Nintendo Adventure Books Guides

Hello and welcome to my guides for the Nintendo Adventure Books. Quick history: They consist of twelve books published from 1991 to 1992 by Archway Books in US and Mammoth Books in the UK. The series had two writers under pseudonyms. A little later promotional 'Pringles' editions were re-released. For some more personal background, I first discovered and collected some of these back in 2007 when they were only pocket change. Now, while most aren't 'rare', they have dramatically increased depending on the book. (Zelda ones are made of gold apparently.) I owned three initially (Monster Mix-up, Leaping Lizards, and Brain Drain) but have since collected or gotten a chance to read a few more. There isn't much in depth coverage of these books online so I created this page, primarily to focus on the Mario books. Follow the key below:

• Page and Chapter: The page number gets emphasis over chapter because in these books you are sent to pages not chapters. Even if a chapter lasts a few pages it will be refereed to as the first page it's on just to avoid confusion. This applies to puzzles too. If page one's puzzle actually is printed on page four it will be considered page one's puzzle.
• Description: Summary of the page's events.
• Puzzle: If the chapter features a puzzle to solve. This is a yes or no, see puzzle solution for how to solve.
• Game over: A dead end, aka game over. These are considered 'endings' along with the 'win' page.
• Rewards: If the chapter gives the reader an item or points.
• Buffet: This penalizes the reader of points or an item
• Splits: Pages the chapter branches OFF to. Might be tied to a puzzle outcome.
• Path: What pages route TO this chapter. Pages with many paths are likely a 'loop-back' page. More details will be brought up on individual entries.
• Puzzle solution: The solution to a puzzle if present but also general tips on how the reader should proceed and what to be aware of. This may appear on a page/chapter that has no puzzle.
• Book goals: What the blurb on the score page recommends you do, visit, use, etc.
• General stats: Amount of chapters, items and their locations, scoring, errors, etc.

Optimal path: This is what I feel is the best route that avoids penalties, clears (or even dodges) item checks, and involves minimal to no going in circles. As a by product it could be considered a 'speed run' path I suppose. This is NOT the path for the high score and there is a reason for that. (!) See the pages on the individual books for further insight, or my overview here, but often the high score is automatically given to you upon completion or impossible without double dipping the same reward pages. If that's allowed then now our score becomes infinite in theory, making the scoring moot. It's best to focus more on the adventure here!

Pressing the F3 or equivalent (Ctrl+F) for your browser is highly encouraged to navigate. For clarity's sake when I am referring to a page within a paragraph I will spell out numbers to not clutter up your search results. Color coding somewhat helps to visualize what pages connect to what, at least when there aren't too many branching paths at the moment. To recap if Page 1 'splits' (sends you) to Page 32, you could scroll down as normal or search on the web page for 'Page 32' exactly to jump not only to that particular entry, but all other pages that contain a "path from" or a "split to" involving that page. If it still doesn't make sense, just try it out on one of the guides. It may seem convoluted to jump up and down on the page so much, but that's the twisty nature of such CYOA books!

I hope you enjoy. I'm certainly no expert book mapper but the effort was worth it to give this series the attention it deserves and be the first to break them down like this. Contact me using one of the accounts listed on the 'About me' on the homepage if there are any errors I've made. Thank you, and read on!

Additional articles: The Perfect Nintendo Adventure Book: General overview and my observations

The guides in order of upload and completion:

1. Monster Mix-up
2. Dinosaur Dilemma
3. Leaping Lizards
4. Brain Drain
5. Double Trouble
6. Pipe Down!
7. Flown the Koopa
8. Koopa Kapers
9. Doors to Doom
10. Unjust Desserts

Types of puzzles in Nintendo Adventure Books:

Globally: As explained more in the overview, puzzles in the Nintendo Adventure Books do the typical gamebook thing, skill gate paths that contain bonuses and rewards, and provide direction. A normal text based split where you make a decision could go either way in CYOA style, but a puzzle wouldn't steer you wrong. -Not usually at least!

• Decipher: Figuring out a coded message somehow. Might involve symbols, counting backwards from alphabets, or marking out certain letters to read out the remainder, and etc..
• Word search: A word search or close enough where you find words with a word bank hopefully provided (sometimes not) or a plain old crossword puzzle.
• Maze: You either navigate an actual maze, or follow path(s) to reach a stopping point. These might contain letters to somewhat crossover with deciphering puzzles. If your goal is the collect a certain amount of something, these may earn different scores depending on how well you do or what path you happen to guess. If so, this might lead to a 'You Can't Get This Score' (see below) page.
• ‘Get a straight edge, dummy’: Or a ruler. A visual puzzle where you must determine something from the illustration, if provided entities lines up, are touching, or how entities compare in size. The name is part of a quote from Double Trouble (well, minus the insult). Be warned that the book's tolerances are ambiguous regarding some of these calculations. I'll try to help you out best I can on these.
• Math: The reader is required to do some sort of mathematical equation. This is rare, at least without overlapping with another type of puzzle.
• Logic and sequence: The reader is required to perform some kind of mental calculation with the image or scenario given. Examples: being provided an image to rotate in your head (or on a scratch sheet of paper), figuring out a riddle, or solving what's next in a sequence or pattern. Lastly, anything that involves thinking but doesn't belong anywhere else will fall under this.
• Spot the difference/ matching: You are given 'similar' items to spot the differences between, or you are given an image and asked to pick something out of it by carefully observing it (like, what is missing?). Any more complications will make this puzzle count as 'logic'.
• You can’t get this score!: A page for if you get an erroneous result from another page, or try to cheat.
• Just a hint: A result type, meant to go with the other puzzles listed. These puzzles give the reader frivolous information. Example: In Book 2: Leaping Lizards a late puzzle warns that the other contestants will cheat. As vital as that sounds, it will not change your own character's strategy or allow you to deal with it in anyway. Therefore if that was never revealed, nothing would change. The book might even admit that it's just a tidbit or a puzzle 'just for fun' (as Pipe Down! puts it). Think of them as filler.
• Other: Anything else that comes up. Rare obviously. This may be something like trivia questions too.

Other terms used:

• Loop-back path: Think of it as a soft reset. A page with several paths to it functioning as a way to give the reader a chance to take another route, a chance to get an item, a milder punishment for getting a puzzle wrong, or making bad choices depending on book.
• Reset: A hard reset, usually not labeled as such in story (except in Monster Mix-up) but effectively starting over the book by sending you to the start again or very close. Typically these remove your attained items so you can’t exploit it (except again in Monster Mix-up).
• Shaggy dog: A ‘shaggy dog’ story is a pointless story, so this path is a pointless path! Think a loop-back, except you can't do anything useful with it, going in circles for no reason. This is thankfully rare.
• 'Item of doom': A seemingly innocuous item that will kill you either on the spot or a little later. Sometimes there's an option to not use it or a chance to avoid (by chance or intentionally) the path that triggers it, but often not. Not the most common mechanic thankfully.

US vs UK versions with images:

Double Trouble vs Leaping Lizards Front Covers

Book spines

Inside covers

First page

Double Trouble second page

Leaping Lizards second page

The back covers.Notice the full color images in the Mammoth published version and the advertising of unrelated books.