Write whatever about the 5 middle-ranked FF gamebooks

[Magneto]

For a truly balanced approach.

Right in the middle of the rankings is Trial of Champions. Directly below it are Tower of Destruction and Island of the Undead, and just above it are Island of the Lizard King and Bloodbones.

Island of the Undead is the first book to have a fight before a decision. Tower of Destruction has an owl in it. Trial of Champions features human Trialmasters, unlike Deathtrap Dungeon. Island of the Lizard King used to have an illustration on the title page which does not appear anywhere else in the book, but Wizard replaced it with the Cyclops. Bloodbones includes one bad ending that can be reached in many ways.

[terrysalt]

Trial is weaker than Deathtrap but still a decent dungeon crawl as long as you cheat.
The two Keith books are just kind of there. Standard Keith formula without the charm that Master of Chaos or Vault of the Vampire had.
Lizard King is one I really don't like. I appreciate the deviation from formula. You can miss items and not die immediately but nothing about the setting or story grabbed my attention.
Bloodbones is like all the post-Puffin releases. I had a quick read through but never properly sank my teeth into it so I can't really offer much of an opinion.

[CharlesX]

Tower Of Destruction is one of Martin's weaker works. Bloodbones is one of Green's stronger works. Island Of The Undead is good if you're in the mood for a long one. TOC and IOTLK deserve to be middle-ranking books, which is cool.

[vastariner]

IotLK: whatever
B: whatever
ToC: whatever
ToD: whatever
IotU: whatever

[kieran]

Island of the Lizard King: I think Ian does a good job in depicting numerous environments (coast, jungle, marsh, hills, mines, river, mountains then final dungeon) and making it all feel like it all fits well together. I also think the mass battle at the end is great, much better than anything in Armies of Death. This is actually one of my go-to books, there's just something quite likeable about it even though I can't really think of anything that special about it.

Bloodbones: I really like this one, it's close between it and Howl for my favourite Green book. Finding clues at the start is great and like Island, it manages to present multiple settings in a believable way. Unfortunately, it's waaaaay too hard. Tough dice rolls and abrupt instant deaths stop it from being a true classic.

Trial: Another one I really like. Again, it's way too hard and I wish it allowed for slightly more exploration - DD had a few points where you had to go a certain route, but also others with more flexibility, DD has none of this. I also feel the other contestants and Trialmasters aren't as interesting as in the previous book. However, in some ways I prefer the more "tidy" illustrations by Brian Williams, they seem to fit better with this being a sort of game show than Iain McCaig's where the tunnels seemed more natural (although in pure aesthetic terms, McCaig's illustrations are much better). It also gives you more of a personal goal this time and has a very hateable villain. The arena events are basically just window-dressed dice rolls, but the window-dressing is very good.

Tower of Destruction: The ice palace is quite eerie and I do like the epic scope of the thing. It gets pretty tedious however. I feel the initial segment of tracking down and exploring the sphere should be removed and some of the encounters would have been better used as alternative paths on the route to the Ice Palace or within the tower itself which would have made the path to victory shorter and offered more replayability. I also wish it wasn't so strict on exploring the ice palace in the right order.

Island of the Undead: I really like the mystery to this, as you gradually uncover what's going on and learn more about the wizards. I also like the interactions with the four wizards in the final dungeon. It has many of the same problems as Tower - it goes on too long and it's too (perhaps more) unforgiving of exploring things in the wrong order. But I feel it's a much more atmospheric book with quite a melancholic feeling which is unusual in the series. Also arguably Russ' best work.

[CharlesX]

Nov 26, 2021 2:43:36 GMT Magneto said:

For a truly balanced approach.

Right in the middle of the rankings is Trial of Champions. Directly below it are Tower of Destruction and Island of the Undead, and just above it are Island of the Lizard King and Bloodbones.

Island of the Undead is the first book to have a fight before a decision. Tower of Destruction has an owl in it. Trial of Champions features human Trialmasters, unlike Deathtrap Dungeon. Island of the Lizard King used to have an illustration on the title page which does not appear anywhere else in the book, but Wizard replaced it with the Cyclops. Bloodbones includes one bad ending that can be reached in many ways.

I was going to start a thread along similar lines but I was tired and you beat me to the punch, Magneto. I'd even send you a PM but you aren't a member.

   Good luck with the thread .

[a moderator]

Er...

For some years I had a green-spined copy of Island of the Lizard King, but then I went to Southampton for a friend's wedding, and found a first edition in very good condition in a charity shop, along with copies of the first two AFF books.

My gamebook manager indicates that I have played through more sections of Bloodbones than Stormslayer. Nevertheless, I feel as if I've made better progress overall in Stormslayer.

Trial of Champions was in the large batch of FF books that got me properly back into the series almost 20 years ago.

So was Tower of Destruction, but I'd never played that one before, so it got more of my attention after I bought the books.

Island of the Undead was one of the last FF books I originally got in a physical shop rather than online.

[tyrion]

I found a star copy of iotlk in a charity shop.
I have two copies of totc, one of which I've backed in sticky back plastic. The illustrator also did lone wolf after Gary Chalk.
I bought iotu and tod off ebay before silly prices (yay for me?).

I've never finished bloodbones.

[nathanh]

In Bloodbones I got scratched by a cat when I had only 1 stamina left.

[a moderator]

Nov 26, 2021 18:16:52 GMT nathanh said:

In Bloodbones I got scratched by a cat when I had only 1 stamina left.

I'm not sure which is more embarrassing out of that, Fighting Dantasy's 'killed by a sour apple' failure at City of Thieves, and whoever it was at the previous FF forum who fatally underestimated the Stamina cost of jumping out of a tree house in The Forest of Doom.

[daredevil123]

Nov 26, 2021 18:16:52 GMT nathanh said:

In Bloodbones I got scratched by a cat when I had only 1 stamina left.

In Trial of Champions (also one of the five middle-ranked gamebooks) I got shot in the shoulder with a dart. It only cost me 1 Stamina point but that was enough to finish me off.

[a moderator]

Owing to the Lone Wolf Grand Master books' not mentioning the healing ability that Lone Wolf should have by default (on the assumption that all readers will be familiar with the way things worked in the earlier books), it is theoretically possible to be killed by a thrown cabbage in book 18, Dawn of the Dragons.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Nov 26, 2021 12:21:51 GMT kieran said:

Island of the Lizard King: I think Ian does a good job in depicting numerous environments (coast, jungle, marsh, hills, mines, river, mountains then final dungeon) and making it all feel like it all fits well together.

It does. And the encounters are generally-speaking quite logical. Giant Crab and pirate crew on the coast; Hydra and leeches in the swamp; deadly plants, giant dragonfly and fierce tribes in the jungle; stupid Hobgoblin guard, and patrolling Lizard Man cavalry outside the fort... in addition to his own invented monsters. My particular favourites are the escaped prisoners - Sama in the village, the man in a sad state of delirium, the one hiding up a tree and making the best of things, or the one unseen (the owner of the snuff box). I think they are a nice touch and perfectly in keeping with the plot.

Nov 26, 2021 12:21:51 GMT kieran said:

I also think the mass battle at the end is great.

It feels 'earned'.
You have made a long and dangerous journey, discovered the mines and seen how cruelly the prisoners are being treated. You have rescued them and now you all band together to finish this evil once and for all.

Nov 26, 2021 12:21:51 GMT kieran said:

This is actually one of my go-to books

Mine too. My original copy is in an absolute state because of the reading and re-reading that went on over the years.

Nov 26, 2021 12:21:51 GMT kieran said:

... there's just something quite likeable about it even though I can't really think of anything that special about it.

For me, it has the feel of a Ray Harryhausen 'Sinbad' film to it, mixed with an old fashioned Tarzan story.

I would argue what is most 'special' about it is the whole book. 1984 was still relatively early on in the FF series. In 82 and 83 we'd only had 6 books. The early books set the tone for the whole lot and I include IOTLK here. Could we argue it is the first of the epic quests in which the reader covers a large distance on a heroic journey? [admittedly Sorcery 1 had also kicked off in 1983]. It also continued fleshing out Allansia as a 'world' or part thereof.

[The Count]

Trial has a rather amusing and clever instant death near the end that you are likely to miss
Bloodbones is the only Green book to improve with repeated efforts, though it has its fair share of ridiculous monsters
I'm surprised Island of the Lizard King wasn't cancelled by some cry baby intern for its potentially offensive encounters, which would be no great loss, however it would mean a new generation of kids missing out on a fabulous homage for One Million Years BC
The shoddier illustrations in Island of the Undead take away from the rich atmosphere of the text
The main hub of the ice palace in Tower of Destruction is deceptively linear which makes it a better book, balanced out by the fiendishly difficult puzzles which make it worse