I loved these as a kid. My reading journey started with these and the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books that you mentioned. After that I was really into solo gamebooks such as 'Grailquest' , 'Tunnels and Trolls' and the 'Fighting Fantasy' Series. There was also a series called 'You be the Jury' where you have to read the interviews of witnesses and the accused, and look at diagrams of the crime scene and look for contradictions. I can't remember the name but there was also a series of solo gamebooks set in ancient mythology, and after I had progressed from Fighting Fantasy, I started the 'Lone Wolf' series were very involved and had so much depth and replayabilty. Like you, I do miss these types of books, and I can honestly say that my desire to become a writer started from reading these books endlessly.
I definitely had some Fighting Fantasy books, and I have a very vague memory of Lone Wolf as well. I often found them a bit too detailed when I was under 10 - the stats and maths put me off a little, and then I never went back to them as a teenager (by which point video games had their hooks in me).
Those Jury books sound great, though. I'd not encountered them before. Made me think of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games, which I also haven't played but have heard very good things about.
One of the key things about the Usborne books is that they were decent stories even without the puzzles, hence I read and re-read them many times.
I don’t think we had these books specifically in the US. Or at least I don’t remember them. We had a lot of “find certain things in this mess of a drawing” type of books, like Where’s Waldo. I do remember choose your own adventure, though.
Just randomly stumbled across this blog and thought I'd let you know Usborne now have similar books (Shadow Chaser, Curse Breaker and League of Thieves) as well as new updated version of the old classic puzzle adventures due out later this year. You can find them here: www.beausbooks.co.uk
I loved the Usborne puzzle books (mid to late 90s for me). There is possibly a space for them, a bit like the 13 Storey Treehouse books as a short but attention-grabbing way for kids to engage with reading.
Absolutely. My son gets a magazine in the UK called The Phoenix, which regularly has a simple choose your own adventure style strip, which he really likes - despite having access to modern video games. There's still something very engaging and unique about puzzles in the form of the written word and basic pictures, I think.
My childhood was in the 90s. I read "The Ghost in the Mirror" and "Agent Arthur's Jungle Journey" in the library at my school in Brazil. You can check it out on Google here it was called "O Agente-Ésse-Secreto na Selva" and the collection "Salve-se quem puder". Currently no one knows about them. They were the most incredible books I read in my childhood. I didn't remember the name of the book, I spent years trying to find it when I finally found it. My desire would be to create stories like this, but for me it's much more likely to make a digital book. I want to make them inspired by this book, I want to use digital interactivity, but still keep it like a book.
As the other US people have said, we didn't have these specific books. CYOA is a classic... In fact, just yesterday I came across this Atlas Obscura article, which is basically about the flowchart maps for the branch points of the CYOA books:
But those Usborne books looked fun, and I enjoyed solving the puzzles on the extracts you posted. There's certainly a place for them to return. If I were still a kid I'd enjoy the hell out of them.
I'll join those recommending Affinity Publisher and will point out that the v2 versions just dropped. That's a one-and-done buy until v3 is released, and since the v1 Suite went for seven-years-and-change before progressing to v2, and given that Serif is running a launch special of 40% off until January 25, 2023, I'd say this is the perfect time to jump on. I'd say just go ahead and pick up the entire Suite - Photo, Design, Publisher - and have your photo editor, vector graphic and page layout locked in for the next few years. Obviously proprietary formats mean it'll be easier to shuffle photo/raster elements, vector elements and text around within the Suite without having to render out your elements to other formats. One buy will grab you all three programs for Windows, Mac and IOS. Look, man, I'm not even a brand Ambassador and I'm pushing hard.
Designer I don't use much. I basically just finally did a couple vector versions of my glyph, so I don't have to keep making raster versions. Designer is great for making badges or reusable elements. (I know a comic artist who never draws chest emblems. All his emblems - say Superman's "S" shield - are stored as straight on vectors. When he gets to inking he loads the vector and mesh warps the vector to fit the chest angle and bulges. It's faster than drawing them every time and he's got the base colors set up so he just inks in shadows or paints other colors (say green from glowing kryptonite) over the base logo. If you have it, you'll probably find a use. And, at the current price, with the near certainty you'll get updates for years, it's likely worth the extra money.
Affinity Photo - yeah, you have GIMP, but I've used GIMP and Affinity is much better (and can use Photoshop plugins). Then again, for photo work I do a lot of HDR work. GIMP has no true HDR tools. You have to manually load your brackets and faff around with masks. Affinity merges the brackets to a true 32-bpp image and sends that to its RAW processing engine. Also has tools for focus stacking GIMP doesn't have and Affinity is set up for true non-destructive editing. If you were to start doing more work combining AI images - like your Triverse cover - after the learning curve you'll be able to blend and correct your layers more easily because GIMP was built around a destructive model and filters change the pixels. All tonal adjustments, etc in Affinity are effectively like using Grade Layers in Hitfilm. You can always tweak them later because it didn't get burned into the pixel layer. For photo work, I shoot RAW. Even on my phone. GIMP needs third party plug ins for RAW. Affinity works with RAW directly and the RAW stays RAW until export. (Although for most RAW editing I use OnOne PhotoRaw.
Amusingly I did a quick photomanipulation for a friend tonight - a karaoke poster. Although I started in. HITFILM. It finally occurred to me instead of using stock photos of mics and having to find a pic at the right angle and paint to adjust lights, I'd just download a 3D mic model from Sketchfab, bring that into Hitfilm, position in 3D, light (use the BG image as an environment map), mute the BG, export the PNG from Hitfilm and do the final comp in Affinity. Why didn't I think of that years ago! It was faster and I matched the mic to the plate better by starting with correct lighting. Still, a lot (most) of my photo manipulation goes through Hitfilm at some point. Sometimes "Grading Transfer" is a lifesaver. Or the Dalek image I created as a custom phone case a few years ago. One ActionVFX fire clip on multiple layers and offset was easier to deal with than several stock photos. Then again, I rendered the Dalek in Hitfilm, so...
OK, convinced me. Have acquired! Look forward to checking it out. Be useful for future ebook and print interiors, plus doing anything more complex like an Usborne-style illustrated short book.
I've never liked GIMP (though it is great as a free thing). In lieu of Photoshop I've been using Clip Studio Paint, which is fine (though mainly intended for art stuff).
It's great, but I find it hard to wrangle larger projects. I've moved to Ink more recently, though haven't found the time to properly dive into anything yet. https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/
Thanks for the shoutout! I agree about their being magic in the print version of a gamebook. And in the old days, the illustrations in solo gamebooks were generally more sophisticated than the ones in computer games.
I’ve never heard of the Usborn books in the US. Ironically, the most similar thing I can remember growing up were the Nintendo Adventure Books, which were CYOAs with heavy use of puzzles. (I remember having to solve puzzles to get the correct page number to flip to.)
In today’s kids market, you might find inspiration with Hocus & Pocus and Knights Club, which are modern gamebook comics with unique mechanics.
Looking forward to seeing what you make! If you need anything on your journey, I’m happy to help.
Oh, I've never heard of Nintendo Adventure Books. When games get adapted into other forms - eg movies - they often fail because they lose the critical aspect that defined them in the first place (heavy interactivity), and the fun thing about this form of book is that it retains that puzzley interactive element. (I mean, movie games also fail due to terrible writing etc, but you see what I'm getting at)
I'll be sure to shout if I need a hand and make any progress on this. Might be a fun 2023 side project...
I wish we'd had the Usborn books in Canada - I've never heard of them before this! Adam Weiland mentions a number of other books that I'm more familiar with.
Late to the conversation. I am from the US and grew up reading Usborne Puzzle Adventures. Our family collected about a dozen of the books and Agent Arthur's were my favorite. The books were published in the US by EDC Publishing out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Below the publishing information it says "Not for sale in Canada" which I assumed meant that another publisher had the rights in Canada.
I loved these as a kid. My reading journey started with these and the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books that you mentioned. After that I was really into solo gamebooks such as 'Grailquest' , 'Tunnels and Trolls' and the 'Fighting Fantasy' Series. There was also a series called 'You be the Jury' where you have to read the interviews of witnesses and the accused, and look at diagrams of the crime scene and look for contradictions. I can't remember the name but there was also a series of solo gamebooks set in ancient mythology, and after I had progressed from Fighting Fantasy, I started the 'Lone Wolf' series were very involved and had so much depth and replayabilty. Like you, I do miss these types of books, and I can honestly say that my desire to become a writer started from reading these books endlessly.
I definitely had some Fighting Fantasy books, and I have a very vague memory of Lone Wolf as well. I often found them a bit too detailed when I was under 10 - the stats and maths put me off a little, and then I never went back to them as a teenager (by which point video games had their hooks in me).
Those Jury books sound great, though. I'd not encountered them before. Made me think of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games, which I also haven't played but have heard very good things about.
One of the key things about the Usborne books is that they were decent stories even without the puzzles, hence I read and re-read them many times.
I don’t think we had these books specifically in the US. Or at least I don’t remember them. We had a lot of “find certain things in this mess of a drawing” type of books, like Where’s Waldo. I do remember choose your own adventure, though.
Where's Waldo became Where's Wally in the UK, I think. I was never as keen on them - fun in their own way, but not as closely linked to a story.
Just randomly stumbled across this blog and thought I'd let you know Usborne now have similar books (Shadow Chaser, Curse Breaker and League of Thieves) as well as new updated version of the old classic puzzle adventures due out later this year. You can find them here: www.beausbooks.co.uk
This is exciting! Thanks for letting me know. :)
I remember borrowing these from the library in the late 80s or early 90s.
I loved the Usborne puzzle books (mid to late 90s for me). There is possibly a space for them, a bit like the 13 Storey Treehouse books as a short but attention-grabbing way for kids to engage with reading.
Absolutely. My son gets a magazine in the UK called The Phoenix, which regularly has a simple choose your own adventure style strip, which he really likes - despite having access to modern video games. There's still something very engaging and unique about puzzles in the form of the written word and basic pictures, I think.
My childhood was in the 90s. I read "The Ghost in the Mirror" and "Agent Arthur's Jungle Journey" in the library at my school in Brazil. You can check it out on Google here it was called "O Agente-Ésse-Secreto na Selva" and the collection "Salve-se quem puder". Currently no one knows about them. They were the most incredible books I read in my childhood. I didn't remember the name of the book, I spent years trying to find it when I finally found it. My desire would be to create stories like this, but for me it's much more likely to make a digital book. I want to make them inspired by this book, I want to use digital interactivity, but still keep it like a book.
As the other US people have said, we didn't have these specific books. CYOA is a classic... In fact, just yesterday I came across this Atlas Obscura article, which is basically about the flowchart maps for the branch points of the CYOA books:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cyoa-choose-your-own-adventure-maps
But those Usborne books looked fun, and I enjoyed solving the puzzles on the extracts you posted. There's certainly a place for them to return. If I were still a kid I'd enjoy the hell out of them.
I'll join those recommending Affinity Publisher and will point out that the v2 versions just dropped. That's a one-and-done buy until v3 is released, and since the v1 Suite went for seven-years-and-change before progressing to v2, and given that Serif is running a launch special of 40% off until January 25, 2023, I'd say this is the perfect time to jump on. I'd say just go ahead and pick up the entire Suite - Photo, Design, Publisher - and have your photo editor, vector graphic and page layout locked in for the next few years. Obviously proprietary formats mean it'll be easier to shuffle photo/raster elements, vector elements and text around within the Suite without having to render out your elements to other formats. One buy will grab you all three programs for Windows, Mac and IOS. Look, man, I'm not even a brand Ambassador and I'm pushing hard.
I do like a good branching narrative flowchart. It's why Twine is appealing as an IF tool - though can get unwieldy very fast, in my experience.
The all-in Affinity suite is a great deal. Not sure how much use I'd have for the other apps, though.
Designer I don't use much. I basically just finally did a couple vector versions of my glyph, so I don't have to keep making raster versions. Designer is great for making badges or reusable elements. (I know a comic artist who never draws chest emblems. All his emblems - say Superman's "S" shield - are stored as straight on vectors. When he gets to inking he loads the vector and mesh warps the vector to fit the chest angle and bulges. It's faster than drawing them every time and he's got the base colors set up so he just inks in shadows or paints other colors (say green from glowing kryptonite) over the base logo. If you have it, you'll probably find a use. And, at the current price, with the near certainty you'll get updates for years, it's likely worth the extra money.
Affinity Photo - yeah, you have GIMP, but I've used GIMP and Affinity is much better (and can use Photoshop plugins). Then again, for photo work I do a lot of HDR work. GIMP has no true HDR tools. You have to manually load your brackets and faff around with masks. Affinity merges the brackets to a true 32-bpp image and sends that to its RAW processing engine. Also has tools for focus stacking GIMP doesn't have and Affinity is set up for true non-destructive editing. If you were to start doing more work combining AI images - like your Triverse cover - after the learning curve you'll be able to blend and correct your layers more easily because GIMP was built around a destructive model and filters change the pixels. All tonal adjustments, etc in Affinity are effectively like using Grade Layers in Hitfilm. You can always tweak them later because it didn't get burned into the pixel layer. For photo work, I shoot RAW. Even on my phone. GIMP needs third party plug ins for RAW. Affinity works with RAW directly and the RAW stays RAW until export. (Although for most RAW editing I use OnOne PhotoRaw.
Amusingly I did a quick photomanipulation for a friend tonight - a karaoke poster. Although I started in. HITFILM. It finally occurred to me instead of using stock photos of mics and having to find a pic at the right angle and paint to adjust lights, I'd just download a 3D mic model from Sketchfab, bring that into Hitfilm, position in 3D, light (use the BG image as an environment map), mute the BG, export the PNG from Hitfilm and do the final comp in Affinity. Why didn't I think of that years ago! It was faster and I matched the mic to the plate better by starting with correct lighting. Still, a lot (most) of my photo manipulation goes through Hitfilm at some point. Sometimes "Grading Transfer" is a lifesaver. Or the Dalek image I created as a custom phone case a few years ago. One ActionVFX fire clip on multiple layers and offset was easier to deal with than several stock photos. Then again, I rendered the Dalek in Hitfilm, so...
I'm not familiar with Twine. Link?
OK, convinced me. Have acquired! Look forward to checking it out. Be useful for future ebook and print interiors, plus doing anything more complex like an Usborne-style illustrated short book.
I've never liked GIMP (though it is great as a free thing). In lieu of Photoshop I've been using Clip Studio Paint, which is fine (though mainly intended for art stuff).
Here's Twine: https://twinery.org/
It's great, but I find it hard to wrangle larger projects. I've moved to Ink more recently, though haven't found the time to properly dive into anything yet. https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/
I loved these books as a kid! I was always hunting down the next one at the library! It’s a shame they don’t publish them
anymore. I know my daughter would be into them!
Yeah, I started looking into them because I thought my son would be interested.
I do wonder if there might be an adult market of nostalgic grown-ups, though. :P
I would be! But for Kiddo really not me. ( but I’d definitely still enjoy it)
Thanks for the shoutout! I agree about their being magic in the print version of a gamebook. And in the old days, the illustrations in solo gamebooks were generally more sophisticated than the ones in computer games.
I’ve never heard of the Usborn books in the US. Ironically, the most similar thing I can remember growing up were the Nintendo Adventure Books, which were CYOAs with heavy use of puzzles. (I remember having to solve puzzles to get the correct page number to flip to.)
In today’s kids market, you might find inspiration with Hocus & Pocus and Knights Club, which are modern gamebook comics with unique mechanics.
Looking forward to seeing what you make! If you need anything on your journey, I’m happy to help.
Oh, I've never heard of Nintendo Adventure Books. When games get adapted into other forms - eg movies - they often fail because they lose the critical aspect that defined them in the first place (heavy interactivity), and the fun thing about this form of book is that it retains that puzzley interactive element. (I mean, movie games also fail due to terrible writing etc, but you see what I'm getting at)
I'll be sure to shout if I need a hand and make any progress on this. Might be a fun 2023 side project...
I wish we'd had the Usborn books in Canada - I've never heard of them before this! Adam Weiland mentions a number of other books that I'm more familiar with.
From the comments here it definitely seems that the Usborne books were UK-only, which is a shame. Can't even get them in the UK anymore, alas.
Late to the conversation. I am from the US and grew up reading Usborne Puzzle Adventures. Our family collected about a dozen of the books and Agent Arthur's were my favorite. The books were published in the US by EDC Publishing out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Below the publishing information it says "Not for sale in Canada" which I assumed meant that another publisher had the rights in Canada.