Interactive fiction has come to the world of audio books in a new partnership between the original publisher of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series and Amazon’s Audible, via Alexa.
A deal they say has been over twelve years in the making, Chooseco worked diligently with Audible and Amazon Alexa to create the first-ever immersive Audible experience featuring two famous titles from the original Choose Your Own Adventure series.
The two interactive audio titles currently available are Journey Under the Sea by R. A. Montgomery and The Abominable Snowman by R. A. Montgomery.
To start choosing your own adventure, you just have to say, “Alexa, open Choose Your Own Adventure” and magic will happen.
According to a release from Chooseco, their developers, along with the Audible team, had been scratching their heads for years trying to figure out how to make the interactivity of Choose Your Own Adventure books work in audio.
“It took a long time for the technology to get to where it is today,” said Melissa Bounty, Associate Publisher at Chooseco.
“We knew that Choose was perfect for this space—how better to immerse YOU in the story? Swapping text on the page for narration, and sound effects for illustrations was simple, but we needed to figure out how to make the listening experience interactive.”
Chooseco supplied the interactive stories while Audible brought their expert sound team, and Alexa delivered the seamless interactivity. The result? An interactive listening experience that immerses readers in a totally new and innovative way, while staying true to what everyone loves about the classic CYOA series.
This isn’t Chooseco’s first foray into expanding the series beyond books and into the multi-media space. In 2006 they released a DVD version of The Abominable Snowman story to television sets. However, no further DVD releases followed.
Perhaps this deal with Audible will yield better results and more of Chooseco’s over 200 titles will find their way into the audio book format.
We can’t help but ponder a world where more choose your path books become available in all new formats. Fighting Fantasy as an audio drama would certainly be something to behold.
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StoryFix Media produces interactive fiction games and novels. Our sci-fi text adventure The Pulse releases in 2019. Our novel New Horizons is available now.
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