Series - Twistaplot - Demian's Gamebook Web Page

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Language:	English
Alternate Title:	Twist-a-Plot
Publisher:	Scholastic -- United States
Categories:	Complexity Level : Basic (No Game System) Complexity Level : Intermediate (Some Game Elements) Format : Paperback Game System : Randomization Method : Coins Game System : Visual Puzzles Genre : Adventure Genre : Contemporary Fiction Genre : Fantasy Genre : Horror Genre : Science Fiction Genre : Western Product Family : Twistaplot Target Age Group : Older Children Writing Style : Present Tense Writing Style : Second Person
Translated Into:	Carlsen 7-9-13 serien (Danish) Choisis ton aventure (French) Deltas Adventure Games (Dutch) E agora você decide (Portuguese) Puzzle dein Abenteuer (German) La torre y la flor - Tu aventura (Spanish) Tu ets l'autor (Catalan) Twistaplot (Swedish)

These books were Scholastic's answer to Choose Your Own Adventure. Like that series, the books cover a wide variety of genres and are aimed at a fairly young audience. However, several entries in the series distinguish themselves from the more straightforward Choose Your Own Adventure books by including some simple puzzles and elements of random chance (thinking of a random number, for example). The Twistaplot name was also used for a series of simple computer games included on Scholastic's Microzine electronic magazine, and the series spawned a spin-off for younger readers called Pick-a-Path. While the series ended in 1985, three of R. L. Stine's books (titles 1, 4 and 9) were reissued with new covers (by uncredited artists) in 1994 and 1995, probably due to the success of his Goosebumps series. Indeed, when Stine created an interactive Goosebumps spin-off (Give Yourself Goosebumps) it had something of a Twistaplot tone to it.

Gamebooks

1. The Time Raider
2. The Train of Terror
3. The Formula for Trouble
4. Golden Sword of Dragonwalk
5. The Sinister Studios of KESP-TV
6. Crash Landing!
7. The Video Avenger
8. Race into the Past
9. Horrors of the Haunted Museum
10. Mission of the Secret Spy Squad
11. Camp-Out on Danger Mountain
12. Journey to Vernico 5
13. Midnight at Monster Mansion
14. Instant Millionaire
15. Spellcaster
16. Secrets of the Lost Island
17. Ghost Riders of Goldspur
18. Calling Outer Space

User Comments

Primarily remembered as nothing more than a cash-in on the already-awful-beyond-belief CYOA path-choosers, the mixed-to-negatively-received Twistaplot gamebooks are certainly among the shortest works of interactive fiction during the series' initial release(s). Indeed, rarely coming in over a mere hundred pages, these books aimed to do exactly what they might seem to be on the surface: compete on the market with already woefully bad (yet popular) works of split-path juvenile stories and develop enough of a reputation to outlast as many of the alternatives as possible. Sadly, this approach (which in and of itself was not very successful at the time) very thoroughly reflects the generally low quality of this series - while the scenarios may sound versatile (and actually be versatile in reality), the quality of the experience offered by these books is remarkably unremarkable, neither designed to last nor make the most out of what could be done within each fairly dryly-written mini-story. As a result, I simply cannot recommend these books in the slightest.

--Shadeheart

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Series - Twistaplot

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