A simple tutorial on how to make a physical adventure book, no coding required. And a couple of bonus mechanics that are somewhat unique to the genre to put your own twist on it. Easy to understand examples are available, and the book is a short and...
Hello! Welcome to "An Overthinkers Guide To Adventure Books" where you and I will be coming together to teach you about physical Adventure Books, also commonly known as a Game Book. What is an Game Book, you ask? Let me grab a definition.
Game Book - "Adventure gamebooks incorporate elements from Choose Your Own Adventure books and role-playing solitaire adventures. The books involve a branching path format in order to move between sections of text, but the reader creates a character as in a role-playing game, and resolves actions using a game-system." - GameBook Wikipedia Page
This is a pretty general all encompassing definition but it really doesn't get into the meat of what an Adventure Book is. Game Books are a more general terms for types of books that are interactive in some way, shape, or form. And in our case, we are going to start with the bare minimum.
Choose Your Own Adventure Books are stories with branching paths based on the choice of the reader. So the actions of the protagonist are heavily based on the things the reader chooses. And this is the core gameplay aspect of a Choose Your Own Adventure Book.
Each page in an Adventure Book is like a blurb describing the events that were caused by your actions. And the choice you make leads you to a specific page where the story continues, and in some cases, where the story ends.
Stylistically, these stories usually take place in a big fantasy land or sci-fi future where your choices matter, and everything you do is important. Of course, some stories break these conventions, but what is key is that the actions you give the player actually matter. In a game, the illusion of choice is often applied, but in a Choose Your Own Adventure, where all that matters is the story, a good book cannot get away with this.
Another thing you want to avoid if you write a Choose Your Own Adventure is to make too many "death pages." These are pages where the protagonist typically dies and the story sends you back to page one. It's okay to have these in moderation, but if every false answer leads to death then there is no real fun to be had.
With that all said, a visual aid might help to show what a Choose Your Own Adventure is like. So here we go!
Example Story:
ओह! यह छवि हमारे सामग्री दिशानिर्देशों का पालन नहीं करती है। प्रकाशन जारी रखने के लिए, कृपया इसे हटा दें या कोई भिन्न छवि अपलोड करें।
Page 1: You are a knight in training and you have been forced to face your rival in combat to finish your training as a sort of final exam. You have been clashing swords for a few minutes in silence, not making any contact with each other. You should try a new strategy, but what?
Page 2 - Go on the attack! Page 3 - Go on the defensive.
Page 2: You decide to rush forward for a heavy blow, but he dodges, expecting your move. And with his opening, he slices into your side and you are forced to kneel. Just like that, it was over. You have lost.
Page 1 - You lose.
Page 3: You decide to back off and prepare your shield, and he falls right into your plan! He lunges at you, and you use your shield to bash his sword out of the way and knock him to the ground. You point your sword at your felled foe, and your master begins to clap.
Page 4 - Pay your respect. Page 5 - Insult him.
Example End
If you played correctly, you should have seen and understood the flow of one of these Choose Your Own Adventures, and the Choice Mechanic.
If you went to page 2 in an attempt to go agro on your opponent, you should have noticed that you failed and you were reset to the first page. This is what I called a "death page" from before and they halt your progress pretty hard most of the time. But sometimes, the loss will just set you back a little bit in the story which in my personal opinion is much more pleasant and makes it less likely for people to cheat.
Speaking of which, a common thing you unfortunately can't control in Adventure Books is that the reader can always cheat. And sometimes, there's just nothing you can do to help that. If the book is made well, they are just ruining the experience for themselves, and don't let it get to you too much.
Another thing to understand about Adventure Books is that you need to explain the mechanics of your story just in case your book is someone's first Adventure Book. It's very important to explain the mechanics so the reader can understand and warmly accept the way it is meant to be played. And if you have trouble explaining your mechanics, just refer back to this book for help.
And that is the gist of the most minimal form of an Adventure or Game Book. Seems somewhat simple, right? Hopefully that's the case, I'm trying to make it easy to understand. Anyway, any other mechanics that can be used in Adventure Books will be placed in their own chapters. Sometimes they are complex, other times simple. But no matter what they are informational.
That said, thanks for checking out my book! I really appreciate any feedback and support you can give! If you feel it is a good read throw me a few votes, and if you have some of your own Game Book information then comment about it! Now, shill out of the way, lets move on to the next chapter!
