YouTube creators have come up with some creative uses for the site’s annotations, and the latest example comes from Many A True Nerd. The UK-based channel run by a gamer named Jon is behind Choose Your Own Apocalypse, in which viewers can click through linked videos and “play” their way through Fallout: New Vegas in that fashion.
As Jon plays his way through New Vegas, he offers narration that recounts the game’s story and gives viewers multiple options every two minutes or so. In the beginning of the game, for example, Jon encounters a fork in the road, and he lets his viewers decide the direction they wish to go. “There is one big, really awesome thing I’ve always wanted to do on YouTube,” he says in the series’ first video, “and yes, I do mean a full interactive novel thing in video format, which some of you, if you’re roughly of my generation, may be most familiar with from those gloriously good fun choose-your-own-adventure Goosebumps books…we have brought the idea up to the YouTube age.”
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The best part about those Goosebumps books (and other choose-your-own-adventure projects we’ve seen online) are the comically gory death scenarios they feature, and Choose Your Own Apocalypse delivers the goods in that department. Just a few videos after you start playing, it is very easy to get yourself mauled to death.
Many A True Nerd is known for posting Fallout-related challenges. The channel first rose to prominence thanks to Kill Everything, a Fallout 3 series in which Jon attempted to exterminate every single living thing within the game. Fallout’s open-world environment makes it a perfect sandbox for these sorts of challenges, and the game is a great canvas for Choose Your Own Apocalypse as well. Go give it a spin, and remember to choose wisely.
