Ground Zero

Taking inspiration from the Wasteland series, Fallout Series, and others, Ground Zero is exactly what you'd expect from a post-apocalyptic CYOA, and that's not necessarily bad.

Different branches lead to different adventures varying from survivor-on-survivor squabbles to city-sized sieges, and although the routes to get to these different scenarios aren't exactly obvious at first glance, the tired cliché (among others) of a one-man-army in the apocalypse aren't entertained too much; most heroic (and suicidal) antics get you killed fairly quickly, and the ones that do keep you alive are best left to more ambiguous fantasies for you to live out off-screen. To that extent, even sudden losses and dead-end branches give you a sort of grounding to reality while the conventionally less-explored ideas (like becoming a mutant) get much more air time.

If surviving in a whacky, sand-filled world without dealing with the clutter of video games sounds like something that would pique your interest, this CYOA is it.