Choose Your Own Adventure

STRUCTURAL EXPERIMENTS

One of the goals of the book Inside UFO 54-40, was to reach an alien paradise known as Ultima. It was hard to get to. Very hard. In fact, if you played through the book in the traditional manner, you would never reach it.

Instead, you had to cheat: to flip through the book at random until you found an illustrated double-page spread that no other pages in the book would link to. Finally, Ultima!

“Some people complained this wasn’t fair, but I think it was, because the way to reach “Ultima” was strongly hinted at on the “Warning” page,” says Packard, when you ask him about this and any other structural flourishes. “I think my books had a lot of variety, but I can’t think of many that had experimental touches. Maybe a few. One other was Hyperspace, where I appeared as a character. Then there was Who Are You?, in which you’re hit on the head and have amnesia and the challenge is to find out who you are!”

Find out who you are. Video games may be no stranger to amnesia, but it will be a pleasure to finally play one that can do justice to that idea.

If you want to read about THE VIDEO GAME CONNECTION, go here. If you want to visit THE PRESENT DAY, go here.