SPOILERS BELOW- READ THE COMIC FIRST

I was sorely tempted to alter the outcome of today’s comic. This storyline was a lot of fun, and when I saw the votes coming in, I was sad to see it would end. However, when I started this I promised myself that I wouldn’t cheat, that I would stick to the plot tree I’d mapped out no matter what, and that the direction of the story would rest in the hands of what choices the audience wanted to make.

I know that the story ends abruptly due to the death of the main character, but that was sort of the point of this whole departure- that the choices you’re voting on have consequences that may include the deaths of characters, including the protagonist. One of the things I loved about the books was the suspense of knowing that your decision could lead to untold riches, or certain doom. I know it’s a littler harsher in this format, where you can’t keep your thumb on the page and go back to make a different choice. But it wouldn’t be as fun if you knew Ethan was always going to bumble his way through to victory no matter what choices you made. If we were going that route, I may as well just write a story and you just sit back and read it, and that’s what we do 99% of the time here. I think that the ‘Choose Our Adventure’ is a nice change of pace from that.

They won’t show up often, but it’s certainly something I’m going to try again in the future. I learned a lot of things from this one. It was a lot of fun, right to the bloody end.

As promised, I will post the complete story-tree a little bit later today.