Choose Your Own Blog Post

A mini adventure to choose which blog post to read to learn more about interactive fiction.

1. You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. There is a small mailbox here. What do you want to do?
   • Open the mailbox. Go to 2.
   • Explore the forest. Go to 3.
   • Enter the building. Go to 4.
   • Explore the gully. Go to 5.
2. You open the mailbox and find newsletters from Infocom! Also some junk mail about surveys. What do you want to do?
   • Read the newsletters!
   • Read some junk mail about survey research into interactive fiction.
   • Read some junk mail about survey research into gamebooks.
3. This is a dimly lit forest, with large trees all around. What do you want to do?
   • Return home with the potion that will save your sister.
   • Journey through the woods to the town of Auspele.
4. You are inside a building, a well house for a large spring. A passage leads to the east and a dark staircase can be seen leading upward.
   • Fetch a pail of water from the well for your master’s bath.
   • Go east. Go to 6.
   • Go up the staircase. Go to 7.
5. You are in a 20-foot depression floored with bare dirt. Set into the dirt is a strong steel grate mounted in concrete. A dry streambed leads into the depression. The grate is open. What do you want to do?
   • Explore the Colossal Cave through a simplified random map.
   • Explore the Colossal Cave through a card game.
6. You are in the kitchen of the brick building. A passage leads to the west. There is a little axe here. There is a notebook here. What do you want to do?
   • Read the runes on the axe.
   • Examine the notebook. Go to 8.
   • Go west. Go to 4.
7. This is the attic. The only exit is a stairway leading down. You see assorted toys, games and books. What do you want to pick up?
   • The Nintendo Switch.
   • House of Danger.
   • Buffalo Castle, the first solitaire RPG adventure.
   • The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book.
8. The notebook has notes about creating your own gamebook. There’s a pencil so you can write in the notebook. What do you want to do?
   • Read about design patterns in CYOA.
   • Write out a mini-RPG to use with a gamebook.
   • Write “You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.” Go to 1.

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash.