Game modes in digital gamebooks

Posted on in Books,Game Design,Gamebooks,Writing

A dragon rising up from a warlock's magic spell.
The famous cover image by Peter Andrew Jones for The Warlock of Firetop Mountain gamebook. © Peter Andrew Jones / Solar Wind, used without permission (fair use commentary).

Is it possible to create a modern digital gamebook that appeals to a wide variety of players – without alienating any of them? Probably not, but I think we could increase the odds that most players will enjoy them by designing gamebooks with multiple game modes: this would allow players to choose how they play.

Designers are control freaks. We want to create a great system for gamebooks that completely controls the player’s experience. But this can make it difficult to cater for all player types, as recent discussions have proved.

There are at least three distinct gamebook ‘modes’, so perhaps a simple choice by the player at the start of the game could give them the style of adventure they most prefer:

  • Narrative: This mode has no mechanics of any kind, and is the classic CYOA. The reader doesn’t roll up a character, there are no skill checks, combat or inventory management. If the book is aimed at a more mature reader, it would have better characterisation and plotting, and meaningful choices would drive the story forward. Narrative gamebooks would have no RPG style game-play elements and would be the closest thing to pure “interactive literature” where the reader is directing the story. Dave Morris’ Frankenstein would be a good example of this approach.
  • Conditional: The player creates a character using a predefined model: it doesn’t matter what the model is, the point is the player defined their character without using any random influence. When playing the game, they make choices as usual, but skill-checks are now included as a binary choice: “Are you Strong?” or “Do you have Hunting?”
  • Unpredictable: This mode would most closely emulate the gamebooks of old: A character is drawn up using dice or other random methods. Player choices in the game drive the plot forwards, but elements of chance are handled using dice rolls for testing skills, managing combat and all the typical events that an old school gamebook player would expect.

Handling combat in these different game modes is something I’m currently unsure about, but I have some ideas and I think it’s doable in Narrative and Conditional modes by giving the player choices of whether to fight or how to fight, rather than providing typical Unpredictable mechanics that rely on randomisation.

I’m not aware if game modes have been done like this in digital gamebooks? I think it’s an interesting solution for creating interactive fiction that suits different players – albeit a more costly option.