Tag: CYOA

CYOA Reflection

I came into this assignment utterly daunted by the idea of mapping out several possible, potentially inter-connecting outcomes from one segment of the book to another in House of Danger. Unfortunately, my nervousness was not unfounded in that I had great difficulty being able to complete my map. Several times, I found myself at various endings (whether they included death, an uncertain ending involving other dimensions/etc., or safety.) Still, I could not make my way to the end of the book–while reading through it repeatedly, I could not propel my character towards the latest pages in the book, which I found extremely frustrating.

Just as this book was clearly written for the reading level of a sixth grader (approximately), I felt like one, as well, because I felt helpless in trying to complete my map and finish the book overall. Each day, however, I was able to approach it and find myself further down various paths.

As a reader, however, I did enjoy the book in the sense that it inspired me to attempt to create a project like this of my own. Daunting as it must be for a reader, it must be adventurous and perhaps quite daunting for the author, as well. Nonetheless, the concept of the book interests me and it was an intriguing introduction into a genre of literature with which I had not previously been familiar.

It interested me that risky, sometimes-altruistic choices led to speedy deaths, whereas timid, erring-on-the-side-of-safety choices resulted in my character living longer or ending up in an entirely different reality (several plot lines were in play in my book.)

CYOA Reflection

This assignment flip-flopped for me. On some nights when I hunkered down to map out the book, the task seemed forever on-going. Then on other nights, I zipped through the pages and mapped every node without the need to pause. I suppose that in hindsight, every night would have been easier if I could have worked on the assignment for more than fifteen to twenty minutes, but that was all the time allowed.

My particular adventure was “Journey Under the Sea” by R.A. Mongomery. Put succinctly, the plot involved an undersea search of Atlantis, and the majority of the book endings left the hero somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. That is not to say that the hero drowned half the time, rather he drowned, got held prisoner or held a successful life down in Atlantis.

As a child my real experience with the choose-your-own-adventure genre lay with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, wherein somewhere down the line the franchise joined the fad and created its own version with a choose-your-death style. Now that I’ve read one of the original series for comparison, I can say that Stine’s books more-or-less ended more gruesomely, and it was a thankful twist that for the most part Montgomery did not delight in absolutely slaughtering me.

This did not leave the hero immune to shark attacks, painful injections or drowning at the bottom of an inescapable vortex.

Though on the plus side, one ending did leave the hero rich and famous.

Overall, I would do this exercise again. After being acclaimated to the program, I began to enjoy making the bubble maps, and now am thinking of other exercises I could apply it to.

However, as of this moment, I am absolutely sick of Atlantis.