When I was a teen, decades ago, I used to love to read the Choose Your Own Adventure Books. Some refer to these as CYOA for short. I mentioned some of that in my video: What Are Text Adventures and Creating Your Own. In short, Choose Your Own Adventure Books allowed you to create a simple character based on the author of the book, read a story, and see what the outcome would be. You would turn to a certain page to follow the path of your choice and discover the outcome. This was almost like playing a video game but reading -- at least it felt that way back then.
Ruler of Kings II has a similar concept but we wanted more depth to the story, the Character, and the outcome. One of the downfalls of Choose Your Own Adventure Books was the linear way it progressed a story. After all. You can only do so much with a book. For instance, you could only go from point A to B to C and so forth. You can't go from point C back to A. In Ruler of Kings II, we wanted a Player to feel like they could go anywhere at anytime, start part of an adventure and then revisit it if they could not finish, etc. In this way, the adventure had a more tabletop atmosphere because of the flexibility.
Additionally, we wanted the Character to be so intricate that you could know every part of your Character including strengths, weaknesses, preferences and even their relationships with others. Most text games and Choose Your Own Adventure Books also keeps things solo but in ROK II you can create a party, start a family, have children and even lead armies. Of course, the element of being able to interact with other Players while in character is also another feature that goes far beyond what a book could do. You can see a list of ROK II Browser Game Features to get a summary.
In summary, ROK II can be very much like a CYOA but with additive of technology allowing for greater input from Players to allow for a more diverse story. Even with all of that the fundamentals of ROK II remain focused on reading and writing your OWN story.
.
Choose Your Own Adventure vs Ruler Of Kings II Text RPG (Hover)
CYOA books are the best ever and they did not limit them to medieval fantasy although quite a number of them are based on that. In that regard, I believe COYA has the upper hand on ROK II but on all your other points there is way more to do in ROK II than I could have imagined when I first got into it. The depth of every place you visit is like getting into a separate book for each. You really did a good thing here. Its too bad more people don't know about it.
In the title, one of the words is mispelled. Just wanted to let you know!
On this topic, the one thing that drew me to this adventure is the fact it took me several characters to start getting the hang of it, to learn patience, and to think about the choices I make. I also like that I have enough freedom to create my own person and their background, and ROK II gives me prompts to work from.
CYOA books can be compared, but ROK II has much more customization things.
I've read a couple of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. There is a large variety of them but the one thing that I didn't like was how an adventure could come to an end from making a simple choice that didn't have much thought to it. Like if you choose the wrong the door then the story ended. There should be clues about which door should be chosen. That is kind of like how it is when you go into Lady Fluke's dungeon. Luckily for ROK it does give you a lot of prompts if you don't miss them so there is a better chance of survival but not always. *laugh*.