Hello guys i just wondering and want to know why do you like interactive fictions or choose your own adventures story instead normal fiction?
What do you think pros and cons interactive fiction instead of normal fiction?
Thanks in advance 
1 Like
For one thing, good interactive fiction usually avoids the cases of idiot ball that many standard fictional heroes have.
Me: “This is a trap. Why would I agree to this?”
Game: “But you would do it, wouldn’t you?”
Me: “What? No. This is obviously a terrible decision. Only a complete moron would agree to this.”
Game: “Oh, I think you wouuulldddd.”
Me: “Dammit. No. This is going to end badly. Don’t make do it anyway even though I already know what is exactly going to happen.”
Game: “TURNS OUT TO BE A TRAP! Didn’t see that coming, did you?”
Me: “Ugggghhh.”
But good interactive fiction at least prevents this from happening and you don’t usually need to take the course of stupidity is the only option.
9 Likes
You ever watched a horror movie or read a book where a character decides to do something stupid? Like, “Oh there’s a psychopathic murderer on the loose killing my friends and I just heard a noise in the basement, better go check it out!” and you’re just sitting there screaming at the character not to do that? I started playing IF games because it lets you avoid that.
4 Likes
…Because it’s better then a book?
1 Like
You can understand a character or a complex environment more when you have the chance to explore it under different circumstances.
4 Likes
For some people, interactive fictions is a bit like playing Dungeons & Dragons. It helps the player to be fully immersed into the story so that they can be free form the boring reality, which is also what people do when they read a normal book. (At least for me)
Also, it is really interesting to see the different outcome of the story depending on the main character’s decision, so you won’t be stuck with just one ending.
Plus, have you ever read a book and fall in love with a certain character only to see them die later on. like in Harry Potter, the poor Sirius Black who suddenly died in a puff. Well, if Harry Potter was an interactive novel then maybe such tragedy wouldn’t have happened. Right!?
3 Likes
Getting new items always feel like a badass. Making your character better, especially in the term of power/ability, also feels like a badass.
'twas old cyoa, though.
1 Like
It just feels more immersive over all. For one, it’s nice to be able to sort of shape the protagonist’s personality and explore how that effect relationship dynamics among the characters. It also feels like I’m actually contributing to the story instead of just being along for the ride. Plus, replay value is always nice.
1 Like
One thing I like reading IF are being able to be part of the story. Being able to choose how they will interact on certain situations, choose how they interact with other characters. =)
2 Likes
Because I get to be the character in the story (or at least I get to experience it with them). And I really like customization.
It’s the perfect middle ground between books and games.
When I started writing I always named the MC after me 
, and reading IF pretty much lets me do that. And you can always reread it with a different character, so it’s never the same story. Sometimes you even want to see your character fail just to see what happens.
Writing-wise, compared to a novel, you have a lot more room to explore the world, characters, and plot (including different endings), because you don’t have as much limitations.
Of course this also works against itself because it’s much harder to write, and bad execution (stats, pacing, railroading) hurts the reader’s immersion much more than it normally would on a traditional story.
Oh, and you also have this wonderful community. 
I just love the freedom of choice. Maybe there is a book you like but then the main character makes a stupid and easily avoidable move. But you can change that if YOU are the main character. And like @Franzinyte said this is a nice and inclusive community too!
1 Like
I’ve already mentioned that I’m not someone who personally does self inserts or whatever the IF variant is of author avatars, but for most people I think that’s one of the pluses is the ability to do that.
I don’t really understand it, but it’s fully an option that you can do, if you want to. You don’t get that with books, where if they try to do it, it usually borders on “This moron who never accomplished anything, is just like you! …right?”
And almost nobody is ever happy about it.
1 Like
Oh, I said when I started writing. so I don’t really do that anymore. I think. 
But yeah, it’s a good thing that it has its place.
I usually roleplay as one of my characters (playing as myself is boring), but that’s not really that much different as playing as yourself, is it?
1 Like
Personally, strong narrative focus + player customization (including orientation, rarely seen in gaming as a whole). There is almost quite literally no other games like these.
1 Like
Grow up…with these books : Choose Your Own Adventure - Wikipedia
Had so many of those…my mom though we were going a bit nutty . We would leave them everywhere…(save for the fridge lol)…and she got ride of them eventually . Broke mah heart .
I play these book-games , cose they are fun . Cose unlike in a normal book , I actually can make decisions . Even if those decisions are limited…it’s still ALOT in comparaison to a book…where you have to turn a page after a page to see if that Idiot character that got on your nerve…will get his due ! and in the end , he wont! Grrr
ahem…I also get to smooche alot…
3 Likes
For me it’s because I love roleplaying, I like to imagine that I’m someone else and escape reality for a while. And since I don’t roleplay on forums or with friends anymore, reading CYOAs seems to be the best way to do that.
2 Likes
The first choice of game that I read was choice of robots. If you ask me, then it’s one of the best… sorry… THE BEST choice of game ever made. It really made me think about different things. It made me think about choosing something great and giving up an ordinary life for glory and for our dreams. It turned me into a philosophical junky that I’m right now. It got me interested in philosophy in the first place. When I was playing the game, I was a completely different person. I was in someone else’s shoes. I was thinking differently. It got me interested in writing. I wanted to create something like what I had read. I had spent the whole summer playing cogs. Sometimes, I was fighting the zombies, sometimes I was investigating a case with Sherlock, sometimes I was a professional wrestler, sometimes I was there while the world was about to end, I was on the moon (reflecting what its like to be lonely. I was the hero of my own story. I have a very special relation with choice of games. It made me laugh, made me cry, made me fall in love, made me think. If at least for a few hours, it took me away from the real world. That’s why I like interactive fiction. I’m the one creating the story. Im the one who is deciding. I love to interact with the story that I’m reading. And choice of games does just that.
2 Likes
Because you can be someone you’re not. You can be pretty much the opposite of the real you
This too
I have a short attention span, which means I don’t read as often as I’d like. Video games and writing usually keep me invested due to their interactivity, so cyoa fiction was a natural fit for me.
1 Like
For me it’s definitely the chance to “be” someone else. I don’t want to sound too melodramatic, but I really don’t like myself all that much most of the time.
Okay that sounds sad. I just really enjoy getting a taste of being someone with a more exciting life.
3 Likes