Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) is an approach to interactive fiction where the user is presented with a page of text and a handful of links, either within the text or as a list of options after the text. Clicking a link will take the user to a new page of text, with its own set of choices. The number of choices will vary between pages, but will typically be one to three.

CYOA games are not a great fit for Quest, which, in all its versions, is built to handle a complex world model. There are better options out there, such as Twine and Squiffy. However, I am going to use this to a soapbox to expound my views on CYOA.

Examine object

It is common in CYOA to have links on objects; click the link, and you see text about the object, then click return to go back to the previous page. We could call these "examine links", and the other type to be "choice links".

Using "examine links" is often a good idea, but you should let the user know in advanced that that is the case. Clicking these links is "safe" because they do not change the game work; nothing actually happens. That is different to "choice links", which, in general, there is no return from.

So these links should be a different colour, or perhaps these are in the main text and the "choice links" are listed below the text.

Choices

I am only taking about "choice links" here.

Linear vs CYOA

To count as interactive fiction, to my mind a game needs plenty of choices. If each page has only one link to select, then that is not a choice; the user is not choosing their own adventure. You might as well turn the pages of a book; it is no more interactive than that.

That is not to say that such a work has no value, but it is not what I am discussing here.

Meaningful

But more than that, the choices have to be meaningful.

Letting the user choose between going out wearing a hat or going out with no hat is only meaningful if the choice has consequences. If both choices bring the user to the same page, and the story continues without referencing hats again, the choice was fake. The user is still not choosing their own adventure.

Informed

But more than that, the choices have to be informed.

Letting the user choose between turning left or turning right is only meaningful if the user has some idea of what is ahead. A choice is only meaningful if the chooser has some way to evaluate the relative merits of the options. Do I go left, and hope my magic ring will deal with the wraith, or turn right, at the risk of meeting a troll?

A real choice not only has to have consequences, but it has to have apparent consequences - consequences that the user can see right there and then - not necessarily the same as the actual consequences.

Links

Again, I am only taking about "choice links" here. "Choice links" should be things the player does. Compare these two.

You walk down the empty street; the shops are closed all the windows boarded up.

A truck passes by

The street seems empty; the shops are closed all the windows boarded up. A a truck passes by.

Walk down street

There are times when presenting just one "choice link" is okay; there is a limit to how many options you can offer. However, even when there is only one, to my mind the "choice link" should still be something the player will actively do. In the first example, the user has to choose something that the player will not be doing. The second is better because the user clicks on something the player will do.

Structure

Giving the user meaningful choices implies that the outcome of the story will depend on those choices. One approach is to have every choice lead to a different possible outcomes, but you do not need many pages with two or three choices on each for this to rapidly get out of hand.

One approach is to make some of them fake choices. Another option is to have paths re-combine after they split up - though you could argue that is a fake choice too if the ultimate outcome is the same. With the best will in the world, this is going to be the case for some choices in any game.

What other options are there?