I loved reading choose your own adventure books as a kid.

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koalalala42@reddit

I found about 20 of these a Goodwill a few years ago!! The stories are so ridiculous and fun…such a great throwback!

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General-Ad6459@reddit

I recently bought a few of these for my 7 year old. He was obsessed with them for a couple of weeks.

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PineappleFit317@reddit

I enjoyed them, but also found them frustrating. I’d stumble across a cool scenario on a random page, and try to make choices that got me there, but never could.

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cibolaburns@reddit

What if it was diabolical publishers who did that to us - I had the same experience.

Just throw a random super cool finale into the middle of the book and have no options lead to it.

Rick rolling before Rick ever rolled.

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Me too. I had one that I was obsessed with, The Third Planet from Altair, and I kept attempting to find the best ending, eventually I hit on the idea of working backward to figure out how to get there. I remember I could never quite figure out the correct sequence (possibly because I was not a smart child).

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Accurate_Use_2432@reddit

Mystery of Chimney Rock was my absolute favorite!

It occupied so much of my consciousness that I had a dream about it as a kid with images that have stayed with me ever since.

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nouseforaname79@reddit

Crap! “Mystery of Chimney Rock” unlocked a core memory.

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Zsirhcz1981@reddit

I had a Hobbit themed one.

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Puzzleheaded_Race_90@reddit

It would be cool to scan these into a website with hyperlinks so you could run through them again today. I'm sure you could do it a lot of different ways, though, like ebooks or pdf or whatever

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BloodyPaleMoonlight@reddit

They've been doing reprints of these, and I've been picking them up.

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Worth_Specific3764@reddit

You know the names of the reprints? I would buy them to read then donate them to my local library (I live in a very rural are but have a GREAT library).

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BloodyPaleMoonlight@reddit

Just search for Choose Your Own Adventure books, and they'll show up.

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bisploosh@reddit

There's also game versions of these using stacks of cards.

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ACorania@reddit

There was back in the day too. Lone Wolf adventures.

You had a character sheet, combat scores, skills, abilities that let you get past situations, etc.

They were great

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Worth_Specific3764@reddit

the Lone Wolf books were the fucking best!!! Midkemia!!!

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BloodyPaleMoonlight@reddit

There's two of them. The first is The War of the Evil Power Master, which is out of print. The second, which is still available, is House of Danger.

I have House of Danger and played it - it's a ton of fun, and I really wish they made more games like it.

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CookieBarfspringer@reddit

Have you tried Tales of the Arabian Nights? More depth and replayability, and it’s fully in the CYOA neighborhood (and a product of the ’80s, as a bonus)

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BloodyPaleMoonlight@reddit

I have not! But I'll definitely look into it! Thank you!

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fimpAUS@reddit

Whenever I see one in a bookshop I buy it immediately "for the kids". Had to teach them the claw style of reading where you have your fingers in all the important decision pages

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airportspongebath@reddit

”Oh shit!”

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rightwords@reddit

I had so many of those and read them over and over.

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flaming_bob@reddit

These, Interplanetary Spy, and Endless Quest formed the foundation that ultimately turned into the several thousand dollars of TTRPG books currently siting on my bookshelf

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Frosty_Cloud_2888@reddit

Me too

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spderweb@reddit

They made new ones! My son has a stack of them. We also got these RPG ones from Usborne(you have a character, hp, inventory, etc). And I have a stack of Fighting Fantasy to get through.

Lots of fun!

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hippity_bop_bop@reddit

Lone Wolf was a great series too

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WasteOfBerries@reddit

Every Xennial loves Choose Your Own Adventure novels!!

If you agree, turn to page 74.
If you disagree, turn to page 76.

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Baconoid_@reddit

I confess. I read both pages.

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alvinofdiaspar@reddit

That’s the careful kid’s way of reading these books.

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Foxy_locksy1704@reddit

This was me. I wanted to know my options.

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airportspongebath@reddit

If you liked this comment, go to the comment below it and like and respond to that too!

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Baconoid_@reddit

If you disliked that comment, go back to OP's comment and start over.

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Roland-Of-Eld-19@reddit

Edward Packard did the best stories

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VampireOnHoyt@reddit

The Space Hawks series was my favorite

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GreenZebra23@reddit

My favorites were Mystery of Chimney Rock and Hyperspace. Hyperspace was my first experience with meta fiction. At some points the book makes it clear you are in a book at one point you even meet Edward Packard himself

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CSWorldChamp@reddit

Based on this picture, I must assume that all choices in The Cave of Time eventually branch into the same ending.

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AnswerGuy301@reddit

Some of those adverse endings really went hard.

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Dextropic@reddit

Every time someone brings up these books, I am overcome with the urge to buy the entire run on eBay.

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bananabastard@reddit

And reading every possible path.

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lavasca@reddit

OMG same

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woeful_haichi@reddit

Loved reading Choose Your Own Adventure books well as the related Time Machine and Lone Wolf series.

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firehawk2324@reddit

Fun fact: threy still make CYOA books! There's a whole bunch of them for younger readers now. My kid has a few and loves them.

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PrincessRedMoon@reddit

I loved those books but they used to stress me out 😅 I used to memorize or write down the page I came from in case I didn't like the outcome so I could start over 😂

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One-Earth9294@reddit

I mastered the art of 'finger bookmarks' lol.

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SubstanceNo1544@reddit

This is the way. Id have like 6 different branches sectioned off lol.. miss those days. Used tk have so much fun reading, life is just to busy these days

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brodievonorchard@reddit

When you're using fingers on both hands, it's time to accept that you're going to have to read it again to find out what all could happen. I slowly realized.

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ReststrahlenEffect@reddit

I used the little post-its to mark all the decision points!

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PMcOuntry@reddit

My sister used to read then backwards…

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Oriasten77@reddit

I recently came across a series of like 22 horror novels that did the choose what happens thing. The name escapes me but it was 22 books total.

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jackof47trades@reddit

My kid loves these. They still hold up

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FractalGeometric356@reddit

Here’s a YouTube video about the history of Choose Your Pwn Adventure.

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ette212@reddit

I always failed these lolll

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Creepy_Throat8335@reddit

Same here.

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PositiveMaster8236@reddit

They were the safe respectable books your parents approved of and brought you when you specifically asked for a Fighting Fantasy book for your birthday or Christmas! 😂

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Skywren7@reddit

This book was so scary when I was a kid. I loved it so much

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jackfaire@reddit

These primed me for a love of Fan Fiction.

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MegaRadCoolDad@reddit

I read to my kids every night for years. I tried these when they were old enough. They didn't like it as much as Sandra Boynton.

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Traditional_Isopod80@reddit

I loved these books!

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ScientificFlamingo@reddit

I had Space Patrol. That was a really fun one.

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Rob_LeMatic@reddit

About a decade ago, I went to a friend-couple's house and we smoked pot and took turns reading choose your own adventure. Person 1 would read until the decision. Person 2 would make it. Person 3 would read the next part. Repeat.

It was fun.

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VinceAmonte@reddit

Same. I loved these too.