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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 26, 2023 6:37:31 GMT
My original plan was for the player to have a 2nd day exploring the town for clues/weapons before venturing out onto the heath. But by the time I’d finished ‘Day 1’ I realised I wouldn’t have enough paragraphs to cover it, so it got dropped which in hindsight made the adventure more difficult than it was meant to be.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 6, 2023 18:30:48 GMT
What was the reason in this instance? Just the scripts weren't long enough and (unlike other instances such as Kinda) not attempt was made to record scenes to pad out the run time. Don't. Being a DW fan is to be a member of a very broad church of tones/themes/ideas/aesthetics. Yes, there are some fans who insist that DW should only be one thing, but they are in the minority. I don't expect every DW story to appeal to everyone, so people not liking my favourite is no big issue. The 'evidence' being that somewhere on her album The Hounds of Love there's supposed to be a sample of dialogue from Kinda.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 1, 2023 23:20:23 GMT
Did you have any special feelings about Adric's death? I thought it was very well handled - it probably would have hit me harder if I didn't (as it turns out, wrongly) suspect they would just save him next story. Still, he got to go out a hero and the silent credits made it quite poignant. He appears in Time-Flight purely so he'd be credited in the Radio Times and thus hide the fact that he'd die in Earthshock. The producer, JNT, also turned down the offer of a Radio Times cover for the return of the Cybermen to hide their return (it would have been the first Radio Times cover since Pertwee's last season in 1973/74!
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 1, 2023 23:16:46 GMT
Series 19 was decent, some good ideas in there though not really the most thrilling series. Not really loving Davison in the role so far but maybe he'll grow on me. Davison is my fav classic era Doctor, but I do wonder if that is influenced by him being the Doctor on screen at the time I became a fan rather than just a casual viewer. At this point DW moved from airing once a week on a Saturday teatime slot, where the first half of Season 18 was soundly thrashed in the ratings by the then new Buck Rogers TV series (soon to be cancelled in the US as all those expensive, brainless series usually were*), to airing twice a week (usually Monday & Tuesday) later in the evening. This had an effect on cliffhangers - those for Parts 1 & 3 weren't quite so important as the one for Part 2, which had to get you back a week later as opposed to 24hrs later. As a result some writers spilt their stories in half, often moving to a new main location for the second half of each story (eg. Earthshock move from the caves to the freighter, Castrovalva from the TARDIS to Castrovala). This story was a late replacement for a script from the Meglos authors that got (thankfully, based on the supposed plot description) dropped, hence it was shot 4th in the season after Four to Doomsday, The Visitation, and Kinda. *After the original Twilight Zone (1959), I don't think any US sci-fi fantasy series beats more than 3 seasons till Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) does in 1990 with its fourth season. Written by an old BBC writer/director (he directed Meglos don't you know!) who I think hadn't watched DW since the Hartnell era, hence the 1960s feel of exploring the ship at the beginning. For whatever reason, Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) was only contracted for 2 of the 26 episodes and hence she feel asleep or 2 in the middle of this story. For the longest time, because no one had interviewed author Chris Bailey, there was rumour the story was written by the likes of Kate Bush under a pseudonym! Script Editor Christopher H. Bidmead has left at the end of Season 18, and Antony Root was only filling in for 3 months. This is the script that got Eric Saward the job as Script Editor (a post he'll hold till all hell breaks loose in 1986). DW production at this point in time meant you couldn't swap stories around near the end of the season as post-production time would preclude the final story shot being ready to air if not scheduled last in the season. As with the Graham Williams era, strikes will cause issues for the end of the coming seasons (20-21). Otherwise it might have been better to have Time-Flight first and end stronger on Earthshock.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 1, 2023 23:01:27 GMT
Series 18 was a very mixed bunch, including two contenders for Worst Story Ever. The Leisure Hive The director on this took longer than allocated to the story - trying to shoot it single camera (As movies and all dramas are essentially done today) at a time when DW was shot multi-camera (like a sitcom). He was not asked back to direct again. Besides The Mind Robber way back in Season 6 (which has the excuses of being the final story recorded of that production block, Fraser Hines getting measles, and an extra episode having to be tacked onto the start of the story), this story has some of the shortest episodes (duration-wise), with Part 4 clocking in at 19 minutes (instead of the usual 24 1/2). Originally meant to open Season 15 (producer Graham William's first season back in 1977/78) till the BBC management said no to anything that might look like a parody of their expensive, prestige Dracula adaptation in production at the same time. Script Editor Christopher H. Bidmead stripped all the gothic horror out of the scripts and director Peter Moffat put it all back in again before shooting began. This is the story where you can see Tom & Lalla's on-again/of-again non-working relationship on screen. In the location material that was shot on film at the beginning of production, Tom won't even look her in the face. He's much happier a couple of weeks later when they shoot the studio material on videotape. It didn't help that Tom was quite ill during production (his hair was permed for the only time in the series as it had gone limp from the illness). Steven Gallagher is an acclaimed sci-fi author (I've not read any of his works). It apparently took a lot to wrangle this into something the production team could actually get on screen. If you want to get an idea of what it might have been like, the BBC (books & audio) have recently released his novelisation of the story in its original form (as opposed to the one published in 1981). Reputedly the director was fired from the story. I know people personally for which this is their favourite DW story of the classic era. This wasn't originally going to feature the Master. Always fun to see you trash my favourite classic era DW story!
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 1, 2023 22:47:13 GMT
it was still a clever-clever reference drop for a kid audience even if he hadn't written his Hitch-Hiker at the time The serial that name drops this ("Destiny of the Daleks") aired in September 1979, the book version of "Hiker's" was published in October 1979. But this is by-the-by, the radio version the book was a novelisation of had aired on BBC radio in 1978.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 1, 2023 20:36:15 GMT
Okay, I think I have made it so guests can read but not post etc. I will point out that this was a really, really, really, really tedious thing to do. There is no one setting for this. I had to do this for each individual board (there is about 30-40 boards in this forum). Let me know if it works as advertised.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 1, 2023 4:36:47 GMT
Don’t forget, we’ll be running a big poll in the next issue of the Fantazine too (similar to the 2010 poll).
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Mar 1, 2023 3:04:33 GMT
The reasoning behind the change was mainly to deal with spam posts, which, as Ed has pointed out, have now dropped to 0 since being a member has become a requirement for posting.
Unfortunately, ProBoards currently does not appear to have a setting between requiring login and full access without login, otherwise, yes, I would have made it possible to view the forum without logging in.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Jan 28, 2023 22:48:44 GMT
A5 would be a better size. I’ll note crowdfunding failed when this was tried with City of Thieves.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Jan 15, 2023 8:34:15 GMT
I'm having some trouble with the downloads as well, is there an issue with the site at the moment? I've no idea what went wrong with the site (it seemingly ate the file). I've reuploaded the site and tested it, so it should download now. Let me know if otherwise.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Dec 2, 2022 20:16:34 GMT
Is anything actually happening with this magazine? Very slowly. I do have a teaching job that swallows a lot of my time. Plus, people do need to contribute stuff.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Oct 1, 2022 7:38:01 GMT
As far as copyright goes, an interesting difference in the latest two books:
SOTG - the art & map copyright is given to Ian Livingstone SOS - the art copyright is given to Tazio Bettin
Does Bettin have a better agent? Did SJ & IL pick the artists and retaining copyright was a requirement by Bettin before agreeing?
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Oct 1, 2022 1:43:44 GMT
I would not really want to be paid I would just want to see my book in print. Even if you don't want to be paid, if you attempted to sell copies (even at a price where you just covered print & postage) you would be breaching the copyright held by Scholastic, Ian & Steve.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Oct 1, 2022 1:42:13 GMT
Hi I have got a gamebook that is fully developed 400 paragraphs that I would like to see if I could get it in print. it is set in Khul and is called The Sword of Excelisar. Does anyone know who I should ask? Unfortunately FF is a closed shop - meaning you can't submit material for print for it. Scholastic seem to be relying on SJ& IL plus high profile people who've already written elsewhere (Higson, Pratchett) only (although I note Jon Green has a "with" credit on Salamonis). If you send something to Scholastic all you will get in return is a polite letter telling you that they are not accepting submissions for the FF range.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 27, 2022 18:01:11 GMT
My local bookshop stocked copies of each new title up to 52 (end of 1992) but they stopped appearing after that.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 18, 2022 9:24:00 GMT
FF were published in Japan by Shakai Shisosha, which went bust some years ago. Apparently, recently a deal was done whereby they will be republished by Group SNE, who do Sword World, and who translated D&D. I met them at FFF4, but didn't get very clear information out of them. They said they wanted to contact me, but they haven't replied to my message. Who knows, maybe something was said in the conversation they had with Ian L at FFF4? In any case, it's all very new so that Titanica link is well out of date for it. The old Shakai Shisosha editions were in the small tankobon size typically used for these books in Japan. Yes, wish I had though of looking for some when I lived in Japan!
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 4, 2022 2:27:34 GMT
This is a really cool poll and I agree with most of it in general. My main disagreements are: Glad you liked it. Be sure to vote in the next one!
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 3, 2022 19:44:25 GMT
The pattern seems to be porthole-style for reprints. So I imagine in time these new titles will get porthole-variants.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 3, 2022 19:43:08 GMT
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 3, 2022 0:39:37 GMT
Print on demand now available via the website (sadly Peecho put their prices up at the start of the month).
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 1, 2022 5:00:18 GMT
Will you be including some sort of review of FFF4? Yes, Andy Jones will be doing a write-up.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 28, 2022 6:07:06 GMT
So, the plan is to do a new reader survey (the last was back in 2010!). Obviously we'll survey on the main gamebooks of FF, but are there any other suggestions?
Do we stick with giving each book 4 marks (Plot, Gameplay, Atmosphere, Illustrations)? Do we survey about non-FF titles? The previous survey included AFF titles, Goldhawk, the Warlock mini-FFs etc. Do we survey about them again?
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 27, 2022 8:01:35 GMT
Issue #17 is now published! Visit here to download. Print-on-demand copies will be available soon!
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 24, 2022 4:31:02 GMT
Thread for discussion of this issue.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 24, 2022 4:18:39 GMT
Do we know the price of: - 1) A first edition warlock of Firetop Mountain 2) The Special anniversay edition published a few years ago? ty Do you mean the price when originally published, or what they are worth now? The first can be found here: linkThe second will be found in Jamie Fry's 2022 update to his FF Price Guide, due out before the end of the year.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 21, 2022 2:33:17 GMT
I compiled a little info on this on the wiki: link
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 21, 2022 2:22:49 GMT
I'd love to attend one of these, but NZ is a long way and costly. Plus it is always on in the middle of a school term.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 19, 2022 19:40:48 GMT
Undead horror: RARRRRGH! Let the heated debate on issues pertaining to gender politics and the influence of a hypothetical deep state commeeeeence! I don’t know, a Fortean thread seems the best place for such flights of fantasy re: deep states etc.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Aug 14, 2022 2:44:41 GMT
Even though I'm not a big fan of Appointment with F.E.A.R., I found myself really caught up in the "solve the mystery" aspect of this one. Maybe it was the writing style, or the game design, or something else, but I could see I was getting closer to figuring it all out. Probably if I had taken more copious notes I would have solved it after the third attempt, but I didn't so I hadn't. But I think that if I had read through a few more times without dice, I would have really enjoyed being able to finally put all the clues together. In hindsight, I should have done this. I won't add to other people's comments about the rules around multiple opponents or the incorrectly-numbered paragraph. These were stumbling blocks. In summary, I thought this was a great whodunnit and a worthy addition to the series. Thank you, Peter. Between these nice words and Mark Lain's recent-ish review ( Review Link) I'm feeling a bit better about the mess!
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