Solve it Yourself- Book 1 The Mystery Squad and the Dead Man

[stevendoig]

Charity shop- 49P

Another slim book with a cheesy photographic cover, published 1984

The paper is of a very high quality!

Again, I will play it through soon (Not much to it!)

Anyone got this series?  Thoughts?

[stevendoig]

(full Title) - 'Dead mans message'

[a moderator]

I've read most of the books in the series, but was never sufficiently grabbed to want my own copies. Very linear, and the solutions to some of the puzzles are a bit too wacky (in one of the books you need to spot that a character has disguised himself as the ground in an attempt Not To Be Seen).

[stevendoig]

OK, 'played' this through. As you say it is VERY linear because the options are either the correct one or you are wrong and keep choosing every other reference until you get it right. I am pleased to say that as a 38 yr old, I got a final score of next to nothing. It was a dull story as well!

Couple of interesting points -

The posh paper I mentioned is a poor choice for a gamebook - they do not 'flick' at all well!

The story is written entirely in the first person - do any other gamebooks do this ? - this is a poor choice because you are completely divorced from the action and because everything is therefore set in the past , you know everything works out well.

Fine to have a different gamebook, but don't go out of yer road!

[a moderator]

Aug 5, 2017 18:43:04 GMT stevendoig said:

The story is written entirely in the first person - do any other gamebooks do this ? - this is a poor choice because you are completely divorced from the action and because everything is therefore set in the past , you know everything works out well.

Aren't these books in the third person (describing what other characters do/did), rather than the first (from an I/we perspective)?

Tracker Books used the first person and past tense. Zork, Sagas of the Demonspawn, Combat Command and SwordQuest used the third person, Sagas also using the past tense.

[stevendoig]

i just checked and its written in thefirst person by one of the gang called 'bodger' who even reports in detail events he wasnt involved in!