Obviously, it’s a Totally Rad multiple-choice retelling of Hamlet by Ryan North, the guy who writes the smartest and funniest webcomic in the universe, etc. but more interestingly from our point of view here, it looks like it may have one of the most interesting and complex structures for a multiple-choice book.
For one thing, you can play as one of three characters: I wonder whether there’ll be shared scenes that’ll turn out differently depending on who you’re reading as.
If I recall correctly, I think in the video Ryan says there’s 80,000 words of text. Not sure how many branches that could support, but length wise, taking into account there’ll be lots of images, it should be about twice a long as The Great Gatsby.
Seriously, though, as usual I’m late for the party and am just discovering this gamebook (which, of course, is now out). It’s funny there’s next to zero discussion about it on this forum. It’s just amazing stuff. It may be the best ever CYOA I’ve seen. I would probably say it’s the Eric the Unready of CYOA.
But then again, I tend to be hyperbolic when I find a new shiny I really like.
There’s also a PC version, I understand, but for some reason I didn’t feel compelled to seek it out.
I have this on my iPad and would definitely recommend it. Hilarious from start to finish and then some. Who ever knew Shakespeare could be so much fun?
The Eric the Unready comparison is probably a pretty apt one. There are moments of greatness, but you have to overcome witty Fringe Festival-style Shakespearian rewrites of the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to get to them. I found myself frustrated in lawnmowing attempts, as you can explore all threads or collect all “game ending” artworks, but not both, easily. (At least, that’s how it works on Android. I got the feeling that the overhead of the Gamebook Adventures engine was probably a bit of overkill on such a simple adventure.)
Also, I not infrequently had the uncanny feeling, for good reason, that I was reading two hundred Dinosaur Comics strips end to end. Dude’s style is both his strength and his weakness, but it’s unrelenting.