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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:38:59 GMT
From TUFFF... Armies of Death: Is it just me, or should you be able to buy a shield and not a helmet from the bounty hunter in Zengis? The reference introducing him says he carries a shield and makes no mention of a helmet!" (posted in the Playing Books in Order Challenge thread earlier) "Your progress has been watched, foul creature of destruction!" |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:39:19 GMT
From TUFFF... Armies of Death: Is it just me, or should you be able to buy a shield and not a helmet from the bounty hunter in Zengis? The reference introducing him says he carries a shield and makes no mention of a helmet! Hmm. Never thought about that before.
~ Vae Victis! ~ |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:40:00 GMT
From TUFFF... To get past a creature in the later part of the book you need a shield. And I've tried to find a reference to someone giving you a shield but can't find any - I know, I had to "cheat". Moreover, you can buy a helmet in Zengis from Bonny the Pawnbroker, so I think the bounty hunter must be the key! "Your progress has been watched, foul creature of destruction!" |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:40:41 GMT
From TUFFF... A shield can be acquired in section 258. You have to make the 'right' decision in section 1 to get onto a path that leads there, so having the bounty-hunter sell his shield to you would make the book fairer, but this is late Livingstone we're talking, so 'fairer' doesn't really come into it. Besides, I suspect that Ian intended the bounty-hunter's reference to seeking a guide in Karn to be a vital hint (though the way the book is written does allow you to go looking for one even if you haven't been specifically prompted to do so). I think that by this stage Mr L. didn't really care about the books, and was just churning them out to rake in that bit more profit. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:41:08 GMT
From TUFFF... Ah! I seemed to have missed that during my cheating, I mean flick-through!  Ooops! But having won 20 Grand in gold pieces, one would think an army could afford the odd shield or two! "Your progress has been watched, foul creature of destruction!" |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:42:22 GMT
From TUFFF... OK, on a further attempt I have managed to read through this without cheating! Albeit without dice, as I tend to do with all my books nowadays  "Your progress has been watched, foul creature of destruction!" |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:46:45 GMT
From TUFFF... As mentioned by Greenspine 3 post up, by that point in time and space, Mr. Livingstone had lost the will to write a good gamebook, AoD is a testament to that. While Mr. Jackson just plainly stopped after running out of good idea, Ian kept on, preferring adding to the spectrum of FF adventures a mediocre one instead of refusing the vital inflow of dough. While I can understand this attitude, the need, the hard cold fact remain: AoD sucks. So, another new book for me. I've got the Wizard edition with the Lord of the Rings style cover by McKenna, which is okay, but nothing amazing. From what I can tell, the original was at least mildly more entertaining. Nik Williams illos are hit or miss for my taste, mostly miss I guess but nothing too severe. Someone will have to explain to me all the cameos in there, though. I get the one with Ian Livingstone as Obigee, but what of his crew? And what about those White Knights? My guess is that's it is people he worked with, or close relatives, but if anybody knows for sure, feel free to chime in. As for the story/book itself, it's now the same-old same-old Livingstone routine: get your shopping list and don't deviate from the true path. Last time it was incredibly hard, this time it's simply boring. If said shield mentioned in this thread would have been available as a buy in Zengis, in one form or another, that would have allowed at minimum two paths to go to town, but we don't even get that, so suffer my little children. There's lot of absurdities due to laziness in this book. We get a boatload of numbers that goes with items, none are clever, none are hidden and you never need to do any simple math to go to the proper chapter. If you want to, whenever you are told of a specific number attached to an item you can just skip ahead and see the effect of said items. Livingstone doesn't even bother trying. He even goes to some length to insult our intelligence by saying stuff like: You make a mental note of the number inscribed on the key. Okay, so I'm taking that key, right? Why would my character need to make a mental note of something he can just fish out of his pocket and look at whenever he pleases? Just tell us to write it down already or better, don't tell us. We should all know by now that we need to take notes of a lot of stuff in a FF adventure, especially numbers. If by chance someone is reading this book for the first time, I'm pretty sure he will figure it out soon enough. There's lot of other things that don't work in this book, or/and are boring. Skirmish battle is one of them... in fact having an army at all is one of them. Your army here is nothing more than just another bunch of items that you are carrying around. You have different races in it? Means nothing basically, except for some Elven archers. They don't have statistics, strength or weaknesses. It doesn't matter if you ended up hiring highly skilled fighters or wooden puppets. Skirmish battles don't take that into account. You could be facing an army of hamster and still lose if your troops are outnumbered. Hell, you really should have save up all that money by going alone and getting those 5 White Knights to come with you. They are so awesome that really they didn't need you at all, they were just about to go cut down mighty Agglax with their holy swords.
...oh wait, the bastard's immune to weapons. Instead you need a random crystal with the stupidest activation code ever to win. If you manage to find a random ring lying around and place it on a random statue who seems to need it, lost in the middle of nowhere. The randomness in this book are mind numbing. It's kind of always like that in FF, but in this one there's not even a remote excuses for it all. The cursed Oracle is the worst offender with it's stupid shopping list. Why would the price of something matter in me passing on to the next level? Absurd. What about the fact that you need to be able to do a little magic? Hard to believe no-one ever came back to tell the world: Hey! Guess what? I didn't pass the test, you need to be a magician! Or maybe the Oracle's test are just as random and absurd as this book. In any case, there's so much god in the machine in this book that Livingstone needed to include himself, as if to say: Yes, I know how absurd this all is, take it with humour, it's really just a parody of my earlier works. Guess that's what it is, folks. In any case, if you couple all that with an anti-climatic finale and a weaksauce final boss in the form of Agglax-the-midget-who-likes-to-dress-up-at-Halloween, you have a book that doesn't leave a great lasting impression... Speak in extremes, it will save you time. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:48:10 GMT
From TUFFF... While Mr. Jackson just plainly stopped after running out of good idea, Ian kept on, preferring adding to the spectrum of FF adventures a mediocre one instead of refusing the vital inflow of dough. I wonder which people would have preferred - no book or a mediocre/poor book. I pretty much agree with all your points about Armies of Death, but I'd still rather have it than not. I always though the big battle at the end was less well done than the one in Island of the Liazrd King which felt a lot more climactic. Are there any mass battle gamebooks out there that aren't a bit iffy? The Fire Demon is by far the weakest Sagard book, The Shattered Realm is so buggy it makes you want to hurl it out a window, and from what I've played of Warbringer! it's pretty flawed as well. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:49:16 GMT
From TUFFF... Haven't played those books.
And I must confess that when I like something, like in this case the FF series, I'd rather suffer through a poor book than none at all. It's kind of weak I know, but there it is (like the fact that I do enjoy watching some Z-grade movies from time to time). But the fact remain that poor/mediocre books can really hurt sales in the long run. Have too much of them and it will sink your battleship. Speak in extremes, it will save you time. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:50:04 GMT
From TUFFF... Poor book. Always poor book than no book. If anything, I'll just settle for the illustrations and keep off the words (Eye of the Dragon) Two Words |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:52:06 GMT
From TUFFF... Poor book. Always poor book than no book.
If anything, I'll just settle for the illustrations and keep off the words (Eye of the Dragon) Oddly, I quite like Eye of the Dragon. True, there's no reason whatsoever for all these weirdos and Livingstone look-alikes living in tunnels under Darkwood Forest, but from a design point of view I thought it was pretty well done (bar the 2 ridiculously tough fights near the end). I suppose perhaps even Armies of Death might have its fans. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:53:20 GMT
From TUFFF... Well, I wouldn't pay $15 for "Armies of Death" (its price in Australia), having read other people's opinions about it. I even had the opportunity to buy "Return to Firetop Mountain" at a bookstore the other day (where I bought Stormslayer and NotN), but I didn't bother, having read some reviews of it. I just didn't think it was worth my money or time, considering I am someone who likes to play books as fairly as possible. As hynreck alluded to above, poor books can hurt sales and damage the integrity of the series. They may turn first-time players off. If my first ff book had been "Crypt of the Sorcerer", I doubt I would have bought any more. Luckily I happened to choose "Citadel of Chaos" for my first book (because I liked the picture of the Hydra on the front cover). So overall I would rather no book than a poor book, if only because I think poor books damage the popularity of the series. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:54:08 GMT
From TUFFF... Definitely, bad books can turn off new readers/players.
I would say a book like Armies of Death falls into the "for hardcore fans only".
There's a few like that... Speak in extremes, it will save you time. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:55:18 GMT
From TUFFF... I even had the opportunity to buy "Return to Firetop Mountain" at a bookstore the other day (where I bought Stormslayer and NotN), but I didn't bother, having read some reviews of it. I just didn't think it was worth my money or time, considering I am someone who likes to play books as fairly as possible. Although the book is a little tough (!) I still found it very enjoyable, and the artwork is probably the best in the series. ~ Vae Victis! ~ |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:56:38 GMT
From TUFFF... I even had the opportunity to buy "Return to Firetop Mountain" at a bookstore the other day (where I bought Stormslayer and NotN), but I didn't bother, having read some reviews of it. I just didn't think it was worth my money or time, considering I am someone who likes to play books as fairly as possible. In terms of unfairness, Return to Firetop Mountain isn't that bad. Probably about on a par with Deathtrap Dungeon difficulty-wise. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 12:57:22 GMT
From TUFFF... When you fight the BARMAN who has a STAMINA of 7 you're told to turn to an entry when you win 3 attack rounds and spare his life, supposedly having been reduced to 1 STAMINA point, but this discounts Testing Your Luck; you could have killed him outright in two lucky attacks. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 13:00:52 GMT
From TUFFF... Armies of Death isn't the only book to have this problem. then again, why would you want to kill the Barman in the first place? It's not his fault he doesn't serve apple juice  I read through this book again recently and was quite surprised and disappointed at how unplayable it is. I'm not saying its too difficult or unfair in terms of combat, its just that I found the writing rather boring and the pointless, unbalanced Skirmish Battles didn't help. There's far too many things you need in order to win, and for many you have no idea you need to collect them. the Oracle has to be the most annoying 'helpful' guy in the history of FF, and Agglax, one of the most bland villains. A very straightforward adventure but marred to pieces with its outdoor 'dungeon crawl' layout and poor consideration of rules. I really tried to enjoy it but failed. This seems to be the only adventure in the series to be based in Zengis (well, partly). I wanted to look up info. on Zengis for a project I'm working on but found the description lacking in Armies of Death and Titan didn't help much either. I just want to know what the place looks like in a bit more detail (I got: the town is strange and has high towers, with mostly temples). After reading AoD, the only reasons I'd want to visit the place is for the Pet Shop and the pie-eating competion.
Ahh, the attractions we have... I'd appreciate any help. Two Words |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 13:02:58 GMT
From TUFFF... 20 years since I played this but I remember it as one of the very worst, so out of curiosity thought I'd check the thread. I wonder which people would have preferred - no book or a mediocre/poor book. I don't know exactly how it works, but surely if Puffin didn't commission Ian to write the next book they could have commissioned someone else. As others have mentioned some of Ian's later works feel as if he just wasn't trying hard any more, or at least not committing enough of his time to the process. My FF reviews: z3.invisionfree.com/Orc__Goblin_Warpath/index.php?showtopic=29374 |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 13:23:41 GMT
From TUFFF... Are there any mass battle gamebooks out there that aren't a bit iffy? The Fire Demon is by far the weakest Sagard book, The Shattered Realm is so buggy it makes you want to hurl it out a window, and from what I've played of Warbringer! it's pretty flawed as well. Having now read The Dark Usurper, I can add that to the list of not-so-hot gamebooks with mass battles. Parts 2 and 3 both include mass battles, using a different system each time (maybe Sutherland wrote one of them, and Hill the other). Both systems are flawed, but could be made to work with only a little effort, and I'd be happy to see either used as a replacement for the one in Armies. One of these days I should see if the Combat Command gamebooks are any good. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 9, 2013 13:26:06 GMT
From TUFFF... There's a micro 1d6 mass combat system in my Windhammer Prize entry Sea of Madness, where you get to sail your ship and crew around a pseudo-Mediterranean sea and attack stuff like various slavers and marauders. www.arborell.com/seaofmadness.pdfAlso, I'll be doing a sequel/reboot of Armies of Death for an upcoming Fighting Fantazine, so let me know if there's any particular system things you'd like to see implemented! cheers Andy Impudent Peasant! |
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Post by a moderator on May 24, 2014 13:03:25 GMT
My TUFFF playthrough. I'm quite glad the 'shoehorning song titles into the text for no good reason' gimmick didn't persist beyond this one:
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Post by oakdweller on Mar 14, 2015 11:24:10 GMT
(This is a re-post of my original review that I wrote for TUFFF. Unfortunately it's the only one to survive. Arggh, why this review and not the one for Beneath Nightmare Castle?!)
The best praise that I can give Armies of Death is that it's better than Crypt of the Sorcerer. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of course, but it does hold true for me nonetheless. It seems that many fans on the forum agree that he'd long given up bothering to write anything approaching quality adventures by this time. (I'd say that Trial of Champions was the last time that he put some effort into what he was putting together. Even since Temple of Terror there were signs that his interest in the range was waning). This one has the edge over Crypt for me mainly because Livingstone has actually put a bit more effort into his prose here and there. None of it ever threatens to put Peter Darvill-Evans to shame, but he does give us some writing which shows slight improvements over his previous book. This is usually the case for encounters which seem to have taken his fancy - usually the more off-the-wall ones such as the pet shop and the pie-eating contest. Other than these odd moments, he has just yawned out a series of the dullest encounters and ideas to ever feature in FF.
The structure of the adventure doesn't lend itself well to a terrific time either. The first stage uses the two-branch trick that he'd used for crossing the Desert of Skulls in Temple of Terror. In other words, there are two routes which lead to the same settlement and you travel along your chosen 'path' deciding which distractions to look into along the way. Upon reaching the town, you have only one route to follow for a long time and, just like it was on the river, you're just asked at each moment whether or not you want to bother with the latest distraction. This dreadfully boring structure is even more painfully obvious when you make a map of the game.
The way that the army is handled is very sloppy too. I had enjoyed the simplicity of how crew interaction was handled back in Seas of Blood: a combat system which wasn't too different from the personal version, plus interesting moments in the text too. In Armies of Death though, the most interesting thing that the crew do is to swim out to barrels of apples and the like. Even more prominent additions to your army, such as the mercenary Max, have speedily written moments which have no soul to them. The army combat system is truly dire though, utilising a table which has a far too great a factor of chance than it ought to have. Also, although I'm not really a fan of full scale battles, there are so few skirmishes in the adventure anyway. (Or at least there weren't in the one playthrough that I endured recently - and I got right through to the confrontation with Agglax). For a book which is supposed to have the player's army as a central focus, this is more than just an oversight, it's a sign of an adventure being thrown together as quickly as possible and to hell with it. As Hynreck rightly stated, there is no point in dividing the army up into it's separate race/type components either. It really smacks of Ian Livingstone thinking that it would be cool to go one step further than Seas of Blood and manage different sections of the army, but then forgot all about it as he began tapping away at his wordprocessor.
Even if an FF book's structure isn't too amazing - and even if any special rules suck - I can easily forgive such failings if there are interesting characters, encounters and locations to revel in (Demons of the Deep for example). Unsurprisingly, there's not a lot here in this regard either. Like Sylas, the only encounters that grabbed my attention at all were the two that I mentioned before which seemed to have given Livingstone a rare moment of inspiration: the pet shop and the pie-eating contest. The oddity of being able to own a pet is great, but there is only one opportunity to use the Hopper and the crow flies away. Some other authors knew how to use pets in FF well, with the delightful Jesper from Master of Chaos and even though I'm not a dog lover, Kurt from Magehunter is a well-used 'character'. Poor old Roob the Hopper is just used like any other use-once-then-throw-away item that you have crammed into your backpack. To give credit where it's due though, the contest against the monocled Big Belly was an enjoyable challenge that woke me up for a while, but it speaks volumes that the only thing that I truly liked about this book was scoffing down pies.
After the lashing that I've given the adventure itself, it's a pity that I don't have many positive things to say about Nik Williams's artwork either. Most of it is passable I guess, but never anything special. There are some awful pieces though, such as the comical tree man (155) and the shockingly bad werewolf (278). The axe man (292) is probably the best of the bunch.
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vagsancho
Knight
Posts: 809 
Favourite Gamebook Series: CRYPT OF THE SORCERER
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Post by vagsancho on Jul 23, 2015 15:13:08 GMT
Great FF book. Another Amazing FF book of Livingstone. But not so good as his amazings and magikal "Cavern of The Snow Witch", "Island of The Lizard King", "Temple of terror", "Trial of Champions", and, mainly, City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon, an CRYPT of the SORCERER.
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vagsancho
Knight
Posts: 809
Favourite Gamebook Series: CRYPT OF THE SORCERER
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Post by vagsancho on Jul 31, 2015 14:05:29 GMT
Very good atmosphere. Very good book. Not magical though. Agglax hasn't got charisma.
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vagsancho
Knight
Posts: 809
Favourite Gamebook Series: CRYPT OF THE SORCERER
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Post by vagsancho on Jul 31, 2015 18:37:10 GMT
From TUFFF... If my first ff book had been "Crypt of the Sorcerer", I doubt I would have bought any more. (Sometimes) The difference between two people reaches the infinity. |
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Post by hynreck on Aug 3, 2015 15:56:35 GMT
Often in this here case.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Aug 3, 2015 16:23:42 GMT
I actually think Agglax is pretty similar to Razaak. What do you think the latter has that the former lacks?
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vagsancho
Knight
Posts: 809
Favourite Gamebook Series: CRYPT OF THE SORCERER
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Post by vagsancho on Aug 7, 2015 17:15:29 GMT
A good book. Not magical however. Not at all. Trial of Champions was perfectly up to the Fantastic Deathtrap Dungeon. Armies of Death was not up to the sequel. Definitely not magical. Livingstone reached his ultimate climax with the creation of the absolutely wonderful Crypt of the Sorcerer. From that point on, he lost his touch. Everyone dies. I look Agglax with indifference, I look Razaak with Amazement and Respect.
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Post by hynreck on Aug 7, 2015 18:35:58 GMT
Still carefully avoiding to explain anything. Or perhaps you can't?
Everyone dies. Universal truth or filler? Razaak dies?
May you live an interesting life.
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Post by a moderator on Aug 7, 2015 19:57:44 GMT
I actually think Agglax is pretty similar to Razaak. What do you think the latter has that the former lacks? I'm not vagsancho , and I think both characters lack the depth of the paper the gamebooks are printed on, but I have been pondering this question, and have come up with a few possible answers. - The confidence to face his enemy, rather than running away the moment he realises you have something that could harm him.
- He used to be human. Vagsancho is apparently able to perceive the rich inner life of formerly human villains even when the author couldn't be bothered to add any depth of characterisation, but it would appear that his insight doesn't penetrate so deeply into the psychology of FF's more none-dimensional non-humans.
- Dialogue. Hackneyed, clunky lines for the most part, but he does speak where Agglax remains silent.
- Several different ways of killing you. Agglax only gets one.
- Skill and Stamina scores. Aggie lacks stats.
- A name that scores more than 16 at Scrabble. If you allow the names of FF characters to be used in the game, that is.
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