Doesn’t Interactive Fiction better describe it than choose your own adventure? Especially since not everything here is technically an adventure?
It’s a story. Its interactive. Its IF.
Granted I never heard of CYOA till I started playing CoG games, and I’m 23 years old at the moment. So the term is not at all descriptive for me but I’d imagine it varies from country to country.
I ran a Google search in incognito mode so that my browser history wouldn’t affect the search, and “interactive novel” only came up once, that being the COG link; all the others were redirects from “interactive fiction” due to Google appearing to treat it synonymously.
Putting “interactive novel” in quotations got me 82,000 results instead of 131,000,000 without the quotation marks, so it doesn’t seem to be that popular a term. The majority of those appeared to be articles from “mainstream” media (i.e. non-gaming) doing a coordinated recommendation of Black Crown (basically three articles from Globe & Mail, the Guardian, the Atlantic giving a recommendation for the same game with similar descriptions). Nothing from a major site offering such games (like Steam or itch.io), nor from games journalism, nor from major gaming discussion sites.
For comparison with other terms, I got the following number of hits:
That’s a sample size of one, and the number of hits is never particularly indicative of anything, so your mileage may vary. But in general, I don’t think it would be incorrect to state that “interactive novel” is not that well-known of a term. Not as well-known as CYOA, or VN. The first article for me stated Fallen London as an example, and the first genre that springs to my mind regarding Fallen London is “browser-based game”.
CYOA might be a technically wrong descriptor for the genre, but when has that stopped people who play games from giving them the wrong name? The Total War series is Real-Time Tactics, but it is commonly called an RTS game. There are some people who prefer to use Civilization-style game in lieu of 4X; “Grand Strategy” can vary depending on whom you ask. The simulation category on Steam is cluttered with all sorts of stuff I wouldn’t consider simulation, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the best-selling “strategy” games on Steam and has been for years. Sure, there is some strategy in CS:GO, but I doubt anyone would actually call it a strategy game.
People will describe games however they wish. People can attempt to steer them in a direction, but that will not always work. I remember when people used “walking simulator” solely as a pejorative. It’s still a pejorative in part, yet people are more comfortable with using it. It has in part moved away from its pejorative nascency on hardcore gaming forums to a term in the gaming vernacular, used by journalists, game devs and the gaming public. Game devs would probably prefer the genre not be called a “walking simulator”, but people understand what that is now, for better or worse. (And People will probably continue calling it that until they think of something better.)
Yeah, I actually don’t think CYOA makes sense for CoGs at all. In those old books, you could turn right and get a story about aliens abducting you, or turn left and get a story about being trapped in a basement by a blob monster. So you were choosing your adventure, just very unintuitively.
CoGs are more like actual novels with real plots, but you just get to play as the MC and make choices that can affect characters or diverge down different paths within that plot. So there’s a much bigger emphasis on interactivity than choosing out of multiple adventures.
Jacuzzi, Hot Tub. Pepsi, Coke. It happens.
VN huh? Aren’t those extremely well known for just being pron? Had to look it up to find out it wasn’t just that o.o Why was it even included with the other results? All of them share the same qualities except VN…
As for Grand Strategy… gods… I have seen some people refer to Total War as grand strategy or the Civ games as such when they have nowhere near the complexity to be refereed to as such. Clogs up search results.
Something else to bear in mind, names/appellations will change if enough of the audience desires it, whether or not a company wishes it to change. If a majority prefer it, then there isn’t much one can do, even if they do find it grating.
At least sometimes the name changes can be for the better. I mean, Doom-Clones evolved to First Person Shooters, shortened to FPS
Cog are video games put it blunt. If this were middle 80’s to early 90’s there weren’t any difference between Cog and many first video games. Lol You have games with music and images so by all means you have made a video game.
It is the closed minded people that have made look like these are not games. When they are in the most core and important part of a video game. Still, no one will called them video games anymore.
I mean if we are being honest Video refers to moving images so it would be correct to say CoG titles aren’t video games. And honestly I wouldn’t bundle CoG titles with Video Games.
If only because being Interactive Fiction or Interactive Novels gives them a more sophisticated feel especially amongst people who aren’t too familiar with it (As in: People who see video games as stuff for kids. There are still a ton of people like that). That and the difference between IF/IN and video games is quite stark.
In my opinion at least I do feel like the distinction is significant enough for them to be considered different things to be more useful than not. Though they do fall into the games category due to having fail states, win states and mechanics that support such.
Not in my circles, really, though they are largely dating sims (I mean, there is smut, but I found that incidentally). They’re interactive fiction, just typically with character based branching and paths that “lock” you to a certain route after a certain point (more limited, but you’re dealing with more assets and thus more headaches per branch).
I actually got bumped over here from Ren’py’s forums awhile back. I’m picky as all heck about visual aspects and get very little out of them, so this was a nice change.
I get your point (and wouldn’t really call IF video games besides) but video games are shifting away from that as the generations who grew up with them, well… grow up. And in any case, I’d expect most of the people who think “Video games are for kids” won’t really consider IF any different, no matter what you call them.
Most graphic adventures until last 80’s didn’t have interactive graphics at all. The images were scarce and static and all the dynamic and interactive experience were made by reading . Clicking in fixed commands on screen and writing yourself commands. First sierra games, zork and many others are exactly that It was the only first pcs commodores etc could run. So literally almost half of vide games catalogue. So any Cog is more original video game That Thief auto
I disagree. Those old CYOA books could be extremely divergent, or they could be just as plot heavy as some of the things you find on here. There are a good many parallels. Just because one don’t like being associated with the term CYOA, doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply.
That’s just trying to split hairs. And in answer, yes, I DO feel as if I’m on an adventure when I read these stories/games.
The fact is that CYOA has become part of our vernacular to mean a genre where players/readers can choose paths in a story.
See perhaps it meant that in the 80s but these days? I’d imagine the reason people tend to call CoG titles and the like not video games is because they simply don’t fall within the expectations of what a video game is these days. There are extremely few people who would think of a purely text based game as a video game.
And the majority of those that do probably play Dwarf Fortress, Liberal Crime Squad, Caves of Qud, CDDA etc. Though they are Roguelikes.
I just feel like video game is a pretty terrible descriptor for CoG titles and just generally brings up confusion from the mainstream audience at best and annoyance at worst. And I am a person who played more CoG titles than I have played video games in the past 5 years.
As I said I use If because is a very useful term to don’t confuse people. However, In deep and its core a cog is same thing a video game. It has code , It has mathematics and logical doing its calculations. Has bugs and achievements. it could have music and images and in theory you could add cutscenes …
It works like a game, is coded like a game and can include images and videos… Is a damn game.
That seems like too much generalizing. I’ve seen really good Choose Your Own Adventures.
And whenever I say IF instead of CYOA, everyone gets confused.
Never said its not a game.
I’d say what you mentioned for game is kinda irrelevant. Since the main thing a game has to have is win and lose states. Least I don’t know of any games be they physical like boardgames or football, or digital, without win and lose states.
I know you not. But Every forum I go or even games ratings There are people whining about “THIS IS NOT A GAME…IT IS JUST A BUNCH OF LETTERS!”
Clearly they never played roguelikes 
Or Aurora4x.
Well, yeah, they are games. Were they fully visual, they’d become video games.
Funny thing first thing I code to learn was a D&D fighting game and with random dice and you could win and lose . So Exactly as that lol
Then by your definition half of 80’s called Video games weren’t video games. As I said concept of video games has evolved. Still We don’t say That Egyptians didn’t write because they didn’t use our ABC system. And Summerians knew Mathematics even if didn’t use decimal system. Terms are more open that people believe