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Started by Funt Solo, 19 October, 2021, 02:40:32 AM

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sheridan

Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 23 February, 2022, 06:04:15 PM
All this talk of gamebooks has led to me ordering a copy of House of Hell, as well as two modern 'choose your own adventure' books by Victoria Hancox: Nightshirt and The Alchemist's Folly. Looking forward to them, and once again you bastards are responsible for me spending too much money.

SBT


I think that's Nightshift, not Nightshirt - a google search led me to an amazon ladies nightwear page :-)


So it looks like Nightshift is a gamebook aimed at adults?  There was a spate of them a few years back, but they were pretty primitive - they were books that children wouldn't have found challenging, but with a few swear words or drink and drug references.  Thankfully that trend appears to have died.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Yes, that was my phone playing silly buggers and I didn't realise til much later. And yeah, very much adult-oriented, but so far without any of the knuckle-biting embarrassment that might be feared. No "if you choose to squeeze her bum go to 234, otherwise caress her boobies first on page 45". I'm finding it quite difficult but I like the general idea- there is a plot to uncover and a number of things to learn in order to succeed. As one of the creatures says "you can't just guess here, you have to learn". Though I have now walked past my own skeleton on a staircase three times, which is annoying.

Fun though.

SBT

Richard

Deathtrap Dungeon (again)

This time I followed Barrington Boots and went east. This is definitely the right way to go, because you can collect the rope, which makes it easier to climb up the idol and get the emerald.

My opening scores were 10 Skill, 16 Stamina and 9 Luck. I was killed by the flying monsters that protect the idol, so that is the second time I have died in that room, and four deaths of forum members in that room in this thread!

So for my third attempt I cheated a little and awarded myself maximum scores: 12, 24 and 12. This turned out to be a wise move, because towards the end of the book you have to face a succession of opponents with Skills of 11 or 12, which makes winning with a lower Skill practically impossible. Unless you are very lucky with your opening rolls, you have to cheat!

I take the same route as before, easily kill the flying thingies, and get the emerald. After a couple of bits not really worth describing, I come to a junction where I can turn east or west, with absolutely no information about these options at all. This is very irritating, as I presumably now have a 50% chance of failing based on a random guess. FFS!

I choose East as that was the right choice last time, and shortly afterwards I lose my shield, incurring the loss of 1 Skill point. I meet a mad bloke who turns people into stone, including one of my rival contestants. However I survive that encounter and get my lost Skill point back.

Later on I avoid a sudden death paragraph by choosing not to eat some wild mushrooms, kill a couple of goblins,, and come across another unfair junction like the last one. This book is just evil! I head north, enter an iron pipe, and find a sapphire and an iron key. I must be on the right path, as you need the sapphire!

I catch up with another contestant, one of the barbarians (I found the corpse of the other barbarian on the way to the room with the emerald, so that's half of my opponents accounted for). We team up, climb down a pit to a lower level, and I find a book with some important information about the Bloodbeast which will come in handy later. I also find a magic potion which will help me detect traps. Because of these lucky finds, I decide to ignore the next magical artifact I find on a troll I have just slain, as it's bound to be some sort of cursed item or something.

We hurry through a sinister cavern without waiting to find out what is in there, and meet a dick of a dwarf. I mean, what this dwarf lacks in stature he more than makes up for in dickishness. But the book makes it pretty obvious that there will be some penalty for trying to kill him, so I play along with his stupid antics, solve his puzzles, and end up having to fight the barbarian to the death. He's a tough opponent.

Leaving the dwarf, I come to another unfair junction. I head West and find a diamond -- which turns out to be fake, after I have been stung by some giants insects that were guarding it. I go back to the junction and head North, find a pearl (which I know will be of no use, so I now suspect that I'm going the wrong way), and after some bits I will skip I finally meet the Bloodbeast. It's easy enough to get past it, thanks to the book I read earlier, but next I have to fight a Manticore with Skill 11. I recently took the potion of fortune, so I use several of my 13 Luck points to get through this battle.

This gets me to the final encounter: a door which can only be unlocked with three jewels: an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. But I only have two of these, so I spend the rest of my life enslaved in Deathtrap Dungeon...

Third playthrough

Rather than start again, I just go back to the stingy insects (easy to find since there is an illustration of them) and carry on from there, this time continuing West instead of North, since I'm sure that's where I went wrong last time. But I can't remember what my scores were at that point, so now I'm full-on cheating and just reading the book without troubling with dice rolls.

I meet a friendly prisoner of the dungeon Trialmasters, who tells me where I can find a magic doppelganger potion, which I pick up not long later. I also find another contestant, the elf girl, who I try to rescue from a big snake but she dies anyway. I avoid a trap, thanks to that magic potion I drank earlier, and then find the troglodyte colony. I get past them by drinking the Doppelganger potion, escape over a bridge, and use the iron key to open a door and get away.

The next person I meet is a rather suspicious guy who offers to raise me to the level above in a basket on a rope. I don't trust him, so I walk on and reach the room with the Bloodbeast. I still haven't found the diamond, so I've failed again!

Fourth playthrough

I must have been supposed to trust the guy with the basket. I re-start from that point, go up in the basket, and it looks like I was right not to trust him -- it's a trap, but I have to go that way to complete the adventure, so I am rewarded for having poor judgement -- thanks Ian Livingstone! I talk to my captor until I get a chance to knock her over the head when she's distracted. (She's a troll and the sister of Sourbelly the city guard in City of Thieves, possibly the first time an FF book has referenced a character from an earlier book.)

The next encounter is a giant Satanus-like dinosaur with a Skill of 12! After that is the Ninja, the last of my rivals in the Trial of Champions. He has a Skill of 11. He has the diamond! So now I have finally found the correct route through the dungeon, and as I said earlier, it's hardly fair on players with low Initial scores. After the dinosaur and the ninja are the Bloodbeast and the Manticore, and so the survival prospects for a player who is not cheating are frankly very slim indeed.

Back at the exit with the three jewels, I luckily guess the combination on the first try and turn to 400. Looking back at the alternative combinations I could have chosen, they all have severe penalties in lost Stamina points. Livingstone really went out of his way to be a fucker with this one! It must be one of the hardest books in the entire series.

Barrington Boots

Awesome writeup Richard, very much enjoyed reading it!

Here's my composite playthrough.

Like I said before I think the book is designed to be played dozens of times to learn the various dos and don'ts of the place. Because I wanted to wrap up the book in one sitting, I also cheated here and gave myself maximum stats and mapped as I went along, meaning I didn't skip any doors or otherwise and took more chances than I might with a 'legit' attempt. If I died, I noted it and continued as though I was trapped in some kind of horrible Groundhog Day scenario.


Following my previous journey I take the east path initially, following the footprints of who I now know to be my fellow contestant the Barbarian. I note again his sad fate, collect the emerald, a ring, the dagger and the rope. At the next junction, with west bringing death, I set off east.
My first action on that path is to fall into a pit, where despite my injuries I recover a ruby, no doubt dropped by some other unfortunate. Continuing east, I discover the room of statues where the fate of the knight is evident: turned to stone. The curator of the statue garden will doom me to the same fate should I fail to answer his riddle, but luckily this is an easy one (although I remember it catching me out as a kid) and the reward is a boost to all three of my stats which is fairly irrelevant and I've maxed them out -  which is good as I am soon locked in battle with an animated skeleton and shortly after some goblins, all of which fall quickly to my blade. In between this combats I suffer my first auto-death paragraph deaths of the weekend, firstly by eating some mushrooms and secondly by knocking politely on a door.
After dispatching the goblins and stealing their climbing equipment I choose to go north - west has consistently led to death - and free a poor soul from his prison: he reveals he is a former contestant who was condemed to servitude down here. I'm not really sure what this guy is going to do once I let him go - the place is riddled with traps and he only has one hand on weapons, so I'm pretty sure he isn't getting out - but it's a small, good deed in a place of horror. Not long after I recover the sapphire from a manky pipe. I'm on the same (correct) track as Richard, so I was right to avoid the western path earlier.
Steeping over some fallen orcs I come face to face with the third of the other contestants - the second barbarian, Throm. I've decided I'm playing the same helpful character as I did in CoT (I'm pretty sure CoT, DD and Lizard King are a loose a trilogy) so her and I decide to join forces and work together against to survive the dungeon. In all honesty we'd be mad not to - the chances of getting to the end are infinitesimal given the number of traps here. I like Throm - he's a quiet, confident sort, superstitious, doesn't like books but doesn't abandon me when I pass out using a magic ring (against his advice, I might add), and his reaction to a mouse is lovely.
The two of us triumph in an extremely vicious battle against some trolls and survive a falling ceiling before we encounter the Trialmaster. As Richard says, this guy is a dick. I don't want to leave Throm, so we rush him, which obviously doesn't work, and I end up having to do his poxy trials anyway, most of which are very unfair. I gamble that a minotaur will be a tougher opponent than a scorpion which is a huge error, so on my respawn I defeat the minotaur and obviously wind up fighting my friend Throm. He is a tough opponent and weeping, I am forced to kill him. I take my revenge on the dwarf, but my heart is heavy as I push on alone. By my count fully half of the contestants are now dead.

North has served me well so far so I avoid the west path, acquire the pearl, get punched by a door, drink some cursed water and buy some stilts. I dodge a couple of traps and before long I am facing the iconic, repulsive Bloodbeast. Having swotted up on the Bloodbeast before I only need to win two rounds of combat - hurray! But it's got SKILL 12 - wtf. I'm knackered from fighting Throm, and it finishes me off. This is my second combat death and 9th death so far. I beat at second attempt and have to fight the manticore - this is another horrific battle, but I get through it on luck alone only to find I don't have a diamond and its game over for me, sentenced to the same fate as the guy I rescued earlier, which is a nice touch.

Restarting, I can see from my map I've missed a few portions of the dungeon but I suspect I should have turned West after the dwarf. I do that, get badly stung for a fake diamond and help another poor soul in the dungeon who gives me a hint about a room to the north. This is followed by another north / west junction and based on the hint I go north.
At this point the info I've gathered starts to pay off as I acquire the doppelganger potion and, remembering the spirit girls poem, forge the submerged tunnel before finding my 4th rival - the elf - battling a giant snake. It's too late for her sadly, and she gives me some useless advice, but I do take her stuff. Further on I find evidence that one of my competitors is still ahead of me - and they may have the diamond I'm searching for.
Dodging Troglodytes I encounter a suspicious man: not trusting him puts me back onto the wrong path so I swap him some of the elf's stuff to lower me down, blag Ivy, fight some dogs and ext up is the pit fiend, another vile battle which I'm able to circumvent by using a rope, grapple and the charm from the fallen elf.
The best trap ever is up next - a sign saying no weapons and armour beyond this point. I ignore it and before long I'm locked in combat with the final remaining contestant: the ninja. So 80s! He's another absolutely horrible battle, and he beats me. By this point I'm tired, so I 'win' the fight. The diamond (and his healing salve and rice) are mine!
The path is now linear: I 'win the Bloodbeast and Manticore battles only to find there's a final challenge from the trialmaster: I have to set the gems in the correct order. It's almost totally random, and the first time I try this it actually kills me despite my not doing the last three fights. A second time around I nail it. Even then the trailmaster tries to finish me off and there's a final trap waiting, but I stagger free into the sunlight to be crowned the champion.

Death tally:

Gassed at poison idol and fell to own death
Drowned in trapped room
Killed by mirror trap
Eaten by rock grub in tunnel
Exploded by mushrooms
Speared by Goblins
Fell to death from slimy pipe
Poisoned by giant scorpion
Killed by Bloodbeast
Enslaved by the trialmaster (no diamond)
Shot by Troglodytes (an error, I did have the key after all!)
Killed by ninja
Blown up by gem door puzzle

Final score: DUNGEON 13 BOOTS 1

What to say about this book? First off it's hugely enjoyable: atmospheric, beautifully illustrated and I'm a big fan of the evidence of the previous contestants - bodies, the missing diamond - and other little nods to continuity. On the negative side it is SO HARD. Although there's a couple of Skill boosts, the book does state that you can't go over your initial values so to complete this without maximum skill would mean defeating the Bloodbeast, the Ninja and the Manticore in quick succession - to say nothing of the Throm and troll fights earlier, and potentially the pit fiend too (getting the grapple requires a big stamina loss, and it's possible to lose the rope at the idol) - which is very unlikely. Even then I'm not sure I could have won all three fights on random dice rolls and also completed the door puzzle without prior knowledge. There's also a LOT of auto deaths and, having mapped it, several dead ends and incorrect paths that can leave you missing crucial items.
It's been a lot of fun, but it feels like the book really isn't one to beat without a lot of trial and error. That said I've had loads of fun playing it. Thankfully the next book up I seem to remember being an easy one but this has been the toughest to date and it really does feel like being trapped in an unfair contest rigged to kill you rather than telling a story.
A last note on the art - it's fantastic. I especially like the shots of the other contestants - the moody image of Throm, the desperate image of the elf and the boa - but his environments are incredible and really set the scene. A quick internet skim tells me this is the last book Iain McCaig did interior illustrations for which is a huge shame as the last two books have been a real highlight.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Richard

That's a great summary, I agree with all of that.
I wonder why Ian McCaig didn't do any more?

Barrington Boots

Thanks Richard. I'm not sure about Iain McCaig but it's a real shame. I think the last thing he did for the regular FF series was the cover for Lizard King (which is way better than the interior image of the Lizard King!)

Speaking of Island of the Lizard King, I'll probably have a crack at it this week but I don't want to get ahead of everyone.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

JayzusB.Christ

I had a dream I was in Trial of Champions last night, though it was quite different from the book - kind of like that old Gladiators TV show but with mythical beasts to fight on the way, a baying crowd and lots of Roman-style pomp and splendour.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Barrington Boots

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 07 March, 2022, 03:36:35 PM
I had a dream I was in Trial of Champions last night, though it was quite different from the book - kind of like that old Gladiators TV show but with mythical beasts to fight on the way, a baying crowd and lots of Roman-style pomp and splendour.

Did you win?
And was Jet in it?
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Barrington Boots

Whilst looking for info on Iain McCaig I discovered that Deathtrap Dungeon has 31 'instant death' paragraphs.
By comparison (from a list compiled by someone who isn't me):

Warlock has 6, 3 of which are incorrect combinations of keys to the chest.
Citadel of Chaos has 19
Forest of Doom 3
Starship Traveller 13
City of Thieves 10
Lizard King 10
Scorpion Swamp 20
Caverns of the Snow Witch 24.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Richard

Beneath Nightmare Castle has about 50!

Richard


JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Barrington Boots on 07 March, 2022, 03:38:18 PM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 07 March, 2022, 03:36:35 PM
I had a dream I was in Trial of Champions last night, though it was quite different from the book - kind of like that old Gladiators TV show but with mythical beasts to fight on the way, a baying crowd and lots of Roman-style pomp and splendour.

Did you win?
And was Jet in it?

I woke up before I had a proper run at it, but I was feeling proper heroic while I was getting ready and the crowd were going mental.   

Jet. My grud, she was the only reason my teenage self watched Gladiators.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Barrington Boots

Quote from: Richard on 07 March, 2022, 06:16:46 PM
47, apparently: http://ffreviewermalthusd.blogspot.com/2014/07/25-beneath-nightmare-castle.html

I've never played BNC but I really want to. I've picked up a copy for this very thread, I hope we get to it.

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 08 March, 2022, 04:21:53 PM
Jet. My grud, she was the only reason my teenage self watched Gladiators.
You are not the only one this applies to, JBC!
You're a dark horse, Boots.

sheridan

caching problem, move along, move along

Barrington Boots

Whilst waiting to start Island of the Lizard King I've been playing Nightshift (not Nightshirt) as recommended by SBT upthread. It's quite a different experience to FF and a lot trickier - I like the emphasis on puzzles rather than combat / shopping lists of items, and it's an atmospheric experience. It is bloody hard though. I've been getting lost a lot, so I've ended up downloading the map from the authors website and I'm going to start using that to take notes.

I'm excited to get onto IotLK though as it's another one I could actually complete as a kid - I think it's fairly linear and whilst you need some items to win it, they make the final fight easier rather than kill you outright if you don't have them. I may be misremembering.
One thing I'm not misremembering is the Lizard King himself looking badass on the cover looking what can best be described as 'thicc' in the interior art..
You're a dark horse, Boots.