9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choose Your Own Adventure [pdf]

Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by Kurtz79 on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @03:20AM (#45343818)

Since he might not be known to most (especially a younger audience), the author is a writer best known for many of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were hugely successful in the 80s.

Jimmy Maher wrote about them recently https://www.filfre.net/2025/09/choose-your-own-adventure/

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by colordrops on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @03:25AM (#45343853)

He's also the grandfather of David Cornswet, the actor playing Superman in the latest movie.

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by mi_lk on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @04:33AM (#45344349)

nice trivia

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by isolli on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @04:23AM (#45344282)

Thanks for sharing. This part resonated :)

"Today, it’s all too easy to see all of the limitations and infelicities of The Cave of Time and its successors: a book of 115 pages that had, as it proudly trumpeted on the cover, 40 possible endings meant that the sum total of any given adventure wasn’t likely to span more than about three choices if you were lucky. But to a lonely, hyper-imaginative eight-year-old, none of that mattered. I was well and truly smitten, not so much by what the book was as by what I wished it to be, by what I was able to turn it into in my mind by the sheer intensity of that wish."

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by nervousvarun on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @10:06AM (#45347238)

These books were incredibly important to me as an 80s kid. Was a voracious reader in general but absolutely loved these because they had replay value! I remember scouring through these on long family trips in the car to find every possible ending.

The parallels with modern video games are obvious.

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by slfnflctd on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @10:57AM (#45347995)

The first video game (and one of the first programs) I wrote was a self-styled Choose Your Own Adventure on a C64 with ASCII art and maybe a total of 10 pages.

The only person who acted impressed by it was my grandmother - who had paid for the C64 - but that was enough for me.

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by isolli on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @10:12AM (#45347318)

In fact, this inspired me to buy such a book for my 9-yo son! They've grown in size, apparently (250-300 pages). Let's see how, in the age of omnipresent screens, he likes it :)

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by pests on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @12:38PM (#45349428)

Same. I would compulsively graph the options as I went so I could backtrack back decisions.

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by jtr1 on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @07:52AM (#45345691)

Thank for noting this! I had no idea while I was reading the piece, but I loved those books as a kid. What a delightful connection.

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by pridkett on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @11:55AM (#45348799)

I was pleased that at my local toy store (yes, we still have one, The Time Machine in Manchester, CT) they carry Choose Your Own Adventure books. What’s more, last week we picked up a copy of “The Cave of Time”. So many memories of that book growing up.

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by bigstrat2003 on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @12:15PM (#45349069)

The original headline actually said that, before it got edited out. :/

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Re:9 Things I Learned in 90 Years – From the Creator of Choo... by dang on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @01:09PM (#45349931)

Discussed yesterday, for anyone curious:

Choose Your Own Adventure - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45337450 - Sept 2025 (80 comments)

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