 Alright, so I'm back on my bed, and I don't know if I would call this a comedy video, or a recommendation video, or a discussion video, or what, but I kind of just want to talk about Choose Your Own Adventure. Just do the intro thing. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. So Choose Your Own Adventure is a concept that's been around for about 40 years now. It first came around in the late 70s, and it's a pretty simple idea. You know, it's rather than just being a regular book where you read it and stuff happens and it's over, you'll get to these points where you have to make a choice. Like, okay, the characters are running away from a monster. Do they continue running? If so, then turn to page 120. If they decide to hide in the basement instead, just turn to page 83. And so you go through like that, and there's usually a bunch of different endings based on your choices. Some of them will be good, some of them will be bad, some of them will be really weird, but, you know, the concept has been around for a while. It's not that difficult. Now, the idea came around in the late 70s, and it persisted throughout the 80s, but it didn't really become a huge thing until the 90s. And then, well, it sort of blew up, and they made a whole bunch of these things. And I've got just, you know, a couple over here, which, yeah, we'll get to talking about those in a minute. I just want to give you an idea of how many there are. And not only did the original Choose Your Own Adventure series keep going, but they also got a bunch of knockoffs, like the Which Way books, and some other series that were popular at the time made their own spin-offs, like the Give Yourself Goosebumps series, which is just basically Goosebumps stories told in a Choose Your Own Adventure format. Now, these books are still around today, and in fact, they've inspired stuff in other media. Like, for example, the Netflix movie Bandersnatch came out a while ago, and that is a Choose Your Own Adventure-style story, but it's done as a movie instead. And video games have been doing this, you know, for, what, 15, 20 years now? It's been a while. And so, while they do still make books of this style, they don't really do it all that much, and it's mostly aimed at kids, but you do find a couple that are aimed at teenagers and adults. And so, I just want to go through a couple of these a little bit. So this first one is just called Journey Under the Sea, Choose Your Own Adventure No. 2. And this one is as pretty close to standard as you can get with these kind of stories. It's just, you are a guy in a submarine going down into the ocean looking for Atlantis. And then, well, shit gets kind of weird from there. Because depending on the paths you take, you can either just completely fail. In fact, there's like 18 different endings where it's just, hey, you failed to find Atlantis at the end, which might go some ways to explaining why they were able to get 42 of them in here. But then there's also ones where you go to Atlantis and you help them overthrow their king. And I mean, literally less than a minute after meeting you, they will ask you to be their leader, and they'll ask you for advice, and they'll ask you to just, no. It makes no sense whatsoever. And there's one which I thought was really interesting where you go to the core of the Earth, and then you sort of ascend to another plane of existence where time has no meaning to you. And so you stay away from Earth for a thousand years, and then when you try and go back, all your friends and family are dead. That was pretty dark. But even though it is kind of stupid and silly, and it's aimed at kids, so that's to be expected, it does give off the feeling of you are actually part of this adventure. It's not just you watching things happen to other people. It's you thinking, okay, what would I do in this situation? Another one I found is just called Edinburgh Castle, and this one's actually part of a series where you go through various famous haunted places. They have Alcatraz, Gettysburg Battlefield, The Tower of London, The Winchester House, stuff like that. And this one is, you know, same idea. You're going to Castle Edinburgh at night while there's ghosts running around, and you just do various things. And this one, well, it's definitely not as crazy as a lot of other Choose Your Own Adventure books, but this one I think actually works really well for kids. Like, I didn't get the chance to read it to any, unfortunately. I actually wanted to, but, you know. But it works really well for kids because it's a bit spooky, sure, but it doesn't go too crazy with it. It's not ultra-violent or anything. And it really does, it teaches you a little bit of actual history. Like, there's a bit at the end where it tells you a little bit about Edinburgh Castle. And most of the endings feel earned. Like, you know, if you let your friend go somewhere by themselves and then they disappear, well, that's on you. It sucks, but what did you expect? You left them alone. And next up we have Cosmic Encounters, which is part of the Witch Way books, which I specifically called a knockoff of Choose Your Own Adventure. And I think this is a perfect example of how to do this sort of story wrong. See, it sounds pretty mundane at first. Like, you're an astronaut going on a solo flight out to explore. And then just things go wrong. And depending on which paths you take, you can wind up being kidnapped by aliens, or you can wind up on really weird alien planets and you have to survive there. And, you know, it has a whole bunch of different endings. But the thing is, most of them are very arbitrary. Like, for example, there's one where you're taking part in a war with robots and you agree to meet their leader. And so it says, okay, if you agree to meet their leader, turn to this page. And you turn to that page, excuse me, and you follow her for a little bit and then you trip and hurt your ankle and she just kills you right there. And so, you know, it doesn't feel like, oh, okay, well, I just fucked up. That's on me. It feels like, oh, okay, this book just wanted another ending to throw in there, so they just threw in that one very arbitrarily. And pretty much all the endings in this feel that way. Or they feel like, oh, it's over already. Like, what about the rest of my adventure? There's so much more to do. So this one, very good example of what not to do. And then I found this one called Choose Your Own Career Adventure, White House Edition. And I thought, oh, okay, well, it's definitely aimed at kids, but that could be kind of fun. But the thing is, it starts off, it just has a table of contents where it's just, what kind of job do you want to have? And you choose Chief Usher, Intelligence Officer, President. And then when you turn to that page, it just tells you about what that job does. So it's not really a Choose Your Own Adventure book. There's not an actual adventure there. And I feel very ripped off. And then I have the two Give Yourself Goosebumps books that I showed you earlier. And of the two, I think that Escape From Camp Run For Your Life is actually pretty good. Because that one really gives off the feeling of being in an actual Goosebumps book. You know, there's zombies and stuff, and you're just a kid. You can't really fight them for the most part. So you have to use your head, you have to either run or hide, find a way to escape. You know, and so it actually, again, it is pretty spooky. Most of the endings feel on, they feel justified at least. And, well, yeah, I don't know much to say. It's just, it's like a Goosebumps book just told in the Choose Your Own Adventure format. And I used to love the Goosebumps books as a kid. I used to have a really sizable collection at one point. But the other one that I have here is called Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter. And I'm gonna show the cover here. I don't know, I might be able to find one better that I just put on the screen during editing. We'll see. But the point is, this one is one of those ideas that was too stupid to be in a regular Goosebumps book. So they just slapped it together in this and put it in there like, just come on. Purple Peanut Butter, even by the standards of Goosebumps. Which, I'll admit, they get pretty silly sometimes. But that's just, that's really pushing it. A while ago, like not long after I first made this channel, I reviewed another book, which is also Choose Your Own Adventure, but this one's aimed more at teenagers. This one's called Get More. And, I mean, this one's just beautiful. Not because it's good, but because it's fucking awful. And, I have trouble, I can't hate it, because one, it's funny. And two, it's very clearly just wish fulfillment, okay? Like, it follows a girl, what was her name again? Brianna, excuse me. Probably should have looked that up before filming this, whatever. It follows a girl named Brianna, who is so beautiful that she's literally mistaken for Beyonce multiple times over the course of the story. But she also can't get a date. So, online dating. She tries online dating, and you as the reader get to choose who she dates. And the thing is, with this one, there's not that many choices, which some people might be disappointed by. But at the same time, it has a bunch of actual writing in it. Like, you know, it has actual characters and actual dialogue. Like, they don't just summarize everything the way they do. And most Choose Your Own Adventure books, where it's just like, you walk down the mountain, and that, you know, they'll spend time actually describing things. Anyways, and depending on your choices, like, she'll either wind up happily with some dude, or she'll wind up alone. And it's just, it's such obvious with fulfillment that I can't really get mad at it, but it is really stupid. I mean, there's a point where her boyfriend breaks up with her because her feet are weird. There's a point where a dude takes pictures of her because, again, he thinks she's Beyonce, so she chases him down and fights him. There's just several things like that. This one, if you go into it and it sounds like something you want to try as wish fulfillment, then by all means, go ahead. I'm not going to stop you. But if you go into it and just expect to laugh at it, then you'll probably have a good time with that too. So this other one is actually a bit of a departure. It's called the Fighting Fantasy series, and I have a couple of books here. I have three of them there. I don't know if you can see it really on camera, but I got these at a garage sale like 12 years ago and they're falling apart. But basically, these are like a combination of tabletop role-playing games and Choose Your Own Adventure. Like, for example, one of them is the Citadel of Chaos, and that's where there's an evil wizard in a Citadel and you are an apprentice wizard, I believe, or just a fighter who goes in there and has to defeat him. And in addition to the regular Choose Your Own Adventure stuff, like, oh, do you go upstairs or do you stay on this floor? You also have stuff like, okay, if you have the access to this spell because you do get to build your character a little bit at the beginning, then you can try this. And beyond that, there's also an actual combat system where you need to dice to roll and you need a pencil to keep track of your health and stamina and all that. And so, yeah, it's actually a neat little combination. You know, if I didn't have any friends or anything that wanted to play RPGs with me, I could do that. And so the ones I have are the Citadel of Chaos, Demons of the Deep, and Scorpion Swamp. And Scorpion Swamp was actually my favorite because that one, you know, you're going through a swamp and you have to actually make a map as you go in order to keep track of things. And so it's just, yeah, it's a lot of fun. And Demons of the Deep, you know, you're fighting pirates and shit. It's a lot of fun, you know. It's not something that you go through, go to for like a deep story or complex characters or anything, but it takes the fantasy idea of like, okay, or the idea that all these books have where it's, okay, I am the hero, I am in the middle of the story, and it just kicks it up a notch, you know. Rather than just being a regular kid, you are an actual adventurer. You can cast spells, you can do all this stuff. And so to me, at least, I think these are basically the best that this type of book has to offer. So remember how earlier I mentioned how there are a couple of choose-your-own-adventure books that are aimed at adults? Well, when I say that, I mean there are some that are aimed at adults where you like, you fight zombies and stuff, but then there's also like adult ones. Like, for example, Night Shift by Joanna Angel. And so you might hear that name and think, that sounds like the name of a porn star. Um, it is. And this one is kind of like Get More, where, you know, it has an actual character that you're following. It's not told in the second person. And it's just about her working the Night Shift at a sex shop and all the various shenanigans that she can get up to in that. And, you know, now that I think about it, this is a library book and I probably shouldn't be touching it without gloves, but well, here we are. And I'm going to be straight up with you. Like, this is like actual porn. You know, it's not just a little bit erotic or anything. Like, it's straight up porn. There's some pretty graphic sex stuff in here. So if that's not your thing, that's not your thing. But it's also absolutely hilarious. I mean, just what... How can I even describe half of this without getting demonetized? So there's a point where the main character is, you know, cashier at a sex shop, like I said. And someone's trying to buy a butt plug from her, a very expensive one. And she says, So, uh, 249.99 seemed about right for this butt plug. The amount of money I made in a week going straight into an asshole. Or other lines like, it's not that I have any aversion to deal those adult DVDs and little booths to masturbate in, but I don't exactly have an all-consuming passion for it, either. With me working on the television, the Unicorn was able to focus on Jimmy's cock. And just a bunch of lines like that that are very clearly... They're meant to be funny. Like, this is a really funny book. It's meant to be that way. So if you enjoy that type of humor, then I would recommend checking it out. But again, it's poor. So if that bothers you, stay away. So that's all that I have for you now. I didn't really have an overall point to this. Like, you know, I'm not... Again, like I said, I don't know if this was comedy or recommendation or discussion or what, but I kind of just wanted to talk about Choose Your Own Adventure books, because, you know, they've gone out of fashion in the past, like, 15 years, and I say we bring them back. You know, they got a couple... I say we start making more. Let's do it. Thanks again to my patrons for all their support, and especially thanks to Des Brennan, Christopher Hawkin, and Joseph Pandagraft, and, you know, all the other names that are on here. You guys are great. Please check out my page and donate, and like, and you know, all that stuff. You know how it is at this point. You've probably seen my stuff. Just all that. And don't touch Night Shift without gloves. Bye.