It's time once again to dive into the realm of the ol' Gooseblog. And for this installment, we're doing a general review for one of the series' most memorable spinoffs, it's Give Yourself Goosebumps.
By mid-1995, Goosebumps had become a runaway success for Scholastic. There were over 30 books in the main line and the television series was in production. Merchandise was coming out the woodwork and it was just a good time to be a fan of the franchise (or if you were a wuss kid like me a worse time I guess). And in July of 1995, with the main series selling hot, Scholastic and R.L. Stine decided to keep the energy flowing with a second series of book released each month. This was the Give Yourself Goosebumps series.
Now, let's go back to the late 70s. Random House Books releases a series of books called Choose Your Own Adventure. These books were adventure books where each page would end telling you where to go next, more often than not through branching paths. Some paths would continue the adventure, or lead you to the end of the story. They proved a massive success throughout the 80s and 90s, to the point that a lot of companies tried to ape the idea. Back in the 1980s, Scholastic created a series of books called Twist-A-Plot, which worked in a similar structure to Choose Your Own Adventure. And wouldn't you know it, Ol' Jovial Bob himself wrote several books in the series. Not only that, but he also worked on "Find Your Fate" a series of choose your own adventure books for Indiana Jones. So, Stine wasn't going into this Goosebumps version blind.
The first book "Escape from the Carnival of Horrors" was released in July of 1995. And it's got some neat Tim Jacobus art. The only cover he did for the series. And it's a rather creepy looking purple gator. Not super amazing stuff compared to his regular Goosebumps stuff, And honestly doesn't invoke carnival ideas, but it's still effective. As for this review, I'm going to review it through my own experience in the book, while also bringing up any extra endings or outcomes, We'll also play on a one life system, unless we die way too early, then we're allowed a mulligan. So without further ado...
The books all feature you as a nameless, genderless protagonist, who much like any other kid in these books is moving to a new town, or having to visit weird relatives, or finding some strange place or object. In the case of this book, the reader (me in this case) is dealing with their annoying friends Patty and Brad as they see the new carnival being put up. I make it there and the park is closed, so you can choose to go home on page 10, or climb inside on page 6. One thing about these books is that Stine can be super condescending. Should you choose page ten, the book more or less calls me a wimp and full on sends ne to page 6. First split option of the book and you have no control. Reader beware, you're getting your ass to this carnival.
So I jump over the stupid fence into the carnival. I see that the rides are more exciting than last year's. Before I can react, I get accosted by the park manager, a man named Big Al. One of the issues I do have with this book in particular (I do believe he fixes this for later books) is that, one fake out choice aside, it takes seven pages until you get your first real split option. Big Al gives me and the other two kids a map and then vanishes. I can choose to go on the rides on page 34, or check out the midway on page 77. So, instead of just choosing myself, I'll do coin flips. Heads for option one, Tails for option 2. Coin flip is tails, so let's check out that midway.
On the midway, we see a fortune teller named Madame Zeno, who proclaims horror in our future. She puts out two cards, a red and a blue one. And that's our next split. Page 14 for red, Page 59 for blue. Coin flip is heads, so I'm betting on red. It creates a weird 3D heart and the numbers 1-3-2. Madame Zeno says to hold it, it might save our life. I head out the tent, only for Big Al and a bunch of people forcing you to something called Play or Pay. We're forced into two options. Guess our weight on Mars on page 72, or play Wheel of Chance on page 8. Now, one of the more interesting pieces to Give Yourself Goosebumps is that we get the option to play mini-games in certain books, or in some paths certain real world conditions can affect our progress. Like if you play the book on a certain day or you weigh a certain amount. So, nuts to the weight game, we're doing the wheel.
Pic's a tad blurry, but this is what I mean by the added features that these books contain. In this case it's spin the choice as we spin our finger over the wheel with our eyes closed and where our finger lands is what befalls us. We have No Chance on page 15, Double or Nothing on page 19, Free Spin on page 48, two nondescript Page 38 choices and two Spin again option. So, my choice landed on Double or Nothing. Suddenly we're given ten points and the option to double or nothing them, plus we have to play the guess your weight on mars game, making this option kind of pointless. So yeah, maybe the first book wasn't the best option as an example as this one was poorly optimized.
So, we go to guess your weight on Mars. Essentially this one works that she'll guess your weight. If she's off by at least a pound, you win a candy bar, if she gets it right, you lose. She says 38 pounds, so we have to play math. Now since I'm adult of unfortunately over 200 pounds, my weight is far more than 38, so I go to page 22. Which means I get my candy bar and can go back to the wheel of chance, or keep progressing. I'll choose to progress further since it feels like I'll be stuck there a lot longer than I hope to. And by doing that, I'm forced into the final challenge so that my friends and I can escape. You're thrown into a giant tent where little people put sneakers on you and a giant metal helmet. And behind you is a giant magnet That slams you into the middle of a giant magnetic wheel. And your fate is determined by three nondescript page choices. 44, 74 and 124. I think I've made this clear by now, but Goosebumps is frigging weird.
So to decide this, I used a number generator, and whichever number got five choices between 1-3 (representing order of page choice) first gets the win. 2 won out first, which means page 74. And sure enough, I win... Not! After the page saying I get my prize, Stine is all like, "you dumbass, this is a book called Carnival of Horrors, you have to do more stuff to get out of this. Get your ass to page 116". So, I'm into sudden death where I'm mobbed by a bunch of creatures. The option mentions that I need a can of Monster Blood to progress one way. Yes, another staple of these books is that there are references to the other Goosebumps books. And I just happen to run into the bane of this series' existence. But I didn't get the can of monster blood in my travels, so let's see the other option. I escape the crowd through a crack in the wall, only to be mobbed by another crowd.
But wait, this crowd is a bunch of lifeless dummies, like those other books from Goosebumps. We're given a trivia question on if we remember the chant that brings the dummies to life. I do, but I also know these dummies are kind of sex slave crazed maniacs. But hell with it, I say the right words which takes us to page 69 (OH COME ON!) And sure enough, the dummy grabs us and tells us we're his slaves forever. It's the end, but oh right, I have that card from the fortune teller that is a get out of death free card. Just gotta go to page 132. It leads us to a locker which we open and we end up back in time to the start of the book, and we're climbing the fence again. Turns out we're trapped in a time loop. Maybe the sex slave option was better.
So, since we had our experience and our outcome was a bit of a lame ending, what are some of the other options we could have ended up with?
-Eaten by a swamp monster
-Used as a volleyball by the monsters of Dr. Frank N. Stone
-Trapped on the doom slide (Horrorland reference)
-Slammed through a wall by a giant and killed
-Caught by a giant vulture and put in its nest for its babies to eat, only to end up falling out and dying
-Caught in a house of mirrors and forced to flip the same pages over and over for all eternity.
-If we had the Monster Blood, it could have helped us actually escape
-Use the Choo Choo Train for Little Children to escape the carnival
Among others.
So, overall we didn't make it out in a very ideal outcome, but as you can see, the structure to these books works very well in terms of twists and turns as well as for being faithful enough to the franchise. As for Carnival of Horrors overall, it's a solid book and its differing paths offer some interesting outcomes, even the ones that I didn't take in this review/run. I will say though that this one is a bit unbalanced with a lot of stalling and a lot of options that ultimately don't matter in the end, but for a new concept, it was definitely one that would iron out its kinks in later editions. If you liked this format and would like to see me cover more in the future, I'd definitely be interested in doing so.
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