By lordcrinoline / TikTok
A new trend on TikTok sees users having fun with multiple choice narrative games, tagged with the keywords #WillYouSurvive. And it's nothing short of a viral sensation.
A new trend on TikTok sees users having fun with multiple choice narrative games, tagged with the keywords #WillYouSurvive. And it's nothing short of a viral sensation.
The principle of the games is simple: depending on the narrative that is selected, the user must answer questions by making choices among several proposals. The choices have consequences on the rest of the game and ultimately determine the "survival" of the player. That's the rationale of the term used for the hashtag #WillYouSurvive, which to date has accumulated over 24.3 million views on TikTok. These multiple-choice narrative games are also tagged with other keywords such as #didyousurvive -- which currently counts more than 40 million views, #wouldyousurvive with more than 12.7 million views or #choiceslideshow with five million views.
The games use the carousel format, which has been available on TikTok since 2022. It allows creators to put together a video composed of several photos that users can scroll through at their own pace. The use of this format allows them to take their time in answering questions without being hurried. The slides are composed of a question, then potential choices and finally the points that the choices make the players win or lose. At the end of the game, these gains and losses determine whether or not they have managed to stay "alive" at the end of the game.
And there's no shortage of ideas for game scenarios. You can try to "survive" 1850's England by choosing your outfits and friendships wisely, as in the video of the designer Lord Crinoline. You can also determine if you are a "trophy wife" or try to survive in the "South Park" universe. Many users are playing these narrative games by taking on the role of various characters. The video "Would you survive 1850s England" has more than 3.1 million views at time of writing.
These types of multiple choice narrative games are not entirely new. This format has been around for many years in the world of video games (console and mobile), via titles such as "Life is Strange," "Heavy Rain" and "Beyond: Two Souls." Such interactive scenarios have also been seen on other types of platforms such as Netflix, which generated buzz with the interactive episode "Black Mirror - Bandersnatch" in 2018. Viewers could make decisions for the main character, which then had a direct impact on the outcome of the episode. The roots of the format also draw on the Choose Your Own Adventure game books which saw readers making choices that determine the outcome of the protagonist and the plot.
