Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

The guys over at Magnetism Studios let Gadgetell play with their new iPhone app that will be released today.  It is called “Choose Your Own Adventure.” 

When I was a kid, I loved reading choose your own adventure books (particularly, one about the Transformers).  If you’re unfamiliar with the format, you read a couple of pages, then at the end of a section, you have a choice.  You can go to page 20 where the hero goes into the maze or you can turn to page 32 where the hero decides to go home instead.

The COYA app comes with “Return to Atlantis” by R.A. Montgomery and a special edition of “Journey Under the Sea.”  You simply read the story, when you reach a certain point, you get to make a choice. 

The interface is quite simple.  When you are reading, there is a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen so you can turn pages, go back to the main menu, change the font size or contrast, and set and access bookmarks.

The app doesn’t seem to use gestures to navigate.  You can’t pinch and zoom the text, nor can you just swipe your finger to turn the page.  Having to scroll down to see more text isn’t really a problem.  Plus if you change the size of the font, you don’t have to wait for the app to redraw every page since you just scroll down, anyway. 

Overall, it’s a fun app.  I would love to see longer books with more than two options when you are choosing your adventure.  I think that COYA will appeal to people who grew up on the choose your own adventure books.  Since we’re a bit older now, longer books could make sense.  COYA is $3 and should be available now.

Buy: [iTunes link]
Read: [Magnetism Studios]