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Post by CharlesX on May 22, 2022 16:26:27 GMT
I think Freeway Fighter is very creative and I'm a big fan of Mad Max, however, I think Freeway Fighter has a number of flaws. Freeway Fighter is very linear - often it boils down to 'head left or head right, one way ends your mission later', nobody is friendly (it's pretty much wild west on wheels), you at one point have a race for a fuel canister (illogical!), and it's 20 references shorter than most FFs.
I think Freeway Fighter could be more ambitious, maybe like Waterworld or Gamma World with mutants, maybe some relics from the mid 21st century to explore (if it were set at that time), maybe more than one path through instead of a ridiculously linear one.
We're a month away from when Freeway Fighter was set.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 22, 2022 18:15:18 GMT
I think Freeway Fighter is very creative and I'm a big fan of Mad Max, however, I think Freeway Fighter has a number of flaws. Freeway Fighter is very linear - often it boils down to 'head left or head right, one way ends your mission later' In that respect, it's a typical Livingstonian dungeon, but on the Earth's surface. And instead of underground tunnels we have roads. Instead of 'an orc pops up and takes a pot shot with a crossbow' we have 'a man throws a petrol bomb from the side of the road'. Instead of a troll lumbering down the corridor at you, it's a dunebuggy or something. at one point have a race for a fuel canister (illogical!) Maybe get rid of the fuel aspect of the book altogether? Who sets out on a journey without enough fuel to make the distance nor the means to obtain it (like a syphon)? I quite liked the way the race itself was done, but as you say it makes little sense. and it's 20 references shorter than most FFs. Indicates to me that the book was rushed. Just like Starship Traveller. I think Freeway Fighter could be more ambitious, maybe like Waterworld or Gamma World with mutants, maybe some relics from the mid 21st century to explore (if it were set at that time), The Mad Max setting was a good one and could have worked. If anything the book is overambitious, covering such a distance and with so many encounters that everything seems done at breakneck speed and two-dimensional. Look at the big showdown with Lord Humungous The Animal. All done and dusted in what, half a dozen paragraphs? The vehicle depicted so well on the front cover is reduced to a mere brainless enemy to fight with SKILL FIREPOWER 8 STAMINA ARMOUR 15. As you say, more relics of the past could be encountered... there's loads of things that could be done. So I'd try to improve it by not having so many encounters but focussing on each of them a bit more, better character descriptions, not rushing it, and having better illustrations. |
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Post by vastariner on May 22, 2022 20:19:26 GMT
There's the massive illogic that you spend ages and ages in a supercar trying to get a tanker of fuel, facing every danger imaginable, and on the way back...nothing. (With one possible exception.) You've got the most precious substance on the planet and suddenly nobody is interested?
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Post by Peter on May 23, 2022 9:03:29 GMT
Better illustrations!
And more fuel cannisters. More options for reaching the end, not just one single successful pathway. Imagine if there were different ways of reaching San Anglo, and there was the replayability feature of trying to find them all.
Other than that, what everyone else said: more relics of the past, more fleshing out of the encounters and setting.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,446
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on May 23, 2022 10:48:06 GMT
Better illustrations! And more fuel cannisters. More options for reaching the end, not just one single successful pathway. Imagine if there were different ways of reaching San Anglo, and there was the replayability feature of trying to find them all. There's a bit of freedom at the start in that there's two ways to obtain your first fuel cannister but after that there's zero wriggle room. |
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 23, 2022 18:25:40 GMT
Maybe have a fuel gauge (we've already got quite an elaborate adventure sheet one more box should be fine) and tick off fuel when the book tells you to. The more diversions, the more vehicle combat, the more you burn up the fuel. It could have an effect on your choices during the game, acting like a 'time elasped' tracker but potentially replenishable.
Customise the car at the start. Do you choose slower but more heavily armoured? Nitrous oxide? Do you bother with iron spikes or oil or go for something else, bigger calibre machine gun at d6+1? These choices to come with 'codewords' and have an effect on the way the book pans out for the reader.
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Post by CharlesX on May 23, 2022 18:41:03 GMT
Maybe have a fuel gauge (we've already got quite an elaborate adventure sheet one more box should be fine) and tick off fuel when the book tells you to. The more diversions, the more vehicle combat, the more you burn up the fuel. It could have an effect on your choices during the game, acting like a 'time elasped' tracker but potentially replenishable. Customise the car at the start. Do you choose slower but more heavily armoured? Nitrous oxide? Do you bother with iron spikes or oil or go for something else, bigger calibre machine gun at d6+1? These choices to come with 'codewords' and have an effect on the way the book pans out for the reader. These are interesting points. They remind me of Andrew Chapman's Space Assassin, which was perhaps objectively not one of the best FFs, but on the positive side had an amazing inventory choice before the start. Enacting a system such as this would however go against Livingstone's preference for more linear adventures. UK Jackson has always been the more moderate of the two, and it seems like his new FF might be more sandbox, dare I say it, good, while I think it would be a miracle if Livingstone did a gamebook similar to say US Jackson or Andrew Chapman. |
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 23, 2022 19:27:18 GMT
Maybe have a fuel gauge (we've already got quite an elaborate adventure sheet one more box should be fine) and tick off fuel when the book tells you to. The more diversions, the more vehicle combat, the more you burn up the fuel. It could have an effect on your choices during the game, acting like a 'time elapsed' tracker but potentially replenishable. Customise the car at the start. Do you choose slower but more heavily armoured? Nitrous oxide? Do you bother with iron spikes or oil or go for something else, bigger calibre machine gun at d6+1? These choices to come with 'codewords' and have an effect on the way the book pans out for the reader. These are interesting points. They remind me of Andrew Chapman's Space Assassin, which was perhaps objectively not one of the best FFs, but on the positive side had an amazing inventory choice before the start. Enacting a system such as this would however go against Livingstone's preference for more linear adventures. UK Jackson has always been the more moderate of the two, and it seems like his new FF might be more sandbox, dare I say it, good, while I think it would be a miracle if Livingstone did a gamebook similar to say US Jackson or Andrew Chapman. It would need him to change his normal style of structuring books and not apply his usual methods. An item hunt (petrol cans instead of sapphires emeralds and diamonds) in a roadwarrior Mad Max setting just doesn't work as well as the item hunt to kill Zanbar Bone or collecting gems or rings to win through in Deathtrap Dungeon. Freeway Fighter is one of my least favourite books in the FF series and I think it needs a complete overhaul to work. But to be fair, 1985 is the year we see other authors being brought in to write FF and I think the pressure was on SJ and IL to get these books out, which could well explain the rushed nature of it. |
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