Archive · 12 Sep 2026
Interactive Storytelling Revives the Choose Your Own Adventure Format
Choose Your Own Adventure books let readers decide what happens next in a story.
Today, many websites offer a digital version of this idea.
Readers click choices and move to different parts of a story.
Their decisions can change friendships, romances, adventures and endings.
Some platforms let writers build these stories without advanced computer skills.
Many stories use popular fandoms such as Harry Potter, Marvel and DC.
Readers can replay a story to see paths they missed.
They also discuss their favorite choices and endings with other fans.
Online interactive fiction brings the Choose Your Own Adventure format to branching digital stories.
Readers make choices that can alter characters, relationships, plot paths and endings.
Platforms including itch.io, Choice of Games, the CYOA Archive, Archive of Our Own and Glimmer support interactive storytelling.
Twine lets writers create nonlinear stories without advanced programming knowledge, while ChoiceScript powers Choice of Games novels.
Popular themes include fantasy, romance, fandom universes, reincarnation, magical powers and alternate endings.
- Who
- Writers and readers of interactive fiction, including fan communities, are involved.
- What
- Digital platforms are reviving branching Choose Your Own Adventure-style storytelling.
- When
- The article describes the format’s resurgence in the present day after its popularity in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Where
- Interactive stories appear on platforms including itch.io, Choice of Games, the CYOA Archive, Archive of Our Own and Glimmer.
- Why
- The format gives readers a more personal role in shaping plots, relationships and endings while helping writers engage closely with audiences.
- Story format
- Readers follow branching passages and choose options that lead to different sections and endings.
- Major platform
- itch.io hosts interactive fiction created with tools such as Twine.
- Writing tool
- Twine is a free, open-source tool for creating nonlinear stories without advanced programming knowledge.
- Choice of Games
- Choice of Games publishes interactive novels written with ChoiceScript.
- Hosted Games
- The Hosted Games programme allows writers to publish their own choice-based stories.
- Glimmer limit
- Glimmer offers at least 100 free pages, or turns, with paid daily extensions available.
- Common themes
- Popular tropes include enemies to lovers, found family, reincarnation, self-insert protagonists, magical powers and alternate universes.