My new gamebook mechanic - Hidden Choices - Complete and about to be released

On March 17, this year, my second gamebook, "The Wounded Falcon" will be released into the marketplace - The first in the "Choices" series.  This is a rewrite, expansion and update of a short mini-gamebook I wrote a few years ago.

With this book, I have created a new gamebook mechanic, not used before, called "Hidden Choices". I explain the motivation for this new mechanic, on my "Choices" website.

"One thing that a lot of computer games, particularly adventure games, have had over the written adventure gamebook was the ability to attempt any action (within the accepted range of actions for the game) at any time, not knowing whether the attempted action would be permitted by the game or not. This added significantly to the challenge of puzzle solving.
With gamebooks, all available choices given to the reader are almost always displayed on the page. The reader does not have to think 'outside the square'. At no point is the reader able to think, 'Now I wonder if I could use item X that I collected back at location Y to get by this problem.' and be permitted to act on that thought.
I wanted to increase the level of the gamebook experience by encouraging the reader the option of trying something else and not just be limited to the choices on the page. By engaging the reader this way, I think it significantly increases the value of the gamebook experience."

To read more about the mechanic, and, in particular, the full instructions concerning how the "Hidden Choices" feature works, click here to go to my Choices website, which includes a full extract of the relevant pages in the gamebook instructions.

In keeping with the theme of different gamebook mechanics, to any visitors to this blog, I encourage you to contribute (in the comments section) with what unique gamebook mechanics you have found to be particularly interesting/enjoyable.

Jasan

Membership sections - A change has been made

For those of you that have not noticed, I have made a change to the membership section area of my gamebook websites:

1) There are membership sections for both the "Choices" and "Woodland Forest Chronicles" series.

2) The "secret areas" of the site have been abolished.  I observed much critical feedback on this issue and made a change.  All people, both members and non-members can now see all areas of the site.

Therefore, the option to become a member is purely for the purpose of receiving e-mail updates about what is going on with both the "Choices" and "Woodland Forest Chronicles" series.

Thanks to those who took the time to give their feedback.  It helped to rectify a situation that was causing irritation to many of you.  My apologies for that.