#42 - Black Vein Prophecy

In the tradition of Creature of Havoc, FF42 doesn't tell you right away who you are or what it is you're doing. But going one step beyond, Black Vein Prophecy (great title, by the way) doesn't even give you your skill, stamina or luck rolls until part way through the book, and the rules are at the back...at first I thought gees, that increases the chances of accidentally seeing page 400 - a fear justified when I turned to page 400 while looking for the rules - but 400's just another paragraph here, so the authors were obviously thinking when they wrote this book.

It's apparent from reading it they were thinking too - BVP, from what I can tell from one failed reading, is an interesting, captivating book - even if I spent the whole of my own journey not knowing what the fuck I was meant to be doing.

I came to from unconsciousness in a sarcophagus, which has to be the all-time greatest start to a FF adventure. No lengthy intro with wizards and armies whose names you forget the minute you turn to page 1. The text tells me the first thing I did was force the lid off so strongly it hit the ceiling - this bodes well! There was another body in the crumbling room I found myself in, who was apparently killed by an unexpected strike from behind (and not a flying coffin lid). Suddenly the room was filled with 100 robed figures - it seems I could count fast, so surely I'd a skill of 12 - but knowing what to do next, I jumped back in my sarcophagus. 

Not a good choice - or maybe it was? The text told me I'd found a 'suitable resting place'. D'oh, but also a little hehehe. Cheeky book.

Invoking the god of 'that's not enough for a decent blog entry', I brought myself back to life and decided to get the fuck out of there. I came across a group of motionless figures, one of whom bowed to me. I bowed back, and nothing happened. Arighty then, let's move on... 

I soon came across some stairs, and a loud voice boomed 'too soon...', much like Yoda, if Yoda's voice boomed. I didn't have much choice though, much like Luke, and pressed on - only for the stairs to turn to rubble and bury me at the bottom. Climbing out, I found another set of stairs - you'd think I was a little wary of stairs at this stage, but anyhoo - at the top was a sword and a haversack of provisions - how convenient! It was here I rolled for my skill - rolled a five, and was told to add four. FOUR!? Oh man. I ended up with nine. But what about that awesome coffin lid trick? Surely that was at least an 11-level move. 

So I escaped... whatever it was I was in.... to emerge in a trashed city with 'bizarre' battle wreckage. That's all it said - 'bizarre'. Like, how? Were the shields pink? Were the swords made of candy? Was my sword made of candy? Is this why my skill was only plus four?

Searching the streets, if not for equipment at least for an idea of what was going on, I came across my mirror image. Ooh - if real me has no idea what I'm doing, mirror-me must know! No such luck. Instead we had to fight. What seemed like a 50-50 duel I won easily due to some good rolls, some use of luck, and (this is the one I'm going with) the fact if he was my mirror image, he must've been holding his sword with the wrong hand. I know there's a logical flaw here, but I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

The rest of the town was trouble I won't go into, so I soon decided to make an exit - how? Via catapult, of course. Cause that's what you do when you're down to seven stamina points and wearing a tiara (don't ask!). Didn't the Mythbusters cover this? Landing in the water, I was soon rescued by a hot girl ( I know from the pics of her sleeping - not kidding) called Velkos. She was a bit of a biatch though, making me work on the sails, where apparently I quickly learned the most important skill in sailing - how to avoid the boom. 

Soon enough we were attacked by... pirates? A giant squid? No, a mad criminal floating in some kind of inflated bladder membrane, silly. What did you expect? We soon crashed out. I started to wonder if perhaps FF42 would be the first to implement some kind of romantic subplot, or at least the first I've found, but no. We made landfall, wandered through the forest and still nothing happened. It's not like I'd anything else to do, still not knowing who I was, or where I was going or why I was going there. If this was Knights of the Old Republic, it would have been around here I'd have started to flirt with Velkos as if she was Bastila. Instead, we ended up in a cave with a bunch of random creatures I'd no real idea why we were chasing. 

When I came across a pile of gems worth 3000 gold pieces, I stopped caring. In fact, I felt I was far enough into the book without any idea why I was still wandering through this part of Allansia, that settling down with Velkos and the 3000GP sounded more like victory than figuring out what this prophecy was meant to be anyway.

She was then killed by a fire elemental which seemed to ignore me, damn it. Instead I had to fight a slave trader whose poisoned blade took off a valuable skill point despite not touching me once in the entire battle. I was down to eight stamina points, and without any more food.

By this point, though BVP was still well-written and enjoyable, I was getting a little annoyed at the zero plot progress. It was all starting to seem a little random - never more so than when a giant bird thing picked me up and dumped me in its nest. Err, okay.

Moving on, a few encounters later I found myself in a village whose only trades seemed to be alcohol (at a tavern whose name, derived from the ancient Allansian tongue of Latin, in English translated to 'The Water Blood') and weaponry. Weaponry took my fancy, but the other shoppers were offended at how bad I smelled, cause of the whole giant bird nest thing. They stripped me of my clothes (I crossed 'romantic subplot' off my list of possibilities) and threw me into some kind of party pool - there were pipes bringing bad ale and everyone seemed to be having a good time, and no one seemed to care that I was naked (I tentatively re-added 'romantic subplot' to my ... just kidding).

Just when I started thinking again, hey I have 3000GP (somewhere...), this is cool, some union rep called Merzei came along stirring up discontent amongst the proles (and by this, I mean slaves). My conscience got the better of me, so I decided to fight, understanding it wouldn't mean 'picket the bosses' offices'. I wrapped on a towel (I'm quite glad the book made a specific mention of this) and dispatched a couple of slave traders. Grabbing some 'filthy' clothes (this time I wasn't so pleased the book made a point of mentioning it) I bailed.

The next town was real nice... looking. Unfortunately, the people were bastards, throwing me in jail cause I stunk. I was executed when being mistaken for someone else - or, in true Knights of the Old Republic style, being someone I didn't realise I was. 

Others have pointed out flaws in Black Vein Prophecy I didn't come across, except perhaps the slightly frustrating lack of awareness of anything. It seems it might have some kind of Fight Club style exposition at some point, but going by the number of times I was asked if I recognised names, and didn't, I can only assume I took wrong turns early on and was punished accordingly. I do like the idea that if you cheat, you will fail, as some point out, but not so much that it relies on a dice roll, if that's true.

I would place BVP in my top half at least, though, based on the one reading, of course. The writing style and art are definitely in the better few FF books, and the intriguing set up works. I just hope a few moves done differently and you'd know a lot more by the point I got to whilst completely in the dark. 

Enjoyable nonetheless. 

#41 - Master of Chaos

Master of Chaos is a gamebook of two halves in more ways than one. First of all, the synopsis on the back (evil guy amassing forces, has a stolen magical item, a group of good wizards to lazy to do anything themselves, hire averagely-skilled warrior to save the world) reads like a FF Madlibs creation. 

_(name of baddie)_ is planning to _(evil objective)_, he has stolen/acquired _(magical object)_ and according to _(powerful-yet-reluctant goodies)_, you are the only one who can stop _(whatever's so bad)_!

But once I checked out the rules, I realised this wasn't going to be a straightforward dungeon crawl; far from it. But even better, the alterations seemed intelligent, well thought out and fun: food's an essential, not a way to magically heal wounds; you start with nothing (thanks a fucking lot, wizards, you pacifist douchebags); you've got a few cool skills (I chose acute hearing, cause it makes up for my real-life tinnitus, blindsight cause I don't want to waste money on a lantern, and move silently, cause it's advantageous when your shift finishes at 1am); and best of all, you have a 'notoriety' score, which measures your, um, notoriety. 

Cool. 

What's not cool though is the wizards are a bunch of tightasses, starting me off with a measly two gold pieces (which they deign to hide) and put me on a slave ship to Ashkyos, where I'm expected to fund my mission to save the world alone. 

I start next to a guy being whipped excessively, but mindful in this gamebook I've a notoriety score, not an evil score, I let the slavedriving orc have his fun. Besides, I get my turn later (being whipped, not whipping, unfortunately). A couple of weeks and several stamina points on, an attack on the ship by a giant octopus gives me an oppurtunity to show off to the captain by saving his ass. Good dice rolls meant wrestling an octopus tentacle bare-handed wasn't as gross as it should be.

Promoted to 'trusty' slave, I'm soon approached by another with a plan to escape - sneak past the crew while they're drunk on the night we make landfall. I have a better plan - sneak out on my own, cause I bet these idiots will just bring me down. Once again, keeping notoriety low and evil high pays off, and I'm into Ashkyos, lack-of-reputation in tact.

On arrival in Ashkyos though, the book reminds me to keep a track of my notoriety score - damn, this is probably where it begins! At least I'm here in one piece. But unfortunately (there's always an unfortunately) the map I'm apparently keeping in the inside cover of my copy of Master of Chaos is missing.

Still, the book acts as if you know where you're going, and I decide to visit the locales in reverse order to their listing - the book probably expects you'll do them in the presented order, but hey. I wanted to keep track easily without being predictable, so onto the Old Quarter I went, where I'm attacked by a mule. Capturing it easily, I'm awarded some gold, which is cool, since this part of the book I gather is about getting money so I can buy some weapons and shit. 

But first, as this is a shitty town in Khul, I decide to go to a bar. I end up at some wine place, which isn't what I had in mind (this is Khul!), so crash out for the night (but not before pocketing a few gambling winnings - I gave it a shot cause I actually made $80 out of $20 today playing the prediction market). The next day I head to the docks, where an incident with an assassin leaves me considerably richer, but much more notorious. Killing him adds three points to my notoriety - if I hit eight, I have to leave town - which leaves me to wonder how bad this assassin really is, if he himself hasn't even killed three people yet. 

Wandering around a bit more, up to 28 gold pieces, I'm getting annoyed my in-game character hasn't thought to perhaps visit a weapons store or something, considering I just had to bare-handedly kill an assassin armed with a poisoned sword. No, instead I wander to the warehouses, where I get employed work. How lifting boxes was going to save the world, I wasn't sure.

Now, a cool thing about this book is each of the locales can obviously be explored in several different orders, and you can tell from the number of 'have you.....' queries on entry to each area, there are several different sequences of events that can happen. For example, I could tell by the number of times I'd been asked whether I'd met 'Jesper' (or was it 'Vesper'?) that he'd have an important role to play at some point. Unfortunately, as I'd soon discover, I misjudged his role as evil, when though I can't say for sure, his presence would be for good later in the book. I don't know.

All I know is I rejected his offer of helping him in his criminal plot, bought pretty much everything in the weapons store I soon found, and had to leave town - cause simultaneously buying a crossbow, ten arrows, a sword, backpack, armour and waterskin tends to arouse suspicion, even in a town like Ashkyos it seems.

And this is where everything went wrong, if it hadn't already (this is where all you experts have your say!). I trudged along on foot for a couple of days, being without a camel or a ferry ticket, and was stabbed to death in my sleep by a four-armed mutant. 

Apparently this is where the second half of the book really began. Although I only got halfway through, and still have absolutely no idea why there's a two-headed dragon on the cover, I feel like I got a good handle on Master of Chaos, and really enjoyed it. Then again, I tend to like the city-based books, not knowing what's around the (literal) corner and all. The notoriety was well-implemented, the skills came in handy, and the rise-from-adversity plot although illogical considering the lofty heights from which your mission is decreed, works well. 

Even little things like limits on how much food you can carry with/without a bag, damage done with/without a weapon, different sections of the book actually feeling different and skills that seemed real and useful without being overpowering worked well. 

I didn't get far enough I feel to call it one of the best, but I think, bar the cover and title, it's in with a shot. Let's call it recommended.

If only for the fact in paragraph 183, it tries to call you out for cheating.

PS. If anyone knows how to get that ad at the bottom of the page to actually link to the website it is advertising, that'd be awesome. It's my music, so it's not like clicking on it makes me any money, but hey.

#40 - Dead of Night

So we're into the 40s now, and I'm sure we can't be too far from when the FF font changes. I've some fond memories of the books with the newer font, probably because they were the new ones at the time I first read them, though I'm not sure how many of them I have on hand this time around.

In Dead of Night you're a demon hunter of some kind, and you're off to kill the head demon because he's made a threat not just against the whole world, but also your parents, which apparently is a step too far. 

Complicating matters (as if hunting down a Demon Lord isn't complicated enough) is the lure of the dark side... yes, more Star Wars. Here it's represented by an 'evil' score. But combating that, you've got a white horse, holy water, a silver cross (did Jesus save Allansia's souls?) and some 'talents' which is basically another way of saying magic tricks. 

Unfortuantely, I chose the wrong magic tricks for the shit I tried to pull. I also chose the wrong shit to pull, full stop.

First thing on leaving I came across a skeleton hanging in what the text described as 'gibbet irons'. Looked cool, anyway, so cool I decided to take a closer look. The skeleton was laughing at me, probably 'cause I was a skinny (based on my rolls) dude riding a giant white stallion. Given the option to hit him with my sword, even knowing it was a bad idea I couldn't resist. 

Onto Crowford, my parents weren't home so of course I decided to check the tavern. I could hear arguing from within, so assumed they were there and decided to wait a bit before entering. Turns out they're talking shit about me, and when I burst on in, everyone's a little embarrassed. Later on, a bunch of them approach me with pitchforks and what not, so I decide to show them who's boss - unfortunately they all chicken out when they realise I'm a demon hunter and they're villagers. Showing off is looked down upon though it seems, as I'm hit with two evil points. Hmmm. Maybe I should go all KOTOR on their asses and just embrace the dark side.

But oddly enough, the book tells me I choose not to visit my dead mate the priest's replacement, despite the introduction making a point of saying I should. I thought I showed them villagers? Anyway, somehow I manipulate the book into telling me I'm also going to skip seeing Sharleena the Seer - now seeing her sounds like an important part of the plot, so I was a little miffed. Perhaps it was my horse just going whatever way he wanted to.

I decide to go to Astonbury, thinking maybe there's a festival or something going on. Turns out only one thing common to festivals was happening - the plague. I knew I should have listened to the people who told me the town was riddled with the plague.

And that was that. Hmmm. I decide I'll play a bit longer - rewinding to the part where I didn't have the plague...

So heading to Axmoor instead of Astonbury, there's a setback when my horse is eaten by zombies while I sleep. You think something like that would wake me up, huh? The zombies' master is an orc who serves Magrand, so on arrival in Axmoor I try hunting him down. Instead for the second time I'm faced with an angry mob, but this time I convince them I'm not evil, and actually out to kill Magrand. They fall for this, and let me go on the condition I actually try to kill Magrand. I hightail it north leaving them to their fates, and suffer another two points of evil, d'oh. 

I thought it wouldn't matter till I came across some kind of castle built by pure evil, powered by a 'Death Stone'. It wouldn't have mattered had I rolled a five!

Whatever I did in this book, I don't think it did it justice. It seems like it might actually be quite good, given you do things right, unlike me.

#39 - Fangs of Fury

Some FF gamebooks just try to do too much in the limited, uncomplicated format set up way back in FF1, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. The best gamebooks are the ones which perhaps not strictly stick to the formula, but at least know how much is too much to cram in.

Fangs of Fury goes far off the deep end, having item hunts, semaphore puzzles, magical item collections, number puzzles, a timer and even an essential mini-quest where you've got to get a bunch of blocks of different shapes, including 'mushroom', and stick them in the appropriate-shaped holes. Just like a two-year-old, except with more chance of death.

It starts out well though, like some sort of cross between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. There's a bunch of wizards (jedi) having their once-every-seven-year meeting (jedi council), and a former ally-turned-evil uses this opportunity to try and wipe them out once and for all, using a powerful minion (between them, Darth Vader and Palpatine). They've managed to extinguish the breath of the six fire-breathing dragon statues that defend the kingdom, and it's your mission to take some kind of magical torch (the one ring) to a volcano (Mount Doom) and re-light the dragons from there and yeah. Um, what? Meanwhile, to stop you chickening out, the council has fitted a bracelet on your wrist that lets you know when another of the fourteen (?!) walls of the city has fallen (did I mention it was under seige?), and if all of them fall, it kills you, Battle Royale-style.

Heading through underground passages to get past the seige, I eventually emerge...in the middle of the seige. I tell the goblins I'm with the Bonecrushers (factoid: I had a pet snail when I was eight called 'Bonecrusher' - I'm not sure what age I was when the irony hit me), turns out they haven't made landfall yet. D'oh! So I tell him no wait, I want to join the Bonecrushers, that's what I meant. I'm instead drafted into fighting with the goblin's unit, and realise not more than 10 paragraphs into the book, I'm already hastening my own demise.

A mate from the good side, Peric, falls off his horse and realising I'm already on the way to the dark side, I steal his horse and fuck off out of there. Some orcs catch up, whistle, and the horse throws me off and kicks me in the head. Great. I'm not only a traitor, but I'm well on the way to the dark side and brain damaged.

At this point I'm thinking hey, this book ain't bad. The writing is good, I'm in the story, there's a real sense of freedom despite the very specific goal. The 'the-end-justifies-the-means' attitude your character seems to be allowed to take is refreshing, even when I'm given six bodyguards, ditch five, and kill the one that won't leave. More dark side points! And when some old woman tells me she accidentally dropped her master's fiddle down a well, I just leave her to it. Sounds like a trap.

Escaping a bunch of orcs relatively unharmed, I eventually come across a monastery, and for some reason the book thinks I'm keen to search the entire building. This is where the game starts to get frustrating - I'm forced to go wandering in this building it seems, but I can't stop to search the room of cubes (considering I need as many as I can get), can't stop to check out the cauldron I'm continually reminding is bubbling away, then some voice asks me for 'the numbers of the name that cannot be uttered', gives me six guesses (Hen, Hex, Win, Hox, Ned and Eli are all wrong, by the way), then drops me through a trapdoor with little ill consequence. 

I'm thinking now, this book has taken a slightly annoying turn, to be honest. Why would a disembodied voice give me six chances? 

Moving on, a dwarf at the appropriately named 'Dwarf's Hammer' tavern tells me the volcano is the one with the flat top and three holes, all of which lead to the fires of Mt Doom, or wherever it is I need to go. When I think volcano I don't usually think of getting in them, least of all via the crater(s), but hey.

The book's teetering at this point, but really goes downhill once you're in the 'volcano' (there's a distinct lack of um, lava). I realise I've probably missed something explanatory earlier, but half the walls have semaphoric heiroglyphs carved into them, which beyond an initial YMCA joke mean nothing to me about anything. I'm forced to collect aforementioned puzzle pieces like some kind of lethal kindergarten game and jump over chasms which are easier to leap the more you've eaten (FF provisions are basically instant stamina in pill form, remember!).

Then I reach some monks who want me to pass a bunch of levels for some reason, some of which I can skip if I have a number of white cubes. White cubes? There are white cubes? I only have a few black ones. I knew I should have stopped in the monastery earlier, written to the author Luke Sharp and asked him if I could have special dispensation to stop and grab some of them cubes I was allowed to admire but not examine.

It didn't seem to matter though, as when on only the second level of seven I ran into Palpatine (okay, Jaxartes). There was some kind of lock system with 50 permutations - I had a plain key I'd found hanging from a rope, but a key without a number etched on it is kind of useless in Khul/Allansia, right?

So while I hacked at the lock with my sword (read: had as many guesses as I could), the fallen wizard fired lightning bolts and fireballs at me, and I was eventually killed.

Thing is, all the permutations where between 1 and 50, so even if I guessed one next to the correct one, there's no way my real-life skill 12 eyes wouldn't have glimpsed the correct page to turn to! Haha.

Others have said Fangs of Fury is too easy, as there are too many chances to get through it without even going a particular way, and there's too much time to do it in - 10 walls had been breached by the time I died, out of 14 (Atlantis, eat your heart out). But there are just so many silly little random things, description-less locations and nonsensical challenges, particularly in the second half, that leave it lacking. It's a shame, cause despite the over-egged premise, it started really well.

There was no entry last weekend, cause we had our election and I was out of town drowning sorrows with a bunch of other lefties. 

#38 - Vault of the Vampire

It follows pretty much every vampire/Dracula cliche I can think of, but somehow Vault of the Vampire manages to rise above its familiar and obvious setting to be a FF classic. Hey, I didn't expect it either.

You begin as a lowly adventurer in search of the usual riches, when you learn of a bastard Count living in a castle who's pissing off the locals by kidnapping their virgins. What makes it worse is his predecessor was his much nicer brother.

Right, so I begin in a bar where there's a guy with no arm and an old woman likely with no teeth, and a carraige pulls up outside with a headless driver. I knew this town was poor, but jebus.

Anyway, bizarrely enough there's an option to ignore the headless skeletal creature beckoning me to take a ride on his ghostly wheels, so I do and wander on my own way, meeting a woman called Valderesse. We get off to a bad start - she shoots me with an arrow - but soon hit it off, and go for a walk along the river where she guilt-trips the local boatman into getting me across for free. 

It soon gets late, but a nice man I come across lets me crash at his place, feeds me some bread and tells me to find his old mate Lothar once I'm in the Count's castle if I need a hand. 

Bloody hell, this book is easy, I'm thinking at this point. I'm almost at the castle and I've got a backpack overflowing with food, some of it garlic. I've no idea why I accepted the guy's offer of garlic, as in-game I've got no idea the Count is a vampire, do I? And it's not like you just chomp into garlic, and I'm not carrying anything to mix it with.

At the suspiciously undefended castle (what, no orcs to beat up?) the first door I open is to a wolf pen. For some reason I whip out the garlic, which does nothign of course, so stand in the doorway to fight them one at a time. If there's one thing I've learned from reading FF, it's that if I stand in a doorway, I will never be outnumbered - even by wolves, whom I doubt give a flying fuck about proper fight etiquette.

Further into the castle, past the Labyrinth-esque talking door whom I silenced with my sword (an option not open to Sarah), I soon ran into the ghost of the aforementioned good brother. Going by the illustration, he was a medieval Christian knight, with his lion armour and cross shield. Or is the lion Welsh? Were there any Welsh Christian knights? 

Anyway, though in game the only clue I'm hunting a vampire is the garlic what's his face gave me, I figure there's something in the crypt that's probably important, but it's locked, so it looks like I'm on an item hunt. 

What do I get? A magic sword (sweet), a ring of regeneration (also sweet), a silver mirror (a ha), a Book of Healers (I can read?), an elven amulet, and a whole lot of keys. Oh, and some brandy that apparently is just as refreshing and stamina-regenerating as whatever it is that comprises the usual FF provisions. I suspect it was perhaps Guiness (perhaps brought back by the English/Welsh crusader from his crusade to, err, Ireland?)

Oh, and some more instruction on how to fight in doorways, thanks to some hapless zombies. When will they learn doorways are no place to fight a FF adventurer, and loo paper doesn't make a good armour?

So, sipping the brandy I wandered into what looked pretty much like a brothel, but was the bedroom of the Count's sister, Katarina. You think people would start putting plaques on the doors, or at the very least hanging signs on doorhandles - I mean, in all the adventures I've made through castles this year, I don't think I've yet wandered into a toilet, or walked in on anyone getting changed.

Anyway, she's pissed I'm looking to save the villagers' virgins, cause it turns out she's the Elizabeth Bathory type, and her ancient visage wouldn't look 25 if she couldn't drink their blood. Lucky I have a magic sword, otherwise I would've been toast.

I soon run into Lothar, who true to reputation is a good dude, though I think there's some bad blood between him and Katarina. He gives me a silver-tipped stake (O RLY?), some more keys and sends me into the crypt where the Count is usually napping.

What do I find there? A spectre, whom I only defeat through a freakish run of dice rolling, more brandy (if only there was an option to abandon the poor villagers and take the place of the drunkard I met down here) and some fucking killer jelly. 

It didn't kill me, but certainly finished me off - stripping me of a few skill points, and leaving me helpless against some four-armed skeleton called a 'major thassaloss'. I now call it a major staminaloss. Buahahaha.

But still, I didn't leave Vault of the Vampire feeling annoyed, because overall it was excellent. There is so much I haven't even mentioned yet - you can become stricken with afflictions and get the ability to cast spells, not that I had either; the book starts out seeming ridiculously easy, then progressively gets more and more difficult as it goes; it seems (though I can't say for sure, not having made it to the end) to be a balanced mix of linear and random choice story-telling; and some of the scenes are really quite freaky. 

Can't say I really knew this one before diving in, and if I ever do a sequel blog through all the books I failed, this one will be at the top of the list. Terrible cover though, huh.

#37 - Portal Of Evil

I never really thought of Stegosauruses (Stegosauri?) as 'evil', but whichever deity it was that saw fit to give my character the journey he experienced tonight certainly is. 

I was a big fan of dinosaurs long before I heard of Fighting Fantasy; that combined with perhaps the shortest set of rules in a FF gamebook since it began and an intriguing concept (a portal? of evil?) meant I was looking forward a good, classic adventure.

So I wander towards Kleinkastel, a small (presumably German) town near the forest which contains the titular portal of alleged evil. On arrival, without coinage I'm forced to sleep in doorway. So far, so suck, but it was to get worse.

A man and a lizard-bird-dinosaur thing woke me up, demanding I hand over my shit. Figuring this was perhaps one of those backward, counterintuitive decisions where fighting him gets me killed and handing over my weapon gets me a better one back, somehow, I gave in to their demands. With unspectacular skill and stamina rolls, I decided any fights I could avoid would be a good idea.

Nope. Bastard just took my shit and left. D'oh.

In the morning I went begging for food, as I had none and no money, still.

Anyway, once fed I decided to enter a competition in order to win the backing of a big-money benefactor - heperhaps  could give me a sword, at the least. Unfortunately after doing pretty well, one of the challenges was the I Survived a Japanese Game Show or American Gladiators-esque round where we were hung with rope by our ankles, trying to cut each other down. But um, I didn't have a sword, and I doubt even with a -4 skill penalty, I had no chance of cutting down my opponents with my bare hands. 

Anyway, before heading into the forest alone, I had the chance to buy a sword - for 5GP. I had no money!!! Aaragarhhghgh.

I wasn't killed by the first creature I came across in the forest - a Struthiomimus -but the second, a zombie - 'cause I didn't have an official Shaun of the Dead Ring of Taking a Cricket Bat to Zombies, or something. 

Strewth. What a terrible run.

#36 - Armies of Death

At first I thought, what, another far-off growing threat I have to extinguish? But Armies of Death is a bit different than the previous... however many it is I've had to do in the past couple of months! 

First of all, you get your own army this time around, which I thought was going to be awesome, but I never really got to use them. I might have rolled 7/17/7, but a series of lucky rolls meant my army spent pretty much their entire time hanging around just making me feel cool.

I started by hiring a ship to make my way to Zengis, but only because it was called the Flying Toucan. Normally taking a boat in FF books is a fast-track to drowning, being attacked by pirates and getting lost, or all three, and especially so with over 200 men... but the Flying Toucan? I had to.

Good choice too - as I hinted at before, my dice were stuck on rolling low, and we were soon in Zengis with barely an eyelid battered. If mercenaries bat eyelids. There was the small issue of being attacked by pirates (one out of three ain't bad), but they soon backed off when they saw I had over 200 men (I'm going to keep saying that, as it's not often you've got over 200 men at your command in a FF book).

On arrival in Zengis, the book made my character wander around alone for some reason - this is where a modern computer-based RPG would detect I'd rolled seven for my skill, and let me take over 200 men with me as bodyguards (okay, I'm going to give up on the 'over 200 men' thing, as it's beginning to sound a bit fruity, and I don't think medieval mercenary armies were ready for gay commanders in chief, batting eyelids or not). I found a gold ring with the number 45 inscribed on it, and immediately knew it would come in handy - not because it's gold, or that a burly dude with an axe claimed it was his, but 'cause it had a number on it. Numbered rings were all the rage in 1988 Allansia.

So this guy wanted it back, not that it would fit his fat fingers, each of which probably contained a higher skill rating than I, so I ran. My luck might have been down to about four by this stage, but still, I got away with it and ran into a bar where my luck continued, a bunch of 'vagabonds' telling me where to find the lead bad dude.

Wandering on alone, cause obviously Zengis is safe, I wandered into a pet store and bought a creature that sounded suspiciously useful - a kangaroo that could sit on my shoulder and turn us invisible. Now, I've often read elsewhere how many of Ian Livingstone's books can be glorified item hunts, but come on... how specific a situation would require a magic kangaroo? For sake of suspension of disbelief and immersion, I'm kind of glad I didn't last long enough to find out.

So onto that death - I'd just won a pie-eating contest, and survived an assassination attempt (perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to stand on the table after eating that much pie - if anything, the failed assassination attempt just stopped me from falling off the table and dying much more embarrassingly) when I came across some barrels outside, bound to contain an item I'd need 50 paragraphs later, no doubt. Instead I came across a leprechaun, who wouldn't bugger off, so I went to attack him. Now instead of being protected by the yeti tooth the captain of the Flying Toucan had given me earlier, as he said I would be, the leprechaun used his magic to glue me in place. I lost two luck points, placing me on one, I tested my luck and what do you know, you can't roll one or lower with two dice... and a sewer goblin came along and killed me. 

Stupid yeti tooth. 

So um, I was enjoying Armies of Death, actually. It seemed to have a mix of things - sailing, barroom antics, wandering streets, an apparent distant army waiting to be vanquished... I wish I'd gotten further, but also fear I would've ended up frustrated I was missing a single item essential for progress, or something. I'd also have liked to have a mass battle at some point - even if the battle system was simplistic and random. 

Speaking of random, when the Flying Toucan came ashore, the captain coughed and took a while to recover. I really did think ooh, a foreshadowing of some kind of disease that will run through my army, decimating it and putting pressure on the need for more troops later on... but no. Weird.

The book moved quick, sometimes a little too much so, but on the whole was better for it. 

But does anyone else think Ian Livingstone's face on the back cover is a deeper red than the back cover itself?

#35 - Daggers of Darkness

At first Daggers of Darkness sounds awfully familiar - an enemy is ammassing an army, you're society's only hope, etc etc. But there are several differences here, largely in the gameplay - poison is spreading through your body, and instead of just killing the top bad dude, you've also got to ascend to the throne in his place.

With other extra bits and pieces, like collecting powerful medallions in some bizarre and inefficient ascension ritual, semi-magical powers and several passages of rolling dice and suffering at random, it's an interesting set up that works in some places but seems annoying in others.

I rolled 10/17/10, so took the Potion of Stamina and set off left. I sson discovered that after pretty much every fight, the poison would spread further - no matter how many times I was cut and bled some of it out! The adventure sheet supplies you with a body chart so you can track where it goes, but it doesn't seem to matter just what parts of your body are infected. I ended the book with a clear head and right leg, but the rest of me was riddled with it. 

Anyway, on my way I crashed at a beggar's place, waking up to an assassin. I had the option to roll out of the way of his dagger, or stop it with my hands. Err, I chose the former. Perhaps if these assassins didn't insist on using the shortest blades possible, they'd actually stab someone properly. 

Wandering further, I chose again to take the left path, this time because it was advertised with a picture of a horse and I could totally do with a horse right about now, I thought. Someone did eventually give me a horse, but only after tying me to the ground and letting it kick the shit out me first. Apparently it was a test, but it's not as if my skills or luck had anything to do with it - then again, I was tied to the ground.

Eventually I came to the maze of Bogomil, and entered, knowing one of the magic medallions would be in there. Don't make me explain the reasoning behind collecting medallions, just know they're important! The beggar told me which path to take through the maze, god only knows how he knew, but his directions got me through, medallion in tow. It was sitting on a trap, Indiana Jones-style, and I knew it'd need the weight of ten gold pieces to balance it - unfortunately I'd spent my money getting the directions here, ironically enough.

So I grabbed it, suffered through the volley of arrows, and kept on. The maze was pretty much the only part of this book I didn't choose to go left at every opportunity.

On exiting the maze, my good wizard friend sent me a message that all the medallions had been found, already, so I'd better head to Sharabbass and meet the evil dude. 

Okay, I'm not really focussing enough on why this book was frustrating. So many times where other books would have tested my skill or luck, I was instead asked to roll a die so many times, then so many times again, and compare the numbers - if any matched, something would happen - usually losses of skill and stamina points, or even death. But to be honest, it was never that scary, because the author played pretty loose and fast with losing and gaining stamina all the way through Daggers of Darkness - at one point, a waft of fresh air replenished me three stamina points. Goddamn! Throwing a ball on a chain into a hole cost me a stamina point each time; to think, I could have been killed attempting the hammer throw. 

So wandering on, I came across another contestant for the throne who conveniently died and left me another medallion (thankyou left path, again!). Going left again, an elf helped me slip past some orcs and a necromancer into Sharabbass (how bad a necromancer do you have to be in order to end up on orc duty?), where I went left and eventually found myself on the Street of Forty Guilds.

Now, as this is a 400-page book, not a 4000, only four of the tradesmen's shops were open. The first I went into just happened to be that of the very dude I needed to find - he loaded me up on mystery potions, then led me to the final mazey-kind of thing. I'm being vague, cause it was a little anticlimactic, to say the least!

I wandered through the final section, didn't even use my power of 'Great Wisdom' like was hinted at in the text, found the bad guy sitting on a bed, he told me to go fight his daughter, but instead I just wandered on up to the throne and sat on it. Err, and won!

By far the easiest FF gamebook so far, as long as the random dice rolling doesn't kill you. There wasn't much that seemed to threaten instant death; and as at every opportunity I had, I went left, it didn't seem to matter which way you went - in fact, I got two medallions, which apparently is about the most you can get anyway, and there are only three mazes anyway (whilst there are apparently seven medallions).

A wasted opportunity, even if the original premise sounds cliched - there was enough different in the set up to make Daggers of Darkness a classic, but it falls short for just being so easy. So many times it seemed I was going to be missing a vital piece of information - the number of times I was offered some for an amount of money I couldn't afford - but it didn't matter. Nothing seemed to matter in the end - as long as I got there, it was a cakewalk.

Hell, the medallions even let you come back to life and pretend you'd won the last fight no less than three times... each. In a world where even air can give you three stamina points, what was the point?

#34 - Stealer of Souls

So there's no more sci-fi in FF from here on in apparently, and with Stealer of Souls deliberately or not it seemed Jackson and Livingstone were determined to get the series back to basics.

In SoS, you're an adventurer tapped to undertake a mission to rescue a good wizard who has been captured by an evil wizard and imprisoned on an island where no one's magic works but his (hence why they're sending a grunt such as yourself instead of another wizard). The adventure sheet is basic, you're given the basic leather armour, sword, lantern and 10 provisions and sent on your way, simple as that really. 

So far, so awesome. The cover art's good, the writing is descriptive, the story's simple and launches you right in. Unfortunately, this is where it all goes a bit wrong for SoS - at least on the path I took. For too long, it's just too basic, random and dare I say it, boring.

After arriving at the Isle of Despair (just east of the Island of Scars, what a welcoming place) I somewhat randomly chose to head due west, and hack'n'slash my way as best possible. I've got good stats (11/19/10), and this seems a back-to-basics, so yeah. I've already dispatched a giant bird, a giant crab and a plain ol' giant this far without much trouble, so why not? The giant's cave supplied me with some preserved and (I assume) dried fish, which bizarrely went off later when it got wet. Come on, it's fish, and it's dried... 

Further on down the western road I have the choice of continuing west, or going north down a path marked by a skull on a pike, or south to where there's a stick covered in bloodied bird feathers. Ah, west. Hack'n'slash. No detours.

Eventually, after a few more fights, I came across a small house, killed the dark elf present, then had no choice but to sleep the night. I say no choice, as there was no option given by the book - an all too common feature for much of the book. It was annoying, cause given the option, I would not have stayed there - but then again, the trapdoor (which apparently didn't bother me too much the previous evening) in the morning led me to the Iron Crypts where the good wizard was apparently being held. How convenient. 

The Iron Crypt itself I found largely to be a random wander where pretty much walking as west as possible seemed to have just as much success as it did on land. It's as if the author, in his first FF book, wanted to keep everything as simple as possible, and just made the easiest way to complete it going west at all opportunities. 

Hack'n'slash became hack'n'slash'n'bend after my western journey was interrupted by a set of iron bars. Oddly enough, later in the book not once but twice my character (it's surely not 'me' when the book gives me my decisions so blatantly gives up on doors upon realising he's not in posession of the right key. Or any key. Wow, I made it through an entire dungeon without any keys. But the point is, if I can bend iron bars, I can knock down wooden doors. Right? So.

Once again just going west (or random, if west wasn't an option) did me good, getting me to the good wizard, whom after teaching me three spells (and only three - he even knew in advance how long it would take me teach each one and how much time he had) teleported himself back home. Err, what? I know he was chained up and all, but come on - it's not as if he had to wave his wands around now, was it? Or can't he cast spells with people looking? I was a bit miffed, having had to fight off a multitude of creatures with one hand while covering my yawning mouth with the other to get this far.

So I wandered on up to the evil wizard, and despite not having ANY of the special items the text called for, or any spells left, I was able to get up close and personal with him and hack him to pieces, saving the world and bringing my FF score to seven from 34.

Well, writing the ending that way is a bit harsh on the book - the third act (following wandering west across the island and then west across the dungeon) is pretty damn good. You're stuck in the evil wizard's empire of illusion, and instead of going west you have to choose from coloured passageways - the enemies are inventive, the basic spell system cleverly implemented and there are even subtle clues as to what obstacles are ahead depending on the path taken. Maybe it's just in comparison to the preceding hour of adventure, but it really shines and meant when I did reach, and subsequently beat the evil wizard, it felt good, rather than a relief it was all over. 

But no matter how well the book ends, nothing can excuse this bizarre sentence on paragraph 96: "The rich smell of spices, the glitter of silks and other treasures do not tempt you, for you cannot carry these items." Huh?! In an adventure where on three separate occasions I lost stamina due to the smell, I'm pretty sure I'd be finding a way to carry spices, for jebus' sake! If I can bend iron bars, I can carry spices. And if I can wear a silk glove, I can carry silks. 

That, and the forced nature of the first two thirds of the book mean Stealer of Souls ain't no classic, but far from a disaster thanks to the cool third act. And propsto the author for not making it full of instant deaths! I'm not sure which of the future books are his, but apparently they're vast improvements. Looking forward to them. 

7/34!

#33 - Sky Lord

Sky Lord is the last science-fiction FF gamebook, and it's not difficult to understand why - it's pretty dang strange, and perhaps takes a few too many liberties with what a FF adventure is supposed to be.

It doesn't start out too badly though - despite a lengthy introduction/mission section, which I normally hate - the back story as at least interesting. Maybe because it begins as a cross between Star Wars (must infiltrate planet alone, destroy defences fro the inside, making possible full-scale attack) and Babylon 5 (huge races fighting, taking everyone else out in their wake), then goes off on an awesomely random tangent. An ex-human resources employee of the galactic king was caught cloning the staff in order to collect their paycheques, and was inevitably caught and fired. He then decided to get revenge by pretending to be a famous cosmetic surgeon, offering his services to the king's wife for free. She accepted, and he basically butchered her so she looked like the cat woman, and went into hiding, where he (also inevitably) began building an army of vicious killer dog-headed super warriors.

Err, what? Okay... 

So I head off on my journey to his planet, but first completely fail by choosing the wrong method of interstellar travel. I can 'time travel' or 'light travel', I choose time, and apparently enter 'the fourth dimension'. Which I thought we were already in, to be honest. My ship somehow gets covered in space weed, which I have to get out and fight off...? I think perhaps the author was battling some space weed of his own when he wrote this book.

The only way to get it off apparently is to fly into the atmosphere of a nearby planet and get rid of it Shuttle Columbia-style. I should have predicted it wouldn't go well, and sure enough, my ship was hit by lightning (how freakin' close was I flying to this planet?!), sending it rocketing down into a lake, where it sank, and without jedi powers, that's where it stayed.

Luckily though, my R2 unit was intact, and started wandering off, saying it needed to find its master. I followed, and soon came across an even larger ship, that wasn't stuck. Sweet! Unfortunately it was defended by a whole range of mutants, and after killing a bunch, the book told me I'd given up trying to steal it. Oh, really? 

So we found the R2 unit's Obi Wan, and he fixed my ship by taking it back in time so it was never hit by lightning, and obviously messing with the space-time continuum in a way this wouldn't create a paradox of any sort. 

Anyway... so  I headed off, and found myself attending a distress signal from another ship, and it turned out the staff were being eaten by orange blobs. I know this because one of the staff, in the process of being eaten, politely warned me against using my blaster weapon due to the gas leak. That one that isn't killing me already. Hmmm. So I'm next forced on a seemingly random wander through the ship, picking up random objects when all I really wanted to was get the fark out of there. Without any indication of what would be useful and what wouldn't, and only the slightest hint as to why I was picking up all this random shit, I grabbed a cricket bat (maybe there'd be zombies?) a skipping rope, an oxygen cylinder (that one actually seemed useful), a can of beer (it's Saturday night here on Earth), weed killer (again useful) and something called a 'viscous negater' (no freakin' idea). Turns out each of these items had a rating of how much it would slow down the blob should I need to escape, and the items I collected didn't rate high enough - though the beer did surprisingly well.

The blob ate me. That's about all I can say, as that's pretty much all the text said. No gory description, nothing. 

I didn't even make it close to the bad dude's planet, let alone save billions of my species. D'oh, sorry about that. 

A pretty random book, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the sole reason FF didn't get back into science-fiction again. The Titan/Allansia books were always my favourite ones anyway, so it's no big loss in my view. 

I still can't decide whether that thing on the cover is supposed to be the title character either. If so, cool.

#32 - Slaves of the Abyss

I never tried Slaves of the Abyss as a kid - the cover art, with a bunch of people in some kind of mult-dimensional space jail and the villian with the never-ending mohawk just seemed kind of lame. I wasn't sure what to expect playing it, and now that I have, I'm still not sure what to think.

Your character is a famous adventurer called on to find out what kind of army is advancing from the East, or amass an army to take on what's coming from the north, or stay back and prepare for all three at home in Kallahmehr. 

And you only have a limited amount of time!

Knowing this, I initially decided to stay put and work out how we could defend the city - bad choice, as this ended with a future generation of scrap merchants telling stories about my gear, found amongst the rubble of a defeated Kallahmehr. As this happened within three pages of the introduction, I justified a restart.

I headed east, thinking the devil I don't know would make for a more interesting adventure - and  have to say, it was certainly more random than I expected. I eventually found myself seeking refuge in a temple, which was meant to be friendly. Instead, these asshole priests wanted me to empty my bag, which I don't recall happening at church when I was younger (though knowing kids these days, etc etc...). I refused, they insisted. Oh alright. Turns out I was carrying a golden fist of theirs, which pissed them off, so they sent me to the cells for an hour or so, then let me go. Err, okay. 

I headed on east, and more and more villagers were giving me dirty looks and treating me rather like the priests. Gees, I'm only out to save the world and all, ungrateful bastards! I soon found an overturned cart, in which was a mask of my face! Some imposter had been going around pretending to be me, which explained everything.

When I got to the next village, everyone was really friendly, so the imposter must've been heading east also. Some old witch there declared me something barely short of the messiah, and feeling wanted for once, I went along with it. Next thing I know, some guy calling himself the Riddling Reaver appears from the sky, offering to whisk me away and out of trouble. Err, what? Okay... I went along with it, got dumped with my horse far away and told a riddle, and yeah. Umm, okay...

So another few pages and another village, I wander into a building and am almost drowned in wine by a wretch. In real life I like to drown myself in wine, thankyou very much, so I fought him off and decided to check out a different house. Slaves of the Abyss, as odd and random as it seemed, was revealing itself more and more as a 'pick the right item and you'll use it a few pages later, pick the wrong one and something horrible will happen, and yes, there's always a random choice' kind of book, so I figured another building would be fine.

Of course I wander into a wizard's place, perhaps the silliest decision in a world such as the one presented in this gamebook. There's a half-eaten ham, a desk, and some puppets. Hmmm, so which is the essential, which is the help-but-not-required, and which is the killer? I decide to avoid the puppets (too obviously evil) and check out the desk, on which I find a parchment. The text means nothing to me, but it doesn't kill me, so I decide to leave. Unfortunately, the book won't let me! Instead, I'm tempted into drinking three potions, each with gibberish names. Oh great: in five pages time I'm going to be asked if I've drunk potion X, and if not I'll die, whilst drinking potion Y will kill me instantly, right?

I never found out, as I refused to drink any of them... yet. Maybe I'll be given the option to force them down someone else's throat?

So heading on again, and it's all empty villages. The book offers me the chance to turn back. Hmmm, okay. I've crossed off hardly any of my time boxes, so what do you know, I find the advancing army - and they're just ordinary peasants! And my game's over! I'm not sure how or why, but suddenly I'm in that dang floating prison on the cover.

I had a quick peek, and it seems heading on east ended the book also. WTF?

Others have given this book good reviews, and perhaps it is once you know what it is you're meant to do in order to defeat this army. I'm not a huge fan of the long, complicated backstories in FF books, I just want to play - in a backwards kind of way, I find it easier to immerse myself in the simpler stories, as there's more imagination and less thinking 'now where was that and whose side are they on again?' every time another character or place is mentioned. 

Slaves of the Abyss seems difficult, but not irrationally so. Still, I'm pretty confused about that ending - just when everything seemed to be going so well!

But then again, for once the introduction actually says to complete this adventure, you need to do the right things at the right time - or you'll fail. At least it's honest!

#31 - Battleblade Warrior

Despite the awesome cover (a Lizard Man riding a pterodactyl?!), I didn't go into Battleblade Warrior expecting much; perhaps because of the title, perhaps because I'd no recollection of this book, or perhaps because of the disappointing book it follows.

But what a surprise! Battleblade Warrior is a fun, interesting and well-paced read - and I'm not saying these things because I had my first victory since book #15, though that didn't hurt! There's a lightness of touch with Marc Gascoigne's writing that embraces not so much the absurd, but the inherent oddness of a world which accomodates so many different civilised species (as opposed to Earth). One of my favourite sequences in Battleblade Warrior was disguising myself as an Orc in order to avoid trouble, but finding myself in the midst of an Orc funeral - which involved ceremonially biting the deceased and partaking in Orc hooch, which by all accounts was NOT good (a loss of several stamina points, two days before my hangover and skill level recovered).

So anyway, your mission is to retrieve two holy artifacts, the Eye and Arm of Telak, in order to defeat an army of Lizard men which is threatening not only your village, but the entire world (of course). Your god comes to you in a dream, delegating the job to you.

There are a few differences with your run-of-the-mill FF gamebook - you're limited to four meals at once, and you're only allowed to eat one at a time - they've obviously been following me closely - and there's no mention of skill being limited by the initial level. Not to worry, as drinking Orc absinthe lowered mine, and it was otherwise untouched.

So heading off, I decided to try and sneak out at night, while the army beseiging my village might be otherwise occupied; a group kindly took me at my crazy-dream-word and launched a suicide attack in order to distract the Lizard Men from my sneaking. 

Tip-toeing through the Lizard Man camp, I eventually came across a stable of giant lizards, unguarded. Doing my best Obi-Wan impression, I tried to outrun my pursuers, till one of them shot my lizard with an arrow. I ran for the trees and met a man with a sabre tooth tiger and more importantly, a plan.

We decided to set a massive trap for the Lizard Men using a substance he called 'Flashpowder: Sulis Vitae from Sardath'. What he had MacGyvered was gunpowder! A group of ten Lizard Men approached, and we blew them sky high. The book told me I felt ill-at-ease with these tactics, but fuck what the book tells me, I was thrilled it worked!

So a night or two later, my friend daubs me in bad make-up and I pass through the orc funeral, as mentioned earlier. I collect more food (I can't believe I was worried about a lack of provisions when this adventure began - if I didn't have a limit, I'd now be carting a supermarket trolley's worth with me) and soon enough, a hot companion. Okay, I'm just assuming she's hot, as this is fantasy, and she's a she. 

We wander through the woods, and are captured and strung up on stakes like Jesus. Except on the fourth day, we're still there, and she's dead. I'm rescued by a trader, whom past giving me a comfy bed for the night, refuses to help me as I've nothing to trade. Bastard.

I head one, crashing in the forest, only to be awakened by a swamp monster. Shiat, my first roll-dice fight of the book, and it's against something with a skill of 10! 

Lucky dice rolls get me through easy, and I head on. Eventually I find Laskar, who tells me the Arm of Telak is a blinged-out sword, but he has no idea what the Eye of Telak looks like. Great. Oh, and he's too old to go finding them himself. Fuckin' awesome. Then he gives me a lantern and a rope, and tells me to descend into what, going by the illustration, is one fucked-up and destroyed looking place to find them, and he'll meet me on the other side.

To cut a long story short, and to leave at least some suspense for any would-be readers (or not really), I came out the other side with the sword and a smattering of jewels, any of which could be the supposed eyes. Well, one of the jewels actually came in two pieces... so I thought yeah, that's them - wedged them into the appropriate gap in the sword's hilt, and what do you know! I'm on page 400.

Page 400!

I couldn't believe it - the FF books have gotten harder and harder over the last 10 or so, for better or worse - but in perhaps the most enjoyable book since Robot Commando (remembering I don't have my childhood fave Midnight Rogue on hand), I pulled out a win. 

But this site tells me this was the only gamebook Marc Gascoigne wrote.  Really?! Damn. Highly recommended.

And not just because I rolled 12/18/10.

#30 - Chasms of Malice

Skipping the fondly-remembered Midnight Rogue, as I don't have a copy this time around as yet, tonight I tackled Chasms of Malice - and it was no substitute. Nowhere near. 

In fact, CoM is perhaps the most disappointing FF book in the series this far in. It was random, overstuffed with background information that was not worth learning (in hindsight) and stupidly difficult. I mean, your character is a third-assistant rat skinner working in a shite restaurant somewhere, and you're expected to save Khul by defeating a bunch of ancient demon type things and retrieving a magic shield of some description? FFS. 

I'm dumped in a cave with barely an explanation what's going on, and the first thing I find is a dead rabbit. Oh great, I've been plucked from obscurity and sent on a quest to save the world, and the first thing the book throws at me is a reminder of the daily grind! 

I'm captured by an elf and thrown in some dungeon type thing where I encounter the first of seven 'Khuddum' I have to defeat - with a skill of 10 and stamina of 12! Lucky I'd rolled 11/23/9, so dispatched it without too much trouble, but jeez. Have some thought for the weaker rat-skinners out there, huh? I escape captivity, only to run into another one - this one of similar strength, or even stronger if you're missing your sword. Hmmm. I wolf down the rabbit before battle, win, and head on.

Next up I have to cross a lava stream by jumping on the correct sequence of rocks, a la Indiana Jones. I know the sequence, as some trolls were singing it earlier, follow it... and die!? That was the last straw.

No replay on this one, no way. In addition to what I saw, there are ledge battles where each has a 50% chance of death, and other reviewers have not spoken highly of the book. It's not particularly well-written, and basically just sucks.

I wish I had Midnight Rogue.

#28 - Phantoms of Fear

In Phantoms of Fear, you play either (according to the back page blurb) a 'humble' Wood Elf, or (according to the introduction) a Wood Elf who's inherited magical and fighting powers from your parents, and has been named 'Defender-Shaman of the Tribe'.

So whichever of these you are, it's your job, as decreed by yourself in a dream, to rid the forest of an evil army being put together by Ishtra the Demon Prince.

Dreams are a big part of PoF, and despite sounding like some crazy gimmick, they actually work quite well - more on that later.

I rolled 9/18/12 and a dream/magic 'power' rating of 11 - not too bad. Starting without provisions made it easy to choose a Potion of Strength. Apparently as a Wood Elf, you're quite confident of being able to find food as you go - unfortunately, the player is human and has read 27 previous FF books in as many weeks, and isnt' so naive.

Straight away the book threw me into a dream - should I walk down the nice, calm forest path, or the evil, twisted one? It's a dream, it can't hurt too much I thought, and went down the dark one. That's something cool about PoF, as far as I discovered, dying in a dream doesn't leave you dead for real - at least for the most part. You can feel free to try things a bit scarier, riskier.

So anyway, after wandering off and almost being killed by squirrels while trying to steal their nuts (told you I should've brought food), I find seven packs of provisions, but not before battling a giant. Stupid elf.

I head north until a creek and bog forces me southwest. Night falls, I crash in a hole in a tree. Of course it belonged to someone else, whom I inevitably had to kill, 'cause that's what you do when you sleep in someone else's bed in FF.

The further west I go, the more skittish the animals become. Somehow, my character thinks this is a good thing - yeah, the same character who thinks the gods speak to him in dreams, names his sword ('Telessa') and kills people who own the beds he sleeps in, like some kind of evil Goldilocks-bear.

I see off some wolves with a fire spell and swordplay (sorry, 'Telessaplay') then it's nearly night again. I don't like the look of any of the caves, so press on throught the night, offsetting the two stamina point-loss with a large eight stamina-point breakfast. Just then, an unearthly wail spread across the land, accompanied by a strong gust of wind - but, according to the text: "fortunately you were breathing out, so none of the blast entered your lungs." Wow, this is going to be easier than I thought - a sorcerous gust of wind passes so quickly and weakly, I'm unaware of it cause I happened to breathe out at that exact moment.

Heading into the evil forest, apparently I can no longer use spells - wow, I only got to use one the entire book, and it was to scare a wolf. I'm feeling distinctly underwhelmed by the use of magic in PoF, but what the hell. I'm sure if I'd headed east or south to begin with, the complete wrong direction, I'd be using it loads. And wasting my time - though I'm sure they wouldn't have had such a 50/50 decision so early on!

I follow a trail leading to holly bushes, which I climb under. As I'm coming out the other side, someone stands on my neck and tells me to lose the sword. Hmmm. I do so, and he lets me up - an insane barbarian. Apparently I can tell he's insane because he is so unkempt and dirty, but has a perfect, immaculately carved double-headed axe. Maybe he's just got Aspergers? I suppose that didn't really exist in the '80s. We go to his hut and sit down. I tell him who I am, and he laughs. Fuck this I think. I grab my sword. kill him, drink my potion and look around. Nothing to take, except his axe. Maybe it's magic? Who knows.

I head further west, and am circled by six Dark Elves. Shit. I try to make a break for it, but they attack - a new one every four attack rounds... somehow, and my dice aren't usually this kind, but I survive it... with four stamina points left... lucky, lucky rolls. But a fucking mean fight to stick in the middle of this adventure! I assume it's avoidable somehow, but jebus.

I come across the tunnel to the underground, which is a good sign. I feel like I'm actually doing quite well for once! Now this is where the book really does something quite innovative and cool. You're able to switch between the dream world and the real world at will by subtracting/adding numbers to the paragraph you're on, and continuing on wherever it takes you. It works too, at least the part of it I got to experience.

A Sphinx tries to trick me, but I'm no fool. I head down the correct path and see a troll fighting an orc. Once they're done, the troll comes for me... and I come out of it with a single stamina point.

Hmmm... to the dream world! Alright! A way to complete this adventure with only a single stamina point. But...

My body in real life wanders into a narrow passage, and the large axe I pinched off the crazy guy hits the sides, alerting the denizens to my presence... and I'm killed with a volley of crossbow shots, invisible or now.

All in all, a good read. The dream elements were implemented really well, perhaps at the expense of the magic side of things a bit. The fights seem a little unfair - the odds are stacked against you with random dice rolls - but that's what dream are like, right?

I can't imagine what I would've thought had I gone east or south to begin with though! The freedom seemed well done, the way I went at least. Recommended. If you go west or north.

#27 - Star Strider

Star Strider is that rare thing in the FF universe - a book set on Earth. It's Earth somewhat far into the future, but Earth nonetheless.There's Madrid, 'Roma', Paris and London... but I only found this out from a map, not from experience.

Another difficult entry, Star Strider finds you, a bounty hunter of some sort, on a mission to save the Galactic President, who's been kidnapped by the Gromulan race and hid on the backwater planet of Earth.

Right off the bat Iknow this isn't going to be any normal FF book - the instructions are slightly rewritten to be more like a mission briefing - I'm even given the option to not accept the mission before the book proper even begins - but there's a flaw. Nowhere is it mentioned your scores can never exceed their initial levels. I thought this an error till in the very second paragraph I read I ate some 'food cubes' and gained a stamina point, without the chance to have lost any. The future rules!

Apart from the kidnapping and all that.

So once on Earth, I'm on the way to Madrid when some Gromulans realise I'm a rogue tracer ( the fancy future term for bounty hunter). Surprisingly enough, they let me go. Once in Madrid, I ignore the suspicious looking android (some are agents for us, others have turned to the dark side) instead try to capture some local houlgans/hooligans. The one I capture is just a kid, and takes me to their gang - who hate the Gromulans too. They suggest trying one of two places - the Plaza de Toros, or the hacienda - the latter of which is more lightly defended, and probably host to New Order gigs, so I choose that one.

It might not be guarded by androids, but it's host to laser beams. Having watched the Mythbusters episode where they figure out how to escape detection by burglar alarms, the dice roll me lucky and I'm in. A butler robot accosts me but I deal to it quickly (by now I've got 31 stamina and am feeling quite invincible). A little comes out, and it seems I've destroyed the android she sent to get her a drink. Still, she wants to play - I suggest a game involving her family's ComTerm (like an internet access point), and she's keen.

Sweet! To get in though, there's a maths problem - a 'fill in the missing number and turn to that page' problem.

54 (12) 9
18 (?) 2

I worked it out in some backward-assed manner, and was faced with a much easier problem. Who blocks off their internet with maths problems, anyway?!

Anyway, onto Roma, I find a member of the underworld there who apparently has some info. unfortunately, he won't even talk to me until I've won a round of Russian Roulette, which I lose. Grrr.

It was a frustrating way to lose, as I was quite enjoying Star Strider. It strikes a nice balance between feeling open-ended but still with enough purpose and drive - the continually leaving bus/train/subway thing keeps you moving along, as does the time limiton your mission - 48 hours.

I didn't get the impression, at least this far in, it was too random, and it felt like an intelligent romp. Perhaps a little too heavy on the backstory/info, but intriguing nonetheless.