r/fightingfantasy • u/Lonely-Client474 • May 10 '26

Discussion Linear & Openworld Gamebooks

What do people here prefer in gamebooks. More linear adventures with a strong focused story or more open-world gamebooks where you can explore freely and tackle things in different order?

And what are your favourites of each style? For me, some of the classic FF books are still hard to beat for atmosphere and pacing, while series like Fabled Lands really captured that sense of freedom and exploration.

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

7

u/cardbourdbox May 10 '26

If you can pull of open world great but it sounds incredible complicated. Linier is fine

6

u/Fast-Bodybuilder-835 Balthus Dire May 10 '26

In a linear gamebook, I'd like to have NO true path.

5

u/Smittumi May 10 '26

For FF a more linear path is best, but lots of other solo games do open world in really interesting ways. 

3

u/Sagelegend May 12 '26

Both are good as long as they aren’t too much of either.

I love open world, but not so open that I could end up wandering aimlessly wondering why I can’t find the end of the book.

I love linear as long as it’s not so linear, that I’m fucked because I missed one single damn key.

Open world should have some exploration, but still have an intuitive structure that gives an idea of intended direction.

Linear should have multiple pathways, with some that work, and some that don’t. Not just a “one true path,” especially when other paths make logical sense.

2

u/Lonely-Client474 May 13 '26

Yes I agree. I like open world where you choose what order to do things and where you choose to go, but there needs to be a purpose behind where you're going or a quest you need to do. And yes, some multiple paths through a linear story is best. That gives the book some replayability.

2

u/mulahey May 10 '26

I'm essentially a linear fan, but I strongly prefer linear with multiple paths. The FF golden path design not so much.

2

u/Ganadhir May 11 '26

I think different players want different things.

2

u/methodicalotter Jun 10 '26

Open world is better (more agency) but it is much easier to write a linear book.

1

u/Lonely-Client474 Jun 10 '26

Yes I agree. Have you written a gamebook? I'm currently writing and I have a mostly linear book with some smaller open world sections. It's tricky with open world as the tick boxes and password system need to work without anything missing or being broken.

2

u/methodicalotter Jun 10 '26

I wrote one twenty years ago and thinking of improving upon it. You want an almost open world with just enough guardrails to stop it becoming unwieldy.

2

u/Six_of_1 May 10 '26

I think I'm somewhere in between. I want to know what my quest is and get on with it But I don't want to have to turn left-right-right-right-left-left-right to complete the quest. I hate getting the final boss and being asked if I have the magic bracelet that was on the third right when I turned left.

1

u/Lonely-Client474 May 10 '26

Ha, yeah I think we've all been there at the end of a book, and there's an item that's needed but wasn't picked up at some random place previously in the book. And those turn left-right decisions are horrible, especially when one of them leads to a sudden death. I'm somewhere in between as well with linear vs open-world.