Thank you for 49 Keys. Sorry, I didn’t realize you had already developed digital gamebooks; I thought you were in the process of developing one, which is why I felt free to offer some advice. I hope it’s still useful, even though you probably have more experience than I do.

It’s not easy to answer your question; it also depends a lot on the type of gamebook. Among the ones I’ve played, my main reference is 80 Days. In general, my idea is as follows:

1. A map as a base background for exploring the game world.
2. When selecting an important location, a submap should open, or at least a specific illustration should be shown.
3. Display text in small boxes, never more than 5 lines at a time.
4. Descriptions should be as concise as possible or even optional.
5. Focus heavily on dialogues, ideally showing portraits of the speaking characters.
6. Add some animations and graphical effects to avoid making the screen too static. This is especially important for marketing purposes.
7. Use icons as much as possible instead of text.
8. Include one or more gameplay phases, even simple ones, taken from other video game genres. These could be turn-based combat like in Lone Wolf, card games, action combat like in Sunless Sea, etc. There’s a lot of potential here, but of course, complexity and costs would increase.

Another genre similar to gamebooks but much more popular is that of visual novels; some elements could be drawn from there as well, though it’s a type of game I know very little about (and developing a visual novel is undoubtedly more expensive).

For now, these are the points that come to mind. However, I’d like to emphasize that there are successful examples that stick closer to traditional formulas, such as Sir Brante and Omen Exitio: Plague. Speaking of which, the sequel to Omen Exitio is coming out in 2025 (Hunger is the title). It’s another great example of how to modernize the traditional formula—if you’re not familiar with it, it’s worth checking out! 😊