Post #1292850

2026-04-15 07:50 UTC

A book in PDF form is still a book, right? And an adventure game you play with a computer is obviously a video game. I have in my posession a PDF of a choose-your-own adventure book. The &quot;go to page X&quot; instructions are clickable. Is it a book or a video game? (You&#39;re not allowed &quot;both&quot;.)

Replies (3)

@beasts@social.mythic-beasts.com 2026-04-15 08:22

@kwaktrap@mastodon.social this is not a new question. Usborne published books with video games in them in the 1980s. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTNlMwTi1PTlVxc2M/view?resourcekey=0-kaU6eyAmIVhT3_H8RkHfHA

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@bellinghman@wandering.shop 2026-04-15 09:52

@kwaktrap@mastodon.social I've played games on computers that aren't video games, and a 'choose your own adventure' game is a prime example. Therefore I reject your framing for two reasons rather than one

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@pseudomonas@mastodon.social 2026-04-15 10:00

@kwaktrap@mastodon.social My intuition is that if it's a PDF and formatted like a "choose your own adventure" book then it's packaged as a book; if it were an executable and packaged as a game it would be a game even if the content were isomorphic. (It is of course possible to create edge cases, wherever my boundary between the two lies, and I can readily come up with examples that I can't easily classify.)

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