Games with dynamic CYOA-type story events (Darklands etc)

List examples of games that feature CYOA-style story events, but as part of a somewhat dynamic system rather than as a more linear scripted story.

Some game that do this:

  • Darklands - events pop up in response to your actions, navigation inside locations is all based on these cyoa prompts, you pick options from a menu. Sometimes an event will trigger based on certain conditions (e.g. a party member is very perceptive and detects a threat before anyone else)
  • King of Dragon Pass - you get occasional events and are given very different approaches to resolve them
  • Mount & Blade - party members approach you, usually to complain about their companions. I think that’s it
  • Battle brothers - random events occur to your battle bros that affect their stats

What other games employ similar systems?

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FTL, Oregon Trail and others in the series, Camel and its clones.

I know there are many others but I can’t think of them right now. Oh, Space Rangers 2.

What is this? Googling brings up various board games

Unfortunately I haven’t done a video on it yet, so here’s this one (i haven’t watched it myself):

Desert Trek is the one I’m most familiar with and I believe it added more events to the Camel formula.

Also this should be a Galaxy Oddity thread

Yeah I was considering putting it there but my threads usually deal more with concepts/mechanics and the most common threads in GO are visual, so I wasn’t sure it would fit.

The board game Tales of the Arabian Nights is essentially a multiplayer CYOA book with a board. It’s fantastic.

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Crusader Kings 2 - Random Story Events is one of the main points of appeal for this game, and it is why many people treat it as a dynastic roleplaying game instead of a Strategy game.

Realms of Arkania 2: Star Trail - You get CYOA style story events while wandering around and the overland travel system almost feels akin to a Choose Your Own Adventure. I haven’t played the other games in this series but I assume they offer something similar.

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The best one I’ve run into is Alpha Protocol, for the continuous debriefing between missions (because you’re recounting them to a superior) and then how you approach the three different locales as an international spy. It’s fantastic because there is no wrong choice and the characters you interact with will react to your earlier decisions in an almost organic way.

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At a certain level of detail cyoa just turns into modern choice and consequence rpg

There is a strategy/board game thingy on Steam early access called Space Tyrant with a similar system.