Gamebooks

[Richard]

I suspect the Hungarian version of AoA could be written in Hungarian

Damn, I didn't think this through did I?!

[Fortnight]

I'll be at Fighting Fantasy Fest this year, but I think the book is being released after the date. If it's available there I can pick up copies of the limited version for people that want it, potentially. They're expensive though!
I have the hardback AoA and Shadow of the Giants: they're nice, but not really worth the money over the paperback versions if I'm honest with myself. AoA has nicer cover art than the paperback but SotG is identical.

That would be fantastic. I don't mind the cost so much, but it's annoying to have to pay well over the odds for ebay-seller markup. I have the hardbacks of Port of Peril, Assassins of Allansia and Shadow of the Giants, so if there are further hardbacks I'd like to get them. So far I've had to find them all on ebay, so getting one at cover price would be something of a novelty

[Barrington Boots]

Cool, lets see when it's released and we'll sort it out. I have scouted hardback Port of Peril but the price is mental and I have heard the book is poor: if I'm throwing silly money at eBay I'd rather buy Howl of the Werewolf!

Damn, I didn't think this through did I?!

Buy a copy of each, tear out the better art and glue it over the existing art. Sorted!

[Barrington Boots]

Funnily enough, I was just skimming the PDF of You Are The Hero from the recent Kickstarter and there's mention of the Hungarian art being comissioned because the publishers felt the art for the UK editions was aimed at the YA market, but the market in Hungary was for adults on a nostalgia trip (like us)

[Richard]

I wish publishers would move away from this idea that children want all their art to be cartoony and dull! We had Russ Nicholson doing our books when we were growing up and it never did us any harm (*suddenly spasms and drools*).

[Fortnight]

the publishers felt the art for the UK editions was aimed at the YA market, but the market in Hungary was for adults on a nostalgia trip (like us)

I also saw that when skimming through my PDF (not going to read it properly until the print version arrives though). They seem to be aiming at the children's market. Playing it too careful.

I wish publishers would move away from this idea that children want all their art to be cartoony and dull! We had Russ Nicholson doing our books when we were growing up

If the fundie Christians aren't getting their knickers in a twist about it, they're not doing it right.

[Barrington Boots]

Master of Chaos

Another new one to me. Took me a while to get round to this as the title / plot all sounded a bit generic and cool as the cover art is (a great Les Edwards two headed crocodile man) it all sounded a bit meh. I was a fool to think this. It's by Keith Martin, who is of course Carl Sargent, and its just as good as his previous two.

Interesting set up in this one: you play a badass adventurer of some renown, called in by some council or wizards to help retrieve a powerful magic staff: the staff of rulership that can unify the normally warring forces of evil and thus raise an army than threatens the world etc etc. This is all generic FF stuff, but the wizard councils awesome plan is to send me to the continent of Khul (an evil place!) to find the staff in the lost city of Kabesh, and to send me there by having me pressganged as a galley slave aboard a slaver ship. All I have to do is survive the voyage, then escape, gear up, cross a desert to find Kabesh and then find the staff / kill off Shanzikuul (the evil wizard dude who stole the staff) and save the world.
There's some nonsense about how Shanzikuul would detect a wizard getting near his base so an attempt must be made in stealth and so on but seriously, this is the best idea the wizard council can come up with? Absolute pants. No wonder they lost the staff.
To show my heroic stature at the start of the book I can choose three of six skills. I go with Animal Wisdom, as it mentions I can use it to ride camels, and tracking as it seems thematic with the former choice. Lastly I choose Blindsight as that sounds incredibly useful.
There's a new stat in this one too called notoriety, which I have to stop getting too high in case anyone gets wind of my plan.

Anyway, the book starts with me chained up in the hold of the slave ship whilst a brutal overseer is whipping one of my fellow slaves to death, and with me losing 3 points of stamina in paragraph one due to the poor conditions. I try and keep my head down over the journey and endure regular kickings. The first time I respond I am, of course, immediately executed.
Second attempt: I endure my beating without responding, which slowly erodes my stamina but ensures remain non-notorious (and alive). Eventually the ship is attacked by a kraken: I have the option of running away but instead I leap to the aid of the villainous captain Shagrot and with the Kraken fought off I am rewarded with some slightly better treatment and stop losing stamina points every paragraph. Once within sight of land I and another slave take the opportunity to do a bunk and pretty soon I'm standing in the port of Ashkyros, ready to begin my quest!
Or sort of ready, anyway. I've got no weapons or armour and only 8gp (half of which from the sale of the purloined rowboat we escaped on) and whilst I have two meals worth of hardtack, there's a strong implication this won't get me far.

The city itself is a hub of six districts, each of which I can visit as many times as I like, which is a nice RPG-ish way to plan things. Here I'm told my notoriety (currently zero) ever hits 8 I have started to draw to much attention and have to leave at once, so I need to be careful about what I do. I foolishly decide to start off in the docks, as that's where I am, and immediately run into Captain Shagrat who draws steel on me. I have no weapon, and I'm also being attacked by a parrot at the same time. Death ensues!

[Barrington Boots]

Third attempt: I head instead to the Warehouse district as that sounds adjacent to docks, but less full of people who might recognise me. Here I'm able to use my tracking skills to help a merchant recover his lost goods - he rewards me, and then offers me a days labour moving crates about, which earns me 10 gold in total and a place to rest for a nice stamina boost (needed, after the journey).
Sticking in this district I'm approached by a dodgy looking dude called Vesper who wants me to help him out with a heist. I'm not sure about this: I need money badly, but I also need to avoid any undue attention. In the end I decide to risk it. He gives me some coins to hang out in the afternoon drinking tea at a cafe and then in the evening my blindsight skill comes in very useful for avoiding patrols as we break into a warehouse and steal a load of saffron. Vesper invites me back to his place for some wine - he also feeds his cat, which makes me well inclined to this guy as nobody who has a cat can be bad surely? We hang out a bit and he tells me not to go back to the warehouse district, but if I wanted to I could find work with a Necromancer in the Old Quarter - a job he himself turned down as it seemed a bit off. Finally he says a Dark Elf was seen in town yesterday trying to buy passage to the exact same place I am going. Hmmm. Looks like someone wasn't keeping their notoriety in check.

Leaving Vesper I head to the markets and flog my stolen sacks of saffron for 15gp so now I feel pretty loaded and ready to buy gear. The market is very much a stereotypical fantasy-desert bazaar, full of exotic races selling exotic wares. Wandering the markets in search of a weapons dealer I instead find a guy mistreating a little mongoose on a leash, kicking it and cursing it. He says it's supposed to do tricks but doesn't do any for him no matter how horrible he is to it, and he then offers to sell it to me, saying I could make it into both a pie and a pair of gloves! Obviously I buy it along with a whistle to summon it. "Thanks, I'm a talking mongoose" says the mongoose. Seems legit! The mongoose introduces himself as Jesper and says we're sure to be great friends unlike his previous owner and then suggests we explore the markets together.
Jesper is a great companion, both chatty and helpful. For starters he suggests we buy a couple of manky looking eggs and stick them in the sun: of course, they hatch into some little birds than we then sell on at great profit - although my notoriety ticks up as I hang about in the bazaar chatting to a mongoose. Jesper then suggests we go to Entertainers Square where he'll do some tricks for cash, and then he'll head off alone across town to visit a lady mongoose and I can link up with him later using the whistle. This seems fair, but he seems so glum about doing the tricks when we arrive that I tell him we don't need to (we have a good amount of cash now) and he shoots off, but not before biting a merchant on the leg and causing him to drop his purse which I scoop up.
There's nothing else to do hear but fight a gladiator, which seems the sort of thing I should avoid if I want to stay undercover, so I depart for the shop district and buy a sword, armour, a crossbow and assorted adventuring tat, plus a camel (expensive, but I'm able to haggle the price down with my animal knowledge skill). I'm now pretty broke but also geared up so I head to the docks and kick the daylights out of captain Shagrat and nick his magic scimitar - although this boosts my notoriety up again.
I need more money, so I try the Old Quarter where Vesper tipped me off about the necromancer job, picking up a small cash reward en route for helping a stevedore with his anxious mule. There's a gambling hall here but I don't fancy it (in retrospect, this is where Vesper told me where to go to meet the necromancer) and the first pub I try is rowdy and contains some guys obviously trying to drug and mug me. The second bar is more high class and I'm sitting awkwardly in it when I see something dodgy happening out back. I nip out and take on some thieves but eventually the militia arrive and lacking the climbing skill to bunk over the rooftops I get arrested and it's game over again.

Fourth attempt: I start again in the bar, ignore the robbers, but there's nothing else happening here besides earning a small bit of coin for helping a drunk guy get home. The next day it's back to the shops where I can flog my sword, buy a few herbs and some food and then i head to the magic shop - it's packed with cool stuff but I generate notoriety just for entering it, which pushes my notoriety to eight and the book states I have to leave the city at once. There's just time to link back up with Jesper, who dances excitedly at the prospect of an arduous trip through a desert to a horrible lost city, and then it's time to mount up the camel and get out of there!

To be continued...

[Richard]

Jesper is brilliant isn't he?

Your write-up is reminding me of how much fun this book is, I should give it another read soon. I'm looking forward to seeing how you do next!

[Barrington Boots]

He is great! I was convinced he was something mysterious to do with the thief, Vesper as their names were so similar, but unless I missed it he is literally just a cool talking Mongoose.

Playthrough part 2:

My lengthy trip through the desert begins. At regular points here I'm instructed to eat provisions, of which thankfully I have a reasonable amount.
Jesper is a good companion here, killing the poisonous snakes that infest the desert and tipping me off when a mutant orc tries to attack my camp in the night. I batter the rubbish orc and it surrenders, telling me it is starving after escaping the horrors at Kabesh. That's where I'm headed, so I feed it and in return get some pretty useless information about a wizard there who is raising an army of mutants and horrors. I also lose stamina for getting no rest as I'm up chatting to the orc all night.
The next day a bunch of my provisions have spoiled in the heat (goodness knows what I bought - cake perhaps) but I'm bale to shoot a small antelope thing and preserve some of the meat with the herbs I picked up in Ashkyros to boots my supplies. To counter this, the book asks if I have the ring of Endurance - I don't and as a result my stamina starts to drain away at an alarming rate due to the punishing heat. I'm heading for Rahasta, the only potential stop between here and Kabesh (and the town the dark elf was heading for via the boat) and it's a long trip. I'm in a bad way when I arrive, not helped by a skirmish with a manticore en route that kills the hell out of my camel, although that fight does yield a strange amulet adorned with stars from someone the manticore was eating.
Rahasta turns out to be a horrible place, full of surly mutants and orcs and stuff. I decide to pop into the local hostelry for information / supplies but instead I just get in a fight with hostile locals, driven out of town and then, having made the desperate decision to sleep under the stars, awake to find a mutant burying its swords in my entrails and ranting about food. Where were you, Jesper? Anyway, that's it for me! Death!

Fifth attempt and having sacked off the murder pub, I look for a place to sleep and now Jesper pipes up, telling me of a safe place to stay because one of his former companions did them a good deed once. We get a lovely nights sleep, some porridge, and the next day I can restock on overpriced provisions and its back into the desert where my lack of endurance ring sees my stamina start dropping again. I'm nearly dead when Kabesh comes into sight, and before it the clustered white tents of a group of nomads. They're not friendly, but are compelled to offer me shelter as traveller, which I gratefully accept. I'm then brought before the chief who gives me a big exposition dump about how his people are at Kabesh looking for the sacred sphere of Hazdur and if I find it they'll give me a big reward. He's also super impressed with Jesper who he calls 'Snakebane' and who apparently knew his father and that Jesper is more valuable a companion than flocks of goats or many wives, and he is keen to hang out with him - the chief and Jesper and soon deep in conversation and Jesper wants to stay too, so I happily agree and in return the nomads give me far more food than I can actually carry so I quickly eat all the surplus to restore my flagging health and then have a lovely sleep in my own tent.

The next day its Kabesh-exploring time. The city is split into districts, exactly the same as Ashkyros, for an open-ended explore. I start with the ruins of the senate house where I kill a giant mutant scorpion and then helpfully find Hazdur's sphere straight away and run it back to the nomads, who give me tons more food and healing and either a magic sword (got one) or a potion of healing (yes please) before they pack up and depart. After drawing a bust at the ruined coliseum, I try a residential district where I meet some creepy guy who is searching for a lost magic book and tells me if I can get that he'll tell me where the entrance to the Chaos Pits (which I have only just heard about, but I guess is what I am looking for as that is where the Master of Chaos would be, I guess). He then tells me exactly where to find the book. OK.
The book is in the old mausoleum which is full of crappy skeletons, that I make short work of, before up pops a necromancer who proves to be a much tougher prospect and kicks my ass, although I win through eventually and am very grateful to have the healing potion from earlier. He's got the book on his body, so I run it back to creepy guy who tells me the Chaos Pit entrance is in literally the only place I haven't visited yet before he magics himself off with a cackle, bringing this weirdly anticlimactic part to an end.
The entrance to the pits are guarded by a huge but fairly easy to defeat monster before my tracking skill is finally called upon to find the entrance, which is a literal pit, at the bottom of which is another pit full of suckers and slime and eyeballs and all that chaos goodness!
There's a couple of side rooms here, in one of which I eat some nutritious slime and in the other I fight a guy with a weird helmet that when removed causes him to instantly die after muttering something about a Moon Sword. This sounds like another artifact to find, but luckily said moon sword is in the very same room and is both as good as the sword I took off the captain as well as containing limited healing properties (very useful later, this).

[Barrington Boots]

Finally I head into the final location, a dark and ominous corridor that seems to shift and twist as I move down it... the very stuff of chaos! Guarding the passage is the crocodile monster from the cover, but when I flash my amulet at it (that I had off the manticore) it recognises me as a servant of Shanzikuul and lets me pass into a large chamber lit by torches and filled with strange, discordant music. In this room sists Shanzikuul himself, enjoying a big banquet and being waited on by cat girls (Shanzikuul must be an anime guy). He greets me warmly and said he knew of my coming, offers me food and healing if I will listen to his offer, which is of course to become his right hand man and help take over the world. I'm not getting this deep into the book and falling for that, Shanzikuul!
Whilst he's doing his monologue I'm able to clock not only the staff but also some big magic ring he's wearing. I can launch my attack at either him or one of these items: I know the staff's power is uniting monsters, so I go for the ring and smash it off his hand and jam it onto my own which gives me a huge skill boost!
Taking the time to do this allows Shanzikuul to kick off with his magic, battering me before we cross blades in a battle for the future of reality. He has a ridiculous skill of 13, but my nicking the ring has reduced this by two and increased mine by the same amount - factor in my magic sword, and I have the advantage. This fight is a bit like the one at the end of Vault of the Vampire: he has insane stats, but I've reduced them, and then halfway through he teleports away giving me time to take a few actions. I grab the staff, which is my job but doesn't help at all: with my remaining time I use the Moon Sword healing power to top myself up before the wizard reappears, healed up, and battle resumes. I cut him down and when I do a fiend appears to consume his soul, leading to a horrible end for the master of chaos.
But what's this? The book prompts me to take a couple of actions before something happens. Desperately I scoff down some food and then out of nowhere leaps the dark elf with blade in hand. He attacks viciously but with all my skill buffs I cut him down too.
With both enemies dead the minions of chaos begin fighting each other... and with a load of them bearing down on me, I call on the powers of good and get teleported back to the wizard council! Hurray! Its party time! THE END!

Great book. I appreciated the open ended exporation - especially in Ashkyros (the Kabesh part felt a lot more truncated) and the storytelling, arabic setting and sensible decision making. Having two hubs did make the book feel reasonably easy (despite my multiple deaths) as it meant there was little to no chance of missing a vital object. I feel like I explored almost the whole of the book here: it is possible, I think, to reach Rahashta via boat instead of camel and I don't know that goes but the amulet I took off the manticore in the desert seemed important. I obviously missed the encounter with the Necromancer which my well have played in my favour, and I suspect an encounter in Ashkyros with the Dark Elf... Jesper is a good companion, useful and chatty.

The skills, whilst a nice touch, weren't equal in usefulness: I used tracking twice, but animal friendship tons of times to very good effect. I was constantly prompted as to if I had acute hearing, and never asked if I had stealth.

You can tell the book is by the same author as VotV as it's similar in structure and has the same good writing. Art by Dave Gallagher, has a nice old school FF / GW feel to it (slightly derpy monsters, but full of atmosphere)

Full marks from me!

[Richard]

Yes, the open-ended exploration is a big plus for me -- having the exact opposite feature in the gamebook I've just been reading was eventually the reason I stopped reading it!

From memory, there is an encounter with the dark elf in Ashkyos, which makes his re-appearance at the end of the book feel less random and more like plot. Recurring characters like him and the captain and Jesper make it feel more like a story than just a sequence of encounters.

Glad you enjoyed it!

[Richard]

Nightshift
by Victoria Hancox

 

This is a non-FF horror-themed book which first saw print in 2019. I started it a while ago and enjoyed it at first, but then got put off by its one true path structure, and left it for what was meant to be a few days but turned out to be several weeks! I then got back to it a couple of days ago and was enjoying it again, but then got put off by a choice of direction with no information about either option, which is dull at the best of times, but quite frustrating when you know that your entirely random choice will later mean the difference between winning or losing! So I gave up, but thought I should still write something about it anyway, although this won't be a playthrough.

It has an interesting setting: you are a nurse (gender never specified) in a modern hospital on Earth, when you wake up in a break room and find one of your colleagues has been murdered, her throat slit. You soon find the murderer pursuing you, and you have to flee. The murderer is described in such a way as to create a real sense of peril, and if you manage to get away at the beginning, he stalks you around the hospital, so there is the prospect of unexpectedly bumping into him at any time.

The hospital is otherwise mostly deserted, and something has definitely happened -- or you're in some sort of parallel, supernatural world. It's a derelict ruin, full of monstrous surroundings. Early on, I hear an unpleasant sound which I investigate, and find that it's one of the patients who is quite beyond help... moving on, I find another murder victim, then one of the corridors is barred by a barrier made of human skins stitched together ... then my first proper encounter is with the incinerated corpse of a witch who was burned at the stake 500 years ago! After meeting her, I blunder into the murderer, who kills me.

 

The whole description of events, encounters, and descriptions in general are very atmospheric and compelling, making it an enjoyable read. There are some nice instant death paragraphs, and one of the recurring puzzles involves finding and keeping tack of certain disembodied body parts that are lying around the place. There are no scores to keep track of or combat, it's just a matter of solving puzzles and choosing the right path. Unfortunately, while the puzzles are reasonable (although sometimes they require you to know some general knowledge that isn't in the book, which you could argue isn't fair but I didn't really mind), the necessity of choosing precisely the right path through the book or being killed became annoying after a while, and my patience with the book eventually dissipated entirely.

 

If you don't mind that sort of Ian-Livingstone-on-steroids approach to gamebooks, and you like horror, then this book will probably be right up your street. It had some positive attributes that I enjoyed about it, but ultimately I had to decide that it wasn't really for me.

(Back to FF for my next book!)

[Barrington Boots]

Sorry you didn't enjoy Nightshift, especially as I'm pretty sure I hyped it up.

I found it very compelling but you're right, the path through it is very tight and very Livingstone-y: I think I used a map from the authors website in the end to get through it as it's easy to get lost.
As a general rule I much, much prefer a gamebook with multiple paths through and where lacking items makes the book harder rather than the sort of Deathtrap Dungeon-y shopping list and if you're lacking one essential you lose... a bit like Master of Chaos really!

(You're right about the Dark Elf in MoC btw - you can find him in Ashkyros and if I had, it would have made the last encounter with him a bit more meaningful. He also gives you an item that can stop you getting beaten up in Rahasta)

Funnily enough I've been playing The Huntress books from Magnamund and they have so many multiple paths in places that I've found it a bit nerve-wracking. Having been conditioned by gamebooks to be following what is usually a very linear path to success, having a book constantly asking me if I've got things or have met people and then allowing me to continue without dying when I haven't fills me with a sort of dread that I've made an error somewhere and the axe is ready to fall.

[Richard]

FF 40: Dead of Night

 
I remembered nothing about this book until I started reading it, and then I kept recognising things! Strange how memory works. Anyway, it's by one of my favourite FF writers, Stephen Hand (with a co-writer) and one of my favourite artists, Martin McKenna. There's a colour map inside the cover by Leo Hartas.
 
You play a warrior-priest, a Demon Stalker, and the Demon Lord Myurr, a Snake Demon, has kidnapped your parents; your objective is to find them and stop whatever Myurr is up to. You get to choose three special talents from a list of eight; I went with Banish Undead, Holy Circle (a defensive spell) and Speak Demon (which should be called Read Demon really, it lets me understand text in the demonic language).  I cheated by giving myself maximum skill, staminal and luck scores. There is also a novel Evil score, which starts at zero and increases if you do evil, selfish or cowardly things -- this becomes important at the end of the book.
 
I begin by visiting my home village, to find that all is not well. The village priest tells me my parents were found dead a few days ago, and were buried, but after some supernatural goings on he realised that they are actually missing, and their supposed corpses are in fact demons! I have to go to the cemetery, where I hear screaming coming from under the ground, and then two demons burst out of the soil. I use Banish Undead to get rid of them (are demons undead though? Discuss). There's nothing left to do here, so I set off to look for them.

My first port of call is to pay a visit to my friend Sharleena, who can speak to spirits and get information from them. I get to her without incident (avoiding one encounter by hiding from an approaching wagon), and I watch her summon a big scary demon who is compelled by her power to tell her that my parents are somewhere north (not very helpful really, as as I started at the southernmost point on the map, so I had already worked out I was heading north). He then rips Sharleena's throat out, and I have to fight him. I win, but in the process Sharleena's home burns down. It's probably better to not be friends with a Demon Stalker.

Moving on, I find some peasants burying a suicide under a crossroad, to prevent him turning into a vampire. As I'm a priest, I agree to officiate, but it's too late. A vampire bursts out of the coffin, and I hold it at bay with my silver cross while one of the peasants saves the day with a wooden stake. Strangely, I get all of the credit for this.
 
I now have a choice of three directions. Although they boil down to west, north or east, my choice is more informed than that because of the map, which keeps it interesting. North leads to a village in a marsh -- I don't like the sound of that. West feels like a trap, because when I killed the two demons inthe cemetery, I found a clue that there were captives being held that way, but the book warned me at the start that demons are devious and treacherous and like leaving traps, and I should be careful not to fall into those. East seems like an inoffensive route to a village called Astonbury, so not knowing anything negative about it, I head that way.
 
On the way, I find a very suspicious caravan parked at the side of the road, and so I investigate. It is occupied by a seemingly-friendly old man, but at this point the bok asks me if I have Sense Demon talent, and I do not. Hmm... However, I reject the option of attacking him, since I'm supposed to be one of the good guys, and he turns out not to be an enemy. He gives me a clue (which doesn't come in useful later, at least on the route I took), and the next day I take my leave and come to a bridge over a river. Here, I can continue to Astonbury or take a boat to the town of Axmoor, which is on the western edge of the map but beyond the place where I suspected a trap. The boatman tells me there is a plague in Astonbury, and I don't fancy getting mixed up in that, so I leave my horse behind and pay some gold to go to Axmoor.
 
Did I mention I had a horse? I should have, because that's very unusual for a Fighting Fantasy book. He was a lovely white steed called Godsfire, but apart from adding a minimal bit of colour to my background, he has nothing to do with anything, and I had actually forgotten about him until I left him behind (don't feel bad for him though, as apparently he is intelligent enough for him to obey my command to make his own way back home to my monastery). I feel like the horse could have been put to better use, like if having or not having him actually made any difference to anything at all. If I'd felt like he mattered I probably would have braved the plague instead of leaving him on the riverbank. This is really my only criticism of this book, and it's an incredibly minor one really.
 
The ferryman has a young son who duly falls into the river and needs me to rescue him. Fortunately I make the right choice here and save him, and his father rewards me with a refund of his fee for the trip. Also, some woman who is alos on the boat reads my future with some tarot cards. She tells me to look out for -- actually I won't spoil this clue in case anyone reading wants to play this book, but it comes in very, very handy indeed when I finally confront Myurr.

The next day we reach Axmoor, and it's an absolute mess. There is no sign of the human population, and there are signs of demonic occupation. As I disembark, the pier is demolished by some massive tentacles, and rather than trying to fight whatever they belong to I just flee inland. Looking over my shoulder, I watch the boat I was on being broken in two and dragged under the water, with the loss of all on board! (Looking at the alternative choices I could have made, it turns out I missed an opportunity to save their lives! Oops! But I don't get punished with any increase to my Evil score.)
 
Heading into Axmoor, I find a massive evil-looking thing that appears to be responsible for killing everyone here. It's basically a giant organic citadel, and the tentacles I saw earlier are a part of it (like the big monster in Rogue Trooper: Cinnabar). I venture inside...