quote:

quote:

quote:

To Be or Not To Be is both the earliest recorded example of the "books as game" genre as well as the first instance ever in the then-newish English language that was kicking around of an adventure being chosen by YOU, the reader.

We've gone ahead and added illustrations, plus we've taken the liberty of marking with tiny Yorick skulls the choices Shakespeare himself made when he plagiarized this book back in olden times.



The little right-pointed fleur-de-lis symbol at the bottom indicates that another tap will advance the page, wiping all the text blocks and starting anew.

However, that is not the only way to read this book! Feel free to explore your other options, as each time you read this book you can go on a different adventure, assuming you don't read the book 3,001,181,439,094,525 times at which point the adventure will start to repeat and they'll probably seem pretty familiar long before then anyway.

Now, take yourself back to History, when ghosts walked the Earth and nobody knew velociraptors were ever even a thing. Steel yourself to experience the magic of Shakespeare as it was meant to be experienced: In a non-deterministic narrative structure where you end up thinking maybe you made a wrong decision, so you mark the pages you were just on so you can always go back and make a different choice if you die for some dumb reason.

To be, or not to be: that is the adventure.

quote:

Now SURPRISE, babies are boring, so we're going to jump ahead in time to a point where you're an adult and you've already lived a bunch of your life, but I promise most of what we're skipping over was really dull.

You ate a lot and slept a lot and made some friends, tears were shed, makeouts were totally had, etc. It was a bunch of high school stuff: the awesome stuff starts now! So! Let's begin, my friend!

Um... remind me again who you are? Are you...

quote:

At present, you are in Norway, where just this afternoon you led Denmark's forces to an astounding victory during which you PERSONALLY killed the Norwegian king.

Stabbed him right through the head, you did. His eye popped out and rolled on the ground and then you stepped on it. Whoah! Your rear end is bad! You are a badass!!

You decide after a day of being good at fighting, you should have a nap. You've earned it! You settle down in an orchard for some nappy times.



As soon as that first text block appears the background goes green for the remainder of this segment. It's a nice little touch.

quote:

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

Also, this is like .94 cents on Steam right now.

Small Frozen Thing posted:

This looks pretty neat, but your OP looks like a savage bout of tryhard-coolguy gripped you in the process of writing it.

Seyser Koze posted:

No ghost.

I figure this is good for a second game-over already.

quote:

quote:

quote:

quote:

quote:

You get to spend all your time slamming doors, rattling chains, and telling on the person who killed you!

But here’s the thing: I, the author, told you, the reader, that your brother poured poison in your ear while you napped. But you, as Hamlet Sr., have no idea how you died! You slept through the whole thing.

So you need to figure out who killed you if you’re going to revenge yourself on your murderer, assuming you even WERE murdered. Because remember that for all you know, you could’ve died of a heart attack!

This is an example of dramatic irony, only since we’re in the second person, it’s an amazing example of an entirely new species of dramatic irony: something I’m going to call Second Person Pronoun-Paradoxical Auto-Dramatic Irony.

You are now aware of information that you’re not aware of. This should be fun!

Qylvaran posted:

Does the iOS app include the 'prequel', Alas, Poor Yorick?

quote:

You only speak Danish, so understanding Norwegian is a little difficult. It all sounds like Swedish to you! Which actually makes a lot of sense, since Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are all related North Germanic languages descended from early linguistic differentiation between regular Germanic speakers and North Germanic speakers around 200 AD.

You nod your head, agreeing that all of this is both accurate and extremely interesting.

While these three languages are GENERALLY supposed to be mutually intelligible, you find you can understand Norwegian speakers only if you're concentrating -- which you are -- and only if they're speaking slowly and clearly -- which they're not, as everyone is running around upset about war and all these kings getting killed.

Ironically, Norwegian speakers can understand Danish easier than Danish speakers understand Norwegian, but that doesn't help you much! That would only be useful if you were playing as the Norwegian king whose ghost has stowed away on YOUR army's boat headed back to Denmark, but I haven't given you that option even though it would be extremely awesome. If you're wondering what happens to this Vengeful Ghost King, I can tell you only this: THE ANSWER EXISTS IN YOUR IMAGINATION??

But here's the good news, it turns out WRITTEN Danish and WRITTEN Norwegian are actually pretty similar! So you spend the next several nights haunting people, quietly reading their diaries while they sleep peacefully in their beds. And you don't know this, but ghosts do this all the time. Ghosts just love sneaking a peek at the secrets of the living!

It takes a while, but you finally find the diary of someone who wrote on the day you died that she was wandering by a garden, minding her own business when she saw some Danish guy pour something in some other Danish guy's ear!

Hey! That sounds like what could've happened to you (but remember you don't know that's exactly what happened to you because of that new irony we invented)!

quote:

You gently shake the woman awake while holding the piece of paper up in front of her. She's freaked out initially (she was just woken up by a g-g-g-g-ghostly apparition from beyond the grave) but once she reads your note, she looks at you and suspiciously and says, "For real?"

You flip over the paper and write, "YEAH I'M THE GUY THAT GOT KILLED MAYBE, AND I GUESS I WANT TO REVENGE MY DEATH OR WHATEVER? BUT PLEASE SPEAK SLOWLY AS NORWEGIAN IS NOT MY NATIVE LANGUAGE; I'M FROM DENMARK."

"Oh," the woman says in Danish, "I speak Danish too."

"Kick rear end," you reply.

She tells you what she saw and gives you a physical description of the guy. Unfortunately, the man answering to her description could only be one person: your brother, Claudius!!



You're feeling pretty chuffed about this whole situation!

Okay! Let's revenge your death! Your murderer is getting away with it in Denmark.

quote:

APPARENTLY NOT??

So you start to swim back to Denmark, but it's a lot of work to keep your body corporeal so that you can swim, so eventually you get tired and stop. For a while you float above the water, but that gets boring, so for most of the journey you float down to the ocean floor and travel along with it.

Hey, there's a sunken pirate ship here.

Hey, there might be treasure in it!

Decoy Badger posted:

This writing instantly reminded me of why I stopped reading Dinosaur Comics.

Swim, I guess.

quote:

I mean, it's kinda hard to see things without a light source, but your ghostly body glows a little when you want it to, so it's not bad.

The pirate ship itself seems recently sunk. There are bodies trapped below-decks, and yeah, that's unpleasant. The ocean bacteria haven't really started decomposing them yet. Bodies, man. Being corporeal, man. I dunno.

You find the treasure room, and it's empty. It seems like this ship was attacked, raided, and then sunk. Somewhere up above your head, sailing on the surface of the great Ocean Atlantic, is a really tough pirate ship that's just looking for treasure AND/OR trouble. Too bad you're already dead, huh?

But even if you were alive what does a ghost need with money anyway, so I guess this has kinda been a pointless but still awesome endeavour. You explored the ocean bottom and found a sunken ship! Don't let anyone tell you that's not awesome!

Okay! After several more days of very slow travel that we just skipped over because it got boring, you're back on Denmark's shores!

quote:

And while your dead ghost eyes won't actually change that fact, there's still lots of cool stuff to explore. You eventually travel all the way to the Mariana Trench, the very deepest part of the ocean, over 547 fathoms below sea level!

Here the water above presses down at over a thousand times standard atmospheric pressure, and the temperature is just above freezing. There are xenophyophores here, which are honest-to-God single-celled organisms so big you can see them with your bare eyes. Why, here's one that's over 10 centimetres long!

This is nuts. This whole place is nuts, and you're learning so much! You give up on your revenge plan and instead devote your (after)life to being a marine biologist and oceanic cartographer. And it turns out Ghost Marine Biology is pretty advanced compared to Alive Human Marine Biology...

quote:

Page 1 posted:

It’s a brand new day! You roll over in bed, open your eyes and, as you do every day, remind yourself of who and where you are, as well as what your deal is.

“I live in Denmark,” you whisper to the ceiling. “And my name is Yorick. I’m a man of infinite jest and most excellent fancy.”

“That means I’m good at jokes and have a cool imagination,” you remind yourself. “But that don’t pay the bills. I’m broke, there’s nothing for breakfast, and if I don’t find a job today so I can pay for some food I WILL LITERALLY DIE.”



Oh! Before we get started here, Yorick, I should probably mention that your life has the potential to have an improbably large effect on the future. The good news is that you’re a temporal hinge upon which all our tomorrows rest! The bad news is that the only way for you to put this legacy into motion is by dying. But the good news part two is that it’s really really really really insanely likely that you’re gonna die today!

Okay!

Have fun!!



>>Get out of bed and go for a walk<<
>>Stay in bed<<
>>Die instantly, I want my legacy to begin NOW<<

Golden Bee posted:

If you don't want to lp the game, nobody's forcing you.

quote:

_>>Restart<<
You roll out of bed, put on your walkin’ shoes (if we’re being honest they’re the only pair you own, so they’re also your runnin’ shoes and holes-in-’em shoes but that’s neither here nor there) and walk out into the crisp morning air. As you stroll around your small village you notice a sign nailed to a tree! You think “look sign” to yourself, and this is what you see:



“Wow!” you say out loud. “All my problems of not having cash would be solved if I got paid cash money!!” Then you tear the ad down so you can take it with you (also this prevents other people from applying for the job; Yorick, you are a young man whose fancy sometimes lightly turns to lawless self-interest.)

You decide to make your way down to the royal court to totally get this job. When you get there at 1:50 pm, you see several other potential jesters have arrived at well!



>>Sabotage the other jesters<<
>>Await your turn<<
>>Push your way to the front of the line<<

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
You decide that the best way to get this job is not to earn it by being the best candidate, but rather get it by ensuring nobody else is a viable candidate. In a single word of French origin: sabotage! You ponder for a bit on the subject of moral universalism (if an act is just, then it’s just for everyone to perform the act) and you imagine a universe in which everyone sabotages everyone else to get ahead. It seems terrible! So you conclude the only way to get ahead in such a universe is to sabotage everybody else first, and in doing so transform the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) into the Iron Rule (“Do unto others before they can do unto you first”). “The Iron Rule” sounds more badass so you’re big into it!

Your first sabotage attempt is to pull down the pants of one of the other jesters, but he notices when you do that and stabs you right through the brains.

Your body finds its way into a shallow grave, and 25 years later it’s dug up by Hamlet! He picks up your skull and says “Whoah, check it out! The knife this guy got stabbed with is still here, and you can see how it went right through his eyes and then popped out on the back of his skull! BAD. rear end.”

Hamlet adds the knife to his inventory and returns your skull to its grave. “I can use this knife in the future to open many things, such as for example a sealed letter or perhaps a jammed window,” he says.

Remember when I said you’d have an effect on the future? Well, that was it. You eventually help a thirty-year-old graverobber open a jammed window, by being the skull he stole an old knife from.

BEHOLD YOUR LEGACY, YORICK.



THE END

quote:

TURNS OUT that's really easy because he's in the first place you check: the royal court! He's there with your widow, Gertrude!

Weird, they're acting all close and stuff. Oh well. He's probably just trying to comfort her after your untimely death, hah hah; brothers are really great.

Though... maybe not?

quote:

Whoah! That certainly was, in terms of exposition, a very efficient sentence!

You decide instantly that your initial revenge plan (haunt a mirror so instead of Claudius's reflection he sees you, and then you mirror his movements so he's not really sure what's going on, tee hee!) is needlessly complex and stupid.

Dude killed you AND married your widow! Since you are from olden times, you have an extremely old-fashioned sense of ownership over female sexuality, so this really gets stuck in your craw. Instead of spooking Claudius, you decide to...

dreezy posted:

Kill Claudius and I swear to god if this just leads directly to a stupid dead end then I am done with Ryan North and his bullshit.

quote:

You wait until Claudius is sleeping (NEXT TO YOUR WIDOW) then wake him up by tapping him on the forehead a bit.

"Hey, it's me!" you whisper. "Your brother! The one you murdered!!"

"Aw crap," Claudius whispers back. "Ghosts are real?"

"Real pissed at you, anyway," you reply. "Listen, I'll cut to the chase: we are from a time where 'an eye for an eye' is considered a good thing to build a justice system around, so I am here to kill you."

"How?" Claudius asks, his eyes wide, terrified.

"Aw geez, so many ways," you say, counting them off on your fingers. "I could startle you and make you have a heart attack, but that takes time. I could throw a pot at your head until you die, but that lacks grace. Instead, check this out."

You move your ghost body so it's floating right above Claudius. He stares at you, his eyes wide. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Way too late for THAT," you reply. You lower yourself to him, face to face, and keep going. His face dominates your field of vision and then you're inside his skull, inside the pink of his brain, his blood darkly obscuring your sight. You sink slowly deeper and deeper into him, lining up your ghost body with his regular body, until you are just about occupying exactly the same space.

Then you make yourself corporeal.

What happens next happens so quickly and with such force that it's hard to describe, but "Claudius explodes everywhere" captures most of it. I mean, you're fine, but man this is disgusting. Literally disgusting. Gertrude wakes up, dripping in gore, screaming.

You, my friend, have achieved revenge.

You roll over to your back and apologize to Gertrude. You explain over her screams what happened, and you tell her that you still love her even though she married your brother mere weeks after you died.

But you can't be with her any more, you say. You tell her you need to go find your own path. "Sorry about the bed," you say, floating up through the roof.

You spend the rest of the afterlife acting as an immortal judge beyond the grave, exploding those who have committed the most egregious crimes, merely blowing the hands off those who have been awful people but still, you feel, deserve a second chance.

People whisper your name in fear (criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot, after all) and it works out pretty good for you. You do a lot of good for a lot of people. And yep, it turns out that blowing up bad guys never does get old!!

THE END

Kangra posted:

Option 3: I shoulda stood in bed.

I have to admit I'm rather enjoying some of the art, like the first Yorick ending.

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
You patiently await your turn.

While you wait, you start to chat with the jester next to you. He’s wearing a red leotard printed with white diamonds, and has face paint on that exaggerates his features. He explains to you that jesters have a long and proud tradition. They fall into two camps: the “natural fool”, or someone who really is a big dummy, and the “licensed fool”, who is given permission to just act like a big dummy. Licensed fools tend to last longer, because natural fools don’t know when to keep their mouths shut. “The jester is a special job,” he says, “We’re entertainers, sure, but we’re also able to directly address the regent in a way few others can. That is the special magic of the jest.”

“To be a jester,” he intones with great gravity, “is both an honour and a privilege.”

“What’s your act?” you ask.

“I put a squirrel in my pants and then act real upset that there is a squirrel in my pants,” he says.

King Carl Hamlet sticks his head into the room and looks around. He points to you and says “You’re up, chuckles!”



>>Enter the Royal Court<<
>>Push your new friend forward instead<<
>>Attack the king<<

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
You shyly step into the Royal Court. It’s a beautiful room, clearly capable of entertaining the entire monarchy of this here country (Denmark, in case you forgot). But right now it’s mostly empty. The only people here are your king (Carl Hamlet, who’s walking ahead of you, intent on settling into his throne), your queen (Gertrude Hamlet, smiling politely), and their son, Hamlet Jr. He looks to be about five years old.

“Pleased to meet you, your majesties,” you say. “I am Yorick.”

“This is our son, Kid Hamlet,” says the king. “He’s getting to be a bit of a handful as he grows up, and we want to keep him entertained. Since nobody has yet invented an automatic entertainment system—perhaps where automatons and mechanical men perform plays at our merest whim and we can pause them should we desire to get up to for a drink, or ‘rewind’ them should we miss something and wish to revisit it—as I say, since this [sic] as not yet been invented, we have to rely on actual alive people to entertain us.”

“...Okay,” you say. “Um, I’m an alive person. I can do that.”

“Wonderful!” says the king. “Please, proceed.”



>>Recount a charming jape<<
>>Make a fart noise by blowing between your hands, and then look around accusingly and say “Whoah, that wasn’t me”<<
>>Make a pass at the queen<<

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
You do that thing. The king and queen look unimpressed, but Kid Hamlet loves it. He cheers and claps and launches into a long soliloquy on how great it was. When he’s done, the king says “Well, I didn’t think that was super rad, but my kid loved it and your job is to entertain him, so good job! You’re hired...um, what did you say your name was again?”

“Yorick, sir” you say. “It’s either a corruption of the Scandinavian ‘Erick’ or ‘Jorg’, but it might also be an anagram of the Greek ‘kurios’, which—”

King Hamlet cuts you off. “Okay, cool, I’m not super into hearing more. I’m going to leave you alone with Kid Hamlet: if you can survive the day, I’ll pay you a bunch of gold and let you live in the castle. Deal?”

“Deal,” you say, stepping forward and to shake his outstretched hand. While you’re doing that you say, “Oh hey, can I have some food? I’m literally starving.”

“Sure!” says the king, and pulls an apple out from inside his robes, tossing it to you. “Kick rear end,” you say, swallowing the apple whole. Hey! How’d you do that? That was awesome! I want to be able to do that too.

In any case, you are no longer in immediate danger of dying! From starvation, I mean!



>>Talk to Kid Hamlet<<
>>Make more fart noises<<
>>Beg the king not to leave you alone with Kid Hamlet<<

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
Alone with Kid Hamlet, you make some more fart noises, and he continues to cheer. After about half an hour of this your lips are going a little numb, so you say “Listen, kid, what if I took a break for a whi—”

Kid Hamlet interrupts you and explains that your relationship is based on toot noises, NOT on human conversation. He does not want to hear another morpheme from you for the rest of your days, and the only phoneme he wants to hear is “thppppth”. Kids say the craziest things, huh? And kid princes say the craziest things that instantly become law that is punishable by death!

So, you never say another word to Hamlet, but spend the rest of your life making toots both artificial and genuine, and making quite a comfortable living by doing so. Nicely done! In a time where most people have to personally kill a chicken if they want a chicken burger for lunch, you’re living pretty comfortably. You die of a heart attack five years later (effective medicine is not a thing yet, heads up) and get buried in a shallow grave. A couple of decades later, Hamlet digs up your body! He picks up your skull and finds it remarkable, and therefore remarks upon it:

“Alas, poor Yorick!” he says. “I heard him toot, Horatio; a fellow of infinite toots, of most excellent toots; he hath tooted on me a thousand times. Yet where be his toots now? His super toots? His ultra toots extreme? His flashes of gas, that were wont to clear the table of its occupants because of the stank??”

I’ll say this: of all the legacies it is possible to have, Yorick, this is certainly one of them.



THE END

quote:

That evening, you try to revenge yourself on Claudius by spooking him.

The problem is, he never looks in any of the mirrors you're haunting, he assumes wind is knocking over his pots, and he thinks the ghostly wailing from beyond the grave is probably just a sick dog outside who's having a pretty rough go of it lately.

This spooking him isn't going well, man. I don't know what to tell you. You'll have to get your revenge some other way! Maybe by... killing him?

Reflecting on the fact that he did kill you, you decide the only suitable revenge is to kill him as well because why not, you could totally take him, especially since you've already died once and lived to talk about it.

But who is best suited to do the killing? You could do it, but you DID have a son partly so you wouldn't have to do every single thing around here!

quote:

You wait until Claudius is sleeping (NEXT TO YOUR BELOVED GERTRUDE FOR SOME REASON, HAH HAH, THAT'S WEIRD) then wake him up by tapping him on the forehead a bit.

"Hey, it's me!" you whisper. "Your brother! The one you murdered!!"

"Aw crap," Claudius whispers back. "Ghosts are real?"

"Real pissed at you, anyway," you reply. "Listen, I'll cut to the chase: we are from a time where 'an eye for an eye' is considered a good thing to build a justice system around, so I am here to kill you."

"How?" Claudius asks, his eyes wide, terrified.

"Aw geez, so many ways," you say, counting them off on your fingers. "I could startle you and make you have a heart attack, but that takes time. I could throw a pot at your head until you die, but that lacks grace. Instead, check this out."

You move your ghost body so it's floating right above Claudius. He stares at you, his eyes wide. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Way too late for THAT," you reply. You lower yourself to him, face to face, and keep going. His face dominates your field of vision and then you're inside his skull, inside the pink of his brain, his blood darkly obscuring your sight. You sink slowly deeper and deeper into him, lining up your ghost body with his regular body, until you are just about occupying exactly the same space.

Then you make yourself corporeal.

What happens next happens so quickly and with such force that it's hard to describe, but "Claudius explodes everywhere" captures most of it. I mean, you're fine, but man this is disgusting. Literally disgusting. Gertrude wakes up, dripping in gore, screaming.

You, my friend, have achieved revenge.

Still corporeal, you roll over onto your back and apologize to Gertrude. You explain over her screams what happened, and say that you hope she'll be happy being married to a ghost.

Gertrude stops screaming. "Um, while you were gone I kinda... married Claudius," she admits. "But I never stopped loving you!"

quote:

I must say, you are doing really well, King Hamlet! Not only have you revenged yourself in record time, you've also reconciled with your widow. Nicely done! You reveal yourself to the royal court the next morning, and nobody's happier to see you than your son, Hamlet Jr.

Your reappearance as a ghost does cause a minor constitutional crisis when someone points out you might not be able to reassume the throne, but a quick flip through the constitution reveals that there's nothing in the rules that say a ghost CAN'T be king! There's actually a section that explicitly says that should this happen, the ghost assuming the throne would be totally neato. I'm serious; that's what it says: "totally neato." You've got yourself a pretty cool nation, Hamlet Sr.!

You rule with your wife by your side for a really long time, and even get help solving national problems from the ghosts of history's greatest rulers, many of whom become close personal friends.

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
“Hey kid, I’m glad you liked my toot noises,” you say when you’re left alone with him. “What else do you like?”

“PLENTLY,” says Hamlet in that squeaky voice little kids have that’s adorable for at least—a little while? “I like gibes, gambols, songs, AND flashes of merriment.”

“I can do those,” you say, making a mental note to look up what gibes and gambols are. They sound like body parts, maybe. Maybe they’re special parts on, like, the inside of a fish?

“I also like riding you like a horse and will require that you carry me on your back at least 1,000 times.”

“Um, okay,” you say, offering what you hope is a confident smile.

“Per year,” says Hamlet.



>>Say “Right.” and get down on all fours<<
>>Say “Hah! Nice try, kid. I’m not that poor!” and leave the room<<

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
Kid Hamlet jumps onto your back (ouch!) and slaps you on the back of the head. “Yip yip!” he shouts.

I guess that means go? You gallop around the room on your hands and knees, which is super painful because the floor is literally made of rock, but get a brief reprieve when you hear a cough. You turn around and see King Hamlet, leaning against a doorframe and smiling.

“Everything’s going great in here then, huh?” he says.

“Yep!” you say confidently. “This is exactly where I wanted my career to bring me!”

“Super,” says the king, and leaves. Kid Hamlet jumps down from your back and stands in front of you. He looks very serious. It’s kind of adorable.

“I want you to give me a nickname,” he says, “and if you choose a bad one, then I’m going to ask daddy to kill you, and he’ll do it because he loves me.”

You blink.

“Now!” he says.

>>Nickname him “The Hammer”<<
>>Nickname him “Li’l Hamster”<<
>>Nickname him “Porkchop Weebottoms”<<

Glazius posted:

How many megapoints do we even need to go up that scale? It's almost like megapoints mean nothing.

FredMSloniker posted:

Does that mean it's a cumulative thing, not a measure of how good or bad a specific ending is?

Arglebargle III posted:

Wow I do not understand nerds getting angry at comedy CYOA books. If anything the way the OP has chosen to handle game-overs is making the book boring since we're just mechanically save-scumming to explore every path that doesn't lead to a dead-end. That sort of presentation is going to lead to the LP dead end! For this thread! Of course an adventure-is-chosen-by-you book loses its charm when you just read every outcome.

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
Hamlet gasps. “That’s terrible!” he says.

“I hate it!” he shouts, stomping his feet.

“I hate you!” he continues.

“Daddyyyyyyyyyyy!” he shouts, running out of the room, in tears, his hands in the air. Geez but that kid sure feels things real deeply, huh? Anyway you try to leave but guards prevent you, and then the king shows up and makes apologetic noises about what he has to do now, but you understand the importance of family don’t you Yorick, you know how children can be, hah hah hah, anyway you understand that I promised the child I’d do this for him, I just can’t say no to him when he gets into one of these moods, hah hah hah.

Your skull is dug up 25 years later by none other than Hamlet: he’s an adult now and in this timeline he works as a gravedigger! But in a profession seemingly populated entirely by wags and loveable rogues, he alone takes his job very seriously, so he disposes of your remains efficiently and without comment.



THE END

quote:

quote:

You decide you're going to get Hamlet to do a murder for you. Even though that's awful. That's awful, dude.

Listen, hypothetical question: let's say you do that and Hamlet is eventually successful and you are revenged. What would you do then? What would you do with your (after)life if revenge was no longer its driving force?

LIST OF HYPOTHETICAL (AFTER)LIFE CAREER CHOICES

• Accountant
  
• Actor
  
• Amusement park employee
  
• Animal husbandry
  
• Animator
  
• Architect
  
• Athlete
  
• Bakery owner
  
• Bouncer
  
• Brewmaster
  
• Cake decorator
  
• Chef
  
• Comic book artist
  
• Counsellor
  
• Cowboy
  
• Engineer
  
• Explorer
  
• Firefighter
  
• Food critic
  
• Game tester
  
• Geologist
  
• Librarian
  
• Linguist
  
• Long-haul trucker
  
• Makeup artist
  
• Marine biologist
  
• Mechanic
  
• Musician
  
• Painter
  
• Personal trainer
  
• Photographer
  
• Physician
  
• Pilot
  
• Policy analyst
  
• Professional gambler
  
• Professional golfer
  
• Programmer
  
• Researcher
  
• Restaurateur
  
• Roller derby player
  
• Sex worker
  
• Skateboarder
  
• Spy
  
• Tamer of ghost dinosaurs
  
• Travel writer
  
• Watchmaker
  
• Waterslide builder
  
• Waterslide tester
  
• Welder
  
• Window cleaner
  
• Writer

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

Option 1


This would be true if the CYOA was good, but it's not. I do not want to keep making the same choices over and over to get to a new one when most choices lead to game over.

quote:

Sometimes when you read a book you want to save where you are and come back later, right? That's what a bookmark is for. But in a multiple-path book, usually you'll have your fingers in several places of the book, in case you make a mistake and need to go back. If only there was a bookmark designed specifically for books like these, and maybe it could be a Yorick skull with big ol' teeth, and maybe instead of calling it a bookmark we could get clever and call it a "Plot Device".

Glazius posted:

Look, if you don't want to tame ghost dinosaurs, I don't know what that says about you, but it can't be good.

quote:

...in which you induce your only son to commit a murderous act of revenge on your behalf when you're already dead anyway. It's -- kinda awful?

So if you want to tell Hamlet to go kill his stepfather, you can. In fact, look, you just did.

But now you are going to have to live with the consequences, AS THE MAN WHO YOU JUST INDUCED TO MURDER.

You are now your son, Hamlet! How's that taste, bucko?! Now you have to go do a murder!

quote:

Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!

Your Ghost Dad seems pretty cool with that.



You have begun quest Kill Claudius! It's worth 3500 experience points. That's a lot!!

quote:

...the woman your father adored, loved, and married, but also all women in general.

quote:

"Listen, Horatio, never speak of this whole 'we totally saw a ghost' thing, okay? We've got to keep it a secret."

"That's cool," says Horatio.

"No, I'm serious, man!" you say, grabbing his shoulders. "Some REALLY SERIOUS STUFF is going to go down, and I need you to keep this a secret. Swear that you'll never talk about this."

"I swear," says Horatio.

"SWEAR IT," booms your dad's voice out of nowhere.

"He already did!" you shout. Horatio looks at you, questioning. "Hamlet. Bro. What's this all about?" he says.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio--" you begin.

"--than are dreamt of in my philosophy," Horatio finishes, annoyed. "Fine. Right. Whatever."

Okay! Horatio will keep your secret, and you've got a quest from a ghost to fulfill! And at the end, he'll probably give you some cool loot for completing it! Maybe? I mean, it's possible.

Anyway, it's past midnight, and Claudius is probably falling-down drunk.

Added Space posted:

Remember, kids, insulting one member of a group is the same as insulting every member of that group! Clearly these folks are masters of both literary criticism and social niceties.

Since it's not clear here, Ghost Dad is accusing Gertrude of being adulterous with his brother Claudius before his death and helping plan (or at least cover up) his murder. Even so, he tells Weebottom to leave her alone and only punish Claudius. "Pernicious" would be entirely correct in context. The next line is "O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!" which is equally accurate, assuming the allegations are true. So, if you insult a woman when you believe she's committed evil acts, you're sexist against all women, according to this story.

Get our Weebottom in gear and shank the king!

quote:

There's a bottle of booze in his hand! He really is a cartoon drunk! This is gonna be real easy!

You hold your hand over his mouth so he can't scream and slit his throat and he's dead within the minute.

Ta-da! You leave quietly, making sure not to be seen, and head down to the shore to wash your blood-soaked hands and your blood-soaked clothes. The ocean water cleans off the blood quickly, which is great because you heard it was hard to get out damned blood spots.

Turns out, nope, it's actually really easy! You're glad you stayed cool and rational and didn't freak out at all during this process. Good job, champ!

You walk home in your wet clothes, change into adorable pyjamas, get into bed, and fall asleep. Content in the knowledge that you were right to murder a dude and that you even had supernatural forces on your side, your dreams are generally peaceful. (There's some sex stuff in there too but whatever man, it happens. Don't even worry about it. It's honestly not a big deal.)

In the morning you act super surprised that Claudius got killed to death ("Whaaaaat?" you say, waving your hands in the air) (Come to think of it that was probably a little much but everyone bought it so PHEW) and then later you become king!

And check it: Your economic policies are both wise and fair, and your country becomes way prosperous! Due to economics not being a zero-sum game, you not only make the lives of your subjects better, but you actually improve the lives of those they trade with too.

Hamlet, you've literally [sic] make the world a better place. NICE.

And all you had to do was kill a human being!

THE END

P.S. Oh, I meant to mention it sooner, but one day you step on a butterfly that has the cascade effect of preventing not one but TWO worldwide wars from occurring, centuries down the line! So, good job all around, I'd say! Keep on killing everyone who interferes with your preferred version of history, I'd say!

Congratulations, you were really terrific at being Hamlet.

THE END

FOR REAL THIS TIME

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
“I love it!” he says. “Hammers are tough, like me, but also decisive, like me!”

“Phew,” you say.

“Yay! Phew!!” he repeats, running around the room. “The Hammer! The Hammer!”

He punches you in the head.

“The Hammer!!” he says.

“Ow,” you say.

Anyway, you get Hamlet to calm down: you sing and dance and tell stories and make fun of your own smile and before you know it you even start to...like your job? Yes. You like your job. You like that each morning you have the laughter of a child to look forward to as a reward for a job well done.

Also, they pay you!



A few weeks go by. You pour a flagon of Rhenish wine on a young gravedigger’s head. Hamlet loves it. Those weeks turn into months, and before you know it, years. Everything is great, and Kid Hamlet changes before your eyes into Young Adult Hamlet, and then Teen Hamlet. You scale up your stories to match. And then you die of a heart attack.

THE END

quote:

>>Accept that this is the end<<
>>Refuse to accept that this is the end<<

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
What? Not allowed. This IS the end, you just died of a heart att—

—wait, it says here you...got better? It says you stood up and said “My heart fixed itself guys, neat” and then...went about your business?

FOR 25 YEARS??

So now it’s 25 years in the future and you’re standing beside your friend Hamlet and your mutual friend Horatio. You’re in the middle of one of your madcap adventures you guys always get into together, which has led you to a graveyard. A gravedigger is digging into a shallow grave. Well good luck, Yorick, because I know he’s about to dig up your skull and then you’re gonna be in trouble. Here it comes! Right now!!

...The gravedigger continues digging without incident.

Hamlet seems like he’s about to say something, and gets as far as “Alas, poor...Yor— I, um. Wh—” and then there’s this terrible light bursting out of his chest, tearing him apart. What happens next happens over the course of just a few microseconds, but I’ll slow it down so you know what happens:

The light bursts out of Hamlet, blinding everyone who sees it, including you. It grows, splitting apart the very fabric of reality as it goes, tearing down through the graveyard and up into the sky. The earth itself blasts apart in two colossal fragments – and you’d think that would be the end of it, but no: your li’l tear in spacetime continues to expand, laterally now, until a few nanoseconds later it contains the entire planet. Or it would, if the planet still existed, which it doesn’t. Erased from existence, bucko. You destroyed all our tomorrows with your paradox, and 2 million years later our quadrant of the universe is avoided by every single spacefaring race because it’s RUINED.

I told you earlier the universe required you to die! You were supposed to be buried here so Hamlet would have the chance [sic] reflect upon your skull, but yeah, tearing the universe a new one so you could steal an extra few years was so totally worth it.

Jerk!!



THE END FOR REAL, THANKS FOR NOTHING