One thing I’m struck by about the Choice of * games (which I rather enjoyed) is how linear they are compared to their most obvious antecedents, the “game book” CYOAs like Lone Wolf or Fighting Fantasy.
I expected, when I loaded it, to see a sort of segmented/Bioware model where you have three little diversions that return to the main axis, then three more diversions, a return to the main axis, and so on. But in fact, it ramifies outward and has only a couple convergences (and even then, not all paths converge).
Not sure what to make of it, other than that maybe Choice of * is being evaluated according to the wrong metric. What the right one is, I don’t know. . . .
In that respect, they’re more similar to Ren’Py visual novels, which often have a fairly linear structure with choices that affect your experience but don’t hugely branch the plot.
Not sure that means it’s “wrong” to compare Choice of * stuff to Choose Your Own Adventures, though. One thing all this has convinced me of is that we need a richer vocabulary to distinguish
works with a CYOA interface and no world model
works with a CYOA interface and some limited stats
works with a CYOA interface and a substantial world model (do many such exist? no reason they couldn’t)
Would Walker & Silhouette or even Blue Lacuna count as CYOA interfaces? Granted clicking the word “lever” inline is a bit different than clicking “If you want to pull the lever now, click here,” but on the other hand, you should only need to click/type your choice of keywords to beat the game, rather than type in commands.
Blue Lacuna does allow you to type a huge amount of other stuff besides the keywords, though, often with interesting alternative results. I think of this as a kind of compromise position: there is always some set of visible options brought to the player’s attention (vs. IF games in which you can get completely stuck for what to type), but a wide range of other things are also possible, some of them very interesting in terms of what they reveal about the narrated world.
Walker and Silhouette does that too, just to a much lower extent. (Ever try KISS [someone] in that game? Or ATTACK…?)
So I wouldn’t consider either of them pure CYOA, but they have interfaces that I agree are at least influenced by hypertext ideas.
Neophyte at In the Company of Grues has been thinking a lot about IF and CYOA, and there was just a discussion about the difference, particularly with respect to W&S and Blue Lacuna. (Well, they came up eventually.) Here’s another interesting discussion about it.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 
One thing I’m struck by about the Choice of * games (which I rather enjoyed) is how linear they are compared to their most obvious antecedents, the “game book” CYOAs like Lone Wolf or Fighting Fantasy.
Check out this flowchart of the first Lone Wolf game:
http://www.projectaon.org/en/svg/lw/01fftd.svgz
I expected, when I loaded it, to see a sort of segmented/Bioware model where you have three little diversions that return to the main axis, then three more diversions, a return to the main axis, and so on. But in fact, it ramifies outward and has only a couple convergences (and even then, not all paths converge).
Not sure what to make of it, other than that maybe Choice of * is being evaluated according to the wrong metric. What the right one is, I don’t know. . . .
In that respect, they’re more similar to Ren’Py visual novels, which often have a fairly linear structure with choices that affect your experience but don’t hugely branch the plot.
Not sure that means it’s “wrong” to compare Choice of * stuff to Choose Your Own Adventures, though. One thing all this has convinced me of is that we need a richer vocabulary to distinguish
works with a CYOA interface and no world model
works with a CYOA interface and some limited stats
works with a CYOA interface and a substantial world model (do many such exist? no reason they couldn’t)
I called it a “gamebook” when it has a world model and a “CYOA” when it doesn’t:
http://bluerenga.wordpress.com/2005/02/04/categories-of-interactive-fiction/
(5-year old post, so the images are now broken.)
Actually, good image in my followup post:
http://bluerenga.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/categories-of-interactive-fiction-redux/
Would Walker & Silhouette or even Blue Lacuna count as CYOA interfaces? Granted clicking the word “lever” inline is a bit different than clicking “If you want to pull the lever now, click here,” but on the other hand, you should only need to click/type your choice of keywords to beat the game, rather than type in commands.
Blue Lacuna does allow you to type a huge amount of other stuff besides the keywords, though, often with interesting alternative results. I think of this as a kind of compromise position: there is always some set of visible options brought to the player’s attention (vs. IF games in which you can get completely stuck for what to type), but a wide range of other things are also possible, some of them very interesting in terms of what they reveal about the narrated world.
Walker and Silhouette does that too, just to a much lower extent. (Ever try KISS [someone] in that game? Or ATTACK…?)
So I wouldn’t consider either of them pure CYOA, but they have interfaces that I agree are at least influenced by hypertext ideas.
Ever try KISS [someone] in that game?
Oh, I say! I certainly did.
Neophyte at In the Company of Grues has been thinking a lot about IF and CYOA, and there was just a discussion about the difference, particularly with respect to W&S and Blue Lacuna. (Well, they came up eventually.) Here’s another interesting discussion about it.