Poll: Best Luke Sharp gamebook

[petch]

Like Andrew Chapman, Luke Sharp / Alkis Alkiviades was one of the lowest performing returning authors in the rankings thread - in fact, he did worse overall than Chapman, with two of his books in the bottom 10, and his highest ranking book placed at 54, five places below Chapman's Seas of Blood. But hey, enough of my negativity - one of his books has to be the best, right? Time to find out which.

Poll closes at 10pm Friday 21st.

[The Count]

Chasms of Malice!

It probably won't get any other votes.

[nathanh]

Probably not right for me to vote since Daggers of Darkness is the only one I own. I had Star Strider when I was young and didn't like it at all. Daggers of Darkness is pretty good, though, so it's worth a vote. Very interesting to solve. Unfortunately I scored it very low for just reading for fun, because the prose is quite plain and terse. I think if this book had the prose of some of the more expressive FF authors it'd be challenging the top spots.

[vastariner]

This is probably going to be a runaway. Star Strider is OK in idea but the writing looks like it was dashed off during a lunchbreak. Chasms of Malice is actually a really intriguing idea - totally ruined by one-strike combat. (Surely influenced by the Rift in Orb.) Fangs of Fury gets unfairly overlooked, probably because it is Luke Sharp, and probably because the concept is batshit mental (and the title is basically aimed at Frosties packets), but it works well as a gamebook.

Daggers of Darkness though works on all levels - good replayability and an atmospheric nation.

[terrysalt]

I didn't like any of them much but Fangs had the novelty of searching for white cubes in the illustrations.

[terrysalt]

I'm going to put my Carnac the Magnificent hat on and predict the winner of the Graeme Davis poll.

[CharlesX]

Jan 19, 2022 5:58:45 GMT terrysalt said:

I'm going to put my Carnac the Magnificent hat on and predict the winner of the Graeme Davis poll.

Thought you were doing a separate vote for all FF authors who only wrote 1 FF, such as K. Phillips who wrote Seige Of Sardath?
  Am I misreading about your Morris\Smith\Thomson poll?
  Pretty sure it's me who's in the wrong   but moving on, your way does mean Gates Of Death is guaranteed to go through the first stage. It'll die instantly after that.

[kieran]

Have to agree with the consensus and go with Daggers - probably the most fun book in the series with tons of viable routes, some fun characters, creative mazes and a great endgame. And as has been mentioned before, there's something oddly satisfying about colouring in the little man.

Fangs is fun too for a lot of the same reasons, bit it feels a bit less coherent. It's also too easy to miss what you're supposed to do with the white cubes and the maze isn't a patch on any of the four in Daggers.

Star Strider is a great concept and is actually pretty funny in places. A bit like Rebel Planet, it has a much better first half than second half but even the first half suffers from a few annoyances. With a bit of an overhaul, it could be the best sci-fi FF.

Chasms is ridiculously unforgiving and not enough is made of the setting - a lot of the time I forget I'm meant to be underground and the lore is underdeveloped.

[CharlesX]

Jan 19, 2022 9:32:43 GMT kieran said:

Chasms is ridiculously unforgiving and not enough is made of the setting - a lot of the time I forget I'm meant to be underground and the lore is underdeveloped.

This is true, like Crypt I wonder whether an overhauled Chasms - even just with a substitute for the OSCs - might be a touch higher on the gamebook rankings, particularly for people who don't mind L. Sharp.
   It has other failings as well, the middle section where you are wandering around, trying to minimise the number of OSCs, is tedious.

[terrysalt]

Jan 19, 2022 9:17:19 GMT CharlesX said:

Jan 19, 2022 5:58:45 GMT terrysalt said:

I'm going to put my Carnac the Magnificent hat on and predict the winner of the Graeme Davis poll.

Thought you were doing a separate vote for all FF authors who only wrote 1 FF, such as K. Phillips who wrote Seige Of Sardath?
  Am I misreading about your Morris\Smith\Thomson poll?
  Pretty sure it's me who's in the wrong   but moving on, your way does mean Gates Of Death is guaranteed to go through the first stage. It'll die instantly after that.

Haha, it was just a dumb joke. From memory, petch is doing what you said.

[a moderator]

Given the reprinting of Rogue Mage in the 10th Anniversary Yearbook, a tenuous case could be made for doing a Graeme Davis poll.

[petch]

Jan 19, 2022 12:21:31 GMT a moderator said:

Given the reprinting of Rogue Mage in the 10th Anniversary Yearbook, a tenuous case could be made for doing a Graeme Davis poll.

Have to say I'm not familiar with that one! For my own sanity, I'm just going to stick with the same books that were judged during Wilf's rankings thread, so all of the main series FF gamebooks both Puffin and post-Puffin, the Sorcery! and Clash of the Princes sub-series, and the two non-AFF role playing books (FF: The Introductory Role-Playing Game and The Riddling Reaver).

And just to clear up any confusion, yes I'll do a separate 'one book wonder' poll for those works from authors who only contributed one book to the series - so no automatic bye into the final for The Gates of Death!

[Wilf]

Star Strider!

It probably won't get any other votes.

[sylas]

Daggers of Darkness is the most interesting of the lot but all of them feel super random. Chasms of Malice, for what it's worth, has some really great ideas for Underground Lore. It's a shame the execution of the gaming mechanics is so badly done and navigation is also a huge problem. Fangs of Fury isn't bad if just a bit boring and uninspired. Star Strider is my least favourite of the bunch. I've been told on more than one occasion that I should give it another chance to see it in a different light. So I did and, never again.

[CharlesX]

Jan 19, 2022 18:36:26 GMT Wilf said:

Star Strider!

It probably won't get any other votes.

Star Strider had a great soh, good art, good and original mechanics, good difficulty level, quite well-written, just, you know, the thing itself.
   It'd be ideal for an amateur gamebook redo\overhaul.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 21, 2022 17:17:14 GMT CharlesX said:

Star Strider had a great soh, good art, good and original mechanics, good difficulty level, quite well-written, just, you know, the thing itself.

In theory he has many good ideas. In practice the books fail. 

Jan 21, 2022 17:17:14 GMT CharlesX said:

   It'd be ideal for an amateur gamebook redo\overhaul.

In general his books move on at such a frantic and breathless pace that an overhaul would need to expand the number of paragraphs up to 600 or so. Or cut down on encounters drastically. 
I made mention of this example in a previous thread, but I find paragraph 14 of Daggers of Darkness to be an example of what the sins of a Luke Sharp gamebook can look like. Have a read of it and see what you think. 

[CharlesX]

Jan 21, 2022 19:13:36 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Jan 21, 2022 17:17:14 GMT CharlesX said:

Star Strider had a great soh, good art, good and original mechanics, good difficulty level, quite well-written, just, you know, the thing itself.

In theory he has many good ideas. In practice the books fail. 

Jan 21, 2022 17:17:14 GMT CharlesX said:

   It'd be ideal for an amateur gamebook redo\overhaul.

In general his books move on at such a frantic and breathless pace that an overhaul would need to expand the number of paragraphs up to 600 or so. Or cut down on encounters drastically. 
I made mention of this example in a previous thread, but I find paragraph 14 of Daggers of Darkness to be an example of what the sins of a Luke Sharp gamebook can look like. Have a read of it and see what you think. 

Sadly I do not have Daggers Of Darkness anymore, and so I cannot check paragraph 14 as you recommend  .

[terrysalt]

14 - You hear a sudden creak and then a crash as the bench collapses and you are tipped into an underground stream. You stand up in the waist-deep water and your hand, stretched out in front of you, finds a dead body floating past. Just then a Mamlik appears from behind a small waterfall, dagger in hand. You grab his wrist and drag him down.
MAMLIK SKILL 8 STAMINA 10
If you survive (mark off 1 poison unit on the Adventure Sheet), you cannot get out of the water and have to swim along with the stream. You emerge in the deep water of the harbour just as a ship is bearing down on you. You have no option but to grab a loose rope. You climb up and collapse on the deck (deduct 2 points from your STAMINA)., When you recover, you find the captain standing over you; he tells you that you are on your way to Kazilik. The price of passage on his vessel is 25 gold coins. If you have this much, deduct it from your Adventure Sheet; otherwise you will have to work for your passage. Deduct all the coins you do have left and then deduct 2 from your stamina for every 5 gold coins you have to make up to the total of 25. Turn to 189.

[CharlesX]

Jan 21, 2022 19:51:27 GMT terrysalt said:

14 - You hear a sudden creak and then a crash as the bench collapses and you are tipped into an underground stream. You stand up in the waist-deep water and your hand, stretched out in front of you, finds a dead body floating past. Just then a Mamlik appears from behind a small waterfall, dagger in hand. You grab his wrist and drag him down.
MAMLIK SKILL 8 STAMINA 10
If you survive (mark off 1 poison unit on the Adventure Sheet), you cannot get out of the water and have to swim along with the stream. You emerge in the deep water of the harbour just as a ship is bearing down on you. You have no option but to grab a loose rope. You climb up and collapse on the deck (deduct 2 points from your STAMINA)., When you recover, you find the captain standing over you; he tells you that you are on your way to Kazilik. The price of passage on his vessel is 25 gold coins. If you have this much, deduct it from your Adventure Sheet; otherwise you will have to work for your passage. Deduct all the coins you do have left and then deduct 2 from your stamina for every 5 gold coins you have to make up to the total of 25. Turn to 189.

I think I get your point: the writing has some talent, but cliche which would leave the like of King or Fleming standing, breathlessly, unnaturally taking about 5 things out-of-the-air of no particular relevance to the world-building, plot or description. You've already put all that better than I ever could, of course.

[bloodbeasthandler]

thanks terrysalt.
And what follows from para 189 is just as bad - attack by dragons, more randomness and then shipwreck.

There's no description anywhere is there?
We have an illustration of the mamlik on the opposite page, fortunately... but description of the captain? the ship itself? The journey? The nature of the work which might literally kill you [10 STAMINA loss possible in total]. And previous to this there's no mention of searching the assassin or the dead body - I assume they floated away but we are not told.

I really don't like this style of spinning a yarn at all.

[kieran]

I actually find that aspect of Sharp's books got worse as they went along. Star Strider generally lets its encounters happen at a reasonably sedate pace. Fangs of Fury on the other hand sometimes borders on incoherence. Though in all other aspects, his later books are better.

In fairness to Sharp, he was probably forced to stick to a section and word limit so may have had to write more "efficiently" than he might otherwise have preferred.

[petch]

Jan 18, 2022 23:47:56 GMT vastariner said:

This is probably going to be a runaway. 

And so it proved. Daggers of Darkness shares the biggest winning margin of these author polls so far (along with Deathtrap Dungeon).

The Count's prediction proved right, too. Chasms of Malice didn't get any other votes.

[The Count]

Jan 21, 2022 20:54:26 GMT kieran said:

I actually find that aspect of Sharp's books got worse as they went along. Star Strider generally lets its encounters happen at a reasonably sedate pace. Fangs of Fury on the other hand sometimes borders on incoherence. Though in all other aspects, his later books are better.

In fairness to Sharp, he was probably forced to stick to a section and word limit so may have had to write more "efficiently" than he might otherwise have preferred.

Not forgetting that English is not his first language, and that his writing is in reality no different than that of Warlock, Citadel, Starship, City, Deathtrap, Forest of Doom, Seas of Blood, Sorcery!, Robot, Castle... or almost any other FF book released before Fangs - except Vault and the exquisite Phantoms.

[The Count]

Jan 21, 2022 22:24:04 GMT petch said:

Jan 18, 2022 23:47:56 GMT vastariner said:

This is probably going to be a runaway. 

And so it proved. Daggers of Darkness shares the biggest winning margin of these author polls so far (along with Deathtrap Dungeon).

The Count's prediction proved right, too. Chasms of Malice didn't get any other votes.

The irrational hatred because Chasms asks you to roll some dice strikes again!

[CharlesX]

Jan 22, 2022 4:05:46 GMT The Count said:

Jan 21, 2022 22:24:04 GMT petch said:

And so it proved. Daggers of Darkness shares the biggest winning margin of these author polls so far (along with Deathtrap Dungeon).

The Count's prediction proved right, too. Chasms of Malice didn't get any other votes.

The irrational hatred because Chasms asks you to roll some dice strikes again!

Even one 50 50 roll such as in Armies Of Death and Return To Firetop Mountain is definitely biased and ruins a gamebook. FF like Chasms and Masks are unfair.
   To me, effectively guaranteeing the player has a 1 in 4 or a 1 in 6.chance of survival is as rubbish as say Starship Traveller. I would say it deters people from rolling dice because it encourages cheating, which spoils games.

[vastariner]

Jan 22, 2022 4:05:46 GMT The Count said:

The irrational hatred because Chasms asks you to roll some dice strikes again!

It's very rational.  The book is so unfair I wonder if something got lost in translation.  I think there are so many of the one-strikes that you start with a 4% chance of success just on those alone.  Had it been attack strength it would have been far, far, far better.  Indeed I doubt anyone would think it an unfair challenge to face, say, five one-strike combats where your opponent has a skill of 5.  You should win them all but there is still a decent hazard.

[sylas]

Don't you just hate it when you finally get a Skill of 12 and you're killed by Goblin child with no arms in a One-Strike combat?

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 21, 2022 20:54:26 GMT kieran said:

I actually find that aspect of Sharp's books got worse as they went along. Star Strider generally lets its encounters happen at a reasonably sedate pace. Fangs of Fury on the other hand sometimes borders on incoherence. Though in all other aspects, his later books are better.

In fairness to Sharp, he was probably forced to stick to a section and word limit so may have had to write more "efficiently" than he might otherwise have preferred.

There's no doubt that Luke Sharp has a good imagination and a lot of ideas, but focussing on your final sentence there... part of the trick is to take into consideration those word limits and section numbers. This should have been picked up by an editor or playtester really, if the author couldn't see it as a problem. 

Better to flesh out and deal with fewer ideas better, than chuck everything into the book and be forced to give each scene or encounter only the most cursory treatment. I'd say 'Why not keep that idea back for the next book if you cannot do justice to it in the one or two paragraphs you have set aside in this book?' 

[petch]

Jan 22, 2022 19:10:40 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Jan 21, 2022 20:54:26 GMT kieran said:

I actually find that aspect of Sharp's books got worse as they went along. Star Strider generally lets its encounters happen at a reasonably sedate pace. Fangs of Fury on the other hand sometimes borders on incoherence. Though in all other aspects, his later books are better.

In fairness to Sharp, he was probably forced to stick to a section and word limit so may have had to write more "efficiently" than he might otherwise have preferred.

There's no doubt that Luke Sharp has a good imagination and a lot of ideas, but focussing on your final sentence there... part of the trick is to take into consideration those word limits and section numbers. This should have been picked up by an editor or playtester really, if the author couldn't see it as a problem. 

Better to flesh out and deal with fewer ideas better, than chuck everything into the book and be forced to give each scene or encounter only the most cursory treatment. I'd say 'Why not keep that idea back for the next book if you cannot do justice to it in the one or two paragraphs you have set aside in this book?' 

It would be interesting to know how much of a part imposed restrictions on the authors played in the creating of the books, as if there were any, they didn't seem to be applied very consistently. Prior to any of Sharp's entries, Appointment with F.E.A.R and Creature of Havoc were clear exceptions to any such rules, although I'd imagine Jackson had the clout to overrule any attempted editorial interference; but other books like Talisman of Death and Phantoms of Fear didn't appear to have such stringent word count restrictions either. Later in the series, as the tomes got thicker, limitations seemed to go entirely out of the window, with later Keith Martin and Jonathan Green books in particular packing tons into a single reference.

[sleepyscholar]

Jan 23, 2022 8:13:51 GMT petch said:

Jan 22, 2022 19:10:40 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

There's no doubt that Luke Sharp has a good imagination and a lot of ideas, but focussing on your final sentence there... part of the trick is to take into consideration those word limits and section numbers. This should have been picked up by an editor or playtester really, if the author couldn't see it as a problem. 

Better to flesh out and deal with fewer ideas better, than chuck everything into the book and be forced to give each scene or encounter only the most cursory treatment. I'd say 'Why not keep that idea back for the next book if you cannot do justice to it in the one or two paragraphs you have set aside in this book?' 

It would be interesting to know how much of a part imposed restrictions on the authors played in the creating of the books, as if there were any, they didn't seem to be applied very consistently. Prior to any of Sharp's entries, Appointment with F.E.A.R and Creature of Havoc were clear exceptions to any such rules, although I'd imagine Jackson had the clout to overrule any attempted editorial interference; but other books like Talisman of Death and Phantoms of Fear didn't appear to have such stringent word count restrictions either. Later in the series, as the tomes got thicker, limitations seemed to go entirely out of the window, with later Keith Martin and Jonathan Green books in particular packing tons into a single reference.

I think the point was that at no stage were there clearly imposed restrictions. In other words, there was no standard operating manual for the series, accessible to all writers. So the restrictions under which any particular writer was operating were just those that they happened to have heard the last time an editor bothered to tell them (if they felt like abiding by them, which I guess many didn't). And although Puffin clearly had policies which varied (as I've mentioned elsewhere, towards the end of the series I got the impression they were trying to reduce the number of paragraphs), they didn't get clearly communicated.