[1] Production of new gamebooks in the West decreased dramatically during the 1990s as choice-based stories have moved away from print-based media, although the format may be experiencing a resurgence on mobile and ebook platforms.
CYOA and FF are the two most popular, successful, and enduring gamebook franchises of all time, rendering them the archetypes of their respective, clashing styles and positions on the complexity spectrum.
Later series like Lone Wolf and Fabled Lands, typically from Britain, would take the FF formula and push the limits of what could be achieved with printed text narratives (leading to, for example, twenty-book arcs in which the same created character could be taken sequentially from one to the next, or four or more books that contain interlocking references to each other in order to create one huge world map).
Branching plot novels, on the other hand, tend to be more concerned with narrative resolution rather than winning or losing, thus often have several endings which may be deemed equally "successful".
by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins was published in the United States in 1930, and boasts "a dozen or more" different endings depending on the "taste of the individual reader".
[7][8] Another story by Borges, titled "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941), also describes a book with a maze-like narrative, which may have inspired the gamebook form.
[8][9] The children's book Treasure Hunt, published in 1945 in Britain under the name of "Alan George" (probably a pseudonym), is another early example of a story with multiple paths for the reader to follow.
These books present the reader with a series of problems related to a particular area of study, allowing him or her to choose among several possible answers.
Tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons were another early influence that would contribute in major ways to the development of the gamebook form.
The first module which combined a branching-path narrative with a set of role-playing game rules was Buffalo Castle for the Tunnels & Trolls system (1975).
[26] The Adventures of You, a two-book series, authored by Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery and initially published by Vermont Crossroads Press, laid much of the groundwork for the later surge in popularity of the gamebook format[citation needed].
While these early efforts apparently achieved some popularity with readers, they (and the gamebook format in general) still did not have a publisher with the marketing strength required to make them available to mass audiences.
Packard and Montgomery took the idea of publishing interactive books to Bantam, and thus the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series was born in 1979, beginning with The Cave of Time.
It was during this period that Bantam released several other interactive series to capitalize on the popularity of the medium (a few examples are: Choose your Own Adventure for Younger Readers, Time Machine and Be An Interplanetary Spy).
Another strong competitor was Ballantine with their Find Your Fate series, which featured adventures in the Indiana Jones, James Bond and Doctor Who universes.
Famous author R. L. Stine wrote several books for this line, including The Badlands of Hark, as well as for other series such as Wizards, Warriors and You.
Like Fighting Fantasy, the writer was an experienced Dungeons & Dragons player who developed the setting of Lone Wolf for his campaigns.
[32][better source needed] The Way of the Tiger, a Japan-themed gamebook series by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson (starting in 1985), is also a notable UK publication.
[citation needed] Branching-path books also started to appear during the 1980s in several other countries, including Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, Chile, Denmark and Japan.
Translated editions of Choose your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy and other English-language series only appeared in Eastern European countries after the fall of Communism.
[46] Some contemporary literary novels have used the gamebook format, including Kim Newman's Life's Lottery (1999) and Nicholas Bourbaki's If (2014).
The choice format of gamebooks has proved to be popular with ESL teachers as a way to motivate reluctant students, target critical thinking skills, and organize classroom activities.
This type of book is intended to allow a single person to use the rules of a role-playing game to experience an adventure without need of a referee.
Some of the earliest adventures in this vein were The Solo Dungeon (1978) by British author Richard Bartle, and Survival of the Fittest (1979), published by Judges' Guild in the United States.
Examples of games with prolific solitaire lines were Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, Das Schwarze Auge, DC Heroes, and Call of Cthulhu.
The books involve a branching path format in order to move between sections of text, but the reader creates a character as in a role-playing game, and resolves actions using a game-system.
With over 60 titles, including a variety of spin-offs, the series popularised the gamebook format in the UK and many other countries, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, the United States, Portugal, Tanzania, Brazil, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Israel, Japan, and after the fall of communism, Eastern Europe.
British series such as Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, and The Way of the Tiger were translated into several languages and became very popular worldwide.
[citation needed] Given the similar structure to html links between the pages of a website, numerous efforts have been made to create a digital equivalent to the gamebook format, with varying degrees of success.
These include visual novels, story websites, and various experiments with audio CDs (such as TSR, Inc's short-lived "Terror TRAX" line).