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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 3, 2013 23:52:25 GMT
From TUFFF... Does anyone remember the gamebooks spun off from the Asterix cartoons? There were two completely different kinds. In one series you are Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix, and everything revolved around four items: a map, a translation slate, a coin bag and a password scroll which were separate from the book and made of plastic, except the map. You were informed that the three of you were offered all four at the start, but made the ultra-stupid decision to take just one. You spend the rest of the adventure hoping to stumble across them again before running out of magic potion cards. Asterix starts with three and each time things go wrong you lose one. In the other series you are Justforkix - the annoying trendy kid from Asterix and the Normans. This was perhaps a little more like FF as it had stats (Fighting Fitness, Skill and Charm) which you got to choose the strength of yourself by spreading 15 points around as you saw fit. There were fights and tests against the stats, and you kept a list of possessions. I can't put my hand on any of them at the moment except that I recently found a few pages from the first series together with the items for that book. They were quite fun to use, but I don't think there was much actual gameplay. You used a die to pick your route and if you were lucky it panned out. There wasn't much judgement involved - even if you picked the route rather than using the die it all went on luck or memory. Great fun for a kid to use the props though. The Justforkix ones involved more decision-making. I remember owning two: one in which you had to go and fetch the chief before the Romans tracked him down, and in the other you were just trying to be a music star. What did you think of them?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 3, 2013 23:53:20 GMT
From TUFFF... Unfortunately I never knew about them. But I'm a huge fan of Asterix, got nearly all the cartoon books (not sure how to call them, I've got them all in the original french, so we say Bandes-dessinées) except some of the last ones. I'll get them one day but they are not quite as good as when Goscinny was alive and writing the stories.
But you got me curious for sure! ..and I'll take this opportunity to ask: who is Dogmatix? The druid? I ask just out of translation curiosity, since Asterix and Obelix are the same as their french names (nearly: Astérix et Obélix) but I suppose since the play on words was about the same in both language that the authors got lucky. The druid in french is Panoramix, which means something something about vistas... Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 3, 2013 23:53:56 GMT
From TUFFF... Dogmatix is the dog. In the English translations, the druid was Getafix. Never encountered the Justforkix books, but I do have two of the books from the other series (the second one minus props). Quite fun but, like most Stephen Thraves gamebooks, no real decision-making involved.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 3, 2013 23:54:48 GMT
From TUFFF... Dogmatix is the dog - one of their least clever puns! The dog isn't particularly 'dogmatic' really. What's he called in French? The druid is called Getafix, that's 'get a fix' - a fix being a druggie's hit, or a pick-me-up. I always thought it sounded slightly dark as though half the villagers were in the grip of a gruelling magic potion addiction, but I suppose people use 'fix' to talk about caffeine more often than anything else. I might see if I can capture images of the props and post them up.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 3, 2013 23:56:52 GMT
From TUFFF... Dogmatix is the dog. In the English translations, the druid was Getafix.
Never encountered the Justforkix books, but I do have two of the books from the other series (the second one minus props). Quite fun but, like most Stephen Thraves gamebooks, no real decision-making involved. The Justforkix ones are definitely the more playable. I remember the music one better. It had special skills to choose from including skin-diving and languages (although these were little-used), a complex hunt for Romans in your village which requires you to keep track of a number of items and an apparently impossible test of your Charm score. The last one requires you to roll less that your Charm score (which can't be above 30) when rolling twenty dice. You have to work out what's wrong with your appearance and fix it. If you bypass it there's a paragraph near the end which says bluntly: 'Sorry if you've got here without knowing that, you must have cheated'!
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 3, 2013 23:58:20 GMT
From TUFFF... Getafix: not a bad pun, at least related to the character, more so than in French! Unless there's a joke I never got about panoramic views or something. Maybe it's a Belgian thing: Dr Evil said it all about those people! jk Dogmatix would then be Idéfix in french. Which means to be obsessed with something, to have nearly only one thought about something. Kind of like idéfix's obsession with bones, or vag's obsession with sacrifices and demons. Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:01:39 GMT
From TUFFF... I had to look up the Dr Evil/Belgian thing. Yes, I remember finding out the name Panoramix and wondering what the heck it was about. Maybe it's something to do with him being very wise and perceptive and so all-seeing? It's interesting that the meaning of the dog's name in French isn't a million miles from the meaning of his English name. I'd always assumed that they just picked the name just because it had 'dog' in it. It's as if the English name had come first. Anyway, I'm not sure this was worth doing, but I took pictures of the password scroll and translator props being used in the pages I found in case it was of any interest: Password Puzzle
Password Scroll Used
Translator in use...and no, before you ask, I'm not a professional photographer.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:02:32 GMT
From TUFFF... The third book in the first series uses slightly different props. The money bag and password scroll are in it, but no map or translator card - instead there's a sketchbook of Gauls that are resisting the Romans and instead of magic potion cards, there's a magic potion counter. The dice is not used for decisions in this one, but for combat - 5 sides depict Romans getting punched, the other depicts a gourd of magic potion. In combat, you're told how many roman patrols you ahve to face and roll the dice that many times. Every time you roll a gourd, you deduct 1 from the magic potion counter. Run out of magic potion and its game over so it's obviously advantageous to avoid patrols as much as possible. You get to make plenty of decisions in this one and you do not start with any of the 3 objects - to get them you will get quizzed on trivia about the Asterix books (to ascertain whether you're really Asterix and Obelix) at various stages of the book. It's probably a bit more like a traditional gamebook than other Stephen Thraves books. I have all 3 Alea Jacta Est books (there was a fourth but it was never translated). They have their flaws - Charm is near useless and the rules are vague in places - but they also are pretty brilliantly designed in other respects. It's a real shame there weren't more of them.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:03:23 GMT
From TUFFF... There's a whole world of Astérix gamebooks I didn't know about. Fascinating. and fearthealmightymudworm (quite a long name), it looks like you could gouge some eyes out with those fingernails! lol Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:06:45 GMT
From TUFFF... The third book in the first series uses slightly different props. The money bag and password scroll are in it, but no map or translator card - instead there's a sketchbook of Gauls that are resisting the Romans and instead of magic potion cards, there's a magic potion counter. The dice is not used for decisions in this one, but for combat - 5 sides depict Romans getting punched, the other depicts a gourd of magic potion. In combat, you're told how many roman patrols you have to face and roll the dice that many times. Every time you roll a gourd, you deduct 1 from the magic potion counter. Run out of magic potion and its game over so it's obviously advantageous to avoid patrols as much as possible. You get to make plenty of decisions in this one and you do not start with any of the 3 objects - to get them you will get quizzed on trivia about the Asterix books (to ascertain whether you're really Asterix and Obelix) at various stages of the book. It's probably a bit more like a traditional gamebook than other Stephen Thraves books. That's interesting - I never got as far as the third book. It definitely sounds more playable. __________ I have all 3 Alea Jacta Est books (there was a fourth but it was never translated). They have their flaws - Charm is near useless and the rules are vague in places - but they also are pretty brilliantly designed in other respects. It's a real shame there weren't more of them. Yes. I'm tempted to buy the third actually as it looks like they're all available second hand for next to nothing. I'll skip the fourth as I'm not quite dedicated enough to sit there with a dictionary!
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:08:39 GMT
From TUFFF... There's a whole world of Astérix gamebooks I didn't know about. Fascinating.
and fearthealmightymudworm (quite a long name), it looks like you could gouge some eyes out with those fingernails!
lol Ha! Well I'll admit that not much of my budget goes on manicures - oh and I'm part demon on my dad's side of the family, but I don't talk about that much...
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:10:43 GMT
From TUFFF... I was more thinking half-demon myself. But I guess demons can have manicures?
Or maybe I'm just envious, my fingernails are rather small - wait, why am I writing about fingernails?
Off I go! Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:12:16 GMT
From TUFFF... Yep, I do remember these. I only had the one with the yellow cover (Asterix to the rescue I think it was called). Bought it with my birthday money one year. Can't remember that much about it though. May try to get it again on the bay just for laughs All your bases are belong to us!
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:13:32 GMT
From TUFFF... I have the first two of these. For years I thought I'd lost the bits & bobs that went with them since leaving my parents house and moving 3 times masel... But, a month ago clearing out my attic (about time!) I found all the odds in an envelope! Might play them now!
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 4, 2013 0:23:16 GMT
From TUFFF... Looking back, it was quite cheeky of them to re-use illustrations from the main books in completely new contexts. I suppose that would have been the deal - Uderzo would have been happy to license the books without having to do new work - but still. I think one of the guys talking in a funny language that you have to translate was the very definitely Gaulish Drinklikafix in Asterix and the Banquet. Indeed I've just found out that he was drawn to resemble a famous French actor! My random Googling has also revealed that there is such a thing as an Asterix cocktail, which I suppose isn't surprising. However it seems to consist of vodka, banana liqueur, soda and lemon. What on Earth is Asterix-ish about that? You'd think it would be something with (goat's) milk in like a White Russian - assuming that boar's blood wouldn't be popular!
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Post by asterixthefool on Jan 2, 2020 9:49:08 GMT
Very much doubt anyone will pick this up after so many years, but having fond memories of these books I recently picked up a couple from ebay. Sadly none of the accessories were present though. I've found nearly all of them online and can reconstruct them - but not the coinbag. Can anyone help? I just need to know the pairs of numbers so that I can rebuild one myself. e.g. rotating to 20 coins should say Go To 57.
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 2, 2020 12:26:45 GMT
Very much doubt anyone will pick this up after so many years, but having fond memories of these books I recently picked up a couple from ebay. Sadly none of the accessories were present though. I've found nearly all of them online and can reconstruct them - but not the coinbag. Can anyone help? I just need to know the pairs of numbers so that I can rebuild one myself. e.g. rotating to 20 coins should say Go To 57. I should be able to help you out - will have a hunt for the book tonight and let you know. I only have Asterix to the Rescue, but if I recall correctly, the coin bag uses the same numbers for all the books.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jan 2, 2020 14:24:16 GMT
If Kieran can't find his I'll have a look for mine. I think I might know where they are but it might require some digging.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,434
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Asterix
Jan 2, 2020 18:55:13 GMT
via mobile
Post by kieran on Jan 2, 2020 18:55:13 GMT
And of course it turned out to be in a completely different place than I expected it to be (ie with my other Stephen Thraves books). Ah well, found it in the end. Coin amounts on the left, section numbers on the right:
1-32 2-41 3-71 4-65 5-59 6-78 7-36 8-76 9-82 10-53 11-73 12-46 13-62 14-48 15-54 16-85 17-68 18-26 19-49 20-57
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Post by asterixthefool on Jan 3, 2020 8:34:37 GMT
AMAZING - thank you so much! I will get constructing right away :-) And, yes, I think you are right (from the limited amount I've found online about these books) - the second Asterix book (the Britain one) uses all the same accessories. I have both so will test out this theory!
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Post by CharlesX on Oct 20, 2021 21:32:04 GMT
There were quite a number of gamebooks designed rather like Asterix - with a special die, with faces of the heroes, their mates, possibly other symbols, plastic pieces such as a map, codebreaker, password system and other things. I remember a successful Famous Five gamebook series, which I liked in spite of its average quality as an E. Blyton fan, and some football ones which I never bought. Please share if there were some other gamebooks designed in this way you were into. These sorts of things were ok for kids - they were well-written - but they were just too luck-based, and like the (other) Stephen Thraves books in a similar vein, after a few playthroughs you knew where things were and could beat the book on most playthroughs. So, it's like a true path FF, without the challenge, sophistication or variation.
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Post by nathanh on Oct 22, 2021 20:10:56 GMT
I remember as a child enjoying the ones where you were part of a group of ghost-hunters or something and you had to solve them before you got too scared, I think. There were also a couple of generic fantasy ones that I liked until I realised they were rubbish.
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Post by a moderator on Oct 23, 2021 0:05:51 GMT
There were also a couple of generic fantasy ones that I liked until I realised they were rubbish. Battle Quest? My knowledge of them comes largely from a critical review posted on one of the now-defunct Yahoo! groups. I remember the reviewer complaining that the opponents weren't even given names - you just fought the likes of 'monster with 6 hit points' and 'monster with 8 hit points'.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,434
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Asterix
Oct 23, 2021 9:44:03 GMT
via mobile
Post by kieran on Oct 23, 2021 9:44:03 GMT
I remember as a child enjoying the ones where you were part of a group of ghost-hunters or something and you had to solve them before you got too scared, I think. Definitely my favourite Thraves books - the fellow ghost hunters are genuinely very funny.
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