Is it an aesthetic distinction? What do you see as the source of the inbetween-ness?
I see a parser game as usually consisting of a world model and a parser. Whatever the screen looks like, or whether I can click things too, or there are pictures, etc., that’s still a parser game to me.
The world model is tied pretty significantly. It’s not that a CYOA can’t have one, but there’s a reason they lean simple if they’re there, and aren’t typical. The combinatorial explosion. All elements have to be presented as discrete things, in lists or links, to be chosen. That’s why it’s best if there aren’t a lot. A human is great at pulling any one element out with a word. In the parser approach, the word no longer has to be on the screen, it only has to have been encountered, or remembered, or potentially logical (or potentially illogical) and be typed. To say, ‘Okay, the English language (or some other language) is your basic command/item list’ eliminates the visually crippling graphs/lists that form a challenge for both choice-based design in general, and presentation if seeking to use a highly combinatorial world model. The parser game leverages the mind’s traffic with language itself.
Most discussions I’ve had with myself in reviews about parser-ish’games have been at cosmetic levels, I think, when underneath I was usually dealing with what I’d unambiguously call a parser game. I don’t know that I’ve seen much of the reverse because it’s usually apparent if a game is using a world model with many basic planes or not.
-Wade