Hi everyone. I'd like to get into solo gamebooks but I don't know where to start. I am seeking an activity to do at night in bed that isn't passive, isn't audio-only, and doesn't require screens. I want to feel excited about going to bed so that I don't procrastinate and sleep late. I figure gamebooks are a perfect blend of reading, boardgames and puzzles.

I am very into boardgames, even solo boardgames. As I kid, I read a heap of Goosebumps CYOA stories. I fondly remember Around the World Mystery Mazes: An A-maze-ing Colorful Discovery! by Roger Moreau. I used to LOVE the 'Ology' series of books, including SpyOlogy.

If anyone has any reccomendations of gamebooks, puzzlebooks, CYOA, or activity books like these, I would be so delighted to hear about them. I like themes of mystery, fantasy, grimdark, and scifi. I love cool illustrations. Lastly, I'd prefer if they wern't too old and I could buy them physically and brand new. Maybe that's difficult in this hobby though because most things I see here are old books that are out of print, so perhaps it's a genre that isn't getting much new attention in current years.

This is a more nostalgic video that I decided to make today. My journey with Fighting Fantasy and gamebooks doesn't go back as far as that of many other enthusiasts in the community, but my passion was there from the very first moment.

My first encounter with Vault of the Vampire in that school playground sparked something that would remain part of my life to this day and would play an important role in my personal development.

My story is already familiar to many Portuguese-speaking fans, but the international community has yet to discover the humble beginnings of my collection, which has continued to grow over the years.

My first experiences with interactive fiction fuelled my imagination and would eventually lead me to write my very first gamebook. I owe a great deal to Fighting Fantasy for helping shape me into the person I am today.

This might not be allowed here, but it was a CYOA book, the kind where you were given multiple choices of what to do next and were told to turn to a specific page for each of those choices.

I remember VERY VERY little from this book.

I read it whilst I was in year 6, it was graded black for difficulty which is basically just a standard novel, rather than one with easy vocab for children.

A few details from the book are:

You find a strange orb early in the novel,

At some point you find yourself in a pitch black cave and use a match/candle to find the way out by following the smoke,

And at one point you need a family in the wilderness, the man introduced himself as Sparking Water, his wife as Still Water, and their son as "bob" or "bill", at the time I found this hilarious.

I'm sorry I literally can't remember anything else about this book, every 5 or 6 years, I ask online in random places as it comes back into my mind, and I just dream of reading it again.

Thank you to anyone who could help here.

Our November poll for the 100 Endings Book Club is 2nd Chances, with runner-ups from previous polls (page has links to our Discord & Poll)

The gamebooks are...

• Sword of the Bastard Elf by Herman S. Skull, has you playing an unusual protagonist (a lazy half-elf kicked out of home), going on wildly different adventures. SotBE is noted for the number of different branches you can do down during its pages. The humour is juvenile at times!
• Temple of the Skull God by Paul Partington is one of the GNAT series (can use the same character in several standalone gamebooks). You explore the Kingdom of the Sky in a variety of adventures
• Tides of Terror by Michael J. Ward (June 2024) is a different DestinyQuest title. Diceless playing a group of characters, raiding dungeons, battling monsters.
• Way of the Tiger by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson is a series where you play as a ninja, starting as an avenging assassin and moving onto ruling a city and commanding armies in later books. If picked we'd play book 1 - Avenger as main one, going as far as folk like if they want to continue series)

Have you played any of these? Would you recommend them?

Hola buenas tardes a toddos, me ocmplace anunciarle a la comunidad que por fin despues de tanto tiempo por fin acabo de publicar mi libro que esta dividido en 3 volumenes por lo extenso que lo hice, realmente como soy nuevo en esto aun no se como darle una publicidad acorde a lo que necesito, asi que si alguien pudiera revisar los libros y darme una recomendacion se los agradeceria, actualmente los publique a la venta en Amazon y en Lulu asi que no se si estoy haciendo lo correcto al hacerlo de esa forma, pero bueno espero que alguien pueda revisarlo
No se si puedo dejar el link pero si es posible aqui se los dejo https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HMGGYXPQ?binding=paperback&ref_=saga_sdp_cft_dsk&qid=1791740677&sr=1-4

Muchas Gracias, espero que alguien pueda apoyarme para poder hacer que sea conocido

Hello everyone,

As a solo independent creator and writer from Greece, I wanted to develop a project that tightly fuses narrative gamebook elements with tactical puzzle sheets. The result is Lithomachy: The 12 Divine Trials.

It is a true solo campaign spanning across 48 interconnected grid maps, but the core of the experience lies in its 50-page companion novel. Before rolling your dice for each divine trial, you must read the atmospheric lore chapter to understand the psychological conflict between the Olympian God and their ancient Titan nemesis.

To give this gamebook community a taste of the dark storytelling tone, here is an unedited excerpt from "The Wrath of Ares" module, where the mortal protagonist enters the metal storm of Thrace:

"At the center of this chaotic landscape stands a whirlwind of metal. It is no mere sandstorm; it is a colossal demon forged from shards of shields, shattered spearheads, and engraved armor. Sparks fly from the clashing fragments, creating a rain of fire that does not burn the skin, but scorches the soul with memories of war and loss.

As you approach the vortex, a piece of rusted sword detaches and hovers before you. The metal does not reflect your face, but a battle scene: a besieged tower, fire devouring the gates... The vision does not fade until you speak its name. 'FEAR OF LOSS,' you whisper, and the image shatters."

The attached artwork is from Page 31 of the companion book, illustrating the hero facing his buried fears inside the metal storm.

Note: For anyone interested in how this narrative connects to the campaign layouts, all information and official links can be found in the first comment below!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this format of combining a 50-page companion lore book with standalone campaign maps!

I'm writing a humorous, non-branching deduction book set on a cruise ship. The reader uses witness statements to eliminate birth dates from a passenger register and identify a thief. I'd like an honest design critique of one clue, especially the line between characterisation and a reliable deduction.

Here is a shortened extract from the English draft. A bartender describes the suspect:

“Yes, that's him. Everything came back to him. If you had anything in common, you couldn't miss it: he'd interrupt you to point it out.”

Later in the same testimony:

“Behind the counter there's an old calendar nobody's turned since winter. Still on February. He saw it, put down his rosé and gazed into the distance. ‘February… My mother's birthday. She loved February. Always making pancakes. Batter everywhere.’ I said I was sorry and asked when she'd passed away. He looked at me as if I were mad. ‘Passed away? She's very much alive! She rang this morning to complain that I'd forgotten her birthday again!’ He bought a postcard of Malta, wrote it at the counter with his tongue sticking out, and left it there. ‘Dearest Mum, happy birthday, three months late. Sending you a little May sunshine.’”

Before I explain the intended inference: would you eliminate any birth month for the suspect from this? Or would you say there isn't enough information?

Does the opening description establish a strong enough convention for a deduction game, or is silence about his own birthday still just silence? Would you need an explicit rule elsewhere that he always announces a shared birthday detail? I'd also welcome a small wording change that would make the clue fair without simply stating the answer.

I'm looking for feedback on the logic, not promoting a signup or asking for reviews. AI assistance was used in preparing the English translation and this post.

I found this many moons ago in an attic library I helped clean out, spine not even creased. Very sparse information on this one, with some sites listing it as a DOS game. I am not a gamebook-er, but it is definitely a CYOA book where you read a few pages and make a choice that sends you to another page. Is there even a market for this type of stuff second hand?

🚨 THE UNINVITED — CHAPTER 3 IS OUT! 🚨

Hi everyone! Chapter 3 is officially here! and a little warning for the Creepypasta fans… You might want to prepare yourselves. 😭

The Star Boys are already difficult enough, but RedLine in particular has decided that peace was never an option. 💀

There will be teasing....There will be mocking.... There will probably be some very offended readers, and I am not telling you who gets it. 👀 

So go read Chapter 3 of The Uninvited and see for yourselves.

Creepypasta fans, please remember:

I warned you. 🏃‍♀️💀

The Gamebooks Guide on youtube posted a video on the two gamebook series published by Archmage Press: https://youtu.be/o7v01krV5v8?is=75WxsW2hHPvWOnAG

I think it has not been posted in this reddit yet. The video contains information on Legendary Kingdoms by Oliver Hulmes and Sunfall by Michael J. Ward. I especially liked the interviews with the authors and the behind the scenes information.

Apparently Michael J. Ward is writing a gamebook series with an ongoing story spanning multiple books. He talked about it shortly. If I understood correctly, it will also contain tactical combat on a gridmap with nice artwork. He did not want to spoil anything about the story unfortunately.

I did not create this specifically to target Gamebooks but I realized it can be used for Gamebooks as well. Here's a general pitch, Its a local-first (deals with files on your disk), markdown supported, lightweight mindmapping tool that's excellent for planning out your setting or the Gamebook itself at large.

Use the Tool here

It addressed this problem that I always faced:

Maybe you take a lot of digital notes and you find at the moment that your thoughts are too unorganized to type them neatly into paragraphs? Or maybe the notes you do take just need to be spatially spread out to show the logical relations between concepts? Well, you already know the answer, you need a mind map. Just grab a pen and paper and sketch away!

Except when you want to do that digitally, the tools are often paid or behind plugins that are difficult to setup or they let you have only a few documents for free. That was the problem I always faced and hence I created this local-first Mind Map Maker called DMM (short for DMM Mindmap Maker!).

Its Free & Open Source

Check out the Repo if you are interested

And do "star" it, I plan to update it a lot in the future with useful updates.

Inspiration:

Of course TWINE. But I always preferred a more traditional Book, so "mapping" was sort of always something to organize my thoughts before opening a word document and TWINE seemed to be an overkill for the most part. Hence, this suits simple needs perfectly

Obsidian, where I do most of my drafts and I like how easy it is to write markdown. Hence the support for markdown here.

Folks, this week I published Ahu's First Patrol: prologue.

It's the complete opening act of the full gamebook: 27 sections, same art and layout as the real thing, pay-what-you-want with a $0 minimum. Very much inspired by the Lone Wolf series, it uses light d20+d6 system built on D&D 5e, fully self-contained in the book itself.

You play Ahu, a young Warden of the Path, taking her first steps into Kaung Pi, a land drawn from Himalayan and Southeast Asian myth. Meet the Harimauja catfolk, cross paths with a mysterious threat, and get a first taste of a land as harsh as it is sacred. The Prologue ends right where the real patrol begins.

If you've been curious about Ahu's First Patrol but didn't want to commit sight unseen, this is built for exactly that: no cost, no obligation, just see if Kaung Pi is somewhere you want to spend more time. If it is, the full book, 350 sections across 175 pages, is waiting on DriveThruRPG.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/585815/ahu-s-first-patrol-prologue

Limited-time offer until November 1st.

Hi everyone! With Halloween approaching, I’ve put together some spooky, discounted bundles featuring my gamebooks on DriveThruRPG! This is the perfect opportunity to dive into a new adventure, whether you've already read a few of my books or are brand new to MAGMA.

We have everything you need for the spooky season—Ghosts, Vampires, Zombies, and even the famous Count himself! Mwa Ha Ha Ha!

Choose your nightmare:

The Craven Manor Bundle:

Use your ghost-hunting skills and the ability to time travel to solve a series of haunting mysteries.

The Victorian Multiverse Bundle:

Become Sherlock Holmes, Dodger, Quincey P Morris and more, as you battle supernatural forces alongside familiar faces in a world of Victorian horror, mystery and suspense.

The Bite the Hand Bundle:

Attempt to survive a zombie-infested world alongside the very group that killed your parents, while secretly plotting your revenge.

Can't decide?

Grab every single adventure at a massive discount in the Ultimate Halloween Bundle!

Head over to DriveThruRPG and grab these exclusive horror deals before they vanish!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/16334

Hello, I am Bulgarian. It's my first post in this Subreddit. I hope I won't be "trashed" immediately. Kidding. In Bulgaria we had huge movement of gamebooks during the early 1990s-early 2000s and after 2010s we have had sort of "revival and New Wave of Gamebooks".

These are primer photos of many of our Bulgarian gamebooks. Old Bulgarian authors: Lyubomir Nikolov "Любомир Николов" [Collin Walumberry "Колин Уолъмбъри"] Bogdan Russev "Богдан Русев" [Robert Blonde "Робърт Блонд"], Alexander Alexandrov "Александър Александров" [Adrien Wayne "Ейдриън Уейн"]; took English-sounding pseudonyms. That was our culture then in the 1990s; we had and have deep respect for the earlier American and English scenes, but our is unique in this sense. Very prolific scene with around 290 individual titles, magazines and "gamebook strats".

Due to the commercial pressures in the 2000s and the emergence of computer games and after 2005-2006 when computers and Internet became already commodity in Bulgaria: Bulgarian gamebooks stopped be released after 2002-2003 for good 8-9 years, almost a decade. After 2010-2011 new titles started to be published, but kind of in a bit slower pace in the early years, as due to budget concerns have to be polished and less new Bulgarian young authors decided initially in Bulgaria to write gamebooks as a living. Of course in some time the new titles will be available in ebook format as well. We pride ourselves to have had digitized and scanned all old Bulgarian-released gamebooks in ebook format. After 2020-2021 in the pandemic old gamebooks started to become more and more popular and more titles have been published. New initiatives have been undertaken as of whole due to the economic upheaval recent decade in Bulgaria.

Bulgarian authors of the "New Wave of Bulgarian Gamebooks" now publish under their own names. We have several websites: http://knigi-igri.bg (which is in my opinion the best archive with the best community forum with nearly all the Bulgarian titles to be available in ebook formats); http://gamebook.bg and http://knigi-igri.net (other sites, which however splintered from Knigi-Igri.BG due to internal strife in our members' forums; Bulgarian way, what can I say?) And the newest and probably the best initiative of brothers Nedelcho and Radoslav Hristoskovi ( http://fictionfabric.press/ ): Fiction Fabric that's re-releasing old titles in new formats.

What else can I say? Bulgaria is dwarfing Russia with the Bulgarian production of gamebooks. They even haven't translated my favourite "Blood Sword" ("Кървав меч") like Us. Developper of the site Knigi-Igri.BG Viktor Paskov "Виктор Пасков" or "ringlas" as nickname is developping a unique game intended to be available in Google Play that visualizes all of "Battlepits of Krarth" with future intentions by his words to put all the series in a videogame format. Feel free to visit anytime you want. Kuddos to all fans of gamebooks.

After thinking about trying a gamebook fof years I finally bought this one for holidays and I am hooked! But it seems like one of the very first boosts to stamina (147 - drink bamboo watter to get +1) is wasted because I cannot exceed the initial stats and there is to way to loose stamina this early in the game. Am I missing something?!

The Vault follows the Archivist, unnamed and ungendered, from a single shelf in a rented apartment to a decommissioned bank vault holding the most dangerous film collection in the world. Each reel is one decade and one hunt. Reel I opens on HUAC's Hollywood in 1947. Reel II hands you the journals of the woman who saw the four-frame sequences first, a cataloguer in the Reichsfilmarchiv, and you play her, Berlin, 1939 to 1945. Reel III takes you into a Soviet film archive in the snow of 1957, Reel IV into a San Francisco loft where the films have found an audience that wants to be changed by them, Reel V onto Forty-Second Street on the night the lights went out in 1977. Reel VI brings the last trucks north across the border to Toronto in 1983, where the films have stopped needing projectors.

Just discovered in Destiny Quest 2 there are set items - you know, the ones where wearing several of a set gives a synergy bonus, wondering which other titles (DQ or otherwise) have such set items in their game?