its not the sites games, its the style of almost every game ive run across thats a choice of type game, thats not made using this choicofgames style, its the style and theme of most of them… like i finished enternal after a lonng amount of hours devouted to it, and while playin git i thought of a good way to summarize on of the problems ive got , most CYOA games are about eighty percent story,and twenty game…or even less than that …and even the small number that have abit more player choice remind me of the books i used to read as a kid, where it would be like so "path a == death path b = life " very simplistic types of games, i surfed the site and found a few more but they just would not hit the spot like this sites games…its probably got something to do with how they are styled and themed …i just can not ge tinto them at all ((and no im not afraid of dying in a game, i play dark souls!))
Most gamebooks/CYOA today imitate the original Fighting Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure books of the 80s. Because of page limitations, those stories had to prune down the branches of their story very closely to fit in 100-300 pages. Also, video and computer games back then were intentionally very difficult, because killing the player often meant “longer play time,” and this mentality transferred to the gamebooks of the day, too (and D&D campaigns, etc.). And, they were aimed at teen and pre-teen boys, so a lot of adventure and combat, and not much emphasis on character development or plot.
Modern audiences expect more, and rightfully so. Many modern authors are held back by the old mentality, and nostalgia. I feel exactly as you do about most CYOA stories, new or old.
Hopefully more authors will “reinvent” choice-based stories, doing things like CoG has done with variables and stats, etc. and keep the emphasis on good characters and storytelling.
The Sagittarian series is hilarious. I just played it and couldn’t stop laughing. The music makes it so much better…