You’re Head of Comms. Something exploded. Metaphorically. Probably. A choose-your-own-adventure for the moment when „no comment“ isn’t an option.
I grew up on Choose Your Own Adventure books. The ones where you’d flip to page 47 and immediately die, go back, try again, die differently. I loved them unreasonably.
Years later, working in communications, I wanted to make one for crisis comms: most of us operate under the quiet assumption that we’d know what to do. That we’d stay calm, say the right thing, make the right call. We believe this right up until we’re actually in one.
A Choose Your Own Adventure doesn’t fix that. But it does something useful – it lets you make the wrong call in a consequence-free environment, feel the specific discomfort of watching a situation spiral because you picked the wrong page, and maybe arrive at a kind of humility that no workshop handout has ever produced. Adults are allowed to learn through play. Serious topics are allowed to be approached sideways. That’s not dumbing it down – that’s how understanding actually works.
The idea went to my then-employer, who liked it but not the effort it would take to make it. Fair enough. It stayed in a drawer until the tools caught up with it.
As much as I like the browser game, I still want it to be a book. Because some things deserve to exist in print. And because there’s a retro charm to flipping through the pages in excitement of solving a crisis that a browser tab cannot replicate. I’m on it.
ClientAnyone who loves a good crisisServicesDigital tool, UX, Concept & ScriptYear2026Linkkerstinmayr.de
