Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

I don't know if there are any other threads like this on The Gaming Table, and if so, they must be dead.


Chances are, many of you will be familiar with gamebooks like the Choose Your Own Adventure series.  The series with that title isn't available on the Kindle Store for some odd reason, although there should be no formatting issues since hyperlinks work in ebooks.


A few days ago, I tried out Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn, mostly because there was the promise of a dolphin drill sergeant that appears if you mess up badly enough.  To entertain myself as well as Goodreads and Realms Beyond users, I made sure to pick as many bad choices as possible.  Unlike many gamebooks, this one doesn't have deaths.  If you fail, you're instead sent back to some earlier point when you use your time machine.


Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn Part 1


There are 4 rules of time travel according to this series:


1.  "You must not kill any person or animal".  When I read this, I wondered what would happen if my character accidentally crushed a bug with his shoe.


2.  Changing history is forbidden, as is leaving items from the future in the past.


3.  "You must not take anybody when you jump in time.  Avoid disappearing in a way that scares people or makes them suspicious".  So no kidnapping historical figures Bill and Ted style, or pretending to be a wizard in front of a crowd while escaping.


4.  "You must follow instructions given to you by the Time Machine.  You must choose from the options given to you by the Time Machine".  This is the basic "Don't read this book like a novel" warning.



The mission here is to investigate alien signals coming from the vicinity of Saturn.  Since the next signals will be broadcast in 2085, player characters have to go to the future.  And what a dated future it is!  Here are a few highlights from the timeline:


2000-Luna City is founded on the Moon, fulfilling the obligatory retro sci-fi requirement of a moonbase.


2010-The Curtis van Cott Company creates a "solar energy grid. . .ushering in a new life of cheap, plentiful energy on Earth".  This is puzzling when you see they're still using fossil fuels later in the book.


2015-Global unemployment reaches 60%.  People move to Mars and other space colonies to avoid economic troubles on Earth.


2020-The first cyborg is made.


2023-2034-Wars and "nuclear accidents" occur everywhere on Earth.  Why are there still so many nuclear power plants when solar power has been established in 2010? 


2035-The UN takes over Earth and establishes democracy.


2045-Mars and other space colonies declare independence.


2047-Cyborgs are now elected politicians, and all the environmental problems from earlier has created an underclass of mutants.


2067-"The Federal Mutation Reserve is opened up in a contaminated district in the eastern United States".  Cyborgs reject the offer of their own reservation.


One hint says that "Many cultures attempt to preserve their identities by speaking and reading only their native language".  This never comes up at any point.  Player characters never have to worry about not knowing how to speak Guaraní or anything like that.  But this is just flavor text for the real hint, which is that many signs are simple symbols.  For example, mutants from the reservation wear a badge that looks like a drawing of an atom.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn Part 2


My character's outfit was fairly simple, to avoid suspicion.  The illustrations showed a T-shirt with buttons, socks, sneakers, and a kind of long pants.  But the protagonist was also a dope who thought the best place to arrive in the future was the contaminated mutant reservation. 


I automatically helped two characters named Paul Linebarger and James MacCreigh fight off an "outcast", a monster with "intelligence. . . barely higher than a slug's".  It looked like a cross between a frilled lizard and a giant snake.  Paul Linebarger was most likely based on the science fiction author Cordwainer Smith's real name.  He was a telepath who gave out cryptic hints such as "I can only help you take the first step".  James MacCreigh offered to "work up a little capital" so we could go "on a mining expedition to Saturn".


Paul was a telepath from the reservation who wore a "bracelet engraved with a rocket ship".  MacCreigh, on the other hand, was going to look for his cowboy hat.


This made for CHOICE #1.  Go with Paul, or go with MacCreigh?  I picked the latter to start off with because the cowboy hat promised something interesting would happen.


MacCreigh was of course the wrong option.  He took me to the "Fiftieth Annual Electronic Bluegrass Festival in Bristol, Tennessee".  His idea of "working up capital" was gambling on an electronic pinball machine.  Then a monster made of "pure electricity" called a "mindwarp" came out of the machine and started attacking.  My character saved everyone by throwing a radio antenna at the mindwarp, thinking it would ground the monster. 


MacCreigh confessed he never went to space, and the book rubbed it in by saying "It's your own fault you didn't go with Paul".  Medical robots hauled off Paul.


CHOICE #2 asked if I wanted to go back to meet Paul, which would have the same result as if I picked him in CHOICE #1.  But I picked the cigar-smoking cyborg with a mohawk named Hugi.  (The mohawk isn't mentioned or shown until AFTER you make that decision.)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn Part 3


Hugi from CHOICE #2 turned out to be a terrorist working for Cyborgs Overrunning the World.  Instead of taking me to Washington DC, he had plans to make me into a cyborg.  Hugi pointed out that not many cyborgs were actually a part of this organization, but "the rest will be consigned to the scrap heap on the day of victory".  Hugi fell asleep at the wheel, and it was implied that some faulty cyborg parts made him do that.  The book forced my character to jump back in time to 2082.  A lake occupied the spot where the freeway would be 3 years late. 

A "long tentacle, like that of an octopus, only much larger" appeared, but I jumped out in time and was railroaded back to going with Paul Linebarger.


The other mutants were as friendly as Paul, and sent me to Washington DC.  The Washington Monument was now a black obelisk, and various pro and anti-cyborg protestors were holding picket signs.  Among them were JUDGE US BY OUR HUMANITY-NOT BY OUR BODIES, and FULL HUMAN RIGHTS.


My character saved a cyborg from some human bullies, but police on "jet-propelled roller skates" threatened to arrest everyone.  I jumped into a moving train Divergent-style.  CHOICE #3 happened when the train turned out to be a military vehicle, and I was about to be imprisoned for stowing away.  Social Security numbers were now more than 15 digits long in the future according to the security robot who shouted in ALL CAPS. 


The first option was to "trust the police", and the second was to wake up the man who was sleeping in the area.  Picking the former promised more interesting results.  The sleeping man turned out to be Colonel Anson MacDonald, as I found out in a "holographic newspaper".  To find his contact information, I looked in a "computerized phone-book console".  This book seems odd even for 1985.  During this time period in science fiction, early cyberpunk books were being released.  At least my character hadn't used a slide rule like Robert Heinlein's characters!


Going to Colonel MacDonald's address late at night was a bad decision.  A cyborg German Shepherd pounced on my character, complete with an illustration.  Before it could maul me to death, Colonel MacDonald ordered the dog to stop attacking.  He then sent me to the Space Academy.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn Part 4


Space Academy's idea of a lunch was "reconstituted freeze-dried pizza burgers".  Sergeant Harold Padgett ordered me to jump into a "vast, bone-dry swimming pool", and called me a "tyro".  Is "tyro" used in some other region of the U.S., or has it fallen out of use since 1985?  I don't think I've heard it before.


CHOICE #4 asked me to either jump into the pool, or refuse.  I picked the latter to see what would happen.  This made all the recruits laugh at me, and sent me to "detention undersea training". 


Then this happened:  "Boldly swimming in the middle of your flash beam is a giant dolphin with a UN emblem tatooed [sic] on either side of its face.  At least you think it's a dolphin.  The dolphins of your day don't have sharp rows of four-inch teeth like this one.  You bring up your speargun, ready to fire.  Either the dolphin is intelligent and a friend of man, or it's a savage mutated beast of the future".


CHOICE #5's correct answer was obvious.  Any dolphin wearing government insignia was obviously going to be my commanding officer.  So I had my character fire the speargun instead!  Drill Sergeant Flipper reprimanded me telepathically, and I got thrown in the brig for attacking an officer.  This lead me back to the page where I got thrown in jail after picking the "trust the police" option in CHOICE #3.


Taking the correct route through CHOICE #5 resulted in some telepathic dialogue from the dolphin, whose name turned out to be Greatheart.  You can bet my character still sang the Flipper theme song behind his back!  His first mission required me to inspect the bolts on deep-sea oil rigs.  (Remember what I said earlier about the odd reliance on fossil fuels when the timeline mentioned a global solar power grid?) 


After inspecting thousands of bolts, a strange whale appeared.  Then an underwater earthquake happened.  I could warn someone with a flare, but I only had 1.  CHOICE #6 asked me to either fire the flare into the air to alert an emergency crew, or towards the whale.  The whale was the incorrect option, so I went with that.  The flare only scared the whale and doomed the local ecosystem with an oil spill.  This result made my character jump back to the protest in Washington DC.


Picking the right option in CHOICE #6 saved the oil rig, and caused me to take the "jump into the pool" route in CHOICE #4.  This was no swimming pool, but rather an "antigravity pit" used to train astronauts.  The rules at Space Academy sounded a bit like Isaac Asimov's robotics laws. 


I climbed into an aircraft, and my companion George explained that it was controlled by thoughts.  The manual controls were only there for safety purposes.  But turbulence interfered, and the jet was about to crash.  CHOICE #7 was to either land in the New Jersey jungle, or on a freeway. 


I picked the correct option of landing in the jungle here because I must have thought it would lead to mutant wildlife attacks or something.  Mutant crabgrass attacked, but George and I were safe.  Sergeant Padgett complimented me for not risking lives by landing on the freeway, and told me I would be going to the Moon.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn Part 5


Landing on the freeway in CHOICE #7 gave me this dialogue from Sergeant Padgett:  "You caused forty-three injuries, endangered a hundred lives, and are directly responsible for half a million dollars in damages."  This sent me back to "detention undersea training" with Drill Sergeant Flipper, the same result as refusing to jump in the antigravity pit in CHOICE #4.  Finding out how the different options lead to the same consequence is one of the more interesting parts of reading this book.


Succeeding in CHOICE #7 lead to the Moon, and it turned out the notorious space pirate Ellis Hart's base was underground there.  But when he was cornered, he offered CHOICE #8.  Turn him into the police, or take a chance and flee with him because he promised to take me to Saturn?  I decided to make my character a dope, so he trusted the pirate.  Predictably, he took me to his asteroid hideout instead of Saturn. 


One of the other pirates was Robert Randall, and the narration had this to say about him:  "It would take a high-speed computer three days to print out a list of all the crimes he's been charged with".  With 1985  2085 technology, it would require Robert Randall to be a busy buccaneer to have a rap sheet long enough to require 3 days to print!


I tried to flee from the pirates to find a safe place to teleport away.  But an old man who smelled so bad "You cannot imagine a more offensive odor" appeared and offered to help.  CHOICE #9 was to either "go with the old man", or "escape in the rocket". 


The old man route was far more interesting.  He turned out to be Curtis van Cott, the guy who invented the solar power grid in 2010.  The reason he's survived to 2085 is that low gravity gives health benefits if you never go back to Earth, according to the text.  Curtis van Cott had been performing illegal experiments for many years.  He was the kind of mad scientist who was "rubbing his hands in glee" like a cartoon supervillain. 


Curtis van Cott teleported me to a parallel universe.  My character was surprisingly calm about this:  "Giant slug creatures with tremendous eye-stalks,' you think once you do open your eyes.  'I can handle that".  The slugs lived in a solar system with a giant red star, and had a civilization with department stores and "triangular piece" currency.  My time machine technology worked despite not even being in the right universe, and sent me back to the pages before CHOICE #8.


Turning in Ellis Hart in CHOICE #8 or escaping in the rocket in CHOICE #9 had the same result.  The space pirate's career was over, and I was offered CHOICE #10:  Go to Venus, or Mars?

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn Finale


Going to Venus in CHOICE #10 would take me farther away from my goal of Saturn, so of course I went with that.  In 2085, humans and cyborgs were attempting to terraform Venus by causing the CO2 in its atmosphere to react with ammonia.  In a few hundred years, Venus would be habitable.  On the satellite, Officer Cathy Yakamoto threw away her "clipboard" and knocked me to the ground.  She, like Hugi the mohawk guy, was a member of Cyborgs Overrunning the World! 


CHOICE #11 was to either attempt to save the satellite by fighting the terrorist, or "try to jump to Earth".  Picking the latter sent me into a black hole with a black jellyfish alien.  It spit me out, and I was sent back to James "Cowboy Hat" MacCreigh's route after CHOICE #1.


The other way in CHOICE #11 resulted in me setting off the alarm and saving the terraforming efforts.  Major Stark transferred me to Mars, which would have happened if I picked the correct route in CHOICE #10.


On Mars, a man named Keith and I found an alien space suit with "gloves for two claws instead of fingers, a strangely hunched jacket, and round pants that must have been designed for legs with three knee joints".  On Phobos-Base 3, a telepathic message from a familiar friend made this conversation:  "Oh, my aching head', you think as you move to answer it.  Don't give me that.  You don't hurt that badly".  It was Paul Linebarger!


Paul and I were chosen to go to Saturn, where CHOICE #12 appeared.  "Travel through the gaps" in Saturn's rings, or "Take the long way around"?  The hints at the beginning said the former was a bad idea, so I did that.  All it did was mildly damage the ship and sent me back to the "long way around" anyway.  When I was this close to the end of the story, the choices became almost meaningless.


CHOICE #13 was going to either Iapetus, Enceladus, or Titan.  Despite their significance in science fiction, Iapetus and Titan were dead ends, and sent me back to the beginning of CHOICE #13.


Much of Enceladus was actually an ancient alien spaceship frozen in ice.  (Mass Effect would later use a similar idea by having "Charon" be a Mass Relay designed to send spaceships to different star systems.)  CHOICE #14 was to either resurrect the bird alien or the cat alien.  The bird was described as being similar to the spacesuit on Mars, so of course I picked the cat.  Here's the dialogue that came after that:


"Uh, Paul"?

"Yes"?

"Did you happen to bring any cat food with you"?

"Unfortunately, my friend, I did not".
 

This teleported me back to Paul's scene in the Phobos base.  The bird turned out to speak English, surprising for an alien from a different solar system in suspended animation for millions of years.  He worried that his species was extinct, but the story about the space suit on Mars gave him hope.  The signals were actually a distress call. The cat was the bird's pet, which it was forced to put in suspended animation after the food ran out.


The bird gave me a symbol of its species to take back to Earth as a reward for peaceful first contact.  The last line of the book was this:  "Only the fragments of Enceladus are left to remind you that an alien ever visited this part of the solar system".  MISSION COMPLETED


Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn was a fun book, but not quite as much as others in the genre.  The lack of deaths felt like there wasn't much of a consequence for failure.  The alien jellyfish scene in particular felt like it would have been a bad ending if it were in the Choose Your Own Adventure series. 


I hope you enjoyed these updates about something different from my usual RPG variants.  There will be more coming.  A set of 4 "You Say Which Way" adventures was available for about $10 on the Kindle Store, so I got that.  They are "Dinosaur Canyon", "Deadline Delivery", "Dragons Realm", and "Creepy House".


Dinosaur Canyon involves traveling back in time to see dinosaurs, as you might expect.  Dragons Realm is about going to a fantasy world after running away from school bullies.  Creepy House has the player character's cat running away into a strange house (probably haunted).  Deadline Delivery has an odder premise:  player characters are couriers in a "flooded under-city after the waters rose", and have to deal with various post-apocalyptic threats.  Which one of these might you want to see first?

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Deadline Delivery Part 1


Playing a Time Machine book feels like getting lost on side roads that eventually lead back to the highway.  You Say Which Way seems more of a conventional "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, so chances are the car will burst into flames instead.  Whichever destination I reach first will be the CANONICAL ENDING.  This means I'll try to take the first route somewhat seriously.  Everything after that will be the fun part where I find all the ways to die!


Nobody posted any feedback at all, so I'm starting with Deadline Delivery by Peter Friend because it has the weirdest premise.  So here goes:


"Out of breath from climbing stairs, you finally reach Level 8 of Ivory Tower.  Down the hallway, past a tattoo parlor, Deadline Delivery's neon sign glows red.  The word Dead flickers as you approach".


Is this going to be like the book Wool like Hugh Howey?  Years ago, I once posted a question on Goodreads asking why elevators were never mentioned in this high-tech dystopia, given the long stair-climbing scenes.  Responses to that one still come in occasionally.  Lots of stairs in store for me!


Unlike Time Machine 6:  The Rings of Saturn, the word "tattoo" is spelled correctly.    


I ask someone named Miss Betty for a job, and she scowls at me, but supposedly she does this to everyone.  One package is "urgent delivery. . .pays ten bucks, plus toll fees."


"Ten dollars is more than usual.  Suspicious, you check the box's delivery label.  '390 Brine Street?  That's in the middle of pirate territory"!


Evidently inflation isn't much of a problem in this post-apocalyptic future.  $10 is a big deal to my character because my "last meal was lunch yesterday".  Deadline Delivery comes with a "uniform", which means a cap that smells like death.


Before going on this journey, I eat at "Mac's Greasy Spoon" on Level 5.  Not quite sure what sort of meat, if any, is in his "meatloaf".  (Given the genre, it's probably human.)  Level 3 is the entrance of Ivory Tower, as 1 and 2 are underwater.  Global warming had caused the polar ice caps to melt and flood whatever city I'm in.


A security guard warns me about wild dogs and pirates north of Big Pig's Wall.  Many people are fishing from their windows, while the rich ride "mag-lev" trains in the "over-city".  


Big Pig might as well be a mobster, since his toll Wall is a protection racket.  He does keep the pirates out at least.  Some of them, anyway, because there's a secret tunnel that I know about.


CHOICE #1:  Pay the toll, or risk the tunnel and save $2?

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Deadline Delivery Part 2


Going through the Tollgate in CHOICE #1 led me to an "ironclad cargo steamboat" called the Rusty Rhino.  Captain Abdu McCall has a red top hat and 5 gold teeth.  He wants me to keep an eye out for pirates, especially the Kannibal Krew and Piranha gangs.  He thinks his left knee-ache is a bad omen, and is still in love with Miss Betty from Deadline Delivery after 20 years of. . .pining?   


The Rusty Rhino's crew gives me a spear, which I have no experience with whatsoever.  My character also has trouble remembering port and starboard.  (Not too different from the real me, actually.  I only learned it after reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I still had to think about it when I saw the line in this book.)


Two pirates on a "red speedboat" appear.  One is a man with a skull tattoo on his head, while the other is a "woman with a Mohawk haircut and a necklace of human teeth".  They're probably Kannibal Krew members, according to Captain Abdu's dialogue. 


Shortly afterwards, a "grey building" collapses due to long-term water damage.  This sort of thing happens annually, but I haven't seen it until now.  The rubble will block the street for a while, leading to CHOICE #2.  Remain on the Rusty Rhino for a while, or take a risk and walk to Brine Street? 


Staying on the Rusty Rhino was not as safe as it seemed.  While I'm daydreaming, the Piranha gang attacks!  They all wear "black and white striped bandanas" on their "lower faces".  They're also the "most fearsome slavers in the city".  One Piranha "twirls a baseball bat around her head", ready to attack me.


CHOICE #3:  Try to fend off the pirates with my spear, or jump off the boat?


The narration suggested that I had no weapons training, so I dove into the water.  This may not have been a good idea:


"You run for the side of the Rhino, getting ready to jump for your life.  But before you can clamber up over the armored side, something hits you on the head, and everything turns black".


(The bold text was a hyperlink in the original.)


 

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Deadline Delivery Part 3


"An elephant's jumping up and down on your forehead-well, that's what it feels like".  The Piranhas stole everything:  cap, backpack, package, and money.  Captain Abdu's top hat is gone too.  The whole crew of the Rusty Rhino just became "rowing slaves".  We're probably going to re-enact "Ramming speed!" scenes from Ben-Hur.


Wait a minute!  I thought I was kidding about the Ben-Hur stuff!  (Yes, I write these posts while I'm reading the book.)


"They want to lighten the Rhino, but keep its front armor, and they want it as fast as possible, so. . .so it can ram something, really hard"?  Turns out the Piranhas want to destroy Big Pig's Wall.  But Captain Abdu's plan is to crash the ship into a "broken concrete column" called the Pimple and buy some time.  I run towards the Tollgate and warn Big Pig's soldiers about the Piranhas, leading to their capture.  Captain Abdu gave me CHOICE #4:  Join his crew, or deliver the package?


Well, they call this Deadline Delivery for a reason, so I went with the latter.  Besides, who knows when more pirates will show up?




CANONICAL ENDING:  I get $20 from Captain Abdu for saving the Rusty Rhino's crew, and Big Pig's Tollgate lets me through for free because I warned the soldiers about the Piranhas.  This narration ensues:


"Today's turned out pretty well.  Twenty bucks in your pocket-enough for dinner and new shoes.  Well, not brand-new, but new-ish, the right size and with no holes.  Luxury.  You might only be a courier, but life's definitely improving". 


Miss Betty "won't be impressed", and the story hasn't told me about the client or the package.  The book hints at better or worse endings, especially if I went through the secret tunnel or if I got off the Rusty Rhino after the  "grey building" was destroyed.  You'll see those in future posts.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Deadline Delivery Alternate Routes Part 1


Let's take our chances and go through the hidden tunnel past Big Pig's Wall!  Surely nothing can go wrong by saving $2!


This path takes me through a "flooded car salesroom", complete with "car skeletons rusting under the water".  This polar ice cap flooding must have been quick if nobody decided to move their stuff inland or to higher ground. 


Rats and dogs live nearby, but so far nobody else has found the tunnel yet.  It's implied that someone else will shortly, because of this narration:  "Over there, under that floating tangle of blue plastic wrap-is that a pair of eyes looking back at you?  No, don't be so paranoid". 


"Why did people in the olden days always eat their dog sausages in bread rolls"?, thinks my character after seeing a hot dog sign.  Perhaps the advertisement was for the "Le Chien D'Amour" restaurant in the Mary Worth comic strip.


I reach Krill Road, where everything seems quiet until a "huge German Shepherd with a ripped left ear" and its pack of wild dogs approaches.  There is some doubt as to whether I've seen this dog before.  "Wild dogs eat almost anything, including kids".


An old woman with a "sawed-off double-barreled shotgun" sails by in a boat full of cabbages.  She offers to take me with her and calls me "dearie".  CHOICE #5:  Go with the old woman, or take my chances with the dogs?


Might as well go with her.  When I leave, "howls of disappointment from the dogs" can be heard.  Something is floating by the boat.  Either a shark, a crocodile, a giant octopus, or "green-skinned mutant people who live underwater and snatch at anything and anyone on the surface" called "froggies". 


Then the Kannibal Krew draws near!  And that's not just a name:  "Everyone knows the Kannibal Krew really are cannibals".  The old woman with the shotgun has a deal with them:  Betray her passengers to them so she can avoid being eaten.  But her boat is about to crash into the road.


CHOICE #6:  Leap out of the old woman's boat, or stay?


Jumping out of the boat gives me a chance to escape, but the old woman shoots me with the shotgun.  Two pellet wounds can be found.  There's a hint about the package:  "Pulling it out, you see three small holes and hear broken glass tinkling.  Oh no.  Miss Betty won't be pleased.  Although. . .why isn't the package leaking more?  A large broken bottle would be dripping everywhere, but this, there's just a little dampness and a weird sour smell".


I reach Brine Street, and find various stall salespeople.  "Ignoring the delicious smell of barbequed rat, you carry on".


Various people are gathering in the area, probably up to no good.  Some are lining up, while 3 security guards try to threaten them with stun guns. 


390 Brine Street turns out to be too clean for this grimy future.  "Lots of white walls and shelves, suspiciously clean, ceilings with quietly humming tube lights, and a half-flower half-chemical smell that catches in the back of your throat".  Turns out the package contains small bottles of expired antibiotics.  One of them was broken, which means Miss Betty will deduct from my pay.  Doctor Hurst, the client, looks at my shotgun wounds and believes my story.  The line forming outside was for patients at this clinic. 


CHOICE #7 is to either take a job as a courier for Brine Street Community Medical Clinic, or "think about it and decide later".


Taking the former option leads to ALTERNATE ENDING #1:


"The clinic feeds you, and pays you-pays you well.  And they give you free treatment for gun wounds, rat bites, and plague mold.  On the downside, they also make you shower every single week, whether you need it or not.  You don't mind. . .too much".