The gamebook mechanisms are very simple. The reader is asked to identify himself with the main character; the story is often fragmented by choices which point to several paragraphs, with different story developments. Ecological book like no other one, the gamebook demands to be read more than once, discovering the different progresses and various endings: unlike it normally happens with ordinary novels and stories, the plot is thus recycled many times.
To best make the reader familiarize to the gamebook system, we used this same mechanism to write this short article.
The following paragraphs must not be read sequentially, from the first to the last, as it is good habit in the traditional books: instead, you’ll have to jump from one point to another following the instructions given each time. Otherwise you will run the risk of missing the overall labyrinth architecture, which would seem to you just a pointless palace with ladders on the ceiling, windows on the floor and sanitary fixtures on the walls.
So, jump from a paragraph to another one: you will make the reading route most suitable for your tastes and interests. In case you’ll find yourself unsatisfied, restart from the beginning and try other ways. Or, read my book (in Italian) where I examine these subjects more deeply, with a complete list of Gamebooks published in Italy during the last 20 years.
And now... let’s begin!
Translator’s note: even if the following information is fine for worldwide readers, this article mainly deals with Italian facets of the gamebook phenomenon. Whenever possible, an English edition or translation of the quoted books is given.

- If you are interested in studying in detail what drives the reader to become keen to the gamebook, go read paragraph #6.
- If you are anxious to know about gamebooks in libraries and bookstores, go read paragraph #14.

#1
“In every work of imagination, each time a man faces several options, he chooses one discarding the others; in that almost inextricable work by Ts’ui Pen he chooses – simultaneously – all the alternatives. He generates, thus, different futures, different times which they proliferate and fork”. Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel”, David R. Godine Publisher, 2000.
From this vision by Borges develops by underhand means the movie Stefano Quantestorie (Maurizio Nichetti, 1993), where many “when I grow up” of the same child coexist. Even a gamebook was derived: after all, this simply takes from the maze-like novel by Ts’ui Pen and makes it perfectly practicable, thanks to the Ariadne’s thread made up of cross-references.
- If you have been pleased to meet Borges in this wandering among the paragraphs, -> #10.
- If you prefer to add other names to the group of gamebook scholars -> #7.

#2
The suggestion by Le Lionnais was referring to an imaginary detective story, which would stop at the beginning asking to the reader: “Do you prefer a detective mystery? Go to page x. Do you rather prefer a suspense continuation? Go to page y. Do you prefer an erotic-brutal continuation? Go to page z.” Ruggero Campagnoli and Yves Hersant, “OULIPO – La letteratura potenziale”, Clueb, Bologna 1985 (this text is currently unavailable in English; however, several basic ideas can be found in Warren F. Motte, OULIPO: A Primer of Potential Literature, Darkley Archive Press, 1998 --Translator’s note).
At the end of the “Postscript to The Name of the Rose”, Umberto Eco notes: “It seems that the OULIPO group recently built a matrix with all possible detective situations, finding that what is still lacking is only a book where the killer is the reader.” The matrix was actually proposed by Le Lionnais to other OULIPO members in January 12, 1969. This lacking seems unbridgeable by a normal detective story, but thanks to the gamebook this hypothesis becomes possible.
Umberto Eco, “The Name of the Rose”, Harvest Books, 1994.
- If you like the members of OULIPO, -> #11.
- If you’d prefer to hear about real gamebooks instead of imaginary books, -> #14.

#3
Gianni Rodari (a famous Italian writer for children, --Translator’s note), attended a radio programme narrating tales with multiple endings, among which children could choose the preferred one. The purpose was openly playful, but Rodari did not spare his considerations about what kind of finale children should choose and why. In the pure gamebook, instead, the reader identifies himself with the main character and he is completely free in his selections: if they are correct, he is rewarded by a satisfying development of the story till the happy handing, while errors imply tragic endings.
- If you think that gamebooks are particularly suitable for children, -> #14.
- If you believe that adults, too, have the right of enjoying themselves with gamebooks, -> #8.

#4
The “tree” structure is also the foundation of games and psychological “narrated” tests, prepared on different means like, for example, data banks used by terminals. The same data banks logic is the logic of cross reference from a text page several other ones, among which you can choose one. Complicating the connections’ quantity and intricacy enormously, we come to the creation of hypertexts: an ever evolving frontier.
- If you are fascinated by new technologies, -> #12.
- If you rather prefer traditional papery means, -> #15.

#5
Following the gamebooks success, the cross reference method has been used in many fields.
Stefania Fabri, while editing reading books for children, created some miniature game stories which can be used as educational aids. More recently, a game story written by Francesco Cigala was included in a holyday homework primary text schoolbook.
C.Un.S.A., Cooperativa Un Sacco Alternativa (a creative game Italian group, which name translates roughly to “Very Unconventional Cooperative” --Translator’s note), designed a peculiar “psychological test” for the advertising of a well known chain of holyday camps which unwound itself for no less than 31 pages of Corriere della Sera supplement Sette (december 22nd, 1990): bouncing from one page to another according to his own choices, the reader finally was redirected to a profile where he was advised about what kind of vacation was more suitable for him.
A psychological test with the gamebook system was already proposed in August 20th, 1989, by the weekly magazine L’Espresso: the reader was asked to choose actors for various roles in a supposed remake of “The Betrothed”. The novel plot was obviously twisted if, during of the story, you cast singer Miguel Bosé instead of Roberto Benigni to play Renzo; or if you cast Mario Capanna (an extreme left wing political Italian leader) rather than Giovanni Agnelli to play Brother Christopher. This brief story developed for 28 paragraphs; real gamebooks have several hundreds of them.
- If you think that we are going away too much from the gamebook subject, -> #8.
- If alternative uses enjoy you but you want something more game-related, -> #13.

#6
“Marco enters in a city; he sees someone in a square living a life or an instant which could have been one of his own; he could be now in place of that man if he stopped a long time ago, or if in the past, at a crossroad, instead of choosing one street he chose the opposite one finding himself after a long trip at the place of that man in that square. By now, from that real or imaginary past, he is out; he cannot stop; he must go on to another city where another past of his own is waiting for him, something which maybe has been one of his potential futures and now it is the present of someone else. Unfulfilled futures are just branches of the past, dead woods”. Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities”, Harcourt, 1978.
To beat this sadness the gamebook is being read more and more: to get out of the regrets which makes De Gregori singing: “If I could go back, back I would go; if I could restart from the beginning, what I have done I will do it again no more”. The gamebook allows, finally, going back: that’s a good part of its charm.
Actually, there’s more.
In any narrative texts, even if there are no cross references, “the reader is forced at any moment to make choices. Even better, this obligation to choose shows itself even at the level of any statement, at least at every transitive verb occurrence. While the speaker is about to finish the phrase, we, albeit unconsciously, bet, foresee his choice, or anxiously ask ourselves which choice he will opt (at least in case of dramatic statements like “yesterday in the Graveyard I saw...”).” Umberto Eco, Six walks in the fictional woods, Harvard University Press, 1995 (reprint).
The gamebook allows the reader to add his choices to the story, at least as far as the writer expected or wanted to give them to the reader. It is the complete opposite to the false interactivity of science fiction TV series in Ray Bradbury’s Fareneith 451, where the presence of viewers is absolutely irrelevant to the plot development.
- If you like the idea of gamebook having more or less high cultural references, -> #1.
- If you’d rather prefer to analyze more closely practical applications of gamebook system in other fields, -> #4.

#7
Starting from some self-learning hypertext manuals to become skilled at computer languages, Raymond Queneau in the July-September 1967 issue of Lettres Nouvelles published a short story entitled Un cont à votre façon, translated in English as “A story as you like it”. It is the first example of cross-reference story. Raymond Queneau, Bâtons, chiffres et lettres, Gallimard, Folio/Essais, 1994 (it seems to be no English edition of this text out of complete Queneau anthologies --Translator’s note). The “tree” structured literature was already suggested by François Le Lionnais during 79th gathering of OULIPO, a group which aimed to exploit all the literary text potentials, dismantling and reassembling with joyful spirit.
- If you are curious about Le Lionnais and OULIPO, -> #2.
- If you want to improve your knowledge about Queneau, -> #17.

#8
The first gamebook published in Italy was the translation of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s The Worlock of Firetop Mountain by Supernova publishing, in 1985. This title was maybe too ahead of its times, because it remained the only one published so far by this publisher. The same authors (e.g. the translated version of Forest of Doom) have been published in Italy by E.Elle Editions in 1988. E.Elle is the publisher which establishes the gamebook (aptly named “librogame”) success in Italy. The biggest success was the Lone Wolf saga (Lupo Solitario), an unsullied knight without fear immersed in an imaginary fantasy world: the first one was Flight from the Dark, 1985. From then many other gamebooks in Italian appeared, featuring every conceivable background suitable for any age.
- If you are tired of all these talks and think that a picture is worth one thousand words, -> #13.
- If you, as a brilliant reader of GiocAreA, already have good ideas for boardgames crossing your mind, -> #18.

#9
Between the two World Wars Hollywood made several movies with two endings: the first one according to the director’s wishes, the second one was a happy ending in case the former one was unwelcome to the public. More recently, movies with three different ending have been produced, each one shown in a different hall. Later, the gamebook system has been adopted by some American TV cable networks transmitting telenovelas. Each episode offers an alternative: viewers vote and the continuation wanted by the majority is transmitted in real time, while a text on the screen shows the number of votes and preferences gathered by each option.
Finally, in January 14th, 1993 the Herald Tribune announced on the first page the inauguration of the first interactive movie theatre. Indeed, at New York Lowes Theater you can watch a thriller entitled I’m Your Man, where spectators state their preferences on the plot development pressing one of the three coloured buttons on their seat’s arm. Someone who runs from one seat to another to use votes on empty armchairs never lacks.
- If you are intrigued by technological means required to make similar undertakings, -> #12.
- If it seems to you that TV could benefit from the cross-reference mechanism just like the cinema, -> #19.
- If you want to spend time in the traditional printed paper, -> #5.

#10
Borges himself conjectures about another branching book, this time backwards: “April March”, a story where three potential previous histories are told, each of them branching in another three ones, for a total of nine potential pasts. Jorge Luis Borges, “Fictions”, Gallimard, 1992.
- If you think this kind of publication is a game for children, -> #3.
- If you think that adults too can enjoy this kind of things, -> #7.

#11
Paul Formel, another OULIPO member, suggested to make a “combinatorial comedy”. At the end of each scene, actors would stop and ask the spectators to vote for a certain plot development. A comedy where six scenes are performed according to the viewers’ will requires the preparation of fifteen original scenes.
- If you believe that the theatre is outdated by more modern mass media, -> #9.
- If you prefer a good fantasy novel employing this same mechanism, -> #8.

#12
The year 1988 is by now a remote period: Germany was split in two countries, Czechoslovakia was the joining of two countries, and CD-ROMs did not exist in our houses yet. That year Soft Publishing decided to publish an Apple MacIntosh version by Enrico Colombini and Chiara Tavena of the first Italian gamebook (together with Il Presidente del Consiglio sei tu [“You are the Prime Minister”] by G&L): this book was Andrea Angiolino, “In Cerca di Fortuna” (“Searching for luck”), Ripostes, Salerno 1987. This program is still an isolated case of computer interactive story, as long as we talk about a faithful transposition of a real gamebook rather than text adventures (i.e., “interactive fiction”, as today are recognized --Translator’s note) or videogames.
Colombini and Tovena are also the authors of the first Italian computer adventure game: Avventura nel Castello (Castle Adventure), which dates back to 1982: it ran on Apple II and now even on MS-DOS. Enrico Colombini wrote also manuals for writing computer adventure games for various personal computers. They all featured floppy disks with already complete adventures along with a program to write new ones. Ludendo docere: by the time you used the Colombini’s base module, you learned several useful skills to design good computer programs.
- If you consider it is worth making real interactive movies, -> #9
- If the concept of these old technological applications bores you, -> #3

#13
There is a weird game which allows you to reproduce WWI plane duels with a sort of double gamebook made up of pictures only: Alfred Leonardi, Ace of Aces, Nova Games Designs, Manchester, 1980.
Each of the two opponents has a booklet featuring 223 pictures with all potential relative positions of enemy plane with respect to ours. The enemy is seen in first person perspective, at different distances and several orientations. Each turn the player chooses a manoeuvre among the available 25 and confronts it with his opponent’s move. It follows a new position, depicted on another page.
With Ace of Aces the story disappears: in the last it’s a dumb gamebook. Fast and effective, it spawned airplanes games published by the same publisher about the WWII, the jets of the Eighties, the Gulf War, the Dragonriders of Pern from Anne McCaffrey’s novels (which are also in gamebooks published by Tor). “Land” versions of Ace of Aces include a Sheriff vs. Outlaw gunfight in the Old West as well as the Lost Worlds booklets, with heroes and fantasy monsters always duelling: unlikely the former, these are sold individually and not in couples, and each one is compatible with the others.
- If the concept of cross-reference boardgames seems worth of further developments to you, -> #18.
- If you’d like to think it over, -> #20.

#14
The first gamebook published in Italy is: Edward Packard, “Avventure nell’Isola” (one of the “Choose your adventure” books, Bantam Books, 1982 --Translator’s note). It is a very simple gamebook suitable for first grade children. It is just the first of many other books published for children of this age.
- If you think that children may learn something from gamebooks, -> #5.
- If you prefer something for adults, -> #8.

#15
Il Manifesto is the only Italian newspaper which published an interactive article: “La sorpresa di Ulisse” (“Ulysses’ surprise”), in May 28th, 1989, regarding the potential literature and its practical applications; and “Simulandia”, December 24th, 1989, about gift games for Christmas.
The branching mechanism was used also for a gamebook bibliography published in a small booklet: Andrea Angiolino, “Quando il protagonista è il lettore”, Stampa Alternativa, Roma, 1994 (this booklet is unavailable in English --Translator’s note).
- If you are interested in the real gamebook subject, -> #14.
- If you want to know more about potential literature, -> #7.

#16
The weekly magazine Topolino (the Italian name of Disney’s Mickey Mouse --Translator’s note), starting from November 1985, published several comic stories using the gamebook mechanism.
The only interactive comics published in Italy (by Nexus, 1993) are the “Interactive Comics” series by Paul Ryan O’Connor with the Dudley Serious saga, an unlikely and caricatural superhero who visits fantasy as well as science fiction worlds.
Hybrid texts, halfway between written text and cartoons, using typical cartoons characters, are instead Silver and Fabrizio Luzzatti, “Due cuori in gioco” (“Two hearts at stake”), Glenat Italia, Milano, 1988 (unavailable in English --Translator’s note), where Lupo Alberto the wolf tries to reach the beloved chicken Marta; and Goscinny-Uderzo, “L’Appuntamento del capo”, Mondadori, Milano, 1989, one of those gamebooks using Asterix and his tribe as main characters.
- If you believe a picture is worth a thousand words, -> #13.
- If you prefer returning to more traditional books, -> #6.

#17
Queneau is, among other things, the author of Cent Mille Millards de Poéms (One Hundred Billions Poems, in Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie, eds. “Oulipo Compendium”, Atlas, 1998). Judging on the title you could think of a colossal “Encyclopaedia Britannica” made up of a million tomes crowded with verses. On the contrary, the book is just ten pages long, each page showing an ordinary fourteen verses sonnet. However, each page is cut in fourteen strips, with one verse each, which may be turned separately from the others. So you can combine the verses to obtain, for example, a sonnet with the first verse of the third page, the second verse of the fifth page, the third verse of the first page, and so on. Queneau grants the grammatical consistency of each of the 100.000.000.000.000 overall combinations.
Queneau has distant roots which date back to the 18th century, as you may read in Giampaolo Dossena, Enciclopedia dei Giochi, UTET, 1999 (currently unavailable in English --Translator’s note).
- If you like Oulipian researches, -> #11.
- If you’d like to start hearing about real gamebooks, -> #14.

#18
Some boardgames took from gamebooks their cross-reference mechanism. The first and most famous is Consulting Detective, by Gary Grady, Suzanne Goldberg and Raymond Edwards, published by Sleuth in 1981 and translated in Italian by International Team (which by now is sadly out of business). Players are Baker Street “irregulars”, the Sherlock Holmes aide-boys: the game develops among cross references, fictional newspapers and a map of London. Several expansions offered new cases; a similar game, Gumshoe, proposed more modern detective stories.
Lots of other boardgames borrow from the cross-reference system. Among others, it is worth noting Fantasy Tales of the Arabian Nights by Eric Goldberg (West End Games, 1985).
The most successful title, however, is Ambush by John H. Butterfield and Eric Lee Smith, published by Victory Games in 1983. It is a solitaire boardgame on a hexagonal map. The player moves tokens representing American troops in a mission in France in 1944: a system of paragraphs and branches linked to the board hexagons manages the German troops against the player as well as various accidents happening during the game. This game was a big success, albeit on the specialized market, so that it had three expansions (all set in the European front) and a sequel, Battle Hymn, set in the Pacific, with a dedicated expansion.
- Now go to paragraph #20.

#19
Even the Italian TV exploited similar mechanisms. In 1995, the C.Un.S.A., Cooperativa Un Sacco Alternativa (“Very Unconventional Cooperative”), created some interactive stories for the RaiTre TV programme Ultimo Minuto (“Last Minute”): a branching story was presented to renowned hosts testing their ability when facing emergency situation like a glider accident or the starting of a fire. The following year, instead of the narrator, true forking films were present. In 1997 the Pippo Kennedy Show programme took from this model developing a game for participants phoning from home: it was a real interactive film, where you had to search files about the most burning Italian Republic mysteries, guided by comedians Olcese and Margiotta.
Stream (a satellite TV network, Translator’s note) produced instead GiòGatto, an interactive cartoon written by me where the viewer identifies himself with the main character, a cat, and may decide his behaviour: in 1999 it was moved on CD-ROM and distributed as a free promotional gadget at the SMAU (the most important Electronics Fair in Italy --Translator’s note).
- If you think that radio is even more suitable than TV to host a gamebook system, -> #3.
- If the concept of cartoon roused your interest, thinking about gamebooks for children, -> #14.

#20
This is the last leg of our journey.
If the reader liked this zigzagging route, he just has to enter into a Library and buy a good gamebook to finally enjoy the taste of an interactive adventure. After all, even searching for the books cited here is kind of an adventure: not all of them are still in print, obviously, and only a few among the crowd of authors of gamebooks, gamebooks’ ancestors and gamebooks’ relatives benefited from big distribution channels. However, a trip on Internet with a research engine may be fruitful, revealing more or less refined online interactive stories (or downloadable ones).
If, on the contrary, the reader thinks that there are still shadowy points about gamebooks, unexplored potentials, hints worth further investigation... well, he may go back to the introduction and start again the journey: maybe he will find what he is searching for.