The ending to this post, you see, is a link to that Slate article, where you’ll be able to learn all about the beginnings of the Choose Your Own Adventure series and how it laid the foundation for interactive adventures in other areas of interactive entertainment, like the PC (Zork).
Also interesting is the fact that the two most prominent CYOA authors of the series, Raymond Montgomery and Edward Packard, no longer speak. The rift, however, might result in a rebirth of sorts for the series, with each author taking the medium in decidedly different directions:
Choose Your Own Adventure books ceased publication in 1998. Packard and Montgomery had a falling out and no are no longer on speaking terms, but each continues to fly the interactive-fiction flag. In 2000, they regained the copyright for their respective titles. Packard took his to Simon & Schuster where he’s developing them into full-blown apps under the name U-Ventures, while Montgomery picked up the rights to use the Choose Your Own Adventure name, and he and several of his authors have started ChooseCo, a company that’s reprinting the old books and publishing new ones.
I was a Lone Wolf guy myself, although I certainly read my fair share of CYOA. Should I destroy my parents’ attic looking for my old copies OR should I continue writing today for Gizmodo, sans pants? YOU decide. [Slate]
Awnshegh
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 11:06 AMI championed the purchasing of many CYOA books at my library when I was in school and purchased many more for myself when I was younger. Lone Wolf does bring back some cool memories. Though I think my favourite were the Battle Master books (I think that’s what they were called). It was a series of 2 player books that pitted 2 players against each other. Very cool.
Chino
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 1:12 PMI remember reading these for a while when I was a kid then moving on to Fighting Fantasy and ultimately playing dungeon and dragons, Talisman and other role playing game….
Arrrh those were the days…