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Post by zipp on Apr 17, 2009 13:24:13 GMT -5
I was talking on the LWRPG forums today and I recalled just how disturbing and violent some of the CYO endings were. Like I can recall falling out of buildings to smash my head on the pavement below... I can recall getting shot stabbed and eaten (not neccesarily in that order) innumerable times...
I can also recall more disturbing endings, like being trapped in a witch's house as a mouse for the rest of my days, or walking over a pit fire made by phantom indians until my feet combusted, or getting sucked out of an airlock into open space, or being forced to work as slaves on some distant planet after transporting myself there with gypsy magic, or being forced to be an animal in a zoo on Atlantis.
Or one of my personal nightmares: getting lost underneath an Egyptian Pyramid in a maze, and starving to death before finding the way out.
I think it was the Canyon of Time's (not to be confused with cave of time) endings which disturbed me the most though. I actually had to get rid of the book it freaked me out so bad. Like there was one where you follow a scream through a cave (though this might actually be from "Alien, go home!" I can't remember now) and then fall into a bottomless pit only to find out the scream is the scream of someone else who has been falling for a long time, and your scream joins them. Or the one where you try to control your time travel and fail, ending up spinning faster and faster until all you end up stuck in a time loop forever, constantly rewatching history without any ability to stop it or to stop yourself from traveling through it.
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Post by Doomy on Apr 17, 2009 13:40:46 GMT -5
Didn't you just lock our last thread on gamebook endings?
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Post by jan on Apr 17, 2009 14:04:08 GMT -5
Hush!
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Post by zipp on Apr 17, 2009 15:51:40 GMT -5
Didn't you just lock our last thread on gamebook endings? Don't make me edit your post! |
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Post by Samildanach on Apr 17, 2009 16:16:48 GMT -5
I'd forgotten how hardcore those endings could be. I recognise some of the ones you've mentioned. The one with the pit is particularly chilling.
They make 'your life and your quest end here' seem tame.
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Post by Beowuuf on Apr 17, 2009 16:53:55 GMT -5
Depending on your point of view, I was obvously reading the wrong or the right CYOA books - none of this rings a bell!
The only endings that I really remember are getting several spears thrown at me during an Indiana Jones book with a 'get the point' joke thrown in, or a horror book where two twin girls were doing evil things
Yeah Zipp, I'm looking at you for continuing a theme!
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Post by zipp on Apr 17, 2009 18:05:01 GMT -5
Another one that jumps to mind is in "Way of the Ninja," which was the second (and best) book in the Ninja trilogy (I never did read the third one). There's one ending where you, as a female, are drugged, presumably raped, and then given cocaine, morphine, and heroine, which effectively messes your memory up enough so that you can't remember anything. Then you're sold into slavery in Korea or Singapore or somewhere.
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Post by Ghost Bear on Apr 17, 2009 19:11:57 GMT -5
Another one that jumps to mind is in "Way of the Ninja," which was the second (and best) book in the Ninja trilogy (I never did read the third one). So how do you know the second was the best?  -GB |
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Post by zipp on Apr 18, 2009 1:35:57 GMT -5
Another one that jumps to mind is in "Way of the Ninja," which was the second (and best) book in the Ninja trilogy (I never did read the third one). So how do you know the second was the best? -GB Oh snap! Because I was a kid, and kids know everything. |
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Post by Doomy on Apr 18, 2009 6:45:08 GMT -5
Another one that jumps to mind is in "Way of the Ninja," which was the second (and best) book in the Ninja trilogy (I never did read the third one). There's one ending where you, as a female, are drugged, presumably raped, and then given cocaine, morphine, and heroine, which effectively messes your memory up enough so that you can't remember anything. Then you're sold into slavery in Korea or Singapore or somewhere. Aren't CYOA books supposed to be twee and kiddy? I certainly don't remember any drug-pushing ninja paedophiles in the few I read. |
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Post by Beowuuf on Apr 18, 2009 7:02:14 GMT -5
You probably had to read between the lines! Just like in Lone Wolf, they jump the description of him killing all pets and burning the houses down of anywhere he searches, but it's so obvious he does it!
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 18, 2009 12:07:22 GMT -5
The first gamebook that I ever got was Down Among the Dead Men from Dave Morris. It was a good adventure... if you knew what to do. But I remember that there were some creepy stuff in it. One instance is when you are looking to get money to buy a good ship to fight the pirates, you come across some ghost ship and that to get away from it, you have to cut your own hand off. Makes you think of the movies Saw.  The other book I played in the Virtual Reality series, Necklace of Skulls, once again by Dave Morris, had also some sections that were making you feel weird or sick, but I don't exactly remember since I only played it once (it was a borrowed book from the library). The Cretan Chronicles series had also a couple of disturbing endings. When exploring the kingdom of Hades, you can help Sisyphus, but this only leads you at taking completely his place. You end up rolling a giant ball of rock atop a hill but the ball will always go back down when you are close to the summit. You are then caught for eternity of repeating this job that you know you can't complete. I remember also that the ending of the whole series was very weird as, IIRC, you either kill yourself or discover that you are now all alone in the world because all the persons you've loved are dead. Not a very satisfying ending... |
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Post by zipp on Apr 18, 2009 12:55:29 GMT -5
Another one that jumps to mind is in "Way of the Ninja," which was the second (and best) book in the Ninja trilogy (I never did read the third one). There's one ending where you, as a female, are drugged, presumably raped, and then given cocaine, morphine, and heroine, which effectively messes your memory up enough so that you can't remember anything. Then you're sold into slavery in Korea or Singapore or somewhere. Aren't CYOA books supposed to be twee and kiddy? I certainly don't remember any drug-pushing ninja paedophiles in the few I read. I don't know what "twee" means, but in this particular CYO, you play as an adult and you get drawn into the world of the Yakuza. There's pinkies getting cut off, and people getting shot to death, and rape and drugs. |
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Post by Samildanach on Apr 18, 2009 13:02:15 GMT -5
Oh, great stuff! I have three or four Virtual Reality gamebooks. Down Among The Dead Men and Necklace Of Skulls are easily the best, so you did well choosing those ones. When I started writing a vampire/pirate short story (I was challenged to, more or less) I named one of the characters as a nod to Skarvench from Dead Men.  The creepy/disturbing thing that stays with me about Necklace is the way you're forced to work with dead people, all of whom trudge around despairingly with one forearm permanently pressed to their forehead from an eternity of shielding their eyes from the glare of the underworld's sky. I'm also a fan of Cretan Chronicles. Hard as hell though.  |
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 18, 2009 23:43:02 GMT -5
Down Among The Dead Men and Necklace Of Skulls are easily the best, so you did well choosing those ones. I didn't pick DAtDM: it was a gift, the first ever CYOA that I received. So I guess I have to thank my dad for this. ;D |
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The creepy/disturbing thing that stays with me about Necklace is the way you're forced to work with dead people, all of whom trudge around despairingly with one forearm permanently pressed to their forehead from an eternity of shielding their eyes from the glare of the underworld's sky. 