Attack on Titan Choose Your Path Adventure

Attack on Titan Choose Your Path Adventure: Year 850: Last Stand at Wall Rose (進撃の巨人ゲームブック ウォール・ローゼ死守命令850) is an interactive novel written in the style of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story, with branching storylines, puzzles, and other material. It is the first installment in the "Choose Your Path Adventure" series.

Synopsis
WHEN THE TITANS BREACH WALL ROSE, THERE'S ONLY ONE THING STANDING IN THEIR WAY - YOU!

You are a member of the 104th Training Corps. Fighters like you, equipped with vertical maneuvering gear, are humanity's first, last, and only hope against the Titans. But when the Colossus Titan appears and smashes the gates of Wall Rose, all of your training will be useless if it doesn't keep you alive. In this interactive, branching-path novel, your choices will determine everything - what are you willing to do to defeat the monsters that threaten your civilization with extinction? Join Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Levi in their fight against the Titans!

Summary
The reader assumes the role of a member of the 104th Training Corps during the Battle of Trost District, with their name and gender left up to the reader.

Plot
The battle for Trost follows the same general framework as in the manga, with the reader's location changing based on decisions. Most of the plot covers the first four volumes of the manga, though one of the endings fast-forwards as far as the coup d'état, going well past the anime at the time of publication.

As the reader goes through the adventure, they can take a variety of actions until the story bottlenecks at three mandatory plot points; when the Colossus Titan first appears, when headquarters gets surrounded by Titans, and when Dot Pixis decides to have Eren Yeager seal the hole in Trost's gate. After each bottleneck the reader has flexibility on how to approach the next segment of the battle. Options are usually based on the roles the different members of the 104th take in the manga, though notably the reader can join the initial vanguard, at the start of the battle, which none of the 104th participate in.

Mechanics
The reader progresses through the story by choosing one of the available options given at the end of a "section", which has a number attached to it (different from the page number). Flipping to the section corresponding to that option would bring them to the scenario resulting from the option they picked. For example, a passage might say, "To talk to Mikasa, go to 28."

The reader may also discover certain "secret" options over the course of their adventure by solving puzzles. In this case, the section number they should flip to becomes less obvious, as it can only be found by solving the puzzle correctly.

The world of Attack on Titan is a dangerous place, and the reader might die over the course of the battle. When this happens, the book prompts the reader to return to the point immediately before their death to try again. If the reader is unable to remember the section number where they died in, they may start over again as another trainee who has received word of their demise.

Battle Report Sheet and Endings
The reader is frequently asked to take notes on a page called the "Battle Report Sheet", usually regarding whether someone dies or because the reader has gained Affinity with a member of the 104th Training Corps. Occasionally knowledge gained or actions taken can carry forward from previous sections of the story that will allow the reader to reach otherwise inaccessible plot events.

Assuming the reader survives the battle, most endings are determined by the reader's Affinity (or lack thereof) with other members of the 104th. Six members of the 104th have character specific endings, with Jean Kirstein having two. It is also possible to obtain an ending with Levi, where the reader is recruited into his squad, but it is more difficult to earn since it requires the reader to solve a puzzle without being prompted that it exists.

Possible variations from the manga
Due to the nature of the reader's participation, some events may change from the original manga. Characters may survive who originally died and characters may die who otherwise would not.

The narrative usually assumes that if the reader is not there, the events occur the same as they did in the manga. (For example: Thomas Wagner will always die unless the reader is part of Eren's squad and does something about it.) Some of the more influential things the reader can do are:


 * Prevent Marco Bott from dying
 * Potentially opens up an alternate Jean ending where the reader and Jean join the Military Police
 * Save Hannah Diamant and Franz Kefka
 * Potential bonus ending where they get married
 * Supply the Garrison so Ian Dietrich and Mitabi Jarnach have the support they need to survive
 * Recall the Survey Corps in time for Levi and his squad to help Eren seal the breach
 * Escalate Mikasa Ackerman's confrontation with Dimo Reeves so she kills him
 * Forces timeskip ending after the rest of the battle, where the Anti-Personnel Control Squad eventually traps Squad Levi during the coup d'état

Puzzles
The book contains a number of puzzles that the reader might encounter over the course of their adventure. While it is possible to complete an entire playthrough without solving a single puzzle, successfully solving them would open new paths for the reader to take, which usually lead to a better outcome that the reader would otherwise obtain.

The types of puzzles the reader might encounter are:
 * Code phrases given to the reader at certain points in the story, that can be used in a later part of the story to unlock a new route, contingent upon the reader spotting the code phrase within the passage.
 * For example, a passage might say "If you see the words "Marco is lucky", add 5 to your current page number and move there."
 * Hidden messages in illustrations given in the book. These can take an obvious form, such as having the letters "move to 42" written upside down in a corner of a picture, or are a bit more subtle, for example, requiring the reader to select 3 numbers out of the ones hidden throughout the picture and add them together to obtain the correct page.
 * Word problems. The reader might encounter these during the course of their journey, and depending on the scenario, might be required to find the correct answer in order to progress (or end up dying). These usually take the form of a simple math problem, which is written in the context of the scenario the reader finds themselves in.

Illustrations
In addition to text descriptions, the book also contains pictures to illustrate the current scenario the reader is in. These occur frequently throughout the book, and sometimes also contain puzzles for the reader to solve. While some of these illustrations are lifted directly from the Attack on Titan manga (typically used for scenarios which follow the canonical story line), others are entirely new illustrations exclusive to the novel.

Errata
In the first English edition of the book, there are a few pages where the reader is told to turn to sections 233 or 234, however 233 does not exist and 234 skips ahead in the story. This was an editorial mistake and Kodansha Comics has a PDF that can be downloaded that corrects sections 233 and 234.

Trivia

 * There is a joke ending that takes place in the Attack on Titan: Junior High universe, with no known way of reaching it via any of the branching paths in the main story.