel the energy flowing from you.  Harder now.  Concentrate!  Your mind traces the intricate locking sequence.  There!  It's open.


You and the professor start down the corridor toward the garage when ZAP!  The two of you are frozen in mid-step by a force far greater than the chimpanzees possess.  In their tinkering with the physical and psychic world, the chimpanzees have unleashed an evil force-a force powerful beyond human understanding.


As the force intensifies, you fight back with the vast power of your own mind.  The corridor begins to glow with a soft orange color.  Flashes of artificial lightning play along the walls.  Your energy begins to drain.  The violence of the conflict between you and this evil force is so great that it begins to destroy the fabric of space and time itself.  Slowly you and the professor fade until you disappear into another dimension of the universe.  The End".


This is a more catastrophic failure than most CYOA endings.  We may not technically die yet, but I'm ruling this as a Death because tearing apart "the fabric of space and time itself" must have dire consequences for everyone in this book.


Notice how this Lovecraft-inspired evil force doesn't exist until CHOICE #12.


Results So Far


5 Good Endings

3 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 10


Despite the professor's protests, a mind-search is the right way to proceed in CHOICE #12.  It works a bit like "astral projection" in other stories:  send your consciousness out of your body.  The source of the psychic energy comes from a lead vault in the center of the prison.  I'm not strong enough to look inside, so I put up a force field for safety's sake.  The entity inside the vault "almost seems to be pleading for mercy", so I release the force field.  This alien looks like a giant mass of crystals with a mouth and 2 eyes.  Although it speaks in a telepathic "code" that isn't English, I can understand it.


The crystal alien explains that the chimps "sent their mind-power across the galaxy and found our planet".  They're certainly much stronger in this branch than they were in that timeline where I turned them back into normal apes with a couple of force fields.  Anyway, the chimps tricked the crystal alien into coming to Earth as an emissary so they could steal its technology when they imprisoned it.  This explains how they got the egg-shaped aircraft.  CHOICE #13 is to accept its offer to visit its home planet, or remain on Earth for now.


Unlike what escaping in CHOICE #12 may lead you to believe, the crystal alien isn't evil in CHOICE #13.  Going to its world generates this ending with an illustration of two black silhouettes being dazzled by a flash:


"I will go to your planet', you say, 'as long as my friend, the professor, can go, too.'  'Very well', the alien emissary says.  Suddenly you see the professor standing next to you.  The strangest thing-your body is with him, though your mind is still across the room.  Within seconds, you've joined it again.


'Imagine', says the professor as the two of you take your first steps into the alien ship.  'Just imagine that we are the first. . .'  Before he can finish, everything goes blank.  When you come to, you and the professor are in the midst of a crystalline city where light has never looked so beautiful, and air has never smelled so clean.  You spend several years there, learning the secrets of their advanced technology, before you return to planet Earth.  The End".


How generous of the crystal alien!  It lets us come to its planet and study more advanced technology to give to the people of Earth.  If only the chimps had asked nicely. . .


Results So Far


6 Good Endings

3 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 11


Declining the crystal alien's offer in CHOICE #13 has no negative consequences.


"I would love to visit your world', you say, 'but I have too many things to finish on this one right now.'  'Very well', the alien emissary responds.  'I will leave this crystal pendant with you.  It is a hyperspace communicator.  When you are ready to visit us, you need only activate its core with your mind, and a spaceship will be sent to you.  Now, before I go, I must repay the 'hospitality' of the creatures that tricked me into coming here.'


You hear a chorus of anguished animal cries throughout the house.  Then silence.  Your mind-scan tells you that the chimpanzees have been thrown into a hyperspace prison.  There they will float in a nameless void until they have served out their sentence.


The spaceship vanishes.  When you return to your body, you find the crystal pendant hanging around your neck.  The prison itself has vanished, along with the house that stood over it, and you and the professor find yourselves standing in the center of a broad, empty lawn.  The End".


One of the few endings where the House of Danger itself is destroyed.  Even if I don't go to the emissary's planet right away, I can do so at any time by using the pendant. 


How does "hyperspace" law work, I wonder?  Are there mitigating circumstances for being chimpanzees unwillingly enhanced by a mad scientist's super-energizing chamber?  What happens if they are turned back into normal apes if the powers disappear like they do in another timeline?  Can they use a temporary insanity defense?


Results So Far


7 Good Endings

3 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 12


To get through CHOICE #10 alive, you must use the super-energizing chamber in spite of the risks.  Professor Marsden gives lousy advice regarding possible Deaths.


"You decide that you should get to know the professor a little better before you trust him with your brain.  'Okay, so you don't want superhuman powers', he says.  'Do you have any better ideas for getting us out of here?'  'Is there any way out of the laboratory besides the main door over there?'  'Come to think of it, there's a side door over here that isn't used much.  It leads to a narrow corridor that goes directly to the garage.'  'Let's get out of here, then', you say.  'Follow me.'


You and the professor run down the corridor toward the garage when suddenly several doors opening off the corridor open, and a small army of chimpanzees swarm out of them, all carrying laser guns.  You are surrounded.  'Wait, stop!' you shout, but the chimps fire.  You and the professor are instantly vaporized.  The End".


The illustration for being zapped by ray guns looks very similar to being sent to another planet by a crystal alien's psychic powers.  Two silhouettes surrounded by a flash.


Results So Far


7 Good Endings

4 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 13


Let's help the man who may or may not be Jethro in CHOICE #8.  Waving around my penknife scares makes the chimps retreat toward the prison ruins.  They "vanish", which in this book may be literal.



I take a paper from the man's hand, and the chimps' victim expires after gasping one last time.  "This man has been frightened to death!"  One chimp barely misses me with a dart from a "long bamboo blowpipe".  No ray guns in the new timeline?


CHOICE #14 is whether to sneak to the house from a different direction, or report these strange events to the police.  I call Sergeant Morrison with the "radio-telephone" in my car, instead of the tacked-on cell phone added for a couple of pages in the reprint version.  The cops already heard about the chimps from neighbors' reports, but dismissed them as coming from overactive imaginations.  Morrison orders me to wait for the squad car to show up.  "Like all detectives, you know that it's almost impossible to catch criminals in the act after the cops have arrived".


CHOICE #15 is whether to obey Morrison's order, or "can't resist the temptation to go back for another look".  It's not often I see chimps with blowpipes, so I succumb to temptation.  I leave a note for Morrison on my car's dashboard and walk into the woods near the House of Danger.  Eventually, I reach a gate in the fence, but I'm interrupted by a man with a scar on his forehead.  He's wearing an "old-fashioned prison uniform" and wielding a "laser pistol".  He points a gun at me, and "even your karate training will not help you here".  Wait a minute.  I have karate training, and it's not even one of the CYOA entries dedicated to martial arts?


My captor takes me through an automatic door at the back of the house, and through a corridor with "thick green carpeting".  He tells the speaker outside a steel door that he's Security Agent 31X "reporting with intruder".


The people in this room "are well-dressed and all seem to be about fifty to sixty years old".  I explain to them that I came to investigate a phone call from this address.  A "white-haired man in a dark blue pinstripe suit" tells me the call came from someone from a political prisoner in an unnamed foreign country.  He was once a scientist and a political activist, but was recently "in a bad mental state".  The people here attempted to care for him, but he was apparently too far gone to save.  The explanation for the House of Danger in this ending may not be as strange as psychic counterfeiter chimps trying to take over the world, but it's still odd.


"We are the International Planning Group, a private organization made up of representatives from different parts of the world.  We are dedicated to energy conservation and the peaceful development of natural resources everywhere.'  'But why hide out here in this little town?' you ask.


'This is only one of our meeting groups.  We have many other places such as this, as well as various research facilities throughout the world.  In this location we use the name Marsden as cover.  Our security agents in prison dress, and their trained chimpanzees, scare off most intruders.  We would be honored if you would join our organization.  We try to recruit the best minds in each of our operational areas, and we need younger minds with fresh viewpoints'.


All the faces in the room are looking at you and smiling.  'You don't have to make up your mind right now', says the man.  'Take your time, and contact us when you have made a decision.  Any young friends of yours that you could recommend will also be welcome in our organization.'  As you walk back to your car to meet Sergeant Morrison, you still don't know what to believe, but you have a lot to think about.  The End".


The illustration shows an ethnically diverse group of people wearing suits sitting at an oval table, except for the white-haired man who's standing. 


Marsden in this timeline is just a codename, instead of a mad scientist or a 19th century prison warden.  The International Planning Group sounds like a front for the Illuminati or whatever conspiracy theory you prefer.  If they're really as benevolent as they claim, why do they train chimps to attack people with blowpipe darts, and have guards disguised in prison uniforms wielding ray guns?  How many "intruders" are people who "know too much" about their real plans?  Wouldn't a philanthropic organization work openly to provide good publicity for its members and cause?


The ending never confirms whether you join the International Planning Group, so this is Inconclusive according to the categories in this thread.



Results So Far


7 Good Endings

4 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings

   

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 14


In our next timeline, the player character will be boring and wait for the police in CHOICE #15 instead of meeting the Illuminati dressed in prison uniforms.


I contact my dead-weight companions Ricardo and Lisa and discuss the situation in my car.  Lisa thinks Marsden is a "ghost in human form".  Ricardo dismisses this, saying "Ghosts don't take solid, human form.  Sure, you can see a ghost's image, but they don't have real bodies.  I don't think so, anyway".


The protagonists response to this nonsensical conversation is "We still don't know whether Henry Marsden is a ghost or a real person".  If ghost exist, are they not real people, even if they no longer have a physical body?  Then again, I'm a "vampire hunter", not a "psychic investigator" like our hero.  (If you believe Gustaran.)


CHOICE #16 is to continue waiting to be aggressively boring, or enter the House of Danger with Ricardo and Lisa after rejecting them in CHOICE #1.


While waiting in the car, Ricardo says he noticed a restaurant close to here.  After 15 minutes, he comes back on his bicycle with cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes.  "Might as well make a picnic dinner of it while we keep an eye on things".


Since it's summer and the heat is oppressive, I get out of the car and eat while sitting next to a tree.  RA Montgomery is not the kind of DM who tolerates players ignoring his House of Danger quest, so he makes the milkshake put my character to sleep.


I wake up in a prison cell with my limbs bound.  Ricardo and Lisa are nowhere to be found, but according to the illustration my cellmate is a tall gaunt man.  The stone cell smells like "rotting flowers".  I use a ring with a concealed blade (?) to get out of the ropes.  The prisoner doesn't talk, or even seem to notice me.  The chains around his feet are rusty, so I may be able to remove them.  CHOICE #17 asks the player to either help the taciturn prisoner, or leave him behind and look for Ricardo and Lisa instead.


This must be one of the dreaded Morality Tests in the style of La Isla de los Dodos, because the consequences for abandoning the prisoner lead to a 3 sentence ending.  Not even an illustration for your failure, or descriptions of how gruesome your Death will be.


"A door to your right flies open, throwing a brilliant shaft of light into the corridor.  Suddenly you are surrounded by a circle of snarling chimpanzees.  They begin to close in.  The End".



Results So Far


7 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 15


In CHOICE #17, I can free my cellmate with my penknife.  He panics and thinks I'm going to hurt him, until I explain how I traced a call from Marsden.  He introduces himself as Henry Marsden and says he's relieved I'm here.  He read about me in a newspaper and thought I could help.  Marsden's great-grandfather was the 1880s warden.  The current Henry Marsden is a recluse whose home was invaded by a counterfeiter gang.  CHOICE #18 is to find out more about the prison ruins, or leave immediately with Henry Marsden.


Henry Marsden says he can't move quickly and wants to stay behind while I look for help.  But I tell him the counterfeiters may kill him if I leave him alone.  The prison door is unlocked, because these must not be the "psychic chimps with alien technology" sort of counterfeiters.  Unfortunately, I can't move it far.  Then Henry Marsden makes it fly off its hinges with a push.  The ending is mundane by House of Danger standards, but things turn out well for our hero.


"The door leads to a hallway filled with dazzling white light.  You enter the hallway with the old man following you.  You turn to look at him for a second.  He seems to be getting younger by the minute.  His hair is now dark.  He looks a lot like your father.  Wait!  It is your father.  He is saying 'Wake up. . .wake up. . .'


You're still up in the woods outside the house.  Ricardo and Lisa are there too.  And so is Sergeant Morrison.  'I wasn't captured?' you ask.  'Wasn't the milkshake drugged?'  'I think you were just feeling the effects of the warm weather', says your father.


'It was probably best you were asleep', adds Sergeant Morrison.  'We raided the house and arrested the whole gang.  Even recovered a dead body as they were trying to bury it in the basement.  Your father came right over when I called him a short time ago.  He was worried about you.'


'Don't feel bad about not being in on the action at the end', says your father.  'You did your part and the police did theirs.  That's the way it should be.  We are still mighty proud of you.  The End".


In the solipsistic world of House of Danger, escaping with the old man means it's just a dream, while trying to escape by yourself means chimps tear you limb from limb.  Whatever else I may say about No Me Llames Tami or La Isla de los Dodos, I can't say they aren't faithful to the series they're imitating.  (At least the RA Montgomery installments, anyway.)


Results So Far


8 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 16


The other CHOICE #18 path where I explore the prison ruins instead of leaving immediately is NOT a dream.  After I hear shouts and gunshots, this happens:


"Thank goodness you're there', someone says.  It is the voice of Sergeant Morrison.  He shouts back behind him,  'Lisa, Ricardo, come quick!  I've found our missing detective.'  Ricardo and Lisa come running toward you.  You greet each other happily.  Ricardo and Lisa, you find out, had been tied up in another part of the underground complex.  The police had found them first when they raided the place and arrested the gang.


'You deserve a lot of credit', says Sergeant Morrison, 'for alerting us to this place.  We have the gang on charges of counterfeiting, homicide-we found the body of that man you told us about down here-kidnapping, and keeping chimpanzees within the city limits without a license.'  The End".


Not as funny as some of the other endings in this book.




Results So Far


9 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  House of Danger Alternate Endings Part 17


Sneaking to the House of Danger in CHOICE #14 automatically leads to an ending without any more decisions, so I'll post it now.  I drive a mile away and look at my watch/2-way radio.  It's been about 2 hours since the Marsden phone call at the beginning.  Looking more closely at the paper obtained from the corpse reveals "tiny flecks of red and blue" resembling those on U.S. dollars.  I come to the conclusion that the dead man either was a counterfeiter or was fleeing from them.  


"Could there be a counterfeiting animal trainer?  No.  That makes about as much sense as a yodeling astronaut".  A book involving chimpanzees granted psychic powers by a mad scientist attempting to take over the world by dumping various currencies from egg-shaped aircraft based on technology stolen from crystalline aliens has no right to say what doesn't make sense. 


A black limousine approaches the House of Danger carrying two "tough-looking men" wearing suits.  The chimps ignore them, and vanish once they enter the building.  The chimps are "filmed and projected holograms" in this timeline.  RefSteel must be laughing at me right now as I'm reading this.  The men leave carrying packages, and I call the police to end this caper.  The corpse must have been someone who learned too much about the counterfeiting operation.


Our hero must be a speedrunner psychic detective, since the narration brags about him solving the case in 4 hours and 41 minutes.


"The next day the lead story in the Nothwin Times is:


On a tip from a well-known local detective, whose suspicions were aroused by strange occurrences around the Hedge Brook Prison ruins, police raided a nearby house yesterday, exposing a counterfeiting operation.  Seized were a number of bogus printing plates and a large quantity of counterfeit money.  Three men were arrested and charged with homicide as well as counterfeiting after the body of another, as yet unidentified, man was found in the basement of the house.  The End".


Could Henry Marsden as an old recluse exist in this timeline too?  The illustration for this conclusion is of the prison ruins.


Results So Far


10 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings