How to play CYOA with AI, one choice at a time
A CYOA with AI is an adventure where the next page doesn't exist until you choose. These steps help you open strong and make each choice count.
What NSFW CYOA means on this site
CYOA stands for choose your own adventure: a story told in the second person that stops at key moments and asks what you do. An NSFW CYOA adds adult themes for readers 18 and over. Classic gamebooks have every branch written in advance, and this one doesn't. The AI writes the next scene from whatever you choose, so the paths aren't limited to the ones somebody wrote ahead of time.
The choosing starts here. When you type an opening, the AI asks up to three follow-up questions, and each one is a choice about your story, such as who your character is or how the first scene opens. After that you pick a heat level and a chapter length. A free account takes you into the full writing app, where you keep steering one turn at a time.
Write an opening with a decision in it
The best CYOA openings drop you into a moment that already demands something, like a knock at the door or a stranger's offer. Write that moment in a sentence or two, in the first person or the second, and let the story ask you what you do.
Treat the follow-up questions as your first choices
After you press Continue, the AI asks up to three questions about your opening. Each comes with options, so they work like the first branches of the story. Pick the one that fits, or type your own answer.
Know what kind of interactive story this is
This is not a branching game with a fixed map, and nothing is written ahead of time. Each turn the story offers suggested next moves. You pick one or type your own, and the next scene is written from that. You can try things no gamebook would allow, and the story only goes where your choices take it.
Play as your character
You can roleplay as the lead, talking to the other characters turn by turn instead of only choosing actions. Speak in your character's voice and the people around you answer in theirs.
Make choices that move the story
- Choose action over waiting. Opening the door changes more than listening at it.
- Type your own move when none of the suggestions fit. Something specific, like asking about the scar on the captain's hand, gives the next scene more to work with.
- Let some choices go wrong. A failed escape often leads somewhere more interesting than a clean one.
- When a thread feels finished, choose to leave. A new place brings new choices.
Set the heat and the pace
Before writing, pick a heat level, from no romance at all to adult-only levels for readers 18 and over, and a chapter length. Short chapters bring the next choice around quickly. Longer ones let a scene breathe before you decide again.
Three openings, each ending on a choice
Read the first scene and decide what you would do. Your adventure starts wherever you say.
Sample opening
The night train
The idea: I wake up on a night train with a ticket I didn't buy and a stranger watching the door.
The train rocks you awake somewhere past midnight. The compartment is dark except for a strip of moonlight across the seats, and the ticket in your hand carries your name in handwriting you don't recognize. Across from you sits a woman in a grey travelling coat. She hasn't taken her eyes off the corridor door, or her right hand out of her pocket. "You talk in your sleep," she says, still watching the door. "You said a name. I'd be careful who else hears it." Footsteps come down the corridor, slow and heavy, and stop outside. The handle turns a quarter inch and holds there. Now the woman looks at you, calm and very serious. "There's a connecting door behind you," she says quietly. "Or you can trust me and stay exactly where you are." Do you slip through the connecting door into the dark, or stay in your seat and trust her?
Sample opening
The duchess's study
The idea: I break into a duchess's study to steal a letter and find her waiting with two glasses of wine.
The lock gives on the third pick. You ease the study door open, and the moment your foot touches the carpet the lamp on the desk clicks on. Duchess Lenora Vasse sits behind it, still dressed from the ball, with two glasses of red wine poured and waiting. "You're late," she says. "I expected you an hour ago." The letter you came for lies in plain sight between the glasses, its seal unbroken. The door behind you is open. So is the window you planned to leave by, and she clearly wants you to know she noticed both. "Sit," she says, sliding a glass across the desk toward you. "Have a drink and tell me who sent you, and the letter is yours. Or run, and I will know your face by morning." The wine catches the lamplight. Her smile doesn't move at all. Do you take the chair and the glass, or take your chances with the open window?
Sample opening
Crash site
The idea: My ship crash-lands on a jungle planet, and the only other survivor is the bounty hunter who was chasing me.
Smoke pours from the cockpit as you drag yourself out onto wet black sand. The jungle is loud with things you can't name. Twenty yards down the beach the other wreck is still burning, and limping out of its smoke comes Kade Rourke, the bounty hunter who has chased you across three systems. He stops when he sees you. His rifle is gone, and so, mostly, is the swagger. "Truce," he says, holding up both hands. "Until we find a way off this rock." Night is coming fast, and something large is moving in the trees. You have the only working flare. He has the only map. The beacon on the ridge could reach a passing ship, if you both get there alive. He offers a hand to help you up, and you notice the warrant with your face on it is still folded in his pocket. "Your call," Kade says. "Partners, or I walk alone." Do you take his hand and climb toward the ridge together, or keep the flare and find your own way?