Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 1


Trying to use the repulsion shield against the CHOICE #3 black hole doesn't work, but the results are more pleasant than the 1 sentence CANONICAL ENDING.


"Don't give up!  Try everything we can.  Quick!  Put up the energy repulsion shields.'  It's Mermah talking.  He is two years older and has traveled widely in space.  'What do you think will happen to us, Mermah?'  'One never knows', he replies.


With a shudder, the pod is suddenly grasped by the gravitational field, and you find yourself hurtling into a tunnel-like void.  A black hole might seem black to the observer from outside because no light can possibly escape its gravitational field, but all the light and the energy is contained within this space.  The tunnel is brilliantly lit, but, strangely, the intense light does not hurt your eyes.


Suddenly you are in a giant room.  No, it is not a room; it's actually the interior of the black hole.  It's a gigantic prism, thousands of miles across:  a world unto itself.  You are no longer frightened, and you and Mermah leave your space pod to begin a life in a new world.


The new world is peaceful, and the people are friendly and eager to welcome you and Mermah.  No one is in a hurry, and work is pleasant.  There is food and housing for all.  It's a good world.  The End".


Maybe the reason people never hear from black hole travelers is that they enjoy living there too much?  No, that wouldn't explain the 1 sentence ending from before from the same black hole.  At least say the player lands in a different black hole, author!


Also, is Mermah age 2 or 20?  He's "two years older", but given the time warp my lifespan has been, I'm not so sure.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

1 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

0 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 2


Thinking about going to Space Academy in CHOICE #2 doesn't immediately take me there, and there's probably no chance of meeting Drill Sergeant Flipper.  The schools just have the same name in CYOA and Time Machine.  The head of Research offers an alternative CHOICE #4 solution, "self knowledge".  "It's everything you have learned now and in the past.  You have but to realize it.  Spend some time now.  Then go".


I'm intrigued by this "self-knowledge" path, to see how weird the situations can get.  The head of Research reveals his name:  Fooz.  This self knowledge involves past lives.  "Remember my friend, all travel in space accomplishes little.  We end where we begin.  Parallel lines cross!  Time is not real.  Try to make the past the present".  Somehow I doubt Fooz uses the scientific method.


The two periods Fooz offers for CHOICE #5 are the dinosaur age 125 million years ago, or "an unknown past".  It's clear Montgomery and the artists want me to pick the former because of the illustration of Pterodactyls, a long-necked dinosaur (Apatosaurus?), and a Stegosaurus on a Mesozoic landscape.  And the T-rex glaring at a spaceship on the cover.  So let's pick the latter and get an ending instead!


"A chance to go to the unknown is probably really risky, but there is that desire in most people to take big risks.  You race back in time toward the edge of eternity, the beginning of the entire universe.  You achieve an elastic weightlessness, and a sense of complete peace and calm.  There is no sound, no light.  But no darkness either.  You race back to the very beginning, to the pulsating, exciting start.  You return to the Big Bang that started the whole thing.  You are, and you have been, a part of everything-always.  The beginning is The End".


Death by Big Bang time loop.  Not a common way to go.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

0 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 3


To see Choose Your Own Adventure:  Jurassic Park, go to page 41 in CHOICE #5.


I land in the Cretaceous period as a Velociraptor.  Now that I think about it, it's surprising no "past life" enthusiasts in real life ever say they were dinosaurs.  I just Googled "dinosaur reincarnation" (without quotation marks), and only one result related to that popped up on the 1st page.  And one short Reddit thread on the 2nd page.  The rest were mostly about whether or not it's possible to clone a dinosaur.  


No feathers for these dino illustrations.  Just a pure reptilian T-rex with teeth bared staring down towards a fern/bush where a Velociraptor is hiding.  There's a volcano in the background too, because it seems every dinosaur story has those. 


Anyway, the T-rex lives several million years after the Velociraptor became extinct, but I don't know if that was known in the original copyright date of 1980.  A Protoceratops approaches me and says "It's all clear, now.  Tyrannosaurus and that awful Tarbosaurus have gone off to quarrel by themselves.  Maybe it will give us a break".  We watch the two dinosaurs fight.  "You are horrified as their sharp teeth and powerful arms and legs tear at each other.  There is a terrible howling roar of pain, then a crunching sound as Rex succeeds in biting off the head of his enemy".  Unfortunately, the Tyrannosaurus now sees me.


CHOICE #6 is what to do with the "time travel meter you carry in your claw".  But I'm using "self knowledge" to go back in time with my mind, not a machine!  The options are these two buttons:  Erase, or Time Return.  Erase merely sends the player back to the other option after CHOICE #1.  "Suddenly, you are back in a space pod, headed for Kenda.  Oh, no, it's beginning all over again.  You can't stand it".  Indeed I can't.  Maybe this will be a setup to a Nabooti style infinite CHOICE loop.  Although the Nabooti one is funny to me because there's no actual time travel involved, only flying to Paris, being kidnapped by the helicopter gang, then being sent back to the United States and flying back to Paris to repeat the process.


Time Return does result in an ending, although one that sounds more like the setup to a new story.


"The buttons on your time travel meter catapult you through space time to the eastern part of Africa now called the Olduvai Gorge, in the Great Rift Valley.  Only when you get there, it is not a gorge, nor is it a rift valley.  It is an upland plain.  It is four million years in the past, in Earth time. 


It is the dawn of mankind, and the earliest human types are just developing their life patterns.  They live as hunters and gatherers.  They have discovered tools, and have begun to use objects like sticks and animal bones as weapons.  It's the beginning of civilization.  Why not hang around and see what happens?  Maybe you can change it all.  The End".


The story should continue from here, but doesn't.  What does my character try to change in the first human society?  Does the hero eventually go back to land on Croyd?  This feels like the first Wait, This Isn't An Ending!


This conclusion has an illustration of early hominids who look like they're trying to gather water from a pool with sticks, in a grassland landscape with a dome-shaped mountain in the background.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

1 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 4


"This space research vessel is so huge and so advanced that you didn't actually realize that there was a division of the Space Academy on board".  That's because I'm 3 days old!  The head of Space Academy on this ship says I have "scored very high" on "a personality, intelligence, and health inventory".  I doubt either the player character or the real me would do well on the "personality" and "intelligence" categories.  CHOICE #7 is between Command School or vague research.  Command School leads to an ending, so I'll do that as the last post for tonight.


"Being a pilot-in-command of a space mission sounds impressive to you.  You enroll in the Academy.  Mermah decides to join you.  All thoughts of going to either Kenda or Croyd leave you, as the courses of study interest you more and more each day.  The time passes and you achieve advanced standing in the Academy.  Your parents are proud of you, and upon graduation, you and Mermah are assigned to a new and radically different spacecraft designed to carry out deep probes in the remote and unexplored regions of intergalactic space.


There is a hint that you might even explore the Worm Hole into the Space/Time Continuum.  Bidding all friends and family a farewell, you and Mermah enter the new craft for a twelve-year probe into uncharted regions.  The End".


I'll count this as a Good Ending because at least there's a resolution to the plot.  Uncharted territory is more enticing for the hero than the parents' home planets.  Evidently the Space/Time Continuum is separate from the rest of the Space and Beyond setting, which explains the inconsistent continuity.  (Though the "random events in space while searching for a planet" concept fits the RA Montgomery style better so far than more realistic locations on Earth.)


Results So Far


2 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

1 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 5


For the next couple of episodes, I'll study "research" at Space Academy in CHOICE #7.  "It seems to you that research is just another name for messing around with whatever interests you".  My earlier comment about the lack of the scientific method on this ship is still apt. 


Anyway, my project is to study how to gain the benefits that result from a violent revolution without the death toll.  If this book had been written later, perhaps the characters could have studied the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.  My character stops caring about Kenda and Croyd, though Mermah is still with me.  CHOICE #8 is whether to study a current revolt on planet Cynthia, or go back in time to Mars 62 million years ago.   No "self knowledge" powers for this time travel, only a time machine.


"Time travel is frightening.  When you rush back in time, it is like riding a roller coaster backward, only faster.  You can watch the universe through your private porthole.  You see stars born and see them die, you see planets spin off into space, comets come and go, supernovas explode, and all the time you are not even there.


You are but pure energy counting down in time until you stop at Mars, a planet of a small sun in the Milky Way galaxy-an almost unheard of planet in an insignificant galaxy.  When you arrive on Mars, you are invisible and travel through space, through solid matter, and even into the thoughts of people.


What is the cause of revolt on Mars?  Who knows?  Greed?  Famine?  Envy?  Jealousy?  Maybe just an instinctive need to battle, a basic drive to test and fight for the sheer sense of fighting.  It's too complex.  Everyone has a different answer.  They all point to the other guy.  All you know is that creatures get killed, cities get destroyed.  What a way to live.  That's why there is a new way-if only it will work.  You are part of the new way, a way of sharing.  The End".


Another science fiction book where "pure energy" is something different from mass? 


I can read the Martians' thoughts, but can't figure out the cause of the revolt somehow.  Maybe I should have read more history books, or gone back slightly further in time to witness the beginning of this revolution.  Telling the Martians to "share" in my incorporeal state will probably not work, because it's unlikely they haven't heard of the concept of cooperation if they have a technologically advanced society in the first place.


This is a "special RA Montgomery category" ending because even the text is unsure about whether this "way of sharing" will succeed.  It's not an Inconclusive Ending in the traditional sense because that category is usually reserved for events that may or may not be Deaths.


EDIT:  The illustration shows various futuristic cities, explosions, fissures all over the ground, and a starry sky.  Space and Beyond seems to have better artwork than the other Chooseco books so far.


Results So Far


2 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

2 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 6


"Swirling clouds, dense with a moisture much heavier than water, cover the planet of Cynthia".  So begins the alternate route of CHOICE #8.  I have a hard time finding the revolt, because there aren't any towns that I can see.  Cynthia's atmosphere is "almost acceptable" to humans, which means "not quite".  There's a good reason I'm in a convenient gender-and-ethnicity-concealing space suit in the illustration on the next page.


(If you don't want to be restricted to first-person perspectives in your CYOA art, stuff your hero in a space suit, diving suit, or hazmat suit!  Or make them non-human.)


Shadows surround us when Mermah and I arrive in a forest.  They "bend and twist" like shadows when they show themselves.  They ask me "Peace or war?  You!  Are you the leader or just the follower?"  I tell them "Peace.  In our world we don't believe in war".  Even though the whole point of my quest is finding a world because I don't have one. . .


The shadows say they are enemies of the forces of light.  They drag me to their headquarters and explain that the forces of life are committing genocide against the shadow people by "creating a world with no shadows where light comes from all directions".  CHOICE #9 is between helping the shadow people fight on land, or joining their rocket ship forces.


"The rocket ship forces sound the most interesting, and besides, you are trained as a space pilot.  Ground forces would be difficult for you.  You are promoted to a command rank and put in charge of a large spacecraft with laser rocket weapons.  From then on you are in space searching out and policing alien ships.


But you think to yourself, 'Is this any kind of life, forever destroying things?'  Maybe you will quit.  The End".


If the shadow people are being truthful, they are fighting this war to save their species.  RA Montgomery tries to write an anti-war story on Cynthia, but fails to provide any evidence that the shadow people are deceiving the protagonist, or that they may be committing atrocities.


Results So Far


2 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

3 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 7


The only way to advance the "shadow people on Cynthia" subplot is to join their ground forces.  Mermah and I get 14 battalions and build walls to block light.  The light people demand our surrender.  The shadow people hold a council and ask us if we should attack or retreat.  The "We can't possibly defend ourselves against them" comment suggests the latter is the correct option.  This is CHOICE #10.


"Retreat is not always a bad thing.  To fight now would only create further destruction.  Enough damage has been done.  Level off, give way.  Let the other side realize what has been happening, too.  As you retreat, the enemy seems to let up in amazement.  The smoke clears, the noise stops.  They retreat too.  There is no more fighting.  The End".


The way this ending should have gone: the light people reveal that they didn't know their new light sources would harm shadow people, and each side makes a treaty giving each other separate territories.  Or something like that.  Here, we just avoided a skirmish, and there's no reason the two sides won't fight again.  The text still suggests a Good Ending.



Results So Far


3 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

3 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 8


When we attack the light people in CHOICE #10, the shadow people take heavy losses.  "Smoke hangs around the cities", the same ones I couldn't manage to find when I landed on Cynthia because my 3-day-old brain is too stupid to do so.


CHOICE #11 is to either continue to fight so that we can escape, or surrender to the light people.


"There is a chance to get away.  During a lull in the battle, your group escapes to some remote hills.  The energy of the lasers, the spacecraft, the communications systems, mysteriously vanishes.  There is only your own energy.  Weapons are useless.  Radios and transports are just pieces of metal and plastic.  They are not working either.  To survive now, you will have to hunt for food and support each other.  The End".


Did the light people just use an EMP on us?  This is an Inconclusive Ending because my character's survival is questioned.



Results So Far


3 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

3 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 9


Waving the white flag in the war with the light people in CHOICE #11 is another non-ending with "philosophical" text.


"Surrender!  But, if you don't give in, everything will be destroyed.  What does surrender mean?  You are frightened, but history has often shown that the conquerors don't often remain conquerors.  They become a part of a new civilization with qualities from both the vanquished and the victors.  Still, giving up is a last resort.


After long talks with your group, you all decide to take the risk of surrendering, and joining up with the conquerors.  It is done.  The End".


Montgomery may have been thinking of the Romans adopting parts of Greek culture, or various foreign dynasties such as the Yuan or Qing becoming more Chinese.  But the fate of indigenous peoples around the world may be closer to what the shadow people in Space and Beyond will experience.


This is also the last of the Croyd branch endings, meaning the player never gets to go to the planet.  (Unless there's a counter-intuitive way to get there in the other CHOICE #1 path. . .)  The Croyd route also has only 10 endings, about 1/3 of the Kenda route.  Was the Croyd branch added as an afterthought late in the writing process because the publisher wanted more endings?


Results So Far


3 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

4 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  Space and Beyond Alternate Endings Part 10


Our hero can't find Croyd, or find the true purpose of their mom's trinket from the beginning.  So let's go to dad's planet Kenda in CHOICE #1 by selecting that in the first place, or pressing the Erase button in the Tyrannosaurus encounter.


The crew of the mothership gives me a a space pod, but I soon encounter a nebula that isn't supposed to be there.  Nebula gases can disable the gravity generators and life support systems, and this area of space is dangerously radioactive.  CHOICE #12 is to come back to the mothership, or "rely on and trust your instinct to go ahead".


My 3-day-old instincts may be incorrect.  Meteor showers and general "interference" turn off my communications systems.  The space pod is too fast to be stuck in the meteor shower for long, but it may be safer to use the "laser radio" to call for help instead.  (But the narration JUST SAID "all communications systems fail" on the same page!)  CHOICE #13 is to charge ahead or go with the laser radio that somehow isn't disabled even though it's a communications system.




The "advance button" sends me into a transit zone filled with spaceships traveling on "laser beam highways".  You know it's science fiction when random nouns have the prefix "space" or "laser".  One Lyttle Lytton Contest entry included a "laser-bayonet" to make fun of this concept.


At the Patrol Station, I learn there is a "space caravan" that may land in Kenda.  "Caravans are like gypsies, and they stop where the mood takes them".  Probably more like cartoon "gypsies", and less like actual Roma.  There are also "space circus performers" who might land on Kinda in three "sforzits".  A "sforzit" is explained as being "9 Earth days".  CHOICE #14 is which group to travel with.


"You decide quickly.  A space circus sounds crazy, but then the whole idea of wandering around galaxies looking for your home planet is crazy, too.  You meet the leader, Zogg, who can only be described as a totally normal-looking earth-type with a red beard, a huge grin, the body of a giant, and a laugh and warmth that makes you feel at home. 


'Welcome!  We need a new thing.  Welcome to the greatest show in the universe.'  'But what can I do?'  'Don't worry, my friend.  We will find you work.  That is no problem there!'


So, you join this group of creatures, some earth-types, others like nothing you have ever seen.  The array of odd spaceships hurtles through space, stopping at the odd planet or convenient space station, or just drifting in the void.  Your special job is to be the trainer of high energy particles and quarks, making them do tricks.  You like quarks.  And they seem to like you, too.  You never get to Kenda, but you no longer care.  The End".


Does my act involve a giant particle accelerator?  This ending makes The Strange Physics of the Heidelberg Laboratory seem realistic in comparison.  But the illustration is what's really good for a laugh here.  Imagine a person in a space suit riding a platform while holding a lion tamer whip.  Behind them is a bug-eyed elephant creature with 6 trunks.  Sparkles and trapeze artists hang out above the hero.


Results So Far


4 Good Endings

2 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

4 Wait, This Isn't An Ending!