Magic: The Gathering once had a choose-your-own-adventure like story (online) in 1996.
In modern-day Magic, stories usually come through the official storyline online. In the early years, physical books carried on the Magic story, along with sporadic hard copies released here and there. But, in the thirty-plus history of the game, the storyline progressed through an odd way here and there, or at the very least, went off on a tangent. And in 1996, as a way to bolster the Mirage storyline, Magic did something for the first, and to date, only time: An all-online choose your own adventure story known as Oasis.
The way it worked was kind of simple. As the story describe itself "The Oasis site includes six distinct stories--a wizard's story, a panther's story, a warrior's story, a shadow's story, a goatherd's story, and a spirit's story--plus Hakim's commentary and several shorter stories scattered throughout. In addition, one of the designers of the Mirage set, Bill Rose, has provided background and strategy hints for some of the cards illustrated in the stories.
Hakim, of course is Hakim, Loreweaver, a legendary creature from Mirage.
"Your goal, as you read Hakim's stories, is to determine who is trapped inside the Amber Prison, a magical artifact from the Mirage card set. There are no convoluted puzzles to solve or long forms to fill out, although your chances of knowing the correct answer improve as you read more of the stories.
"By entering a solution to the puzzle at the end of the game, you become eligible to receive prizes. You may enter the contest once per email address. Winners will be selected by random drawing from the pool of contestants who submit correct solutions."
Oh, and as you may have surmised, this wasn't just a simple read through. There was a whole puzzle aspect to it, and if you figured it out, you could e-mail Wizards and possibly get a prize for solving it. Remember this was 1996 internet - sharing the correct answer en-masse was still a few years away.
Sadly, Magic never returned to this format, opting for more traditional stories in the coming decades. However, thanks to the internet archive, it can still be read/played today right here. However, a bit of a forewarning. While there are Magic characters and art in the story pages, it isn't like a modern story. And these are 1996 graphics, so expect pixelation. Plus coloring isn't the best. For older readers, this may bring back some not so great memories of the older internet. For younger readers, prepare to go in a time machine to a past where the internet was a lot more....basic.
Nonetheless, Oasis is still a part of Magic history and shows off all the different risks they were trying in the early years. Whether you wanted this to be the only one of these or wanted to see more of them, however - that's up to you.
