Right! With a big nod to Dark Jimbo, it's time for me to venture into the FOREST OF DOOM!
PART 1
In truth Darkwood forest is a well-trodden path for me and as I pocket the dying Bigleg's loose change nostalgia and deja vu come flooding back. Feeling confident, from Yaztromo I snap up the holy water, garlic buds, nose filters, fire capsules, armband of strength and gloves of missile dexterity as I seem to recall all of these are useful and then it's excitedly off into the mulchy gloom of the forest to find the missing bits of the hammer.
Before long I've been robbed, attacked by a blood-sucking tangleweed and battled both a treeman and the iconic shape changer. Having already lost all my money to the thief I am forced to eschew an offer to be ferried across a river by a friendly centaur and stumble out of the river covered in leeches. In terrible shape I bed down for the night and am promptly attacked by a giant spider. It dawns on me that I am hopelessly lost and definitely not on the right path.
The next morning I sensibly decide not to venture down a mysterious well as I know it's full of gremlins and not much else. I also decide against harassing sleeping gnomes, but I can't stop myself venturing into a hut, picking up a vase of Gom Jabbar and stealing the contents which include a much-needed potion of healing . Continuing North I find an overgrown crypt - I think one of the bits of the hammer lies within, hooray! However I have no key - boo. With a sinking feeling I hurry north along the path. Accosted by bandits, my heart isn't really in it and I pay them off with gold from the abandoned hut before stumbling onto Stonebridge where, red faced, I have to explain to the Dwarves that I made it all the way through the forest and found exactly no bits of their hammer at all. Gloomily trudging back round the outside of the forest I get an arrow in the neck from some hillmen and my adventure is over. That's where overconfidence gets you!
PART 2
Arriving back at Yaztromo's tower, I restock on exactly the same items and once more I'm into the lethal leafy boughs of Darkwood. As a general rule in gamebooks, if given a choice, I always take the left-hand path but this time I decide to turn east. I pay the crow, take it's advice and pretty soon I'm crossing swords with a pair of Hobgoblins. This, if I remember rightly, was my first ever FF battle and I dispatch these two goofs with a big grin and help myself to their stuff. Finding a nearby slimy hole I venture in and defeat a massive slimy worm, then following the crows advice press on to the North where I flatten an ogre with a well-placed rock, free his captive only to have the ungrateful wretch turn on me. Luckily, Goblins suck and one brief fight later I am clutching one half of the fabled hammer!
Unable to stop myself I loot the cave and thank goodness I brought those nose filters. Whistling cheerfully I stroll carelessly onwards and am promptly trapped, drop my sword and end up being extorted of five gold pieces by some precocious little brat. Annoyed, I climb into some poor ape mans house, kill him and steal his stuff too, and this time it's a bracelet of skill. I'm starting to feel pretty damn invincible this time.
At this point I think continuing north will take me out of the forest too quick, so I revert to type and start heading west. Not long after I meet a hunter - what is he doing here? - and he gives me some belladonna. I can't remember this encounter from previous playthroughs, which has me a bit worried. My next stop is the Darkwood Forest arm-wrestling champion, who I guess just hangs out in his hut in this bogus forest arm-wrestling passersby. Naturally I use my armband of strength to cheat and win his dust of levitation which I know I do need to finish this book. Hooray again!
This time when I bed down for the night the encounter is with vampire bats, but I keep the little terrors at bay with my garlic buds. My new day starts with that classic pick me up of an arrow in the shoulder: I avenge my wound (and my previous iteration) on the hillmen and the silver key is mine - exactly what I needed last time out.
By now I'm lost again so I sneak a peek at the east and west options. East takes me back to the Gremlins well, so I follow that route, skip it again, and pretty soon I'm back at the crypt but this time with the key to get in. Old memories flooding back I use my ill-won dust of levitation to get into the sarcophagus, douse the monster inside in holy water and lo, the second part of the hammer is mine! Not wanting to risk anything now I once again pay off the bandits and then it's off to Stonebridge for beer and treasure. Adventure completed!
What a lovely nostalgic experience this has been. One of my favorites as a child, playing it again reminded me my I enjoyed it so much - there's very little insta-death unless you do dumb stuff like attack Yaztromo and the chance to return to the start on failure (even though I messed that up) is so welcome when the forest is basically a literal maze. There's so many things in there that I didn't run into - the giant, the mushroom guys, the werewolf, the sexy / disturbing catwoman - and stuff I skipped like the gremlin well and the wyvern - without mapping it as I went, I could have been wandering about in there for days, it feels truly massive. I'm not sure if it's nostalgia kicking in but I find Malcolm Barter’s artwork super evocative and just the right side of disturbing: his twisted Orcs, Gremlins and Hobgoblins especially. Between this and Citadel there's been some superb artwork that's not the sort of thing you'd normally see in a child's book - not gory, but so imaginative and grotesque and just downright odd - fantastic stuff.
Apparently you can win the book with just three fights so it's not one where maximum skill is required either. The nastiest monster I found was the shape changer and that was in my sub-optimal playthrough.
Anyway, if you read to the end of this, thanks / apologies! Starship Traveller awaits!
