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Post by deadshadowrunner on Jan 21, 2014 10:23:29 GMT
Anyone has any of the books in this series?I only own Murder in the Dark.
It's a classic whodunnit(gamebook) with 180 references.On the back cover it boasts: It's someone different (the killer) every time you play!Except that there are only six suspects,so there are only six different games.
But it still sounds interesting,right?The paths are probably intertwined with each other,making it like a mini Appointment with FEAR.Wrong.The six different games are like I said,different.Totally different.So it's actually six different gamebooks with the same plot combined into one book.Still not too bad,right?
Wrong.There is absolutely no deduction in the story,only memorisation.Then it asks you something from previous paragraphs that you did not think to memorise,a bit like details of some items in Curse of the Mummy.If you get it wrong,the murderer tries to kill you.If you get it right you get a clue.This is the part where you compare and delete,not deduce.For example the clue is:A short person could not have reached the shelf.Then you compare to the details of each person and cancel the one who is short,because he is not the murderer.And so on until you reach the end.
If you collected all the clues,you should be able to guess who it is easily.If not,too bad.Even if you win,the book doesn't state the murderer's motive.
If you've read until here,you'll probably realised that I don't like this book.You're right.The only good thing about this book is that it is small and portable.But it's so bad,you probably wouldn't even want to bring it along with you.
Don't let this review stop you from buying it.You may find it interesting.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 21, 2014 11:50:35 GMT
I have two of Thraves' Compact Adventure Game Books, plus a few of his gamebooks based on licensed properties (Asterix and the Famous Five). I'd say that Murder in the Dark is actually the best of the ones I've read - the rest have way too much randomness. For example, the 'puzzles' which must be solved to win Secret Agent A.C.E. (the other CAGB) are all in the format 'guess which of the four words listed here is the right one'. No clues, no logic, just a 1 in 4 chance of being right every time.
There is actually a bit of 'intertwining' in Murder. After the first two or three 'clues', you'll wind up on one of two tracks to the endgame, so the last few memory puzzles become quite familiar if you can be bothered to play the book more than three or four times.
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Post by deadshadowrunner on Jan 21, 2014 13:10:21 GMT
Oh well.I spotted a copy of Secret Agent ACE in a second-hand bookshop and was contemplating buying it.But after what you stated,bye bye SAA.
Stephen Thrave wrote Famous Five gamebooks?Is it the Famous Five and You series?I have one of the books in that series,Take Off.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 21, 2014 13:40:59 GMT
The Thraves Famous Five gamebooks came with lots of losable props (see here and here for examples), and had titles like The Wreckers' Tower Game. As I recall, they're even worse than A.C.E. At the start you take some of the props (one of which will enable you to find the answer to one type of puzzle). Then it goes something like: 1) Roll the special d6 that came with the book to see what type of puzzle you get. 2) If you have the appropriate prop, you solve the puzzle, and might get to start using another of the props. 3) If you do not have the appropriate prop, you might be allowed to make a guess, which gives you a 1 in 3 chance of solving the puzzle as above. 4) If you guess wrongly, or don't get the chance to guess, you gain nothing and may even lose a Picnic Card (equivalent to a 'life'). 5) Repeat the process from the start until you run out of Picnic Cards and fail, or make it to the end of the book and win. Not a whole lot of fun.
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Post by deadshadowrunner on Jan 21, 2014 13:47:19 GMT
Haha,I guess he isn't cut to be a gamebook writer.
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Post by yvoire on Jan 24, 2014 15:17:43 GMT
No he really isn't. He was translated in Italian too. I wanted to love Secret Agent A.C.E. but as Greenspine pointed out, it's terribly linear and has the guess mechanic that had no meaning whatsoever. There were some other mini-puzzles, like the sabotaged vehicles, but it was the same thing. Just guess randomly unless you have a list of all sabotaged vehicles which you can acquire during the game. It was very meh in the end.
I also have Shadow of Doom. The structure is the same as other Compact gamebooks. You have to retrieve six gems, each guarded by a number of monsters and you have to choose which to fight in order to get the gem. it is much better in removing the 1 in 4 random chance, because the choice of monster only determines the difficulty in the combat. The combat mechanics I actually kinda loved. They were something genuinely new, and rather cute. The fiction felt forced in the way monsters are separated so that you only have to fight one at a time, and the plot is ludicrously linear and bland. Still, a little better written than A.C.E., if only slightly.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Mar 30, 2014 11:49:58 GMT
I think his best gamebooks were the Ghost ones. They were as random as anything else he wrote, but they were amusingly written with great supporting characters and the randomness was better disguised. They had you searching for treasure in haunted places with your companions an elderly professor of the paranormal and a spiritual medium. The amusing thing was that the two of them were both frauds and complete cowards and were both hopeless at covering these two facts. The random element came from the medium always rolling her special die to see which of the three of you was best suited for each task (and she generally feigned disappointment if it selected the professor or you, and happiness if it selected her). If you don't like randomness in gamebooks they will not appeal, but otherwise they're worth checking out.
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Post by deadshadowrunner on Mar 30, 2014 14:14:07 GMT
Now would be a good time to say I bought Secret Agent ACE.I loved it!It was the best gamebook I'd ever read!Great!Two thumbs up!
Actually,no.
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Post by a moderator on Mar 30, 2014 16:47:11 GMT
I remember an amusing and pretty savage review of one of Thraves' Battle Quest books on the Gamebooks group at Yahoo! some years back. One criticism that's always stuck in my memory is that opponents don't even have names, just stats, and it wasn't nearly as much fun to proclaim, "I killed the monster I had to hit 6 times!" as going "I smashed the LARD GIANT's stupid face in!"
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Post by deadshadowrunner on Jun 25, 2014 15:12:29 GMT
Today I bought a huge haul of 35 gamebooks(had a pretty hard time lugging them home), including 3 STAGs(nice acronym). They were Haunted Island, Shadows of Doom and Ghost Ride. I will most likely be posting about them here after I read them, which will be after I read the rest of the 32 gamebooks.
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Post by a moderator on Oct 23, 2021 1:20:51 GMT
I remember an amusing and pretty savage review of one of Thraves' Battle Quest books on the Gamebooks group at Yahoo! some years back. One criticism that's always stuck in my memory is that opponents don't even have names, just stats, and it wasn't nearly as much fun to proclaim, "I killed the monster I had to hit 6 times!" as going "I smashed the LARD GIANT's stupid face in!" The discussion of Thraves' Asterix books in another thread reminded me of this review, and a search of my undeleted emails revealed that I still had the one with the review in. Since it no longer exists at Yahoo!, I shall reproduce it below.
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