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Post by petch on Jan 1, 2022 0:45:27 GMT
Next up in the best of each author series of polls is OG Steve Jackson. His series co-founder Ian Livingstone's poll had a runaway winner in Deathtrap Dungeon, but with an arguably more diverse range of output, many of which occupy some lofty positions in the rankings thread, will SJ's work in this round see a tighter-run contest?
Poll closes at 10pm Monday 3rd.
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Post by terrysalt on Jan 1, 2022 2:32:40 GMT
I was torn between Creature and Crown, the mental deadlock eventually being broken by the fact that Creature has that terrible random section at the start and Crown doesn't.
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 1, 2022 12:24:44 GMT
Fighting Fantasy: The introductory Role-playing Game is an amazing read, and imho better than the so-called 'advanced' versions, at least for younger people.
I wonder why Livingstone was knighted, but not Jackson? Luck 🃏? I guess Livingstone was more the commercial worker out of the two.
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Post by vastariner on Jan 1, 2022 12:42:36 GMT
Creature of Havoc - pushed the boundaries of what you can do with a gamebook more than any other FF, and was a genuine "wow" when you finally stumbled through to completion.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 1, 2022 13:49:04 GMT
Interesting that Warlock got a vote here but not in the Ian poll.
Anyway, I voted for Crown of Kings, a more elaborate, sneaky and surreal version of Citadel of Chaos.
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Post by misomiso on Jan 1, 2022 13:49:04 GMT
Really difficult one. Much harder than Ian Livingstone imo; Ian may have more books but they are lot easier to rank.
With Steve you have Citadel of Chaos which is incredibly underrated imo as a really well constructed adventure, Appointment with FEAR is Steve experimenting well with other Genres, the apsolutely iconic House of Hell and Creature of Havoc, both in their own way incredible, and of course the monumental SOrcery! series.
Went for Sorcery 2 in the end but it was incredibly hard.
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 1, 2022 16:57:05 GMT
Interesting that Warlock got a vote here but not in the Ian poll. Anyway, I voted for Crown of Kings, a more elaborate, sneaky and surreal version of Citadel of Chaos. Some of my favourite parts in Crown of Kings are (typically) the parts where you aren't supposed to go to, as well as the normal Jackson horror with the holding jacket and the fat man; the (mut)ant meatballs, and the Zed spell, if improperly used. |
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Post by stevendoig on Jan 2, 2022 17:23:26 GMT
Creature of havoc is great, but I voted for Citadel because it is actually fun to play each time.
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 2, 2022 17:48:25 GMT
Creature of havoc is great, but I voted for Citadel because it is actually fun to play each time. I take it stevendoig is one of those people who prioritizes low challenge and limited length over moderate challenge and do-or-die rolls? I know what you mean - I would more enjoy playing Spectral Stalkers than Midnight Rogue. I don't know who voted Crypt as Livingstone's best book but I can think of several of his books I'd definitely rather vote for, including Port of Peril. |
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Post by nathanh on Jan 3, 2022 12:10:47 GMT
I thought I would be choosing Creature given that I've previously said I rate it very highly. It was really fun to play and solve the first time through---I think I died dozens of times but I kept going because I was enjoying it so much. But it scores very poorly on the "just read it and explore" metric because decoding the dialogue and remembering all the rules for finding the secret paragraphs is much too annoying for casual reading and exploration. Citadel on the other hand is also very much fun to play and solve and also is very easy to pick up and read---I think you only have to remember one secret paragraph. So Citadel sneaked over the line ahead of Creature and House.
I'm generally not a big fan of Sorcery or Jackson's books overall, but they mostly do score reasonably well because working out how to solve them is a lot of fun. Exception is Appointment for just being too convoluted: an impressive technical achievement, but I'm not interested in technical achievements.
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Post by The Count on Jan 3, 2022 15:08:14 GMT
I went for Citadel as it is a more fun book to play, and it has Wheelies! It also has far fewer flaws than the other books
Creature loses steam towards the end and the endgame is a letdown
House has the irritating auto lose due to an additional mechanic and the kris knife bonus is at best ambiguous
Sorcery! is vastly overrated and overly complex for no reason at all, as stand alone books they lose something, the story makes no sense and as a series they end on the dampest of damp squibs. And that is before getting into the ridiculousness of naming the setting Anal-and
Warlock has the maze that is essentially just lazy writing and the nonsensical situation where you trip over something and kill a vampire! Not helped by Ian making a mess of the first part meaning that you essentially auto win
Starship is the most banal waste of time ever and clearly unfinished
Appointment is a slog through tired comic book tropes that were dated in the 80s
The Roleplaying Game is ruined by the hideously complicated special rules for the Spider King
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Post by misomiso on Jan 3, 2022 16:04:24 GMT
SJ definately has an issue with endings - both Sorcery! and CoH are let downs at the end imo. The journey getting there makes up for it though.
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 3, 2022 16:13:37 GMT
Weirdly, I thought COH has one of the stronger endings - it's long, and filled with tension and colour compared with the cruel Jackson cliches which plague most of the references.
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Post by tyrion on Jan 3, 2022 17:14:17 GMT
House of hell is nicely atmospheric and I would rather play through as much as I could with a fear score of 8 than play the turgid abomination that is chasms of malice with max stats and still only have a 25% chance of completing it. Let down by the kris knife rules, but easily rectified with a simple house rule that I think most people are comfortable using.
The sorcery epic put together is an outstanding work of interactive fiction, with nicely done hidden sections and superb illustrations. The only thing that lets it down is people seeing immature place names where there are none.
However, as individual books, they are bettered by the masterpiece that is creature of havoc, an exemplar of good gamebook design, top end writing and a technical masterpiece. The character development arc is very satisfying and the ending successfully ties the whole story together.
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Post by pip on Jan 3, 2022 18:35:54 GMT
Creature of Havoc and House of Hell for me. Creature for the innovation and boundary pushing all throughout the book (although I agree the random part at the beginning is a better concept on paper than in reality), House for the atmosphere and the clever red herrings (so you've found an item with a number written on it, you've got to be on the right path, right? ...not necessarily).
Citadel of Chaos I'm sure was groundbreaking at the time, but it shows its age when you have to guess you need to give a jar of ointment to whatever creatures did not ever imply they could do with some ointment.
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Post by petch on Jan 3, 2022 22:52:22 GMT
A good contest, that. Votes were much more evenly distributed across the options than in the Livingstone poll, and a late flurry of votes for The Citadel of Chaos made the endgame a three horse race between that, Khare and Creature. Perhaps I did the Sorcery! series a disservice by including its separate volumes as individual options as if the votes for all four were added together it would have won comfortably, but as it is, it is Creature of Havoc that makes it through to the final vote-off.
Interestingly, Jackson's highest placed book in the rankings thread, House of Hell, finished a distant joint 4th here with only two votes.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679 
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Jan 3, 2022 23:51:46 GMT
Fighting Fantasy: The introductory Role-playing Game is an amazing read, and imho better than the so-called 'advanced' versions, at least for younger people. I wonder why Livingstone was knighted, but not Jackson? Luck 🃏? I guess Livingstone was more the commercial worker out of the two. Ian did many other popular things outside of Fighting Fantasy. I doubt the Queen knighted him for writing a good gamebook  |
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 4, 2022 0:01:38 GMT
Fighting Fantasy: The introductory Role-playing Game is an amazing read, and imho better than the so-called 'advanced' versions, at least for younger people. I wonder why Livingstone was knighted, but not Jackson? Luck 🃏? I guess Livingstone was more the commercial worker out of the two. Ian did many other popular things outside of Fighting Fantasy. I doubt the Queen knighted him for writing a good gamebook  Apparently Ian was knighted for services to online gaming. You're right, if the Queen knighted people for writing a few popular, acclaimed works and starting magazines, M. Moorcock would have been knighted ages ago. |
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Post by misomiso on Jan 4, 2022 18:03:49 GMT
Ian did many other popular things outside of Fighting Fantasy. I doubt the Queen knighted him for writing a good gamebook Apparently Ian was knighted for services to online gaming. You're right, if the Queen knighted people for writing a few popular, acclaimed works and starting magazines, M. Moorcock would have been knighted ages ago. M. Moorcock should get a knighthood for just being awesome. |
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Jan 4, 2022 22:25:47 GMT
I would be impressed if the Queen knew what gamebooks even were. Who knows. Maybe she's a fan of Deathtrap Dungeon?
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Post by The Count on Jan 5, 2022 1:35:05 GMT
I imagine The Queen prefers those books where uppity bints with delusions of grandeur are firmly put in their place - Masks of Mayhem, Caverns, Slaves and Nightmare Castle for example.
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 5, 2022 10:51:41 GMT
I imagine The Queen prefers those books where uppity bints with delusions of grandeur are firmly put in their place - Masks of Mayhem, Caverns, Slaves and Nightmare Castle for example. Definitely not Magehunter. Although the Prince in Magehunter is more an arrogant aristocrat than a bad person. |
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