r/makeyourchoice and the alternate meaning of "CYOA"

General
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I find it funny that there’s a r/makeyourchoice Reddit forum, centered on something they call a “CYOA” that is entirely different from what we think of as CYOAs. Their CYOA is a kind of solo game or character creation gamebook that presents a setting and lets you create a character for that setting but stops right after the character creation is done, leaving you to imagine the fun adventures your character has in the safety of your head. To keep things clear, when I say CYOA from now on, I’m referring to their CYOAs.

Most CYOAs are static, non-interactive images, but there are some interactive ones, documented in threads like this one. Interactive CYOA Creator Plus is an engine for making interactive CYOAs, and a lot of interactive ones use it. An Eldritch Bloodline is a decent example of an interactive CYOA. But even the interactive ones don’t actually tell you what happens after the character creation, they just make it easier to do the character creation. Personally I prefer the noninteractive ones without the overhead.

r/makeyourchoice is a really popular forum, to the point of being one of the first things that showed up when I searched up “CYOA”, and not this forum. People make their own CYOAs and post them, and other users comment with their choices and the rationale behind them. There’s also a dedicated thread and active CYOA community on 4chan’s /tg/ traditional games forum, and a lot of those get crossposted to Reddit.

Lots of CYOAs are trashy fantasies geared towards anime gamers. But I found some I liked. Looking through the top voted r/makeyourchoice posts of all time lets you pick from the best. Unfortunately all of them are images except Ruined Reality, and I don’t think any are screenreader accessible.

  • Which Pill Do You Choose: Pill CYOAs are a really popular version, this is one of the highest rated ones.
  • Solitude: Short, comfy CYOA about creating your ideal pocket dimension.
  • Portal Traveler: Cozy urban fantasy CYOA with awesome art by A. Shipwrite.
  • Where Did The Angels Go, Updated: Short horror CYOA. An earlier version received huge attention for its unique aesthetic and disappointing ending. This one is updated and has a slightly better ending. I still think it’s underwhelming but it looks really cool.
  • Dream Home: Short CYOA that lets you indulge in the fantasy of being a billionaire who can build any damn weird mansion you want.
  • Ruined Reality, Final: Extremely long horror/urban fantasy CYOA that the author put a lot of work into. It’s interactive, which helps in planning what you pick, though it can be hard sometimes to see what you’ve selected. Direct link to interactive version here. The Reddit forum is full of awesome long CYOAs like these and this is a prime example. Though there are some minor writing issues and some of that anime gamer energy, which you will have to look past if you do this one.
  • Veiled Skies: Imgchest link. Another long, fun fantasy-themed adventure CYOA with a floating island setting.
  • Choose Your Future: Unusually, this one comes from Twitter. A short cool exercise in bizarre scifi/futuristic settings. I’d probably be happiest with post-Clarkian-singularity thaumatarchy, but the benevolent Gothic-styled cyber-thearchy calls to me. There’s a second Reddit thread for this one without the setting descriptions.
  • Gift of Faves: Media-less CYOA: Example of the Gift of Faves trend, where people make a short CYOA based on their favorite things. This one is unusual because it’s non-media, so it’s not based on the creator’s favorite videogames or anime shows.
  • Escapism CYOA: One of my all time favorites. Metacommentary on the CYOA community in general and the kind of person into CYOAs. You have to look at this one after you’ve seen a few of the others for the full experience. Really shook me.

There’s also a big overlap between CYOAs and Jumpchain, which started on 4chan though it has its own Reddit forum at r/Jumpchain. Jumpchains are a type of fanmade CYOA where you get isekai’d into a fictional universe and have to decide what kind of character you inhabit within that universe. After you’re done, you can choose to stay in that universe, return to your real life, or go to another universe. They’re popular among writers of crossover fanfiction.

There are fanmade Jumpchain CYOAs for a bunch of different settings out there. Pretty much every major fantasy/scifi setting I could think of has one, or even multiple ones. There are multiple Google Drive folders for Jumpchains made by different communities, linked to in this Reddit post, and a lot more Jumpchain pdfs floating around the Reddit forum. Settings range from Choice of Broadsides to Fallen London to Fahrenheit 451 to Journey to the West.

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Lol wow this is interesting .spacebattles does jump chains but I’ve never participated in them.

So if I’m understanding this correctly these are like not games at all it’s people making their own individualized characters and adventures based on the setting ??

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Super interesting. I encountered this community while searching “CYOA” on Reddit too and was confused by what they considered an adventure.
Something I found interesting in the “All or Nothing Meta” is that a choice can be carried on to the next CYOA you see.

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Wow. That Escapism CYOA works so well as a small but really effective piece. Amazing find. I’m saving that!

I had no idea Jumpchains were a thing either! I’ve seen similar mini games on TikTok through image posts where you choose something and then swipe to see the results.

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To Tony: They wouldn’t fall under the average person’s definition of game, and even adventure might be stretching it since the CYOA doesn’t include any way to structure the adventure or run it, besides letting you do the character creation. A lot of people will write about what the character would do with their powers in the comment section though, but that’s more like writing about your own adventure and letting other people see it.

I don’t do Jumpchain roleplaying either, but there’s actually some Jumpchain fanfiction on Spacebattles like Companion Chronicles and Nowhere Land, that I liked reading. Both stories are dead though. It’s a shame because CC was especially interesting and I liked learning about the author’s life via her story.

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The meta CYOAs are some of my favorite ones, though you have to have seen a bunch of others to get full effectiveness from them. CYOAs that affect other CYOAs are like turtles all the way down. I really like the Generic Jean-Paul Sartre CYOA Supplement for this.

Not surprised something similar is on TikTok. Short CYOAs are practically engineered to go viral on social media. They catch your attention immediately and everyone is encouraged to post their own choice or talk about it in the comments. They’re like icebreakers. The longer ones tend to go less viral if anything, which is a bit sad since there are a lot of long ones with a lot of work put into them.

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If I’m understanding this correctly, these sound less like true choose your own adventure stories and more like character generators. I suppose these could be handy for making a player character for an RPG or for making an mc to use iin a short story for writing practice, but sounds kind of pointless in isolation… also I’m reminded of some of the flash-based character creators that were basically glorified digital paper dolls I messed around with back when I had a working eye and sometimes used for making forum avatars.

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Depends on your personal definition of pointless, I guess. The best CYOAs provide a lot of setting detail as well, or even example scenarios to put your character through, and can be considered solo game TTRPGs that just have no structured mechanics for gameplay. They can be really good at evoking atmosphere. The longest ones, which can have thousands of words, reach the point of really detailed worldbuilding documents, even if the worldbuilding tends to be anime inspired. If you’re a lonely Redditor with nothing better to do, they’re a decent way to pass time.

I found an interactive version of Solitude that has the text written out. I could also copy the text of a CYOA listed above into the body of a post in this thread, for people who prefer text.

I’m considering adding some my favorites to IFDB. In particular, More Interactive CYOAs on Neocities hosts the Solitude interactive version and has interactive Portal Traveler and another cool one.

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