Sorcery #2 - Khare, Cityport of Traps, part two

Halfway through Khare, coming off the bridge I turned right. Soon came across a square containing a large monument of sorts, around which weirdos were hanging. 

Nah, I wasn't going to get a line of the incantation from them, so decided to skirt around the edges, but to no avail. The 'Red-Eyes' said they didn't like intruders, of which I wasn't, but no dice rolls or choices were given, and I was soon thrown into a cell with an Elvin. Crap.

Must have been a good jail too, cause I had to call on Libra to get me out. She unlocked the door, which was far less dramatic than how the Riddling Reaver would have done it. 

So, wandering out of the jail, cause you know, there's only one guard and in true FF style he's asleep. They must have a kick-ass union or something.

Anyway, I came across a market, which was great cause I was loaded with gold coins. Bought an awesome sword, tinderbox, snake antidote, bow and arrow and some food. It struck me as one of those markets whose merchandise seems strangely apt for the mission I'm about to head on. 

Passing on a graveyard, deciding getting to the gates in one piece was imperative (low on stamina, and I could always double back for more incantation lines, no?), I came across a wishing well scam. I know it was a scam cause after hiffing in three or four gold pieces, with ever-escalating promises of awesomeness, they got lamer, which is when I realised the page numbers were on a loop. Grrr.

Luckily I still had a piece left to gift a beggar, and another to cast WOK and make a magic shield to keep his nemesis harpies away. Turns out he used to be a noble, and had another line! Well, all except a name, which he said I could get from the Shrine of Courga (there was no option to ask if Courga was the name... seemed obvious). 

So onto the shrine, there was this giant statue, and it would only speak if I kissed its face in a cross. So I did, finishing on the lips as the picture said, and for my troubles recieved a poisoned dart in the back of the throat. Gees, I was only kissing it, not slipping it the tongue!

Not sure I need to say this, but yeah, I was dead.

Sorcery #2 - Khare, Cityport of Traps, part one

So after being killed by snakes in part one, I punched in a cheat code, rerolled some new stats and started anew with book two in the series. Figuring they'd be able to stand alone, I soon realised it wouldn't be as easy, as I didn't have a key from the first book to get into the titular city.

DOP is one of the few spells whose purpose I remember though, so snuck on through with magic and was promptly arrested and thrown in the cells for a night. What is it with the paranoia in Titan cities, particularly when so many of the legal inhabitants are undesirables themselves?

Anyway, it's a plot device as my cellmate just happens to know how to get out the other side - yeah, the purpose of this entire adventure is quite literally to get out Khare the other side; the river Jabaji is impossible to cross, we're told - and now I learn the only way to open the north gate is to chant an incantation of four lines, each line being known only by a single person, like some kind of secret Coca Cola recipe. GREAT.

The next day, on leaving I realise the bastard stole some of my food, so chasing him we end up in a chain store. Not like a modern chain store, but an actual chain store. I'm given the option to beat the guy dead, so think why not - I need the money for food. 

Anyway, the cops in Khare are ever-vigilant about people entering the city, not so much the same people murdering honest shopkeepers, and I wander freely further into town, where there's a festival on. I ain't got time for this, so keep wandering on but a 2GP stall catches my eye, much like a $2 store I suppose. I play the medieval equivalent of one of them claw-picks-up-a-soft-toy games, instead a mite runs around and grabs me something random - darts. Err, wooo? 

I soon pass a chapel, and figure surely one of the nobles with a line will be a religious leader of some sort. What I didn't guess was that it'd be a servant of Slangg, god of malice, or words to that effect. I assume Khare is not a democracy. Anyway, he gives me a puzzle, which turns into a Monty Python joke, then hits me with the real puzzler. It's maths, and it makes little sense, but five minutes on the throne and I've got it (that's the real-life throne, for those of you that don't mind too much information). One line down, three to go.

Night is nearing, so I hit up a local inn, and proceed to get plastered with a guy buying me drinks, cause each of them gives me much-needed stamina. I assume we're drinking sugary RTDs, but we must move onto the hard stuff at some point cause I miss the part where he's planning to scone me on the head and drag me off to a slave galley. Yep, I'm on a boat.

ZAP, a hole appears in the side of the boat (luckily above the water line), and I'm off again, crossing the river and finding myself halfway across town. At least, that's if the river goes through the middle of town like my hometown (again in real-life, this time not so grossly).

Come back for part two next week!

Sorcery #1 - The Shamutanti Hills, part two

So on leaving Dhumpus, I headed into the woods - there not being anywhere else really to go. I came across a hut manned by a sleeping troll (imagine if trolls actually existed - firstly, they'd be highly offended by the stereotypical portrayal, and secondly, they'd never get hired as security anyway, always being asleep on the job). 

Sneaking past, as you do, I soon arrived at a large village. A little pixie-like thing called a minimite (which I always thought was a small amount of marmite) turned up, and as it's been a few days since I last read the spell book, I was afraid to try magicing him away (the rules state once the adventure begins, you can't consult the spell book). So he, Jann, hung out, annoying the crap out of me in ways the text didn't really specify, but I assume it was like having Jar Jar Binks tag along for the ride.

Anyway, heading into Birritanti, it was quickly apparent this was a conservative radio host's wet dream of a town. Kids were running rampant, drinking in the streets, spanking old ladies and fighting one another. When in Birritanti, do as the locals do I figured, and found a bar. Pity the beer was a ripoff - obviously politicians' plans to increase the cost of alcohol to stop underage boozing don't work. I instead went to the inn where it was just as pricey, so slept rough in the outer suburbs - just how I imagine the kids would do it - without a hitch.

I didn't eat the day before, so in the morning I decided to take the downhill option. I'm soon accosted by someone that looks, going by the illustration, like an Arabian black knight. Spells won't work while Jann is around, so a few lucky rolls and luck rolls later, the knight was dead.

The next set piece we chance upon is an old woman with an obvious distaste for minimites. She sets out some tea, then leaves. Suspicious, I pull the old Princess Bride trick and swap the drinks around, only to find she's a step ahead, and I'm poisoned. But... ruffling through my shit, she finds the missing page from one of her spellbooks, and gives me the antidote in thanks. 

Oh, and she gets rid of Jann. Sweet. No amount of Force power from Qui-Gonn could ever do that.

Anyway, I head on to the next town, find an inn to crash at, but am dragged off in the middle of the night and thrown in some hut. In the morning the cheif apologises, leading me to think I'm sweet and on my way, but instead sends me on some mission to find his kidnapped daughter. Great.

They should have found someone else, as within minutes of being lowered into some kind of dungeon, I was poisoned by snakes and killed. 

Pretty sad way to go, given the importance of the mission and whatnot. Told them they should've funded the trip better, or found someone else. 

Sorcery #1 - The Shamutanti Hills, part one

Hello again! I know it's been a while, but I had excuses twofold, remember - firstly, I was out of books in the original series (yeah there's a few I haven't done, but I at least exhausted the ones I actually own), and was due to have a baby.

On that note, little Parker was born five days after my last post, so I picked the right week to take a hiatus, huh? He's doing well, almost 12 weeks old now, and yeah. I began his education into all things FF-esque this morning, with his first viewing of Bowie's Dance Magic Dance, from the Labyrinth of course, so yeah.

Anyway, onto part one of part one of the Sorcery! series, The Shamutanti Hills. These books are longer than the usual, so I'll do an hour or so an entry, and we'll see how we go.

Right! To it.

The basic plot here is the local kings take four-year turns holding onto the appropriately named Crown of Kings (not to be confused with the Crown of Love) which magically makes their societies awesome and free of crime, poverty, disorder, gays etc. Jokes on that last one, but you get the drift. Some bad dudes steal the crown, and though the local region falls into disrepair, and isn't a threat to the other kingdoms, there's a worry the crown's power might also work for evil, so it must be recovered.

In true FF style, the powers that be select a destitute, mediocre wizard with a skill of 6 and a backpack severely lacking in sandwiches to undergo the mission. The 'Sightmaster Sergeant', which sounds important but is basically a flash way of saying 'Doorman' even goes out of his to tell me he's not going to wish me a safe journey, cause it won't be. Well, Mr Sightmaster, it won't be NOW, will it? Gees.

I soon come across a village, and the text tells me as the path goes into the village, I must also go into the village. Since when was this an Ian Livingstone book? Anyway, I wander in and ask for further directions, fully expecting to be told 'the path'. The guy tells me to head for Kristatanti, and to not go via the lower path, cause there are elves. The higher path merely has mines.

Being a wizard, and more comfortable amongst elves than dwarves, I decide to go via the low path anyway. Besides, his other piece of advice was to beware the Black Lotus - like I was going to pick a flower called the Black Lotus. I've done enough FF to know that.

Wandering on, guy in tree gives me a page from a spell book - incomplete, but I bet you've also read enough FF to know the page number was intact. 

The next night I settle on the world's softest rocks, going to sleep quickly. I'm woken by glowing little elf things throwing stones at fish - oh, these kind of elves! I thought he meant Legolas-style elves, not Happy Little Elves-elves. I ignore them, and head off again in the morning.

Just when I started thinking the book was getting a little easy, I fall into a trap set by headhunters - the tribal kind, I assume, not the gang (amusing side note: the very laptop I'm writing on was once stolen, and when recovered by police containted photos of the daughter of the NZ celebrity in that piece hanging out with the crims - no shit).

Anyway, there's a get-out-of-jail-free card in the Sorcery! series, and that's praying to Libra. Thank fuck it's not that Reaving Riddler guy, he's kind of... I don't know, something about me wouldn't entrust a mission of this supposed importance to that guy. I prayed, and was saved at the last minute, ie as I was being lowered into the cauldron, about to become the bacon in some kind of bacon bone soup.

And before you ask, yes, I did try a spell - DUM - but learned at that moment (according to the text) I can't cast spells when my hands are bound. You think they'd have mentioned that at Hogwarts, no?

So, Libra lets me escape, and I'm soon wandering through the forest again, this time being pelted by acorns thrown by elvins. I whip out FOF, a forcefield spell that comes at a cost of 4 stamina, only to wonder if a few acorns would have been any worse. Doesn't matter really, cause there's ample opportunity for eats and sleeps, both of which I partake in at the next village, Kristatanti. At the bar I end up sitting with the village idiot, but I'm not sure who's stupider, him or I, considering the text tells me I sit with him for an hour before realising this.

Onward some more, I arrive at the awesomely named Dhumpus, and decide to crash for the night.

And here I Dhumpus the book till next week!

Wiz #21 - Eye of the Dragon

Ten years after the initial series ended, the first all-new FF gamebook of the Wizard series (so named for the series' new publisher) came in the form of...an uninspired, cliche-ridden Ian Livingstone dungeon crawl. So much for the second coming of FF.

It doesn't start out bad - the instructions are perhaps the most basic used in 60-odd gamebooks, which led me to believe the story would be Eye of the Dragon's calling card. But in ditching the later Puffin entries' use of extra statistics and complex anti-cheat mechanisms, Livingstone made perhaps the most meat-and-potatoes, typical and pedestrian gamebook of the entire brand.

You're an adventurer down on his luck in Fang for the annual Deathtrap Dungeon competition, which I gather is something like Christmas for them, when some guy called Henry Delacor tells you of a solid gold dragon worth "about" 335,00 gold pieces sitting in a dungeon beneath Darkwood Forest. Delacor wants his share though, so he makes you drink a slow-acting poison to ensure you return in 14 days - and you drink it with barely a thought. He gives you one of the statue's emerald eyes, and tells you to find the other before touching the golden dragon. Err, okay.

I arrive at the entrance to the dungeon and proceed to make a series of random 50/50 decisions that veer from blindingly obvious to completely random with few, if any exceptions. Should I search the hut before entering the dungeon? Of course, you dolt. Should I bust the mirror causing me extreme pain? Of course, you idiot. Should I wear the necklace with the snake skull I found in the room with the Medusa? Err, probably not. Should I scoop out coins sitting in an abandoned fountain that doesn't grant wishes? Hell no. 

Other times, it's more like - there's a person. Do you attack them, or run away? Do you talk to them, or run away? It's a door - do you open it? It's a chest - do you open it? There's no context, apart from the fact you're in a fucking dungeon full of meanies. 

Perhaps the most ridiculous scene was when I found a playing card with a smiling Queen of Spades on it - do I pick it up? Well, firstly, do I know anything about magic playing cards? Is there some kind of experience I can draw on here? Did I once hear something in a pub, or from an old Wizard mate? It's a total crapshoot. Lucky, I live, unlucky, I die. Or suffer horribly. 

For the record, I didn't even test my luck a single time, as far as I got. Weird.

Anyway, on killing a goblin and taking his chainmail, I realised that keeping the writing and rules mind-numbingly simple probably isn't the blessing I initially thought it was. The chainmail added one to my skill, but I was still at my initial. This means it would be advantageous to wait until I was hurt enough to lose a skill point before wearing the chainmail. What's wrong with adding to my attack strength, particularly when I have to fight a snake witch with a freakish ability to roll fives and sixes?

Yeah, I was killed by the snake witch, despite having a higher skill and stamina. Being an Ian Livingstone book though, I can only assume it would have happened sooner or later. I'm glad it wasn't the two-headed troll Delacor warned me of though - that thing was easy, and Delacor is a wouss. 

You'd have just as much luck winning this book flipping a coin at every choice you have to make.

Kind of sucks this is where I've run out of books! Well, there's still the Sorcery! series, but the baby is due these next seven days or so... I'll be taking a break, I think. If you want to know when the next entry is made, sign up to the RSS if you haven't already, or join the Fighting Dantasy Networked Blogs feed on Facebook. 

If I acquire any that are left, I'll do those in time too.

So until then, or Sorcery! #1, I'm out of here!

#54 - Legend Of Zagor

If the title didn't already give it away, in FF54 our old friend Zagor is back for another outing, only four books on from his last. I blame the better-than-expected sales for Return to Firetop Mountain, more than anything - because to be honest, there is nothing in the path I took through the book that suggests this is specifically Zagor - it could have been anyone, any evil demon, really.

If I'm sounding a little weary, it's because the premise is wearing a bit thin, and no matter how many extra features an rules the book throws at you, there's no hiding the fact this is a dungeon crawl-item hunt, just one that's so completely open and non-linear it can quickly feel like a pointless bore.

So Zagor's now a demon, bla bla bla, convoluted back story, you have to kill him. In a break from previous adventures you get to choose one of four characters to play as,and  each have different skills and abilities - much like the popular-at-the-time Heroquest (now there's a new blog for when this one ends - playing the HeroQuest expansion packs!). Except here instead of an elf you have a warrior, who's part-Barbarian part-Wizard, the all-rounder whom it's almost impossible not to select.

I noticed the writers had very quickly fixed the new multiple-attacks system to be more realistic, if somewhat less fair to the player. It almost killed me straight up before even getting to the Castle Argent. Yep, this is one of them books where you have to travel to the main arena - and by boat, even. Difference here is you can spend luck to avoid any troubles on the way - now because each character has different modifiers to their stats, I began with a luck of 4. Hmmm. So of course I spent a point, as I'd be failing every future luck roll anyway. 

Arriving at the castle, I decided to check out the ruins, and was almost killed by a bunch of orcs. I found a visions well which told me 'Beware the traitor-wizard Remstar', without telling me who he had betrayed - us, or Zagor? 

I wandered up to the castle and shoved the doors open, only to stumble on a tripwire - the first of what I expected to be many failings of luck. I was attacked then by four orcs with identical skill and stamina sets - already Legend of Zagor was beginning to feel like a lazily-designed round of HeroQuest. I thought perhaps I should have put away my lucky green dice and pulled out the skulls and shields set. 

Opening the first door in the castle and eating my sixth meal of the day, I found an old barracks. Not much going on here, so I opened the one opposite - a drill room. Okay. Let's go further in.

I went through some massive doors, and west. More doors and random passages. Okay. Opened a door to a destroyed library, ate my eighth meal of the day - unlike the author, who must've been a few sandwiches short when he wrote: "Test Your Spot Skill. If you are unsuccessful, turn to 212. If you fail, you find nothing..." Wow, even the book doesn't fancy my chances.

Turning to the page I assumed was the successful path, which was through a secret passageway into a dark tunnel, I soon came across a door. On opening it, three theives cower in fear - I tell them no worries, I've got no gold to steal anyway, just a few coins - and hire one of them as my bitch.

So me and the thief (whose skills add a whole two points to my attack strength) wander randomly about, eventually coming across a merchant who'll offer me a free random key if I spend twice as much gold as I actually have. I KNOW the key is important, this is an Ian Livingstone book after all, but goddamnit. I grab some more food, realising I have the metabolism of a domestic cat, and continue my mission of opening random, ill-described doors. 

Eventually I come to a room defended by zombies, which knock me down to a single stamina point - before the marauding orcs turn up, the book says I can "quaff" down some provisions, should I feel the need. So that's the official FF term for wolfing down a day's worth of food (well, perhaps not a whole day in FF54's case) inbetween scraps. It makes me wonder why Rocky didn't just knock back chickens and potatoes inbetween rounds, or when that dick broke Daniel-san's leg, he didn't just mainline some beef (maybe that was a hit to his skill...).

It was all to no avail though, the orcs that came through knew how to fight under the new multiple combat system real well. 

Others rate this book really highly, some calling it the best in the series. I won't go that far, it's hard to say off one reading, but it doesn't look likely. The atmosphere wasn't there for me. I like being able to wander around a bit, but a really well put-together gamebook knows when to push the plot forward; it also knows when things are looking a bit cookie-cutter. 

I've only got one more book left to do before I run out of conventional FF gamebooks - one that didn't appear in the original series, Eye of the Dragon. After that, assuming I haven't acquired any more, I'll be onto the Sorcery! series - though two weeks from now I'm due to become a dad, so it may have to wait. We'll see.

#52 - Night Dragon

Night Dragon was one of my favourites as a kid and reading it 15 years later, it's no surprise. One of the most complex, intriguing, enjoyable yet oddly fair gamebooks of the FF series, Night Dragon manages to not only combine open-ended gameplay with a developing, coherent plot, but has a scaling difficulty that never seems unfair or over the top - even if the titular Night Dragon has a skill of 17 and a stamina of 32. Not that I made it that far.

Reading on the back cover that the Night Dragon is a 'creature of pure evil from before time existed', I figured when it came to rolling my stats I'd need more dice. Instead I settled for the lucky, non-matching green dice I used on Island of the Undead and hoped for the best, rolling 10/17/10. Not bad - then the book let me add two points to anything - err, skill, thankyou very much. Combined with the 12 provisions, I figured finally the FF authors were acknowledging that some FF books were more equal than others in the difficulty department.

Something else the book kept from FF51 is the combat system when you're up against more than one opponent - that everyone rolls, and the highest lands a blow. This is certainly quicker and simpler than the old system of rolling against everyone, but only being able to attack one, the rest are parries; but it's also pretty unrealistic. I mean, if I have a skill of 12, and I'm up against 50 goblins of skill 5, under the new system it'd be a walk in the park, but under the old, it'd be a slog, but I'd eventually succumb. And if more than one has a higher attack strength than I do, shouldn't I be hit more than once? Despite this, I think it was an improvement, if only for the time and brainpower saved.

Anyway, a dark elf tells me about this evil dragon, and coming from a dark elf, I figure it must be pretty serious. Being in Blacksand, I decide to hang out a bit, 'cause despite what the text says I actually like Blacksand. I buy some crap from a local store, you know, the usual - a rope, luck potion, etc. On leaving, I can take the road or a boat - My skill's good, I don't trust boats, so the road it is.

I'm soon in Marzail, and not needing to gain any stamina, given the option I save money and crash outside without incident. I suppose in this way, Marzail has it over Blacksand. Heading on, I soon come across what appears to be a small group of druids or monks walking along the road. I join them, eventually crashing further north.

Unfortunately, these monks are less Desmond Hume and more the Others, but I wake up just in time to stop them murdering me in my sleep (okay, I promise, no more Lost references. Maybe). Being the Rainman I am, I notice their tattoos are of spiderwebs, each with exactly 20 strands.

The next day, I rescue a dude who's been left for dead by theives, adding one to my honour score. Being a latter-day FF book, there's loads of extra scores and things to keep track of - like honour (self-explanatory but seemingly irrelevant, at least as far as I got), nemesis (how well-known you are to the Night Dragon's minions), and time (how long has elapsed since you set off - two points a day, approximately). 

The guy we rescued lived in Sharndale, a town whose economy is based on fur trapping. Once again I have to question the writers off FF's grasp of economics, as I was able to sell some fur there for a pretty decent price. Maybe I was sharked.

Anyway, I went shopping, picked up a few more obviously useful items,  like an ice pick and a mirror, and some less obviously useful items, like walrus oil, and then split for Rentarn, where the dark elf told me a room would be waiting for me at the Rudderless Galley, a tavern.

Turns out someone else knew I'd be there, as it was full of assassins. It wasn't hard to convince the owner of the tavern they were the bad guys, and he apologised as he summoned the local constabulary. Bah, the cell was probably a better sleep anyhow - this is an Allansian pub after all. Less chance of a fight breaking out.

One of the assassins was carrying a plaque with the word 'Endimion' on it, which was my only clue. Four days of investigation, and I finally discovered it was a boat - a boat on which was my next contact, cruelly murdered as we met. Before he died he told me to head northwest and find the Frost Giants, to take them firewater, and 'Ismater'. Err, okay.

I went northwest, slept in a cave, then the next morning found a sign on the trail: 'TO IS   ER'. Ah, Ismater. The next day, the twelfth since I left Blacksand, I arrived in Ismater and hit up the local pub. One of them bastard monks was there, but he didn't know who I was, and I couldn't track him once he bailed. I decided to go shopping, but apart from the same old items on offer, the book told me there was nothing else of interest - like harpoons. Err, I'm going to fight a big-ass dragon, it's kind of like a whale, I could totally use a harpoon. If I need an excuse, will 'scientific research' do?

I pick up some firewater as instructed, then come across a shop named 'EVIL'. Awesome! I could do with some evil - fight fire with fire, and all that. Turns out the shop is named after the guy who works there, Nevill, and the paint is just flaky. I spent the last of my money on firewater, and when I mention the dickhead monks, Nevill kicks me out. Dang it.

Next up I'm forced by the text, in perhaps the only annoying piece of linerity, to go to the Dragon Conclave. It's like the UN, or the Justice League, but for dragons. They tell me there are all these magical items just laying about the place that will help me defeat the Night Dragon, but they can't help me because of some code that prevents dragons taking up arms against other dragons. There's no option to say 'take a vote and overturn that stupid rule', because I assume the Night Dragon is on the council and has veto power.

So I head southeast back to the Frost giants, bribing my way in a vial of firewater. Bad move it turns out, cause head Frost giant wants two vials, and a bunch of other stuff, in exchange for the magic shield. I challenge him to a rumble, and what follows is perhaps the weakest example of virisimilitude in the book: The chief is seven metres tall. He brings out his champion son to fight for him. The son makes the chief look like a 'pygmy'. But his skill is a whopping... 10.

And wouldn't one hit from this 10-20m tall thing kill me? Would he even notice the papercuts I was inflicting on his foot?

Anyway, I take the shield regardless, and head off in search of the sword. On day 24 I find myself in a tomb, and eventually up against an undead chieftan who'd carrying an awesome-looking shiny sword. Turns out it's the wrong one. Well, it might actually be the right one, but apparently it's too big and feels unweildy, and I dump it. Er, okay. The outside-of-book me raises his eyebrows and plays along.

But not for much longer. I'm out of food and struggling, and despite a wicked run of rolls (thankyou mismatched green dice) I'm dispatcehd by a Wizard Wraith living at the top of a frozen waterfall.

It's lengthy, it's involved and it requires maths. But still, Night Dragon just can't be denied a top-five placing at the FF table, I feel. You can detect spots where it's struggling to fit the plot into 400 paragraphs, and not an entry is wasted. From one reading I can't really comment on the mechanics of the extra statistics as others have, but they seemed to work well (though I've no idea how honour works, really).

It's hard to believe there are no plans to republish this one - perhaps a subtle, if unintended suggestion they're aiming the new series at a younger age?

#51 - Island of the Undead

Sometimes, FF gamebooks just don't gel, and FF51 is one of them. I may have an engrossing mystery to investigate, but the seemingly random swings between open-ended wandering and forced, linear gameplay made it feel disjointed, confusing and incoherent. It wasn't Keith Martin's aim to make me feel like a character from Lost, but it sure felt like it.

The premise of the book is thus: you come from a fishing village in the Strait of Knives, which explains why you start the adventure with a knife, and not a sword, and have to suffer the Attack Strength penalty. Almost everyone in your village survives through fishing, which raises questions of supply and demand in Allansia's primitive, laissez faire economy. There are a bunch of wizards living off the coast on an island, and they control the weather for your village, while you supply them with fish and materials for their spells. 

It's not explained why the wizards can't just magic their own fish, but hey.

So, the story begins with storms and bad weather, which instead of blaming on global warming, my village deduces must be a failing on the wizards' part, so a bunch of us manlier men set sail to figure out what's going on, 'cause the usual trade boats are out, I assume? Unfortunately a storm ruins our boat, and I wash up on the shore alone, being attacked by zombies of the crew (now that never happened on Lost). 

It's only an hour's walk to the large hillock, which I assume is a redneck hill, in the middle of the island. Why it then takes two days to visit a nearby monastery then wander into a swampy region in the southwest beats me, but once again I'm going to make geek and suggest it's a space-time fluctuation, much like how I suspect another island might work.

Anyway, I wander to a stone building in the northeast, which turns out to be a monastery. Hoping they'd be warrior monks so I could find a sword and/or shield, I was disappointed to come across a zombie trained in unarmed combat, 'cause that means these monks shunned the use of useful weapons like swords and shields. Those things that could increase my Attack Strength and let me make more than a single stamina point of damage per attack. No big deal.

In the monastery I found a bunch of 'small' bottles of Herbal Liquer, and you think considering they increased my stamina as provisions would, I'd find more space in my backpack than for two. I mean, I started with 12 provisions, and would later pick up four jars of fruit, not to mention crystals, globes, other bottles, a lantern, a scroll, keys and more, and considering I had no sword and was likely to get injured, a lot, you'd think I'd make space for small bottles of Herbal Liquer. But no.

I also found a map down there, which was absolutely no help 'cause following it to the 'Mermen - Good' spot instead screwed me. Searching another room was apparently so tiring, I had to sleep. I said search, not tidy! 

I wandered upstairs, and was met with a giant pentagram on the floor. Given the option to jump it, I did, 'cause why wouldn't I given the chance? This isn't an Ian Livingsone book! I found a meditation chamber and fought the zombie Father Honorton, which was when I started to get the false impression that perhaps I could finish Island of the Undead. Why? Because I survived the fight, that's why. Remember I'm carrying a stupid knife (why oh why wasn't I born in the Strait of Flaming Morning Stars Coated In Napalm?), doing a single point of stamina damage each time while suffering the full two when hit! I did use three luck points to whittle down his.

The risk seemed to pay off though, I got a load of stuff for my effort. You know your'e not reading a Livingstone when instead of getting a single yet essential item you're landed with a shopping list's worth of crap, which you stuff into your sack forgetting the fact you passed on unlimited Herbal Liquer cause it was too heavy. 

Heading southwest, I was determined to find these 'Mermen - Good'. Passing on a rope bridge, I continued southwest, and continued a freakishly good run of dice rolls defeating a swamp alligator with two stamina left. One thing Martin did right was starting me with 12 provisions instead of 10. He could've put a sword on the beach too, I mean even the Losties have guns! And a detachable hatch could have been handy as a shield too.

After eating three jars of fruit, which I have to assume are smaller than the vials of Herbal Liquer yet still restored four stamina each, I trudged through the swamp, crashing on the other side. Eventually I reached the Plain of Swords, which would have been a handy place to have started. There are all these dead bodies and weapons, and despite the fact their blunt swords would have made much better weapons than my shit knife, I'm not given the option to have a dig. Yeah, I'm allowed to spend time cleaning up monasteries and fucking around with pentagrams, but not looking for swords in a place called The Plain of Swords.

Instead I'm attacked by a hydra snake, and saved only by my freakish dice again. I have a massive pile of dies/dice, but I think from now on I'll be using my mis-matched (in shade and size) green ones. 

I head west, and find a building. Is this the home of the 'Mermen - Good'? It's guarded by skeletons, so I doubt it. Skeletons aren't exactly known for their marine skills. I make a dash for the door, but they cut me off. 

How? Cause my 'presence' level is too high. If I forgot to mention this earlier, it's because not only does the score seem to barely play a part in the adventure, but there's no box for it in the adventure sheet. There's a box for 'honour', but 'presence' is more a cross between that and notoriety. It's a pretty major fuckup, and only made worse by the fact the 'time elapsed' box is not only completely ignored by the text, but is not even supposed to be on there. Yeah days pass, seemingly randomly, but I'm never prompted to care. 

Turns out the building is the shrine, not the 'Mermen - Good' home, so I head east. Why? Because the book made me. I'm on my way to the 'final destination'. What?! Nooo! And in no time, no sleeping, I'm there. Okay...

I try to sneak in the back door, 'cause there are lizard men and a monster guarding the front. Using oil from my lantern to squeak it open, I shoot up a staircase and find a nest of straw. A giant 'roc', a kind of bird attacks, surely this is my death. Despite the fact we have an equal attack strength (apparently not having a sword nor shield is no concern when heading to a 'final destination'), I kill it whilst only losing a single stamina point. These dice! In its nest is an egg, apparently three provisions' worth, and considering it's a raw egg and I'm almost dead,  I've no qualms in downing the whole thing in one. 

Heading down more stairs, and more, eventually I'm face to face with a killer amoeba, cause someone from a fishing civilisation totally knows a mutant amoeba when they see one. I thought this would be the end, but my freakish dice again got me through. Where were these dice when I was attempting City Of Thieves? 

I used a sapphire I had to open another door (I'm not sure how that works, but hey), and found myself in the Master Of Water's alchemical lab. If you were a master of water, I'm not sure why you'd need alchemy unless you were evil, but hey. I suppose the water economy hasn't quite kicked off in Allansia yet. If it had, I wouldn't have been killed by a loose eel.

Well... it's a long book, I've read elsewhere it can take over 200, perhaps up to 250 paragraphs to complete. Doesn't that make it pretty much a maze? Is there really that much leeway in the path you can take? It seems that way to begin with, but exercising that ability resulted in me being shunted towards the endgame when I was far from ready. 

Sometimes the writing seemed blunt and short, whilst other times it seemed to give far too much detail. At one point, I was dodging snakes and gaining luck points without any decisions or rolls at all!

So umm, not the best book. Maybe a different route would be more rewarding. 

And yes, there is at least one non-Lost-related link in that bunch. I'm off to find the new episodes now, I think they'd have been broadcast on the other side of the world and uploaded to mine by now.

#50 - Return to Firetop Mountain

I didn't post last weekend because at the time, I was at the peak of a nasty dose of chickenpox. Off work for two weeks, blisters, headaches, sore throat, the lot. But I've made up for it here - at the end of this entry, there's a very special treat I hope will give you a good laugh, at the very least. 

So whilst I might have had a week off Fighting Dantasy, the small village of Anvil had ten years off after the death of Zagor way back in FF1. The background of Return to Firetop Mountain is obviously a retcon, considering it's virtually impossible to complete The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, at least in my opinion!

Zagor, before death, apparently cast a 'Raise Dead' spell on himself, which is activated once his nemesis is long gone, but with a catch - a requirement for the spell to work is that the caster provides a method through which it can be reversed - in Zagor's case, through the placement throughout his dungeon of numbered, golden dragon teeth which activate elementals deadly to his person. 

Say what?

Anyway, that all comes later. The extremely simple background (there's an evil magic guy no one likes? Sure, I'll kill him) and instructions (which almost read as if they're taken straight from FF1, in a probably deliberate throwback) present FF50 as if it's going to be a classic dungeon crawl ten years on (I see what they did there...).

The villagers suggest visiting Yaztromo, he of many potions and reasons to be grumpy. If fame-hungry mercenaries turned up on my doorstep every time they needed a hand, I'd be pretty grumpy too.  Anyway, I head off, but one of the villagers soon catches up telling me I'm being tracked by some of Zagor's goons. We chase them into the bushes, kill them and steal their shit. They're carrying gold pieces marked with the letter Z, which I can only assume means Zagor has issued his own currency, or these guys were zillionaires. Either way, we're both now richer than Zimbabwe.

The villager, Moose, finds a stinky piece of paper (how does paper stink?) in the shoe of one of the trackers, but won't read it. I do, and it all it is a couple of scary eyes who curse me down two skill points. 

Onwards towards Stonebridge, a man with a donkey lugging mushrooms accosts me: "I"m Dungheap Dan / the mushroom man / I'd rather be a poet / than a man who has to hoe it." There's no way I can't talk to this guy. Unfortunately he only talks in bad rhymes (there's a good reason he's hoeing it, I decide) so I take a mushroom and head on.

The next weirdo I come across is staked to the ground covered in honey. If there was a guy on the road to Yaztromo's I shouldn't talk to, it's this guy, but turns out he's not kinky and eccentric, just ran into the wrong crowd. I free him, and he gives me an invisibility ring - ah, I see. This is a classic Ian Livingstone item hunt, isn't it? My suspicions are confirmed when looking for a place to sleep, I find a hut containing an iron key imprinted with the number 142 (where was that key in FF1?! Kidding, I've no idea whether it would have been useful) and a wooden brick and ball. 

Sleeping in the cellar (I assume there was wine), I'm woken by footsteps above in the morning, followed by a horn sounding. Going upstairs, there's no one there. Hmmm. 

I arrive in Stonebridge, only to find out Yaztromo's on a doctor's trip downstream, so a bunch of dwarves and I set sail on the HMS Trogdor (the artwork is one of the book's better points) westward, which is a pain cause I just came from the west. We soon come across a half-dead orc lying on an upturned rowboat. Thinking I'm the good guy I suggest we rescue him, but it turns out (how did I not see this coming) it's a trap, and nearly half the crew are killed before we make like Russell Coutts and leave them for the water equivalent of dust.

It doesn't matter though, we're soon in Kaad, and evil doppelganger Yaztromo tries to shake my hand. If a dove hadn't landed on my boat and told me to look out for an evil green-eyed parallel universe Yaztromo, I still would've avoided death merely because the book gives you the option to either shake his hand or not. A grumpy wizard isn't going to be offended if you don't shake his hand, right? So why bother?

The ensuing fight is pretty touch and go - it's first hit kills, but only when you roll a double after winning an attack round. Twenty ARs later, I pierce its heart and it dies. I'm not sure why a magic doppelganger needs a heart, but I assume that's part of Zagor's convoluted plot device of giving do-gooders a chance, cause he's just too powerful otherwise.

Wandering into town I meet the real Yaztromo who gives me the whole 'Zagor has to play fair' story, and gives me a few suggestions of people to visit in Kaad before I go to Firetop Mountain. The item hunt pays off here, I give the wooden brick to a kid in exchange for his dad opening the store on his day off, where I'm allowed five items - tell me what you think of my choices: I bought leather gloves, because they're a little different and quite a specific kind of thing to have in a dungeon; hammer and spikes, cause there's bound to be climbing and/or killing things that can only be killed with hammers and spikes; a mirror, cause there'll be a thing that kills you with its gaze, or that casts magic spells that bounce off mirrors; a healing balm cause it sounds remotely practical; and a quill, ink and paper set because I need to take notes for this blog on something.

The next guy has not only the coolest name in all of FF, Zoot Zimmer, but a giant eagle that can take me to Firetop Mountain like it's a regular taxi run!

Fighting off an evil harpy on the way there (my eagle sucked, lucky I had some daggers to assist it), I was dropped off right at the entrance to the mountain without needing directions, which puts the eagle one up on Auckland taxi drivers at least. There's no pic unfortunately, but I imagine it's exactly as it is in paragraph one of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

Wandering in, I turn left, and left again. Found a room covered in dirt, in which I found a few trinkets (Livingstone, you're so transparent). There was a chain which I pulled, pulling a stone out of the wall. The text told me my head couldn't fit, but I had the option of sticking my arm in. This can only mean my character was so dumb the first thing he tried sticking into the mystery hole was his head.

Wearing the gloves, I extracted from the acid on the other side a small cannister containing a dragon tooth (zing!) with a picture of a heart inside a flaming circle - not one of the elemental-summoning teeth it would seem, just the tooth of an dragon gone all emo. Bugger.

The next room is an armoury posessed Ghostbusters-style - the weapons are floating in the air like that flaming sword from the Bible, surrounding me. There are too many to fight, and they're blocking the door, so I lay my sword down - and they all copy! I back out, weaponless and head on.

The next room contains a dead guy on a torture bench, wearing a ring. I wander over, and a goblin above tries unsuccessfully to drop a net on me, before running away. I grab the ring from the corpse, it's numbered of course, climb a rope and chase the goblin. I end up in a shaft, and find a new sword - it apparently belonged to the guy with the second-coolest name in all of Fighting Fantasy, 'Darkblade Skullbiter'. Still sounds like a George Lucas reject, though.

Anyway, I fell down a hole in the shaft, twisting my ankle, and landing in darkness. Turning on my lantern, I spied some chalk writing on the wall, and decided to read it. Bad idea - it was another curse. Don't read, I think is the moral of FF50. I was now to lose a stamina point for every paragraph I turned to until I ate some orc fleas. Err, what? Now I'm assuming there IS a path to some orc fleas in the book, which I can only assume is a coincedence, or another part of Zagor's plea bargain to stay alive. 

The next room doesn't have any orc fleas that I can see, but a pile of skulls. Clumsily landing in them instead of on the other side, they magically start flying about and form a moving wall, chomping all the while. If there was ever an awesome FF pic that went begging, it's this. 

Losing five stamina, I rushed out and into a room with a bunch of statues. The doors all locked, and some kind of Medusa woman called a gorgon came out. You'd think this is where I'd whip out that mirror, but no, I was frozen to the spot, joining the other statues.

The mirror, Livingstone! Surely that was an option before the luck roll. I know it's meant to be hard, but come on!

That's the impression I got from the one playthrough of Return to Firetop Mountain - it's really, really hard, and a little unfair. And I know he's a master warlock and all, but does every plot point, every encounter hinge on something magical? The charm of FF1 was in the variety, the personalities and oddities you came across - here, it seems like everything is out to kill you. Also, two thirds of my game was spent just getting to Firetop Mountain - there are loads of adventures which involve travelling across countryside and sailing, couldn't this one have been just an awesome rehash of the original? 

To be honest, the villain could have been anyone - I get the feeling it was Zagor because this was the 50th book, and at the time, planned to be the last.

I remember Legend Of Zagor being better, to be honest, so perhaps that one will be better.

Now for that special treat! I've been doing a bit of a house cleanout the past few days while off work, and came across a story I wrote and illustrated for a school project in 1993 - I would have been 12 or 13 years old at the time. It's called Zagor: The Warlock Is Back, and yeah. There it is, as a jpeg, about 1mb. It's perhaps the world's worst piece of fanfic before the internet made it popular that exists. Random trivia: the lead character's name is an anagram of my sister's, who was born the same year, but I wrote the story before she was named. Spooky!

#49 - Siege of Sardath

The latter-day FF gamebooks were generally more complex in their structure and gameplay, and Siege of Sardath is no exception. There are numbered items, time, puzzles and clues galore - one even, as you'll read below, hidden in a picture with no reference from the text.

So you're a town councillor/professional adventurer (there can't be too many of those nowadays) who resides in Grimmund, next to the ominously named Forest of Night. Something not quite right is happening in the forest, and it's your job to find out what it is and put a stop to it.

In perhaps one of the best introduction-first paragraph segues in all of FF, you're discussing the issue with the other councillors, when suddenly one of them is revealed to be an imposter, some kind of shape-changing dark Bat-elf thing. Having rolled some excellent stats, I quickly dispatch him and ransack his corpse of a few random, who-knows-why-I'd-need-them-if-this-wasn't-FF vials. Before he revealed his true self he was suggesting we lead a small army into the forest, so we instead decide to do the opposite and just send one, me, in alone, Lost-style (I've been doing revision in preperation for the imminent season five, as in watching all of seasons one to four, so excuse me if I make further references - it's on the brain).

Stormsday. I decide before leaving to check in with the local astrologer, who tries out a new trick, summoning up some guy called Suma whose presence tells me to find this tomb, an amulet, and not the attention of the Flyers. Alrighty then!

Leaving town, a trader offers me a buunch of potions and things, of which I pick up pegasus feathers, 'cause they're numbered much like the vials I found on Bat-elf, and a love potion. I can't afford the good shit, so stick with love potion #2, which is apparently: 1 oz Stoli Ohranj vodka, 1/2 oz Chambord, Raspberry liqueur and 1/2 oz cranberry juice.

I sail up the river, getting off at the rope bridge and heading west. I soon arrive at Ash Cleeve, an elven village. I'm greeted by my old friend Sorrel - or am I? The text describes him as having a scar across his right eye, but the illustration clearly shows it on his left, so unless the illustrator drew him as if he was looking into a mirror, something wasn't quite right. When he accused me of being an imposter, I took action, placing my fate in the hands of the FF sub-editing department.

I fired off an arrow and his disguise wore off - 'Sorrel' was an imposter, and quickly slain by the other elves. They let me crash the night, and I head off northwest the next morning - Moonsday.

It's soon Fireday, and the text tells me I detect a 'blackness' hanging over Lake Sardmere - funny, 'cause there's no Lake Sardmere on my map. Speaking of which, whoever drew my map has a serious thing for spiders. I used to draw sea serpents on world maps as a kid though, so I suppose it's not that weird.

Turns out Lake Sardmere is beneath the titular Sardath, so it's just that my map is out of date. I get there, and the city itself doesn't look worth besieging, but there's a sailor struggling with her boat who I help out. She rewards me with a brass key, tells me to find this giant in the mountains to the north. Goddamnit, I thought Sardath was the focal point of this book! Misleading, to say the least.

I reach the mountains and find evidence the others have an army. Why I'm on this mission alone, I'm not sure anymore... particularly when I'm heading up the mountain, go into a cave and die because I don't have a certain companion who can speak Elvish. Damn intolerant demons...

This part of the book did get a little confusing though. At one point the book asked if I was following a 'runnel'. I thought no, I've not heard of this 'runnel', and was told I was dead. Huh? I turned to the other page, and discovered a runnel is a stream, which I was told to follow earlier in the book by the sailor, but was given no option to once I arrived at the mountain. I thought fuck it, I was following the stream, and was killed in another way anyway. Ah well.

So Siege of Sardath - not bad, I felt like I'd gotten quite far into the book without much trouble, and seemed to be making good time and collecting a fair few items; but the difficulty suddenly levelled up and left me for dead. It definitely has an atmosphere, and is well written and apart from the part above which left me scratching my head a bit, seems well put-together. 

But hey, I'm sure I said long ago I remember preferring the later books for consistency, at the very least. No more Sky Lords...

#47 - The Crimson Tide

By now the writers of FF were obviously either getting a bit bored with the old formula or feeling more confident with it - either way, The Crimson Tide feels more ambitious and less down to earth than most gamebooks.

You begin the book aged 13 years old, with skill and stamina rolls found via dice rolling without modifiers; and as you age, your scores improve, but your ferocity decreases (just like any self-respecting punk rocker).

Hell, the book's trying so hard to set itself apart, two or three paragraphs in you could be facing an enemy of skill 12 with yours potentially at one.

It's a huge blunder (apparently of the editor's doing), but not surprising in a book full of random deaths and other, less bloody failed endings. 

So - you begin as an Asian (lets not kid anyone here - rice fields, monasteries, vague references to the 'east', the 'Crimson Tide' being a colour and a euphemism away from 'Golden Horde' not to mention the cover, come on) tween whose family is killed by a marauding group of bastards (whom, going by the illustration on page one commit hara-kiri by stabbing themselves in the head), and you decide to get revenge. Eventually - it's obvious with the lowest starting skill and stamina in FF gamebooks that you're not going to avenge anyone right away. Despite this, if you don't face the invincible worm, you're soon nabbed by a guy who for the next two years trains you in the art of arena fighting - muchly helfpful for the stamina and skill, of course. 

The first enemy I have to face robs me of two skill points, and realising this is no way to avenge my father's death and rescue my mother, I escape by doing a reverse streak into the crowd, eventually falling out of the stadium onto a hot dog stand and escaping by stealing a horse - luckily despite the 'eastern' setting, there's no honour score to keep track of!

Instead the author makes you take notes on certain actions you've done, which can repercussions down the track, which is pretty cool.

Anyway, I soon stumble upon the bastards' camp, and they don't recognise me at all. I find the leader, and yep, it's the guy who killed my father. Starting a fight here would be suicide, so I tell him I want to join, and he laughs at me. Damn it.

A new plan is needed, so I wander out, south, and arrive in a town where everyone treats me suspiciously. Being 15, I'm not sure how I ended up fighting a drunk in a bar, but it eventually led me to a barber who told me of a rebel group meeting that night. Again not sure what relevance this had to my mission, I decided to go anyway.

So do 50 others (so it's obviously not some half-arsed socialist club, then), and they're soon whipped into a Hammerskins-esque frenzy so I sneak out. I like The Wall movie, but nah. I'm only 15!

I wander on for weeks without an increase in stamina, carting around the same three provisions I've had since stealing a 'roasted meat stick' from the meat cart, and soon bump into a 'puzzler'. These clowns wander the countryside asking people questions, and if you can't answer their puzzle, convention dictates you owe them a feed, or something equivalent. The text describes him as barely older than I am, but the illustration puts him at about 60. He asks me a differentiation maths question that sounds hard but once I start working it out seems easy, even without my award-winning teenage maths skills (couldn't do differentiation now, mind you). 

But amusingly enough, if you turn to the page you're meant to if you know the answer, the puzzler just assumes you are right and wanders off...! You don't even have to know the answer, which is funny, cause I never did work it out - I quickly realised I could if I had to, the long way, and turned to the appropriate page. 

*Maybe Spoiler If I Did It Right*: the formula is days=(2x)-1, where x=the height.  I think. It's been a long time since I needed maths...

A year passes, and I arrive in the capital, Shoudu. This part of Allansia, or wherever it is, is obviously larger than Japan. I queue up to see the God-King, whose servant takes me aside and pretty much tortures me to death. Err, wut?

The book's premise is not entirely original, but the writing is good, the openness of the adventure feels good, and even running into the supposed lead bad dude early on is a twist I didn't expect; but the seemingly inhospitable nature of the gameplay is a turnoff. It just seems so damn hard. 

But still, one that seems like a replay would be worthwhile, and give a return perhaps even greater than the first attempt.

Happy new year!

#46 - Tower of Destruction

I remember this one from when I was a kid, but with that WTF cover, who wouldn't? The title's a little bemusing for anyone who doesn't get too far in the book, as you start with the intention of tracking down the floating sphere that destroyed your village and parents (at least this time, a rarity in FF, it's personal).

But in this lengthy adventure - the book only looks thinner 'cause the font, though cool, seems to have shrunk 20% since the last book - it's soon apparent the sphere is merely a practise run for what is obviously a more efficient and aerodynamic flying device, a tower.

There are a few added elements which make Tower of Destruction pretty cool - a time score, and an honour score. They're both pretty self-explanatory, and work well together, pushing and pulling you away and towards helping out your fellow sphere victims and onward to your goal(s).

So, I start by doing my best Jack Shephard to help a few victims, before heading north in pursuit of the sphere. Helpfully, it's done its best Mr Plow and melted a whole lot of snow, making the journey relatively easy. Soon enough I'm forced to divert, so choosing between the path with nothing and the path with living, breathing, and talking owls, I go that way. The owl tells me to see Tasrin the Sage, so I decide a day off the broken, beaten and scarred path is worth it to see a guy who's mates with a talking owl. 

I soon arrive at his place, avenge his death by killing the demon that killed him, and ransack his house for useful things as he tells me his dying words - find the Ice Palace, yada yada yada. The instructions kind of made it obvious I'd need to find this Ice Palace, so thanks for a day wasted, Tasrin. 

Three days into my pursuit, it's time to move on. Being snowy everywhere, I make camp one night Luke Skywalker-style in a dead snow fox, taking its carcass with me in the morning. I'm only able to carry a maximum of 10 provisions, but an entire snow fox is okay? I assume I'm wearing it Freddy Got Fingered-style.

Day four, and ToD is one of them gamebooks where you're forced to eat meals without any noticeable benefit. In fact, apart from trudging through snow, you spend more time eating than anything else bar fighting demons of different varieties.

I spend the next night in a cave, wake up in the morning, eat, leave and notice a dragon floating about - just my luck, I spent the night in a dragon's cave. Hmmm. He flies down and asks me if there is any reason he shouldn't have 'iced human' for tea. Flattery fails to calm him down, and oddly enough for someone that wants 'iced' human, he flames me - then again, I don't know of any dragons who breathe ice (damn, I was hoping to get to the end of this entry without using the word 'ice' - something the author seemed unable to do with each paragraph). 

After dispatching the dragon, I soon came across a destroyed barbarian camp, where the text informed me it was obvious the sphere had lowered itself to wreak more havoc, as the trail of burnination had widened - odd, cause in my understanding of physics and burnination, if you come closer to something, the beam should be narrowed. 

Anyway... day six, and I've reached the sphere. I'm not sure how, but post-the barbarian camp, I no longer question the rules of science in this part of Allansia. It's small, only 12 metres across,and  I find the entrance, wander in and there are passages, doors, stairs, more demons, etc etc. Turns out it's some kind of evil Tardis! Wandering through it, I eventually come its core where there's a wizard, a demon statue and a warrior orc. The wizard starts flinging magic darts as I battle the ogre, but I quickly notice that every time the wizard magics some darts, one of the statue's eye gems glows. Sacrificing a part of my body to the orc so I can ignore him and dislodge the gem, the gamble pays off when the wizard disappears. After killing the orc, I quickly scull back some brandy and a potion of stamina, hoping they mix well, and pick up the orc's sword. It's magic, but only if my skill is below 12, which mine already is. WTF? You mean I'm just as good at fighting with a normal sword as I am with a magic one? Weird, considering the enemies in this book aren't exactly a walkthrough, and any provisions you have are gobbled up with mandatory meals for the overweight snowman you play.

Anyway, onto driving this thing - it's impossible, electrocuting me as I try to, but a rumbling warns me something bad is about to happen, so I bail. There's someone crying out for help, but screw it - this thing's weird enough as it is. I escape easily, and it explodes.

The book's called Tower of Destruction though, so it's no surprise when the wizard reappears in hologram form to tell me the sphere was just a practise run - cause running a flying sphere of doom is just the same as a tower, uh huh. 

So. The talking owl then turns up and berates me for leaving the dying man behind. There wasn't an option to argue with the owl, but I would have said something along the lines of, 'You're a talking owl who can see and know things he shouldn't be able to - YOU find the freakin' tower! YOU save the man! AArhgrahharARgh. And can I please have some food, I seem to have an eating disorder."

Walking on, drinking brandy in place of food (so close to my student days, perhaps without brandy, but with Pushkin), I dig through the no-longer plowed snow, and crash in another cave, like I didn't learn my lesson last time. Another night or two, and three or four feeds later, I'm at the Ice Palace.

Thinking what the hell and walking up to the front door, it turns out it's not even real, and I'm soon encased in a volley of ice spears - so cold, they kill me.

Can't say I remember this part at all, but no matter. Tower of Destruction seems like a good read, it's focused and atmospheric, though I'm not sure whether that's the snowy, South Park-esque setting or the new, shrunken font. The story, being a trek in pursuit of a target which is carving out the primary path is quite linear, at least as far as I got. I read somewhere the 'true path' contains a massive 180 paragraphs, which would explain why I played for my normal length of time and only completed the apparent first third of the adventure - the sphere. There's an entire Ice Palace section and then the titular tower itself I never even made it to!

Well written though, and pretty solid. The artwork's pretty good too, if a little on the 'here's your enemy looking tough in a front-on portrait' heavy.

Happy new years. Catch you in '09!

PS: Make sure you have a Skill of at least 11.

#45 - Spectral Stalkers

I wasn't sure what to expect from Spectral Stalkers, considering the god-awful cover and that I'd never read it as a kid. Surprisingly though, it was good, a little odd and definitely one worth replaying - I get the feeling I barely touched the surface in my playthrough, despite unwittingly making it as far as the 'final conflict'. Kind of.

You start SS as an unemployed adventurer wasting what little money he has on tarot card readings, though it's hard to tell just how poor you really are - in the introduction your purse is 'full', then when the adventure proper starts, you have 'only eight' gold pieces. Them's either some large gold pieces, or you're carrying one tiny purse.

The tarot reader gave me some unsettling news, and I was soon entrusted with the Aleph, a small globe that contains the entire universe in every dimension. There are some bad guys, the titular Spectral Stalkers, who also want it, and can detect my 'psychic energy' through a 'disturbance in the ether'. They're evidently of the Sith rather than Jedi persuasion, however, or so I'm told. 

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this globe, but the guy who left me with it said the name 'Archmage Globus' as he died, so I assume, with this thing being a globe and all, I should find him. 

Did I mention the globe thing is magic, and lets you travel through dimensions and whatnot? I'm not sure why the mission, whatever it was, didn't end right there on page one - congratulations, you got the magic ball of awesome, turn to page 400?

It transported me first to the Library in Limbo, which the dragon assistant tells me has every copy of every book ever written, kind of like Google but in real life, but in Limbo, which is apparently not a part of the universe the globe contains. Err, yeah. I ask the dragon about Globus, she tells me to find the 'Directory of Wizards' - it's a giant black book with 'Wizards' written on the spine. Hmmm. I soon find it though, it's as tall as a spear and opens to the exact page I need - I see the ether works in similar ways to the Force. Globus lives on the Ziggurat World, which sounds awesome, so I figure I'll try and find him as soon as I find a way out of this epic library.

Wandering around, I come across the 'Office of the Artefacts Specialist' - thankyou, Force - and wander in, only to be hit by a bucketfull of water, left on top of the door. 

The Office of the Classic Pranks Specialist is manned by Wayland (Smithers?), a grade-A clown. In some books a bucket of water would be 'refreshing' and accompanied by a stamina increase, not the decrease here. Ah well.

Rejecting whatever is in the drink he hands me, I ask Wayland about the Aleph. He tells me once I'm back in the real world to keep moving to avoid the Spectral Stalkers, he's no idea who Globus is, and that now I have to leave Limbo, which is odd cause here in Limbo I'm safe from the Spectral Stalkers, and yeah, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with the Aleph and yeah. Um, why do I have to leave? 

Anyway, a dwarf tells me to think about where I want to go as I step through the exit, so I think of the Ziggurat World, and and soon find myself there, just like that. I wasn't aware at this stage of the book the Ziggurat World is where the 'final conflict' takes place, but hey. A Spectral Stalker instantly appeared, but as I'd left no disturbance in the force at all by this point, it soon vanished. Why it would vanish upon finding you and not, I don't know, check to see if you had the MacGuffin, beats me. They seem to pop up regularly without even knowing I have it - is everyone else in this world similarly beseiged?

Wandering on, I meet a bunch of Mantirs, like human manticores, who are pissed I killed one of the insect-bull things. Before we can finish our rumble though, a group of 'Black Shadows' come from the sky and begin carrying away the insect-bulls. They're definitely black according to the text, but are purple on the cover - try and work that one out! Anyway, the Mantirs curse Globus for the attack, which puts a little doubt in my mind as to whether Globus' intentions with the Aleph are wholesome. 

I run away, up a cliff apparently, cause that's always the best way to avoid things that can fly (?!). I spy some towers up on thin, rocky peaks, and assume Globus is in one - they're on the cover, after all. Unfortunately the Black Shadows are back, and without a purple one to make an example of I'm soon captured and poisoned down to four points of stamina. 

I awaken in a room tied to a pillar, among others facing a similar fate. The Black Shadows poison me again, down to two stamina, and carry me away.

This time I awaken in Globus' throne room, and the book informs me this is the 'final conflict'. Err, I wasn't aware Globus was even a bad guy? Maybe those Mantir deserved it? Before I can think any more, I'm blasted by a laser of some sort and crushed to death.

So... It's all a little mysterious, to be honest, but it seems that by thinking of the Ziggurat World on exiting Limbo, I've catapulted myself to the last phase of the book. What an odd mechanic. Others say there are loads of other worlds and times to visit, and whether the book works for you or not depends on how much you like the FF books that try to push the envelope a little. I for one liked what I read, and not knowing exactly what was happening despite making it that far into the book leads me to believe it has replayability in spades.

If I hadn't read that giant Wizards book though, how would I have known to ask for the Ziggurat World in the first place? Maybe I should have taken the option to go back to Khul and live like an unemployed billionaire, or like a magic Quinn from Sliders. 

An oddity in the FF canon, but a good one.

#23 - Masks of Mayhem

Yeah, it's another one from the 20s - I've had some luck filling a few gaps in my collection in the past couple of weeks. I had no idea what to expect from Masks of Mayhem, except that I'd heard it wasn't very good. 

Well, I enjoyed it enough, though it wasn't particularly memorable, at least the journey I took. Apparently there's a big twist if you make it all the way to the end, but I didn't, so nyargh.

Anyway, you play as the ruler of Arion, and for some reason you decide to wander off into the unknown in order to defeat an evil sorceress by yourself - Arion can't be much of a kingdom, if there's no one you can pay to do it on your behalf. The book says only the reader can undertake the mission because of a 'purity of purpose'. Huh?

After a little pep talk from my Welsh wizard Ifor Tynin and my armourer Truehand, who both seem to know far more about this mission than I do, I wandered north into perhaps the emptiest region of Khul (if the supplied map is anything to go by). It apparently took five days to traverse the first centimetre of green space. Hmmm. This could be a long book.

Heading west around Lake Nekros, I wandered into the forest soon found myself the target in a game of William Tell being played by some Wood Elves. They took me to meet their chief - I asked for safe passage through the forest, hoping to end up on the other side in Fallow Dale, but instead they dumped me on the complete other side of the lake. Thanks a lot, jebus. 

It's all misty and I can barely see a a few feet in front of me, but head on anyway - I grew up in Hamilton, perhaps the only city in the world with a statue of Riff Raff which is still far better known for its fog. It pays off when I come across and defeat something called a Wight, which is basically a floating, melting zombie with an open firetop skull. I got the impression if I could just tip it over, its brains would fall out and I'd get to take its ancient, skill-enhancing sword without as much of a fight as it put up.

Onward, the mist got thicker, and the book ignored my Hamilton experience and fell me down a hole, into a mine, where I found a green copper nugget. How... odd. Anyway, I soon came across a pool of water I decided to jump, and here the book fucked me off. I had to test my luck, instead of my skill, then when I was lucky, I was told to test it again - with no explanation - was unlucky, and apparently cleared the pool but landed on a slippery piece of lichen, and killed myself in the fall. Funny, cause I just fell down a freakin' mine shaft, and only lost a single stamina point. 

I decided this was silly, so solved it in a matter just as silly - I pretended that after passing the first test of luck, I wolfed down my potion of luck before now successfully missing the patch of super-slippery lichen.

So, out of the mine, I arrive in Fallow Dale and immediately hit the pub. Unfortunately, Masks of Mayhem has a real obsession with food, one of the examples being the only thing I can do in the pub, if I so wish and can afford to, is eat. In the immortal words of Gob, come on! 

I meet up with the local king, Hever, who's holding some kind of banquet. I eat (for about the thirty-seventh time) and get drunk, and retire early. Somehow the feed gave me stamina, but also made me want to sleep - go figure. Now, Hever apparently has this magic horn I need, but he won't give it to me unless I track down this sabre-tooth tiger that's been harassing his peasants. 

So, I get a pack of dogs and we head into the forest - the book lays out a gameboard, and through a sequence of dice rolls your dogs pick up and lose the scent, the tiger wanders around, it's all luck though so a quick roll would have sufficed, no? Anyway, it's actually kind of fun, and I catch up to the tiger just in time.

I set my dogs on him, who apparently are invincible as they savage him without any chance of being hurt back, but strangely despite this I apparently call them off the attack so I can finish it off. Bad choice - at least it would be, if I had one! The dogs were doing a great job, I was hopeless against it. 

This time I was well and truly killed - though it only had a single stamina point left, I didn't feel another 'oh but I was so close and hard done by' reasoning was appropriate.

So, Masks of Mayhem - it didn't feel like anything special, but it certianly wasn't the disaster I was dreading. The writing was a bit flat, the journey at times even felt a little empty, but there were characters with a bit of substance, and if you avoid the odd bits (if that' possible) and eat plenty of food, it could work, yeah.

I'm not kidding about the food, by the way. I haven't mentioned it much, probably cause I'm so sick of reading about it!

#29 - Midnight Rogue

So I skipped past Midnight Rogue 15 or so books ago 'cause I didn't have a copy, and referred to it then as "fondly-remembered". It's perhaps unfortunate my copy arrived in the mail this week, coming right after the much-lauded font change and the excellent Legend of the Shadow Warriors. Why? Because from one reading, I get the impression Blacksand deserved more.

I distinctly remember the *twist* ending from childhood, and despite this found the mission a little... serious. It was great the book gave you new skills and a limited inventory for sure, but compared to the freedom to wander that has emerged in comparatively recent FF entries, Midnight Rogue feels a little forced.

So anyway, you're a prospective member of the thieves' guild, a reasonably overground-sounding operation for a relatively underground-ish trade, even recognising this is Blacksand, after all. You're assigned a mission to retrieve some kind of jewel, perhaps even the one on the cover so lusted after by inanimate stone gargoyles, but who knows.

First off I decide to hit up the Merchants' Guild, considering the intro suggests I visit the merchant Brass, who apparently has the object of desire. His symbol is a coin, so when I'm soon given the option of trying the door with the coin or that of the fish, I choose the coin. I'm here to get the prize, not find Jesus. 

Getting into the guild HQ is a mission in itself. There's not only a guard so corrupt I can't pay him off, but tribbles. Except here they're called jib-jibs, there's only one, and it has a skill and stamina I can count on however many fingers it is I need to insult you in whatever country you're in. 

Once into the merchants' guild, there's a beggar - further proof the credit cunt is hitting even those stuck in medieval fantasy gamebooks - he gives me a skeleton key set I don't need, and through a series of situations where I'm not given the option to leave or even knock, I get into trouble and am arrested. 

It's not written into the game script, but thinking logically, so many of these situations could have been defused by a simple knock first. I know I'm a thief and all, but hey. Common sense?

On this play through, I can't say Midnight Rogue lived up to what I'd expected, though I'm not sure that's fully down to the fact it's not that good - it could be that it's just not as good as the 40s bunch of books, or that I took the wrong routes. Wandering through Blacksand has to be one of my favourite things to do in FF, and this just didn't pull it off for me tonight.

A little disappointing considering how much I was looking forward to it, but worth a shot definitely.