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Post by Charles X. on Jul 17, 2021 18:56:20 GMT
Most of the original series (which numbered about 60 books!) went with 400 references a book, first picked (referencing You Are The Hero) because TWOFM happened to land that way, not on design. Only with the newer Wizard series, they are more and more going with different numbers (often above, seemingly). Did it negatively affect the series by making FF writers more like hacks, with padding and limitations, or did it make them more tight and tough?
You Are The Hero makes it sound like Puffin didn't treat the series particularly well, in spite of its phenomenal sales. I bet they are the sort of people who would have rejected Harry Potter. Then again, most of them did.
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Post by Charles X. on Jul 17, 2021 19:40:36 GMT
As the op of this thread, why didn't I capitalise the r in references, as I probably should have done? Was it just a stupid mistake? Or was it a clever title choice, like the hit British TV show, being human? No, the former  . |
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Jul 17, 2021 21:40:34 GMT
Most of the original series (which numbered about 60 books!) went with 400 references a book, first picked (referencing You Are The Hero) because TWOFM happened to land that way, not on design. Only with the newer Wizard series, they are more and more going with different numbers (often above, seemingly). Did it negatively affect the series by making FF writers more like hacks, with padding and limitations, or did it make them more tight and tough? You Are The Hero makes it sound like Puffin didn't treat the series particularly well, in spite of its phenomenal sales. I bet they are the sort of people who would have rejected Harry Potter. Then again, most of them did. Have you read the two-part interview with Paul Mason in Fighting Fantazines 10 and 11? It's worth a read through at least twice and has information in it which is relevant to your questions. Having read it, let us know what you think, if you like. In the books themselves we can see some authors getting as much as they can out of paragraphs. Carl Sargent tends to do this a lot - he'll sometimes use one paragraph when other writers might use two, three or four. Sky Lord is the FF that most jumps out to me as having padding and filler. I've moaned about it elsewhere on these boards. In general keep an eye out for what ought to be a single reference split into two (for no dramatic purpose), pointless options, and short pointless side paths that do nothing but join you back onto the main path a few references later. Those things smack to me of stretching it out to 400 references. |
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Post by Charles X. on Jul 18, 2021 9:36:42 GMT
I can't seem to read those issues online and I never download stuff because I'm super-afraid of viruses. One thing I know about Paul Mason is, he messes around with the formula. Near the end of Crimson Tide, the reader might think they've won, having just told the king's number one adviser about the evil mercenary leader. Instead, 400 is unexpectedly an instant death paragraph.
As you point out, some gamebook writers, like him, are able to develop the system with new rules and good writing, others just wrote more for money.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Jul 18, 2021 11:04:19 GMT
I can't seem to read those issues online and I never download stuff because I'm super-afraid of viruses. I make sure that the Fantazine site is the only place to get the magazine from. The zip files have no viruses, I can assure you of that! |
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Post by a moderator on Jul 18, 2021 12:58:40 GMT
In general keep an eye out for what ought to be a single reference split into two (for no dramatic purpose), pointless options, and short pointless side paths that do nothing but join you back onto the main path a few references later. Those things smack to me of stretching it out to 400 references. And then there's the inexplicable padding in Eye of the Dragon (such as the multiple opportunities to drink something that turns out to be lethally toxic), which bulks the book up to 407 sections. Was Ian by this stage so accustomed to throwing in arbitrary diversions as ballast that he forgot their purpose, and left them in even when they pushed the total to a decidedly non-round number? |
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Jul 18, 2021 14:49:11 GMT
In general keep an eye out for what ought to be a single reference split into two (for no dramatic purpose), pointless options, and short pointless side paths that do nothing but join you back onto the main path a few references later. Those things smack to me of stretching it out to 400 references. And then there's the inexplicable padding in Eye of the Dragon (such as the multiple opportunities to drink something that turns out to be lethally toxic), which bulks the book up to 407 sections. Was Ian by this stage so accustomed to throwing in arbitrary diversions as ballast that he forgot their purpose, and left them in even when they pushed the total to a decidedly non-round number? Since the original Eye of the Dragon was a 134-reference adventure either it was going to need a lot of extra encounters added (which we might call 'expansion', or 'padding/filler' according to taste...) or have an entire extra chapter or two added on (like Caverns of the Snow Witch). I've never read the original so don't know what was done. Story-wise I liked the way he did it in CotSW - though of course the book lacked playtesting. I find myself running very low on stats even with best play. Especially LUCK. House of Hell was even better - it certainly does not feel to me like a load of extra stuff was just shoehorned into the Warlock magazine version to make it to 400. I really do like the Lone Wolf books but there are very many occasions where choices make little difference. Lack of a skill or taking a branching path might mean the loss of an Endurance point or two or a few paragraphs of seeing something off the beaten track but soon it's back to the main path and onwards. |
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Post by a moderator on Jul 18, 2021 15:13:17 GMT
Funny thing about Eye - in addition to expanding it beyond the original 134 sections, Ian actually cut out some of the original text, losing what I thought the most inventive aspect of the adventure.
You can discover a device that accelerates time in the surrounding area - and in the original text, that slow-acting poison you drank really is a slow-acting poison, so having days pass in mere minutes ends very badly for you.
I agree that, once the decision had been made to turn Eye into the next FF book had been made, the addition of a lot of new material was required. And some of the new stuff wasn't that bad. But the new material also includes plenty of 'do X and die, choose not to do X and nothing happens' situations, which could be cut out without disrupting the narrative flow, and which merely serve to bloat the adventure out to an odd number of sections. |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 18, 2021 20:31:53 GMT
In general keep an eye out for what ought to be a single reference split into two (for no dramatic purpose), pointless options, and short pointless side paths that do nothing but join you back onto the main path a few references later. Those things smack to me of stretching it out to 400 references. And then there's the inexplicable padding in Eye of the Dragon (such as the multiple opportunities to drink something that turns out to be lethally toxic), which bulks the book up to 407 sections. Was Ian by this stage so accustomed to throwing in arbitrary diversions as ballast that he forgot their purpose, and left them in even when they pushed the total to a decidedly non-round number? I seem to remember at the time just before its release, publicity announcements proclaimed that Eye of the Dragon was to have more than 400 sections. I guess Ian couldn't be bothered shaving a few sections off and decided to turn it into a selling point. |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 18, 2021 22:04:14 GMT
I've never read the original so don't know what was done. Story-wise, the original is basically the same premise only Henry Delacor isn't trying to scam you and he gives you real poison. There's no Littlebig either and no references to Darkwood or Yaztromo Structure-wise It starts much the same with a left or right decision and the encounters are largely the same in the early stages. However the original had a really bad design choice - follow the left hand path and you eventually get teleported back to the start with a severe penalty and any items you picked up vanish. Essentially this is just restarting the book with a penalty - bizarre. This can still happen in the revamp but it can be avoided and you can pick up a useful item to boot, making the left-hand path a viable alternative to the more straightforward right-hand path.
Past a certain point, pretty much all the content in the revamp is new. Also in the original, the eye is hidden in a different place (an encounter that is still in the revamp but is a lot less rewarding now) and the five keys are absent. The dragon statuette itself is obviously found a lot earlier and with a somewhat clever trap and a random knight protecting it. Definitely prefer the revamp to the original. |
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