kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 18, 2021 19:25:47 GMT
a couple of years ago I did play through Discworld Noir, which I rather liked. I must give that a proper go some time. The ugly early 3D graphics always put me off.
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kieran
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Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 18, 2021 13:54:37 GMT
Feeling run of the mill and forgettable is probably the worst thing for an FF book. A lot of the later entries unfortunately felt that way for me (with some exceptions). I feel like the more the series went on, the fewer "benchmark" books there were. I suppose quite a few later books suffer in fans' estimation not because they are bad but because they don't do anything that hasn't already been done. I think I've made this point before here, but fan consensus on Stealer of Souls is that it was generic and by-the-numbers but since it was only my second book, it seemed original to me and I rate it pretty highly.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 15, 2021 22:35:17 GMT
perhaps because they aren't particularly creative or exciting (Space Assassin, Star Strider) Both books are quite quirky though. Star Strider in particular has so many little details. Its flaws are more to do with gameplay imo. Deathmoor is quite cleverly designed in some respects and it's pretty well balanced. Waterfield just forgot to include a climax. And I feel a lot of effort went into Legend of Zagor - it's very complex. It's just not very fun!
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 15, 2021 21:38:15 GMT
Discworld was just impossible! Did you ever try the second one? It was a lot fairer. Yes, have heard good things about it. Another great one was The Dig - really atmospheric.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 15, 2021 8:41:34 GMT
I'll also add Simon the Sorcerer, which had beautiful graphics, a very memorable soundtrack, and a ton of humour. (And 256-colour AGA graphics on my Amiga 1200...ah, nostalgia.) I remember a friend of mine having Simon the Sorcerer on his Amiga. He never let me play it, but it certainly looked fun! I do miss point-and-click games. My favourites were Broken Sword and Discworld - though the first Discworld game was pretty much impossible without a guide.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 14, 2021 18:36:37 GMT
Certain other stories suggest otherwise, and few topics are more contentious in fandom. Interesting! It does seem odd for the Doctor to have lasted hundreds of years in his first incarnation when his subsequent ones seem to average 3 or 4 years. Oh, how sad. He played the part with such relish too. A pity he didn't get a better final story.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 14, 2021 12:47:19 GMT
Series 10 was mostly solid but nothing that really blew me away. The most notable element is that there's a bit more continuity between stories than previously. UNIT again aren't in it a great deal, nor is the Master this time.
The Three Doctors This was fun, but not quite as good as I was hoping. It was great to see Troughton back and his quarreling with Pertwee's Doctor was hilarious. I particularly liked how he gets on far better with the UNIT folk than Pertwee's Doctor does. It raises interesting questions about what it really means when all these incarnations are said to be the same Doctor. They look different, have different personalities, likes and talents and even their memories of previous incarnations seem imperfect (the Third Doctor has no idea what the Second Doctor's recorder is for instance - but he clearly remembered the daisy story he told Jo in The Time Monster). I liked the recorder saving the day in the end (even if I'm not convinced it really made any sense) and I also liked Omega as a villain. Unusually for Doctor Who villains, he's actually pretty reasonable and fair-minded (bar the occasional outburst) and the idea of a revered hero driven mad by his own heroic deed is a good one. A creature of pure will raises some interesting metaphysical questions for a sci-fi, but these are largely ignored, at least for now (and I suspect forever). I also thought this was the best role for Sergeant Benton thus far. On to the less successful elements - the psychic battle where Pertwee and a goblin do judo was... odd. Dr Tyler and Mr Ollis add absolutely nothing to proceedings. The Brigadier is at his most irritating here - you would think by now he would trust the Doctor! And poor William Hartnell is confined to a bubble for the whole story which is such a shame (incidentally, I had always assumed the Doctor had had multiple incranations before Hartnell, but this story shows I'm mistaken - Hartnell was the original). I don't really buy that the Time Lords couldn't help more directly and I didn't like the anti-matter monsters at all. And, even though I knew it would be the case, I couldn't help but feel disappointed Troughton wasn't sticking around rather than Pertwee.
Carnival of Monsters I had initial misgivings about this one, but I ended up quite enjoying it. The early Twilight Zone-esque scenes on the ship where time keeps repeating were fun even though they didn't really go anywhere. I liked the banter between Jo and the Doctor throughout the story, with Jo picking up on things which the Doctor indicates had already occurred to him - leaving it up to the viewer whether they actually had or not. The Drashigs were a great monster - that scream they do is genuinely creepy and I like how they were woven into the rest of the story. Vorg and his assistant were ok characters, amusing at times but their costumes were a bit much. The script also presented them as loveable rascals which somewhat downplayed how evil the miniscope is made out to be. Unfortunately, I found all the elements with the three tribunal aliens pretty tedious. They weren't particularly funny, menacing or interesting and the plan two of them had to seize power made no real sense. I hope this is the last we'll see of them.
Frontier in Space This is probably the most Star Trek-y story so far and it does a good job of world building, constructing a fairly layered cold war situation. Where it doesn't do so well is as regards plot. Trying to start a war with something as vague as the fear weapon here seems silly - I get that Earthlings would be afraid of Draconians and vice-versa, but I imagine at least some individuals might be more afraid of something else - it's a wonder the plan seems to work as well as it does. Another problem is just how repetitive it all is - the Doctor and Jo get captured and thrown in cells every five minutes. And the Doctor gets shot twice - though the first time seems to barely affect him. The segment in the prison colony on the moon is utterly pointless filler - the Master could have just collected the Doctor on Earth and nothing would have changed, and none of the characters introduced here or the whole Peace Party element end up having any relevance to the rest of the story. There's also lots of annoying niggles in the plotting - the Doctor using his oxygen tank as a jetpack is ludicrous, General Williams goes from completely unreasonable warmonger to incredibly helpful based on the testimony of a character who, from Williams' perspective, has every reason to be lying, and it seems a bit ridiculous that the Doctor and Jo are being dealt with by heads of state (and why is Earth's president so ineffectual anyway?). And to top it all off, it's another story where the day is saved by the Doctor twiddling with a wire <sigh>. In fact, the whole climax feels very rushed - it is practically "blink and you miss it". There is some good stuff though - the reveals for the Master and the Daleks were well done and I'm rather surprised I didn't see either coming. There's plenty of good banter between Jo, the Doctor and the Master, and the Orgons were well-used - I liked that the greatest fear was the Daleks. I also liked the design and characterisation of the Draconians. I thinks that's what bugs me so much about this story - so many good elements, but let down by lazy plotting.
Planet of the Daleks It's cool to see the Thals back - the back story of the Daleks has become so confusing that I had figured their Series 1 origin had been retconned out of existence, but I guess not! I thought the actors playing the Thals did well in making fairly slight characters feel reasonably well-rounded - I particularly liked Taron, the world-weary scientist thrust into a position of leadership, but all of the supporting cast do well here. Another thing that works well is that Jo and the Doctor take much more supportive roles than usual. They're still involved in the action of course, but they're also there to encourage and counsel the Tharns during their moments of doubt - it's a change of dynamic that work surprisingly well. Other than these points and some better than usual set design, there's nothing that really stands out too much about this story. The invisible aliens seems underused (and those purple furs are just silly looking) and there's a couple of mishandled action scenes. While the story just about manages to sustain excitement levels through its six episode length, the Daleks just aren't threatening enough to really make me invested apart from in one notable scene (the floating Dalek chasing them up the shaft). The story ends with Jo having to make a choice about whether the live on Skaro, but it just didn't have enough build-up to make the viewer think she'd actually say yes. Overall, decent but probably one I'll be struggling to remember in a few months.
The Green Death In Frontier in Space, I didn't expect the Master to be behind it all. This time I fully expected him to be and it turned out he wasn't! I guess I can't accuse the show of being predictable. Anyway, this was a bit of a throwback to Series 7 with an industrial espionage theme and a greater role for the UNIT characters and for the most part I found it a pretty successful one. I liked the first episode slow scene-setting being interspersed with the Doctor fleeing from every beast imaginable on Metebelis-3, quite a clever way to keep things exciting without rushing the main plot. Kudos for the blue sapphire actually becoming important later on too, even if it was a bit convenient. As was the fungus Cliff just happened to be studying turning out to be the best way to kill the maggots and cure the green death. I can forgive these plot points though just because the whole was well executed. The exploration of the mine was atmospheric, the interplay between BOSS and Stephens was good fun, the Doctor gets to play dress-up and Captain Yates and the Brigadier were both well-used. I did think it was going to go down the dreaded 'Computer cannot cope with illogic" route but luckily this turned out to be only a minor plot point and it least it was proper illogic this time rather than the example in The Daemons. I thought it was interesting that BOSS's mind control seemed to struggle when forcing people to go far beyond their moral compass - even Stephens is able to eventually break free due to this point. Less successfully, I thought this was a poor swansong for Jo. She's pretty inept throughout, her romance with Cliff is heavy-handed and rushed - they get engaged after spending a few days together when he spent half of them in a coma and the other half belittling her. I suppose the formula needs a bit of a shake-up, but I'll definitely miss her as a companion. Not sure if this is the end of UNIT's role in the show - it certainly seemed like that with them having a celebratory toast whilst the Doctor slinked off into the night. An odd aspect is Elgin disappears to be replaced by some new character called Mr James who seems to fill exactly the same function - it seems the actor for Elgin got ill so I can't really be too harsh on that though it's a pity that an important sub-plot has no real pay-off as a result.
Series 10 Ranking: 1. The Green Death 2. The Three Doctors 3. Carnival of Monsters 4. Planet of the Daleks 5. Frontier in Space
And since this seems to be the last we'll see of Jo, I have no hesitation sticking her at the top of my companion ranking. If this is indeed the last we've seen of the Brigadier, I'll probably stick him in somewhere too.
1. Jo 2. Ian 3. Barbara 4. Ben 5. Liz 6. Vikki 7. Steven 8. Victoria 9. Zoe 10. Jamie 11. Polly 12. Susan 13. Dodo
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 14, 2021 12:22:52 GMT
I don't know if anyone has seen this already, but Wikipedia lists The Seven Serpents and The Crown of Kings as being released on 7th April next year, as well as two new books in August, one by Ian and one by Steve. The latter two have no citation though, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up. Yeah, I would be somewhat dubious, but you never know. Interesting that Crown of Kings is being released at the same time as Seven Serpents. I hope that doesn't indicate a rush to complete Sorcery before FF is dropped by Scholastic.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 12, 2021 15:50:52 GMT
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 12, 2021 14:50:08 GMT
I like the pic of the treasure chest in Warlock of Firetop Mountain - somehow much more satisfying than just a description of its contents.
Black Vein Prophecy answers a lot of questions without completely spelling everything out for you, letting it retain a certain sense of mystery.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 12, 2021 13:41:40 GMT
There was, strangely, no Master of Scorpions in the original That always struck me as a wasted opportunity. I suppose a Master of Scorpions may have seemed superior to the other Masters which Jackson might have wanted to avoid.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 12, 2021 13:11:59 GMT
Like the Eastern salesman in Knightmare, hasn't aged well. Yes, I think Ah Wok only appeared in one series of Knightmare before he was quietly retired. Not sure I quite see the "Yellow Peril" thing with the Master of Spiders. He's got the bald head and the long nails, but his beard is thick and bushy and his clothing doesn't seem particularly oriental. I suppose it could be argued he's a borderline case, but definitely not Ah Wok-level.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 11, 2021 10:34:18 GMT
I have a theory on why The Black Cat you see at the start of City of Thieves can't be Zinbar Bone. What are your thoughts on my theory? I believe theirs no way it could have been Zanbar Bone, after all he has the power to kill someone by touching them and if it was him then the only reason he'd be their is if he'd somehow learnt of your mission This means that he'd know you were going to get help from Nicomedus, he's smart enough to know that theirs a way to kill him and he's also smart enough to know that Nicomedus is smart enough to know how to kill him This means that The Black Cat can't be Zinbar Bone and the reason for that is that he's smart enough to know that the best idea is to kill you before you have the chance to find out how to kill him Though he wouldn't be the first villain in fiction not to take a threat seriously until it was too late.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 10, 2021 17:49:27 GMT
Apart from those already mentioned:
Caverns of the Snow Witch has (I think) the only intro with an accompanying illustration. That pic of a grizzled Big Jim Sun really sets the atmosphere for the rest of the book.
Talisman of Death's is a bit different with you being plucked from another world then hobnobbing with gods before being thrown straight into the action.
I like the way Luke Sharp's backgrounds tend to be written like encyclopedias.
Phantoms of Fear's background and Section 1 combo is very atmospheric.
Sky Lord's intro is probably the high point of the book.
Portal of Evil has some philosophical musing on the desire for gold that I always liked.
The Crimson Tide is rather unique in giving you such a strong personal goal.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 4, 2021 12:40:06 GMT
ETA: Before her coronation, Queen Victoria was Princess Alexandrina Victoria. So Victoria wasn't actually her first name? I never knew that. Her son Edward VII and great-grandson George VI did the same - both had the first name Albert but chose not to use it as their regnal name. There's speculation that Prince Charles (if he becomes king at all) may go with George VII as opposed to Charles III in order to distance himself from the Stuarts. Back on topic, I like the idea of the Spider King being someone who was hit with a Curse spell.
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kieran
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Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 2, 2021 20:07:43 GMT
Is that subtitle correct English and I'm just unable to parse it? "Price" doesn't seem to fit in there... Probably doesn't translate literally very well. It basically means that when fighting an implacable foe, no price for impenetrable armour would be too high. Also not sure that's the most effective way to use that gun.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 1, 2021 20:16:00 GMT
Possibly unavoidable but definitely counter-productive. I forget the number of publishers who rejected Harry Potter (15? 25?) Hindsight is 20/20 though. For every Harry Potter there's probably thousands of books just as good that flopped.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Oct 1, 2021 15:17:41 GMT
Love the way he's been given a sword to try and fit the title a bit better. Even though he is clearly not a samurai!
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 30, 2021 21:33:09 GMT
Did you see on Youtube: Dave Morris: Fabled Lands Interview. At time 32:47 to 36:04 he speaks about this book, and he doesn't mince his words about how it was dealt with by the publishing companies! I'm cheering him on there! I think the book deserved to be better treated even if I'm not in lockstep with his politics. I understand his frustration because a lot of good books are turned down in favour of fairly uninspiring alternatives. I think though it's pretty much unavoidable when publishers are a commercial enterprise. A publishing executive is beholden to their shareholders and while they may have a lot of respect for a daring and innovative book, it's understandable that they won't risk their careers by taking a chance on it.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 30, 2021 10:19:01 GMT
In CYBWBB, you can decide to have a 2nd Brexit Referendum and it goes ahead, where in the actual world scraping together enough MPs for it to pass is would be as tough as getting the preferred outcome (even without May's snap election). I think Nigel Farage \ Colin Fungale wouldn't win a House Of Commons seat before pigs fly, as after 7+ attempts his polling seems to be maxed out at 35%. More realistic to have a northern city vote his party candidate in, he could be called Derek Steel or something. Like D. Cameron, D. Morris overstates the influence UKIP has (Nigel Farage's divisive personality and rhetoric probably swung more people to Remain than Leave). One of Can You Brexit's issues is that it can be quite frustrating if you disagree with the authors on how things would go following certain decisions. It's easy to accept authorial fiat in a fantasy setting where the author makes the rules of his/her world - we're unlikely to think "hey, I don't think the red dragon would really have roasted me for failing to guess the answer to its riddle". But in a real world setting that is closely mirroring actual events, we're far more likely to get annoyed if things don't pan out how we feel they would. Both authors were very vocal on their political views on Twitter and to be honest I disagreed with their analysis quite a few times so I found the book more frustrating than I imagine someone who 100% agrees with their analysis would. That's not really a fault with the authors themselves, I imagine if I were to write a similar book where things panned out following my own analysis, there would be plenty of people equally frustrated. I think it's just an unavoidable problem with a political gamebook - and maybe a good reason why they are are rare in the genre. In Morris and Thomson's defence, when CYBWBB was written, there were a lot of pro-EU MPs in Parliament. If May had backed a second referendum, Corbyn would have been under immense pressure to do likewise and it could have been enough for a second referendum to take place - whether it would have resulted in a rejection of Brexit by the electorate is another matter. As for Farage/Fungale, I think he only ends up doing well if you take the Tories too far down the pro-EU route. While both pro-EU, Cameron and May were always careful to placate the anti-EU element within the party which limited Farage's success.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 29, 2021 22:04:51 GMT
This raises a pretty good point I think someone else posted a long time ago. How do the percentages work over all the books amalgamated together? Does a 5/14/7 have a 1 in 2 chance of completing the whole saga or just Crown? To my mind a 1 in 2 chance seems reasonable. I believe the table for Book 4 is your odds of beating the whole series.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 29, 2021 9:44:52 GMT
I've decided to do The 1st Sorcery Books and I've generated my character I'm playing A Wizard but I have a massive problem. The problem is that I was lucky enough to fairly rolled A 6+4 or 10 for Skill and for A 6+5 or 11 for Luck But when rolling for Stamina I rolled A double 1, which means my Stamina is the minimum of 14, Is my Stamina to low for Sorcery? No, you should be fine.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 28, 2021 21:55:46 GMT
What do fellow Whovians make of the 60s Doctor Who films with Peter Cushing playing the Doctor Doctor Who And The Daleks and Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.? The 1st film was slightly nuanced with the Doctor urging the pacifist Thals to be violent, and Peter Cushing clearly fitting the role of the Doctor. The 2nd film was more clearly aimed at kids, the plot illogical (the Daleks choose a mine shaft in Bradford or somewhere to drop a bomb in the centre of the earth 😏) but action-packed and entertaining. Non-canonical or not they were always great Doctor Who to me. Never seen the first one but used to really enjoy 2150 AD though barely remember it now.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 27, 2021 13:51:50 GMT
The actor is David Troughton (one of Patrick Troughton's sons). Meanwhile the story was a metaphor about the UK joining the EEC (precursor to the EU). Maybe now there could be a follow up where Peladon has a referendum about leaving the Federation? Actually, maybe not! I like Bessie because it's pretty quirky, but the speedboat chase seemed a bit too James Bond. Even at that, the biggest issue was it made absolutely no difference story-wise. Yeah, that definitely makes an impact. Though sometimes the longer stories feel shorter than some of the short ones! You're getting through them rightly. Do you intend to go on to the McGann film and the 2000s revamp once you're done with McCoy?
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 27, 2021 9:58:54 GMT
My copy is a first edition, and the section numbers given at the end of 230 seem to be the wrong way round. My copy has the same error - but it turns out I have a first printing so I guess that's unsurprising!
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 25, 2021 17:29:18 GMT
Agreed. Once when reading Talisman I bought into the prose so much that when the bonny lassie walks into the tavern (its been awhile, I forget the details now!) I genuinely lost myself for a second and actually thought it was happening.! Weird, but brilliant. Not sure Cassandra would take to being called a bonny lassie. Would probably make her a tad stabby.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 25, 2021 13:43:42 GMT
They'd not appeared for so long because their creator was trying to spin them off into their own series in America. He owned the rights to them, and it has been claimed that the price of his giving permission for their use in Day was that he be commissioned to write a script for the following season. Interesting - I had just assumed the writers had run out of ideas for them! It seems like my Dr Who tastes are pretty unconventional.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 24, 2021 22:57:09 GMT
Cheating is too tempting with the random number table - "I'll just randomly hold my pencil over the 0... hey, look where it landed!" Then again, given the absurd difficulty of some Lone Wolf books, maybe that was intentional on Dever's part.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Sept 23, 2021 10:33:51 GMT
Agreed
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 23, 2021 9:40:39 GMT
My question was about the idea a gamebook should remain a gamebook and are there other examples of gamebooks, say in the 30 or 40 range, which require gamebook knowledge where you have to make decisions on the fly every time rather than simply employing a good memory of paragraphs? Night of the Necromancer is the former while Starship Traveller is the latter. Do you mean books which have multiple viable paths and optional encounters, but have a lot of variables at play on each path so, even after multiple playthroughs, it's difficult to be sure of which paths are best and which encounters to seek out and avoid? If so, similar books would be Scorpion Swamp, Seas of Blood, Demons of the Deep, Robot Commando, Daggers of Darkness, Fangs of Fury, Dead of Night, Moonrunner, Night Dragon, Legend of Zagor, Howl of the Werewolf and Stormslayer - although not all of these handle this aspect as well as Night of the Necromancer.
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