Gamebooks and graph theory (2019)

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Gamebooks are interactive books where readers make choices that direct the story, often represented as directed graphs.
The Lone Wolf series was analyzed using graph theory to find paths like the shortest to death or most fights.
Key findings include: 'The Masters of Darkness' has the most fights (65), 'The Kingdoms of Terror' has the shortest path to death (5 sections), and 'The Caverns of Kalte' is the deadliest (19 instant deaths).
The analysis covered 28 books across four series, showing trends like fewer cycles and less punishing gameplay in later series.
Technical details include using regex to parse sections, networkx for graph analysis, and handling challenges like cycles and disconnected graphs.
Future work could extend this methodology to other gamebook series like Fighting Fantasy.

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