More Modern Gamebooks
I’ve stumbled across yet more new-to-me hyperfiction in the process of NaNoWriMo prep, so here’s a third post in what’s becoming a series. Today’s theme is zombie apocalypse mayhem, CYOA-style.
James Schannep has a highly-rated series of murder and/or apocalyptic mayhem CYOA books for adults, Pick Your Poison (2012–2016). The first four are available on Amazon in paperback, ebook, and Kindle Unlimited forms; a fifth volume, Classically Marooned, was initially planned for this year but is now expected in 2018.
He’s not the only one writing choice fiction on these themes; Matt Youngmark’s Chooseomatic Books series (2009–2014, print and ebook) also included zombies and superheroes, with an impressive number of (mostly bad-for-you) endings. (The last volume of the series (2016) morphed into an ebook-only game.)
Author M. E. Kinkade went with zombies in Undead Rising: Decide Your Destiny (2015, print and ebook).
A similarly-themed series, You Choose: Doomsday (2015–2016, print/ebook/Kindle Unlimited), is instead targeted at 3rd to 7th graders, with the rather limited number of endings one finds in recent Choose Your Own Adventure™ books. There are quite a few other You Choose (2012–2018) themes available: Space, Fractured Fairy Tales, Haunted Places, Extreme Sports, Battlefields, Survival, Ancient Greek Myths, Spies, Engineering Marvels, Modern History, Historical Eras, and lots and lots of History. Reports of the death of the CYOA genre have apparently been greatly exaggerated.
Also on the YA front, I found Meanwhile (2010), a CYOA graphic novel, notable in that it advertises its number of paths—a whopping 3,856—rather than the number of endings.
© 2017 M. C. DeMarco
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