It's time for yet another sub-series here on the blog. I've been adamant over the years that I've found it tricky to really cover the Give Yourself Goosebumps books in my normal manner or covering the story and following up with a review. That's because the GYG books are multiple-path "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style stories. But given that they are still major part of the Goosebumps franchise (and since i am running low on books to cover), I figured covering them would still be fun. And if this works, maybe other "choose your own" books can be added as well. So welcome to the inaugural blog for Choice Words.
In 1995, just as the Goosebumps series was reaching peak popularity, R.L. Stine added a second series to Goosebumps. And instead of just going the original route, these were done in "Choose Your Own Adventure" style format, which Stine has a past with as some of his early books used this formula. And thus Give Yourself Goosebumps was born. The series would run alongside Goosebumps from July of 1995 until February 2000 when Stine left Scholastic. 42 main series books and 8 special editions.
So, if you've never done one of these books before, "Choose Your Own Adventure" style books work as such. Each page has a page number on the bottom. That page leads you into the next direct part of the story. Eventually the story will split and you have to choose which path to take. However, many of the paths will lead you to an abrupt ending, or a "bad ending", often leading to the death of the reader's character. To get the good ending, you have to make all of the correct choices and end with the happiest outcome. And given the initial split that takes us to two unique narratives, you can be looking at more than one happy ending. Books will also feature gimmicks and mini-games that will also affect your progress. Thinks like puzzles, or math problems, games of chance, stuff like that.
So how will I cover these? Well, I'll cover the path to the best endings and review how interesting that journey was. I'll also rate the bad endings to see what the best bad fate would be in the story, finishing off with my final thoughts overall. So, should be fun, right? Well, let's get this started with a look at the first GYG book, Escape From the Carnival of Horrors.
COVER STORY
Since the book places the reader as the protagonist, often devoid of gender, I'll just list them as "the player" and use "they/them" pronouns so it becomes less confusing.
The protagonist and their friends Patty and Brad are bored on the last week of August. After some arguing, the three decide to ride over to Bennet's Field to watch the carnival being set up. The player is a bit pensive towards it, believing they should probably just head home given it's getting dark, but there's no arguing with Patty and Brad, the three are going to watch it come up. The three arrive and see the carnival is all up and ready, but the front gate is locked. This gives the first path split. Either head home, or jump the gate. Except that if the player chooses to go home, Stine just calls them a wimp and says it doesn't matter, we're going over that gate. Figures that Bob would already screw with the game on the very first ever path split.
So the player and their friends jump the fence and look around, mostly gazing at the roller coaster. The three get caught by a large man named Big Al, the head of the carnival. Instead of throwing out the three interlopers, he instead decides that he'll strike a deal with them. The three can test out the rides early before the carnival opens up. He hands the player a map and leaves, giving us the actual first split of the book. Test the rides or go to the midway and check out the freak show. We'll start with the rides path.
PATH #1: CHECK OUT THE RIDES
You can actually get to the good ending in multiple ways in this path, whereas the other path has one direct through-line. The player and their friends head to the roller coaster first, but notice that the ride goes up to the clouds and just straight up looks dangerous. Patty and Brad don't care and decide to head up, giving the next split of going on the ride, or visiting the haunted house. Because there's no chance the haunted house will be an issue certainly. But given scary ghosts are less of a concern than dying on a roller coaster, the player chooses the haunted house.
To get to the haunted house, the player has to cross a rickety bridge. And given it's a rickety bridge, they fall over to the rocks below. The next split is to either grab the edge, or start flapping their wings. And, interestingly, the wing flapping works. Taking the grabbing option leads to a death. A gust grabs the player and takes them over to the side of the gorge where the house of horrors resides. However, since the player has the attention span of a gnat, they then see a boat ride they could take instead. But we'll say nay nay to the boat ride and head to the house of horrors.
As the player arrives they're greeted by a skeleton who warns them not to go into the house of horrors. The player, being stupid, thinks this is all just a big elaborate production made to scare the riders. So inside the house is a long tunnel and down the tunnel the player goes. And given it's about that time for a room of mirrors, the player indeed ends up in a room where every surface is a mirror. The walls, the ceiling, the floors. It's a reflective nightmare. The player then hears a voice to come over so the next option is which path to take, left or right. The right path is the one to take as the left is just an endless loop. I mean, it is a maze after all.
Eventually the walls close in and the floor collapses beneath the player. After falling a bit, they land in a webbing-like net and are greeted by a short man with wiry black hair and two large monsters in lab coats. One has blue skin and red eyes and the other looks like a giant purple gator. This is Dr. Frank N. Stone, which you have to imagine Stine showed restraint on that one. Like, just make the reference Frank N. Stine, no one would blame you. Frank N. Stone mentions that he's the creator of the Carnival of Horrors, which we're trying to escape from, hence the title. So now the player needs to think if they should try to make a run for it now, or wait until the coast is clear. One of the better bad endings awaits the player if they stay, so we're beating feet.
And by beat feet, we mean beat the doctor with our feet as the player kicks him once, but he doesn't react. But the second kick goes right through the steel chest of Dr. Frank N. Stone. Turns out he's a robot. So that's settled, however the blue monster grabs the player and goes for the kill. But shoving the head of the creature is enough to cause its head to fall off. One more monster left, but is this one a robot too? After ethical questions, it's time to see if it's monster or machine. The answer is monster because if the player tries to pull the head off like a robot's, the monster in turns pulls their head off, so another bad ending.
The monster pulls its head off to reveal it was Big Al the whole time. Wait what? He hopes the player has been having fun, but they just want out of this asylum. Big Al says it's not so simple, as evidenced by what's behind the nearby door. Inside is a bunch of people in old-timey clothing. It's explained that the Carnival of Horrors bounces from time and place every night. So it could be in 1995 America one day and like 1883 London the next. Something like that. The player wants to leave, not really wanting to stick around in any wacky time travel adventures (save that for next book), but is told there's only one right way out of the Carnival of Horrors. Escape before closing time at midnight. And that's in twenty minutes.
The ground gives beneath the player and they end up back in the park with Patty and Brad. They need to get out of the park, but have to go through either the Halloween Express or the Hall of the Mountain King. And both paths will take you to the ultimate good ending for the rides path. So, while I do enjoy me some Grieg, let's instead go down the Halloween Express. In fact, if you take the Mountain King path, there's a silly split that doesn't actually count as one as both paths take you to page 75 because you don't have much choice in the matter.
The player takes the path of the Halloween Express. The three hop in a car and start to drive off, only to go through a cottage and be scared by a skeleton. Then the old timey folk show up, but now they're zombies. Followed by a giant ghostly creature who tries to grab the kids. So, to take the path to victory, you need to do a mini-game IRL. Throw a ball in the air and clap three times before catching. If you can do it, you get one path, if not, the other. And the screwy part is, if you succeed, you get a bad ending. Okay, now that is a fun little troll job there, Bob.
With only a few minutes left, the trio make a run for it. Two choices require the player to hide. Either inside a giant cannon or on a baby choo-choo train ride. The player picks the train and sure enough, this is the "Right Way Express", AKA the right way out. The player, Brad and Patty all return to the normal looking carnival that is still being constructed. As they leave, the player says that they'll definitely be back tomorrow, so, it's the good ending, but more of a "Marge my friend, I haven't learned a thing" one? Eh, let's see what happens when we go to the side show.
PATH #2: THE SIDESHOW
So, in lieu of trying the rides, the player and their friends check out the midway. The player then sees a fortune teller named Madame Zeno, who tells the player their future. She presents two cards, and for the sake of getting to the good ending, we pick the red card which has a 3D heart on it that really squirts blood. Stine predicted augmented reality. Huh. She then gives the player the numbers 1, 3 and 2 and says they'll be important to save their life later.
The player studies the cards, but they have no idea what this all means yet. Suddenly, Big Al shows up with a bunch of people chanting "Pay or Play". He says that in the Carnival of Horrors, the player must play and win two carnival games or pay with their life. This takes us to two different games. One a game of chance, and the other a game of chance but with math. First is guess your weight on Mars. The woman who weighs the player says their weight would be 38 pounds on Mars. So, the player has to accurately calculate if their weight would indeed be around 38 pounds.
Essentially you take your weight, multiply it by 4 and cut the last digit for the accurate weight. If the player is between 37 and 39, then it's what is being asked of the player to advance one way, and if it's higher or lower, then they go another route. This is another troll, so weighing between 37 and 39 leads to another dead end. You actually want to be more or less to advance on and loop over to the next mini-game. The player gets a chocolate bar and we continue our way to game #2.
The second is the "Wheel of Doom". You ever see that King of the Hill episode with Peggy's game "Spin the Choice"? It's essentially that. On the page is a big wheel with different paths depending on what you pick, No Chance, Spin Again, Free Spin, Double or Nothing, or simply "38", which is where the player wants to land. The player then gets taken to a prize room to take anything they want. One of those items is Monster Blood, which the player takes. And no, I'm not going to harp on Monster Blood canon with this one.
The player takes the monster blood and finds Brad and Patty. Before the three can leave, Big Al shows up and says they have one last challenge. This involves the player being trapped on a giant wheel by a magnet. Big Al says that their fate lies on whatever he spins, giving us three paths this time. One a loop, one a bad ending and one that continues the story. The player wins, but of course this isn't over just yet as Big Al and the crowd advance on the player. If the monster blood is taken, the player opens the can, which causes a wave of Monster Blood to flood the place and break a hole through the wall, allowing the player to finally escape from the carnival of horrors. A better ending, less dumb "let's do it again" stuff, so more satisfying.
But what if you ended up in one of the twenty-two bad endings? Before we rate the book, let's rate the bad endings. I'll list each ending, then rate each on a scale of 0-5 to see which ones were the best.
BAD ENDINGS!
#1: The three kids enter what they think says "Reptile's Petting Zoo", but it's actually a REPTILE Petting Zoo. The book ends with the gators approaching ready to eat the player and their friends.
RATING: 3.5. Mediocre, but earns points for technically being the events of the cover.
#2: The Wheel lands on "No Chance" and the book ends with the player having no chance to win.
RATING: 1. Kind of a bland way to end after all the effort.
#3: The kids hide in a locker numbered 132, like the cards predicted. However, time passes, Brad and Patty disappear and the player gets hit with a strange perfume that turns them into a dummy and placed in a display forever.
RATING: 2.5. I like the idea of the numbers again feeling like a troll job like so many other things in the book. Flat otherwise.
#4: The player returns to just before the three went into the carnival and ends up... going back into the carnival. However it's not just a loop, it's the end of the game.
RATING: 2. Just fine in a "here we go again" kind of way.
#5: After the player's weight is accurately guessed, they're then shoved into a rocket ship and blasted off to Mars. The carnival promises to bring the player back in about 20-30 years.
RATING: 4. Predictable, maybe, but is a good payoff for the bad ending of the weight guessing mini-game.
#6: The player continues to fall off the bridge and into the rocks below.
RATING: 3. Good gruesome death ending, but nothing super special.
#7: By staying where they are, the player ends up grabbed by Frank N. Stone's monsters and used as a human volleyball.
RATING: 4. Silly and gruesome just how I like it.
#8: A swamp monster advances on the player, who hopes it's still just a costume.
RATING: 3.5. I like the handling of the whole "It must all be fake" stuff.
#9: In a callback to One Day at HorrorLand, the player rides the Doom Slide and keeps sliding down for the rest of their life.
RATING: 4. Good callback and actually uses the Doom Slide better than the book it originated from did. Progress!
#10: The kids end up in a room with a ventriloquist dummy and stupidly read the magic words.
RATING: 4.5. Another callback and enough ambiguity to make you wonder if this is Slappy, Mr. Wood or another dummy altogether.
#11: Instead of the right magic words that wake the dummy up, these words turn the player into a chicken.
RATING: 3. Predating Chicken Chicken is still a bad time, but silly enough an ending.
#12: If the reader read this book on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, a crane grabs the kids and they end up in a log flume that goes over a waterfall.
RATING: 3. Another screw-over finish that handles itself well enough.
#13: Even though the kids avoid one giant ghost on the Halloween Express, they run into another giant ghost that eats them and turn the kids into ghosts.
RATING: 2. Lacks enough of a gruesome bite to really feel that amazing.
#14: After being caught by a giant vulture, the player gives the bird a chocolate bar. But in the altercation, the player is dropped onto a trampoline and bounces forever.
RATING: 1.5. Wait, what?
#15: Thinking the monster is a robot, the player grabs its head, only to learn it's a real monster who then pulls the player's head off.
RATING: 3.5. Ah, now there's the bizarre dark endings I know and love.
#16: Patty turns into a giant monster and eats the player.
RATING: 3. I mean, this is a Stine thing that he does a lot, and it feels too random even for this book, but it was aight.
#17: A giant monster grabs the player and throws him through the wall and out of the carnival, but certainly not in one piece.
RATING: 5. Okay, that one I liked. Super brutal conclusion is cool by me.
#18: The kids hide in the cannon, but get shot into space.
RATING: 2.5: Predictable, but harmless overall. The mention of being at one point a speck on the NASA radar is a cute touch.
#19: The kids get glued together and are forced to live in the freak show as the "Siamese Triplets".
RATING: 2. Collar-tugging name aside, it's decent at best.
#20: After the vulture drops the player into its nest to be food for its babies, the player ends up falling out of the nest to their death.
RATING: 3.5: Much better than the trampoline outcome.
#21: The player tries to escape in a horse-drawn carriage, but the horse doesn't cooperate. Elves show up and decapitate the player.
RATING: 5. Nothing more fun than a double screw over that ends with another gruesome death. Where was this in actual Goosebumps?
#22: More of an ambiguous one. The carnival freaks follow the reader home and eat all of their food.
RATING: 3. Silly and harmless enough.
CONCLUSION
Escape From the Carnival of Horrors is a good start for the Give Yourself Goosebumps books. Both main paths offer enough interesting twist and turns for the reader to have a fun enough time, even if most of the mini-games either entirely base themselves on luck or the honor system. Of course, you can always forego those options and play however you feel, but where would the fun be in that? In terms of selling the book as a super carnival, there's enough unique attractions and rides to give the book life. I mean, it has a roller coaster. HorrorLand didn't even give us a roller coaster. And rides is a good way to describe a lot of these books. Ride books that bounce us from one way to another. With very few of the paths feeling either too obtuse or too bland. There's always something crazy around the corner.
Of the two paths, I think the sideshow one offers a bit more in terms of games to play and luck-based events to succeed, while the ride one is mostly a case of trial and error and hoping you don't fail spectacularly. And the ride one does at least give more than one way to complete the story in the best possible way, albeit with the worst of the two good endings. Even if it's the one that guarantees more craziness to come. With enough unique paths to take and always feeling like it's a carnival story, this is a strong beginning to a bizarre side-series. We'll definitely be coming back soon. Escape From the Carnival of Horrors gets an A-.
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