kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 12, 2021 16:28:09 GMT
The tables seem wrong, unless this book pulls shenanigans where having a higher stat is sometimes a handicap. Example: Stamina 14 Skill 12: you have a 68.9% chance with Luck 11, and a 68.7% chance with Luck 12. There are more like this. I believe Chamspkees' algorithm "plays" through the book 1000 times for each stat combination and records the amount of successes. So in this case, 12/14/11 succeeded 689 times while 12/14/12, due to the luck of the draw, succeeded only 688 times. If the amount of attempts were increased significantly, the odds would probably be more accurate, but they're still probably fairly reliable as is.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 12, 2021 9:16:46 GMT
He hired me to do a job, I did the job and got paid for it. No bad blood between us. Although doesn't he try to rip you off with fake money or something IIRC?
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 11, 2021 12:35:59 GMT
Welcome
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 11, 2021 11:36:15 GMT
If he assumes players will cheat then he can use the skill and stamina settings as flavour rather than a game mechanic. Why is the black lion skill 11? Because it's badass and its stats should reflect that. He could though have the Black Lion be a tough opponent without making the book unfair by sprinkling plenty of obtainable Attack Strength bonuses throughout the earlier stages of the book.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 11, 2021 10:46:37 GMT
There are gamebooks out there that are so bad that even the worst FF books all seem like art by comparison. Ian Livingstone, even at his absolute worst, never wrote a gamebook anything close to as bad as Jon Sutherland and Nigel Gross' Sonic the Hedgehog books for instance. So I'm pretty sure anyone deliberately writing a bad book could easily make it much worse than Ian's worst. I imagine your friends could find better uses for their time! I've read all 6 Sonic The Hedgehog Gamebooks and I agree with you when you say their far eorse then Ian's worse, but if your a big Sonic fan, which I was back then, and if you can get a copy cheap enough then their only just worth readingOh don't get me wrong - I'm a Sonic fan too and I really rate the James Wallis books in the series highly and think the Marc Gascoigne/Jonathan Green books are also decent (way too hard but this was mid-90s Jonathan Green I guess!). But those Sutherland/Gross books are abysmal!
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 11, 2021 10:03:52 GMT
There are gamebooks out there that are so bad that even the worst FF books all seem like art by comparison. Ian Livingstone, even at his absolute worst, never wrote a gamebook anything close to as bad as Jon Sutherland and Nigel Gross' Sonic the Hedgehog books for instance. So I'm pretty sure anyone deliberately writing a bad book could easily make it much worse than Ian's worst.
I imagine your friends could find better uses for their time!
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 9, 2021 12:02:03 GMT
I wouldn't describe Eye Of The Dragon as non-linear. No, it's not, especially when compared to the likes of Scorpion Swamp or Robot Commando. But if you were to rank all of Ian's books in terms of linearity, it would be much closer to the Forest of Doom end of the spectrum than the Blood of the Zombies end.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 9, 2021 9:09:40 GMT
I don't think it's all just rose-tinted spectacles and nostalgia making me think this way. I think there is one major difference between all the more recent books and most of the older ones - they're designed so you see pretty much everything the book has to offer in a successful playthrough. Blood of the Zombies, Port of Peril and Assassins of Allansia are all really linear - if you don't die in combat or from an abrupt instant death, you'll basically repeat the same sequence over and over. Ian was never the most non-linear gamebook designer (Forest of Doom excepted), but he used to try a bit harder than this to create alternative paths. A pity because, for all its other faults, Eye of the Dragon was one of his least linear books. Gates of Death and Crystal of Storms are less linear, but their structure encourages you to visit everywhere before moving on. While you can to an extent vary the order you do things, this doesn't really make much difference in terms of gameplay. Compare these books to Keith Martin's hub-based books where the trick to beating them depends on doing things in the right order or Jonathan Green's Stormslayer or Night of the Necromancer where doing things in a slightly different order can unlock whole new sections of the book. This makes playthroughs of these books exceedingly long so you're fed up with the book by the time you reach the end. It also kills replayability - part of the appeal of gamebooks is after reading them once, experimenting to see what would happen if you made different decisions. These recent FFs just kill that aspect of the hobby.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 8, 2021 8:00:52 GMT
Just in case you didn't know. Ian Livingstone had these books ghost-written by Keith Martin. Well, partly. Carl Sargent is credited as a co-author which is more than he got for Legend of Zagor.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 6, 2021 9:12:08 GMT
Now all FF writing is work-for-hire Didn't realise that but just checked the copyright for Gates of Death and Crystal of Storms and you're absolutely right - Steve and Ian own the text and illustrations. And if relatively famous writers like Higson and Pratchett have to accept that, I doubt anyone else could push against it.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 5, 2021 11:00:26 GMT
I get why it was rejected. It wasn't actually rejected, the series got cancelled before it had a chance to develop beyond a concept.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 5, 2021 9:17:37 GMT
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 4, 2021 18:27:36 GMT
I wonder if there's any good reason D. Morris only chose to write the one FF book (probably not). Was he not offered enough money? Had he told all the FF stories he wanted to tell in just the one? Was it that he preferred his other projects? I seem to recall an interview from a while back where he said he didn't really care for Titan as a setting (which might explain why Keep fits so badly into it). Though I imagine the main factor was he was too busy with other stuff.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 3, 2021 10:24:14 GMT
This ranking just penalizes IL and Sj for volume of output Yes, this is true unfortunately, Keith Martin and Jonathan Green get a bit hit by this too. I think looking at just the best is flawed too though. If someone was saying IL is one of the best FF authors, it seems a bit strange to dismiss that he wrote Blood of the Zombies as irrelevant to that claim. It would be akin to saying he's the worst author by only considering his worst books and ignoring his great ones. Others on the forum disagree I guess and I suppose it would have been difficult to compare Sorcery as a whole to the other books. Ranking based on highest place books: 1. Paul Mason and Steve Williams 3. Stephen Hand 4. Jonathan Green 5. Keith P Phillips 6. Steve Jackson 7. Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson 9. Ian Livingstone 10. Keith Martin 11. Jim Bambra 12. Peter Darvill-Evans 13. Robin Waterfield 14. Steve Jackson 2 15. Graeme Davis 16. Andrew Chapman 17. Dave Morris 18. Luke Sharp 19. Rhianna Pratchett 20. Marc Gascoigne 21. Martin Allen 22. Charlie Higson So Paul Mason, Jonathan Green and Ian Livingstone are the authors who significantly benefit from ranking them this way, Jim Bambra and Peter Darvill-Evans really lose out. Not sure that's much fairer - Peter Darvill-Evans has all three of his books in the top 20 but only ranks 12th? Out of interest, I also ranked the authors by their lowest placed books: 1. Keith P Phillips 2. Stephen Hand and Jim Bambra 4. Mark Smith 5. Peter Darvill-Evans 6. Steve Williams 7. Paul Mason 8. Graeme Davis 9. Steve Jackson 2 10. Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson 12. Jonathan Green 13. Robin Waterfield 14. Rhianna Pratchett 15. Marc Gascoigne 16. Keith Martin 17. Andrew Chapman 18. Steve Jackson 19. Luke Sharp 20. Martin Allen 21. Charlie Higson 22. Ian Livingstone Authors who do well out of ranking them this way are Graeme Davis and Dave Morris while Steve and Ian do very badly indeed! So if you look at Ian's best book he only ranks 9th, but if you look at his worst he ranks right at the bottom so an overall ranking of 16th seems pretty fair.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 2, 2021 10:20:20 GMT
Loved it - was so relieved when you got that Stamina gem!
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 2, 2021 9:44:13 GMT
I dunno, I always assumed Kylltrog was a fairly common monster name. The orcish equivalent of "Dave" perhaps. I never thought of that. I still think it's rather silly but at least that makes it less outright absurd. There is though a more comparable situation in Citadel of Chaos - if you don't know the password the Rhinoman asks for, you can just guess it. I think Rings of Kether has a situation where you can guess a password and, unlike in Citadel of Chaos and House of Hell, it's actually impossible to find out what it is beforehand which is just ridiculous.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Nov 1, 2021 10:14:14 GMT
1. Explain what some of the terms thrown out there mean and what potential risks they entail. For instance at one stage, you can be asked if you want to "risk shadow maneuvers " but you're not told what they are or why they are risky. Similarly, right at the start, you're asked if you want to light warp or time warp and informed that both carry their own dangers. The book is peppered with examples like this.
2. There's no need to explain the "Wodewick" joke.
3. The pitch-yaw-roll part would be better if you were told what the aim was - that would make it an interesting mathematical puzzle at least.
4. There's waaaay too many abrupt instant deaths - stuff like the Bric and Brac encounter needs removed or made fairer. Maybe a lot of the instant deaths could just cause Stamina loss instead.
5. Your ship should start with higher Shields to make space combat less dangerous.
6. Explain what exactly happens when you throw your items at the orange blob and why some of them prove more effective than others.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 30, 2021 8:53:57 GMT
I dunno, I always assumed Kylltrog was a fairly common monster name. The orcish equivalent of "Dave" perhaps. While as the password in House of Hell could really be anything, even a nonsense word.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 29, 2021 16:56:37 GMT
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 26, 2021 19:32:56 GMT
I suggest most people would reckon J. Green's worst book was his Spellbreaker Spellbreaker is ridiculously unfair but it's a great read. I would probably pick Curse of the Mummy as his worst. It's almost as difficult and much more dull.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 26, 2021 15:38:04 GMT
Jmisbest's recent topic on least favourite FF authors has driven me to some more statistical navel gazing. Based on the average placement of their books in this poll, the authors can be ranked thusly (average place of their books in brackets): 1. Keith P Phillips (5) 2. Stephen Hand (5.67) 3. Jim Bambra (12) 4. Mark Smith (12.5) 5. Steve Williams (16.67) 6. Peter Darvill-Evans (19) 7. Paul Mason (22.2) 8. Jamie Thomson (25) 9. Steve Jackson (28.55) 10. Jonathan Green (31.43) 11. Robin Waterfield (35.25) 12. Steve Jackson 2 (35.67) 13. Keith Martin (40.25) 14. Graeme Davis (45) 15. Dave Morris (50) 16. Ian Livingstone (50.5) 17. Andrew Chapman (57.8) 18. Rhianna Pratchett (61) 19. Marc Gascoigne (62) 20. Luke Sharp (65.25) 21. Martin Allen (68) 22. Charlie Higson (76) Of course, the one-book wonders throw things slightly out of whack - Dave Morris is definitely a better gamebook author than his one FF bit suggests, Jim Bambra may have been carried a bit by Stephen Hand and Keith P Phillips never got a chance to prove if lightning can strike twice (though Thyra Migurn may have been able to help him there).
Comparing it my own ranking based on average scores I gave their books: 1. Peter Darvill-Evans (8.33) 2. Stephen Hand / Keith P Phillips (8.0) 4. Steve Jackson (7.36) 5. Mark Smith / Paul Mason / Jim Bambra (7.0) 8. Jamie Thomson / Steve Williams (6.67) 10. Robin Waterfield (6.5) 11. Jonathan Green (6.29) 12. Ian Livingstone (6.19) 13. Steve Jackson 2 / Luke Sharp / Keith Martin / Dave Morris (6.0) 17. Andrew Chapman (5.33) 18. Graeme Davis / Marc Gascoigne / Martin Allen / Rhianna Pratchett (5.0) 22. Charlie Higson (2.0)
It seems I rate Peter Darvill-Evans, Steve Jackson, Ian Livingstone and Luke Sharp a fair bit higher than the consensus while I am more critical of Graeme Davis than most here. I also seem to go against the grain in preferring Paul Mason's solo efforts to his collaborations with Steve Williams.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 26, 2021 13:02:56 GMT
I guess my least favourite FF author is Charlie Higson, but he only wrote 1 book so that's not very interesting.
Looking at what I voted for various books for Wilf's poll, the author of multiple books with the worst average score is Martin Allen. My favourite book of his is Sky Lord because I find its wackiness occasionally endearing - it has major design flaws, but many of them also crop up in the Clash of the Princes books and they're a lot more bland.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 26, 2021 8:59:35 GMT
The odd thing about FF is that many (most!) books in the series are weak, too hard, rattled off, etc. and yet we love the series as a whole so much. Let's face it, it has been farmed out by the creators as an arms-length profit-making endeavor from very early on, the only exception really being SJ's slightly later effortbooks (e.g. Creature of Havoc). You could argue that Jon Green is really the only one to have written FF books with love since about 1985. Not sure that's entirely fair. Yes, I think the books were farmed out as a profit-making exercise, but that doesn't mean the various authors didn't enjoy writing them or put considerable effort into them. Look at stuff like Spectral Stalkers or Moonrunner and the amount of creativity on display there. Even Ian Livingstone probably has more profitable uses of his time than writing FF books yet he continues to do so.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 24, 2021 17:35:19 GMT
I'd come up with an idea for a multi-player scenario set in Port Blacksand, in which the characters were all members of the City Guard, tasked with finding out who had stolen a valuable item from Lord Azzur's palace, and how. I remember you trying that properly on a different forum but sadly I think it fizzled out before we got any further. Any thoughts about giving it another go here or adapting it into a solo gamebook?
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 24, 2021 14:11:26 GMT
I have actually had a Zagor backstory gamebook in mind for a while, even designed a magic system for it at one stage but no idea where the notes for that went. Essentially it would be a dungeon adventure where you, Balthus Dire and Zharradan Marr are competing to find a book of magic hidden somewhere in an ancient ruin as a test set by Volgera Darkstorm. It would culminate in the rain of knives incident, but Zagor's role would be for the reader to decide - meaning both the Creature of Havoc and Trolltooth Wars backstories would be viable.
But yeah thinking about it and actually writing the thing are different matters entirely!
I agree Naas is a good call. Master of Chaos leaves a lot of tantalising questions open for exploration. The evil priest character you can run into in Askyos could also play a role perhaps.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 24, 2021 9:34:02 GMT
Having Throm enter third instead of sixth eliminates the necessity of having Throm somehow pass you before you encounter him (h/t to the Count for identifying this particular plot problem with DD). I don't really see it as much of a problem to be honest - it's easy to assume that he simply took the other route from the goblin room and thus overtook you. Perhaps you left a bootprint indicating which exit you took and he decided to avoid you for now. A bigger issue is how did the ninja and elf get past the goblins without killing them. Maybe they somehow snuck past them, the goblins were out on patrol or they took the passage with the boulder trap without triggering it. If we have to accommodate the probably less stealthy Throm also avoiding the goblins, it gets very unwieldy!
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 23, 2021 12:25:57 GMT
While this technique can work well in the whole, it works poorly in the Cretan Chronicles 'taking a hint'. Taking a Hint fails because it gives the reader zero hint what the hidden choice is until they've picked it. Like you visit a shrine, take a hint, then find yourself robbing it.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 23, 2021 9:47:54 GMT
Hidden options that you don't know are there. "When you reach a paragraph that mentions a butterfly, subtract 50 from the reference". Don't do this. Oh I quite like this technique. It can be quite rewarding figuring out when to activate them so long as the trigger to do so isn't too obscure. It also allows the reader a new appreciation of what seemed a hopeless scenario. Everything else on your list I completely agree with.
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kieran
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Asterix
Oct 23, 2021 9:44:03 GMT
via mobile
Post by kieran on Oct 23, 2021 9:44:03 GMT
I remember as a child enjoying the ones where you were part of a group of ghost-hunters or something and you had to solve them before you got too scared, I think. Definitely my favourite Thraves books - the fellow ghost hunters are genuinely very funny.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 23, 2021 9:26:39 GMT
Or did he simply not read the start of his own book? That!
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