Choose Your Own Adventure books

[yelever]

Did anyone else read these? You would read a page and at the bottom you would have a choice of what to do nexted by picking the next page to turn to i.e. if you wanted to run from the ghost turn to page 64. I think I got my first one from saving tokens from a corn flake packets and was sent The Horror Of High Ridge. Also bought a few others but mainly got them from the libary. A couple of mates read them as well but they mainly cheated by going back to the previous page and picking the other choice.

[Heather74]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I had some and if I remember correctly Some of Enid Blytons Famous Five were made into them. I have to say I never really got on with those types of books.
I hate making decisions I'd rather just get on with the story, but thats just me

[stevef]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I had one called 'Exploration Infinity' which i got from the school book club when i was about 9.

[yelever]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

They had some others written by a different author but you had to roll a dice to see what page you turned to. I`ve tracked them down on amazon and ordered 5 already lol. (the ones without the dice)

[JQW]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I had a few of these back in the late 1970s. I think I got three for Christmas from one of my mother's catalogues, and managed to pick up another one a few months later. One page featured text, whilst the opposite had a picture containing clues, with the page to turn to next labelled with an arrow.

One was a kidnapping story set in France, which ended up as a chase through the sewers of Paris. To 'win' the story you had to go through one particular sewer which was almost hidden in the picture clue.

Another was some sort of smuggling story featuring an old car laden with gold bullion.

Another one was based on breaking coded messages, spotted in the classified section of a local newspaper. The messages were always in the form "turn to page XX", which referred to a page in the local tourist guide. You were given help on solving each particular coded message as to which cypher it used; however this wouldn't lead to the correct solution. To solve the book you had to have spotted another coded message on one page, and have worked out the particular cypher to use from other messages on the same page. It had me beat for a few weeks.

I'm sure the final one was set in space, but I can't recall anything about it.

[Palazzo]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I had something similar, one was called footsteps in the fog and was set in victorian London and saw you in the role of a sherlock holmes-type character going after a top-hatted villain. Another was set on a haunted train journey where it would say things like 'You see a white shape from the furthest carriage window, do you take a photograph?' then it would give you the option of turning to a page to take a photograph or turning to another if not. By the time the adventure was over you needed to have at least 3 or 4 ghosts photographed. These books were both in the same series and the inside front and back covers would fold out to reveal these mini-game cards.

I also had a few Sonic The Hedgehog adventure books which weren't really that great and two mini adventure books which I remember picking up from WHSmiths years ago. One of these was set in a haunted castle while the other one was set in space or on some sort of space craft.

[HG]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I have a couple in a cupboard somewhere, Island of the Lizard King and Citadel of Chaos. Think both were by Steve Livingstone and came out in ealry/mid 80s.

[Flash Gordon]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I've still got six of the Jackson/ Livingston books on a shelf, where they've been sitting for about sixteen years!

The forest of Doom
Fangs of Fury
Daggers of Darkness
Skylord
House of Hell (my favourite)
Spectral Stalkers

They're not mine though and I recently bumped into the guy who lent them to me. I mentioned them and now he wants them back!

One of the best I played though was actually quite clever. I forget the title but it was set in a maze where you fight to the death with another warrior.
The twist was that there were two books and it was for two players so you fought one of your mates.

But, as yelever mentioned, the problem with all these books is that you just go back to the previous page if you made the wrong choice!

[nessie]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I remember getting them from the libary! Oh now im tempted to buy some!!!

[Richard1978]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I got a few out from the library in the 1980s.

I've still got a one called The Magic Path, which was part of the Skylark series for younger readers.

Bantam also did some for even younger readers, which were about A4 sized with full colour pictures & hardly any choices. My sister had 1 or 2.

Bantam also had a series call Interplanetery Spy, my brother & I were each bought one from a newsagent on a caravan site in North Norfolk.

I've still got them both, along with Asterix & Biggles game books which came with a dice & some other things that were needed to play them.

Another puzzle book I've got is The Riddle Of The Sphinx, which needed the solutions to puzzled writing in it, spoiling further use.

[childofthe80's]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I remember these!! I use to always flip back and forth constantly to see which outcome I liked the best. For some reason I remember one with space ships on the front, but cannot remember the name. Of course it was a sci-fi theme.

[Jamo]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I saw these knocking about and resisted for a while. Then, they were harder to avoid. I seem to remember seeing short mini-versions given away with cereal.

Eventually, I caved in and bought Deathtrap Dungeon of the Fighting Fantasy series. And wow....it was amazing! I absolutely loved it. I soon had Island of the Lizard King, and borrowed a few others. Then I got into the Lone Wolf series.

I was thirteen, I'd say. And I suppose those books led me into a decade of role-playing games and Citadel figures.

...Jamo

[Richard1978]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

One frustrating thing was thinking you had solved a puzzle & finding yourself being killed in a fairly gory way on a page labelled The End.

This was common in The Interplanetary Spy ones.

My brother used to quote the best ones:

(trying to land a spaceship in the wrong shaped docking bay) "You hear a horrible scraping sound, you don't hear the explosion!"

(being chased through a maze by a dinosaur like alien) "You walked stright into a dead end, very dead!"

[jason h]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

These were really popular at school in the very early 80s. I tried a few cave & drangons style adventures that I believe were from the Fighting Fantasy range but they didn't appeal to me.
However, one that did was a book who's title evades me but it was something to do with 'Wonderland", as in Alice's adventures of. It was set in modern day times (possibly South America) and was a bit of a whodunit.
What was it's name? Anyone else read it?

[70sscifiboy]

Re: Choose Your Own Adventure books

I spent a good week one summer getting through The Warlock of Firetop Mountain! There was graph paper with plotted out maps all over the place!