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Comment by rumcajz | Hacker News Reader

I want to write a book about crypto for kids using the similar idea.

The map will be more linear-ish, or rather one mail path with side loops -- imagine passing levels in a game, you are provided ways to practice a new skill until you are able to pass to new level.

More interestingly, the progress through the book can be itself constrained by a kind of crypto.

The chapters in the book will be numbered and ordered at random. At the end of each chapter it will say "goto chapter 234." or "goto chapter 34 mod 12"

Now imagine the player wants to cheat and starts with a random chapter in the middle of the book. He won't be able to find previous chapter (it's kind of a one-way function). Morever, if progress to chapter N+1 is gated by a puzzle that requires skill learned in chapter N-1, he can't move forward either.

Some initial notes are here: https://github.com/sustrik/crypto-for-kids

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Very cool idea. I've often thought this approach would work best for teaching kids programming. Instead of "Chapter 1: Strings" present programming bit-by-bit as a mystery (detective or spy) story - you need to write simple bits of code to proceed to the next step

BTW have you looked at tools like http://twinery.org/ ? I might help you organise the content (although perhaps not with random ordering)

Back in the day there was a kids' book called I believe Chip Rogers: Computer Whiz. The kids in the book were amateur detectives with computing as a hobby. One of them, the titular Chip Rogers, would write a BASIC program -- the text of which is in the book -- to analyze the clues and logically deduce the culprit of the crime. You could keep reading, or enter the program yourself to solve the mystery before the protagonists do.

I loved that book! I didn't have a computer as a kid so I'd execute the BASIC on a piece of paper!

Thanks. I'll take a look.

Another option to consider is Eko Studio (https://studio.helloeko.com/). It was originally called Interlude.fm.

It allows you to turn videos into 'Choose Your Own Adventure' like guides.

You can map where the user goes next based on the choices they make.

It seems like it'd be a great tool for entertainment or educational purposes.

The only issue I found was that the videos couldn't be captioned, so it's not ideal for accessibility.

Their recent work also illustrates CYOA is again becoming a hot area. With the next major generation of consumer VR likely to have eye tracking (to conserve GPU), videos and games that choose narrative based on inferred user interest seem likely to become a thing. 'Oh, you like that character do you... then we'll tell the story emphasizing them... or their flaws... or maybe kill them off early'.

This seems likely to arise in education as well. Not merely spoken dialog systems, but mentors that watch you and adjust to your interests. Not just show a youtube science video, but use eye tracking to identify what aspects were of interest, and follow up on them. 'Was it the nanoparticles, the microscope, the chicken, the laser, cancer, or the friendly graduate student? Well, here is some related content.' Done well, science education is like studying history - it's such a densely interwoven tapestry, that good advice is to start with what interests you, and by pulling that thread, pull in the world.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/alternate-endin... tells a story of Interlude/Eko and CYOA-ish innovation.

That's a pretty neat concept.

An audiobook format would be interesting too. Might be tricky to do in the car though, ha.

Yes, different hashing functions would naturally result in different page numbers.

Nit: recipient is the correct spelling for the book. Will keep eye on this.

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