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Post by CharlesX on May 11, 2023 12:34:19 GMT
Just for your take on any big gamebook review sites you've found. Some that've interested me:
Mrs. Giggles reviews - While she is entertaining, and well-written, often bases her views superficially on whether a gamebook matches or doesn't match her own favourite literature, and doesn't allow not only for a gamebook's gameplay but for different views about what constitutes good writing and other things. Reviewed many gamebooks though, I haven't visited her site for her take on the two new FFs if she's still going.
Malthus Dire - Has reviewed most FFs although focuses on the more traditional ones before Eye Of The Dragon, includes a lot of evidence and basis in his reviews but tends to take FFs to task about their shortcomings, and can be opinionated at times rather than praising FFs that he doesn't already like.
Demian's Gamebook Page - An extremely comprehensive database of gamebooks, most of which have reviews by several people, ironically the author says in his FAQ for the site he "doesn't think most gamebooks are very good". Can focus on narration rather than gameplay aspects, in fact we're quite into gameplay here compared to many who have no qualms about cheating.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on May 11, 2023 19:00:28 GMT
I agree completely about Mrs Giggles. Her reviews are always entertaining but she rates books more on a vague impression they give rather than really drilling into the mechanics.
I find Malthus' reviews are very detailed, he really gets into every aspect of a book to the extent I would only really read his reviews if they're for a book I either know extremely well or I have no intention of ever reading
Demian's website is hard to beat, it covers pretty much everything. I believe Demian handed the site over to Guillermo Paredes and I don't think anyone knows more about gamebooks than him. His personal reviews on the site are always excellent and very careful about spoilers.
Per Jorner's reviews are in my mind the high watermark for gamebook reviews. Pity his site seems abandoned now. The site also has a few hilarious reviews by Leigh Loveday that literally make me LOL.
Dragonwarrior8's blog has excellent reviews though can be a bit spoilery (though not to the same extent as Malthus Dire's). Well worth a look.
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Post by slloyd14 on May 12, 2023 20:33:46 GMT
I agree completely about Mrs Giggles. Her reviews are always entertaining but she rates books more on a vague impression they give rather than really drilling into the mechanics. I find Malthus' reviews are very detailed, he really gets into every aspect of a book to the extent I would only really read his reviews if they're for a book I either know extremely well or I have no intention of ever reading Demian's website is hard to beat, it covers pretty much everything. I believe Demian handed the site over to Guillermo Paredes and I don't think anyone knows more about gamebooks than him. His personal reviews on the site are always excellent and very careful about spoilers. Per Jorner's reviews are in my mind the high watermark for gamebook reviews. Pity his site seems abandoned now. The site also has a few hilarious reviews by Leigh Loveday that literally make me LOL. Dragonwarrior8's blog has excellent reviews though can be a bit spoilery (though not to the same extent as Malthus Dire's). Well worth a look. I loved Per Jormer's reviews on Yahoo groups. If anyone has saved any of the, I would love to get them!
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on May 12, 2023 20:59:24 GMT
I agree completely about Mrs Giggles. Her reviews are always entertaining but she rates books more on a vague impression they give rather than really drilling into the mechanics. I find Malthus' reviews are very detailed, he really gets into every aspect of a book to the extent I would only really read his reviews if they're for a book I either know extremely well or I have no intention of ever reading Demian's website is hard to beat, it covers pretty much everything. I believe Demian handed the site over to Guillermo Paredes and I don't think anyone knows more about gamebooks than him. His personal reviews on the site are always excellent and very careful about spoilers. Per Jorner's reviews are in my mind the high watermark for gamebook reviews. Pity his site seems abandoned now. The site also has a few hilarious reviews by Leigh Loveday that literally make me LOL. Dragonwarrior8's blog has excellent reviews though can be a bit spoilery (though not to the same extent as Malthus Dire's). Well worth a look. I loved Per Jormer's reviews on Yahoo groups. If anyone has saved any of the, I would love to get them! You can get them here: archive.is/PSFS#selection-589.226-589.230 Unfortunately, it's missing his reviews of Sorcery and Star Strider.
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Post by slloyd14 on May 13, 2023 7:25:15 GMT
I loved Per Jormer's reviews on Yahoo groups. If anyone has saved any of the, I would love to get them! You can get them here: archive.is/PSFS#selection-589.226-589.230 Unfortunately, it's missing his reviews of Sorcery and Star Strider. Many thanks. Per didn't just review FF books. Are they around?
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on May 13, 2023 13:51:42 GMT
Many thanks. Per didn't just review FF books. Are they around? Doesn't seem like it sadly
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Post by paperexplorer on May 31, 2023 21:40:31 GMT
Oh wow, that link has reviews I wrote over 20 years ago from when I was writing for Mark J Popp's site. What a throwback seeing them again
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Post by a moderator on Jun 1, 2023 15:52:18 GMT
Per Jorner's reviews of Star Strider and Sorcery!? Guess what I found in an old Yahoo! Groups digest email that turned up while I was searching for something else entirely.
Now I'm going to have to trawl through my account (the search function is useless) to see if I also have his review of Crown, and to find out what non-FF reviews also survive.
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Post by CharlesX on Jun 1, 2023 18:14:02 GMT
Thank you a moderator these are interesting reviews. My fond memories of Star Strider's concept, humour and illustrations made me forget this is in actuality a really poor gamebook, primarily because of the poor layout, although gameplay that is uninvolving and poor technical execution is also of no help. I'd also forgotten Steve Jackson's Sorcery! has a truckload of technical errors. I don't think Sorcery!'s "flip the page to view the dice if you don't have dice" works well at all (it makes Lone Wolf's one look like Einstein wrote it). It sort of reminds me of the time I didn't have dice to play Citadel Of Chaos, and my mad Dad offered to call out numbers for fighting, leading my Skill 8 Avatar to die in the Dwarf-Goblin-Orc fireside fight.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jun 1, 2023 21:05:08 GMT
Per Jorner's reviews of Star Strider and Sorcery!? Guess what I found in an old Yahoo! Groups digest email that turned up while I was searching for something else entirely. What a find!
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Post by a moderator on Jun 2, 2023 1:47:11 GMT
I've also discovered his reviews of Virtual Reality Adventures books 1-5, assorted Warlock magazine and Proteus adventures, both Forbidden Gateway gamebooks, and several amateur adventures.
No sign of his original reviews of Seas of Blood (written as a joke before he'd seen a copy of the book) or Sky Lord (critique in the form of a short story), alas.
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Post by CharlesX on Jun 2, 2023 7:07:54 GMT
I've also discovered his reviews of Virtual Reality Adventures books 1-5, assorted Warlock magazine and Proteus adventures, both Forbidden Gateway gamebooks, and several amateur adventures. No sign of his original reviews of Seas of Blood (written as a joke before he'd seen a copy of the book) or Sky Lord (critique in the form of a short story), alas. So a moderator any chance of very kindly providing a link\paste? Unfortunately the things you weren't able to find sound like the most interesting .
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jun 2, 2023 8:50:38 GMT
see if I also have his review of CrownI don't recall him actually posting a review of Crown but I could be mistaken.
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Post by petch on Jun 2, 2023 11:40:51 GMT
It sort of reminds me of the time I didn't have dice to play Citadel Of Chaos, and my mad Dad offered to call out numbers for fighting, leading my Skill 8 Avatar to die in the Dwarf-Goblin-Orc fireside fight.
This made me laugh more than it should have. I think this should be written into the rules section for future books as a less elegant but more hilarious solution to the not-having-a-pair-of-dice-to-hand issue than them being printed on the page: 'simply ask a family member / friend / confused stranger to bark out numbers at random.'
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Post by a moderator on Jun 2, 2023 12:21:22 GMT
see if I also have his review of CrownI don't recall him actually posting a review of Crown but I could be mistaken. You may well be right. I'm continuing to trawl through the undeleted digests, but haven't yet found any more of his reviews.
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Post by a moderator on Jun 2, 2023 13:33:07 GMT
I've also discovered his reviews of Virtual Reality Adventures books 1-5, assorted Warlock magazine and Proteus adventures, both Forbidden Gateway gamebooks, and several amateur adventures. No sign of his original reviews of Seas of Blood (written as a joke before he'd seen a copy of the book) or Sky Lord (critique in the form of a short story), alas. So a moderator any chance of very kindly providing a link\paste? Unfortunately the things you weren't able to find sound like the most interesting . The VRA reviews have now been added to the appropriate threads. I'll post the others when I have a bit more time.
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Post by a moderator on Jun 10, 2023 16:19:33 GMT
While searching for something unrelated, I discovered that a copy of Per Jorner's first review of Sky Lord has survived after all. So here it is: Dawn creeps up slowly on Spitflak's Street, another lousy day on another lousy backwater planet. I don't even remember what I'm doing here. I've got a job to do. Or maybe that's somewhere else. Maybe I missed my turn. I don't know. Curling up against the cold, I just want to doze away another leaden hour. Then there's the tinkle of glass in the street outside. There's a commotion. I flick my eyes open and my brain races. Is that a rescue patrol? Are they friends? Are they my executioners? I bound up and there are two options: the door or the window. Maybe I have just this one moment to act. With heroic speed I make my choice, step up and -
I twitch, sending fragments of dry mud and rotten wood across the dusty floor. Was that a dream? I don't remember. Nothing's quite real on Spitflak's Street. Roused by a premonition, I gather my weapons and stride out. As I pass through the doorway, it's like someone had flashed a cold knife across my throat. But I look around and there's no one. I squelch my way up the wet dirt track, leaving the mud houses and villas behind, on to the high moors and ridges, away from cursed Spitflak's Street... ... and then I have to go into this house to beat someone up, I don't know why, I think I promised to do it, why? I don't know. It's not just any old house though. It's a huge pulsating mushroom of living metal. Now that's something, I tell myself. Why is it a mushroom? I don't know. But now I'm inside it and it's like any old dark tunnel, why is the mushroom like any old tunnel, and there's the guy and I beat him up, that always seems to be the easy part, beating them up, and I find some thing that could be important. Maybe it'll help me not miss my turn. Yes, maybe this is it, wait, who's there, stay back, you can't have it, no, I just wanna LOOK -
Spitflak's Street. Some mornings there's just no point in getting up. Outside, small pools of dirty water gleam bleakly with stolen pre-dawn radiance. My body lies sprawled in a corner of a run-down hut, tossed there, part of the rubble strewn about this forgotten town. Am I dead? Is that it? Am I cursed to repeat these things forever? Am I the ghost haunting Spitflak's Street? I must remember how I got here. I had to go somewhere and I was asked, east or west, and I made my choice and then suddenly someone was on my tail, and I was outgunned and outmanoeuvred and taking fire, and I had time to think, "The most important mission in the universe and of all the ships in all the spaceports in the galaxy they had to put me in THIS one -"
It's just like in space academy. How they used to dangle the promise of advancement, of improvement. It'd get easier with experience. The lying bastards. You'd claw your way through B level, you'd yell and cheat and flounder, but you'd do it somehow, eventually, knowing it wasn't something you'd earned, not truly. And that's when they'd congratulate you, and send you to F level with the flick of a switch, and there'd be F-drones all around you, and not a shot would go straight, and your dashboard would explode in a scatter of sparks, a million evil little strips of magnesium making a bid for freedom and going straight through your face -
Yeah, that's how I got here. I went east instead of west, up instead of down. I missed my turn. There must be a key to it. Maybe the answer's in the words. Maybe the answer's right here on Spitflak's Street. Maybe I'm dead. I hear the sounds again but I don't want to move because I could be dead... ... and I'm walking down dark corridors, much as I imagine being dead would be like, except now there's a door, what use are doors to the dead, but there are handles, that's good, I know handles. They're for turning, so I do that. Nothing. I turn them the other way -
I wake up trembling in the darkness. This is the wrong house. I know that now. The house is doing it. I collect my weapons, did I get all of them, there are so many, why do I keep so many weapons, I run out and off Spitflak's Street and down Winsome's Way. Everything's better on Winsome's Way. The mud's better. The flaking walls are better. But I'm not the only one who thinks so and I go down in a flurry of stabbing beaks -
With a shivering sigh, I roll over and try to steal another hour of sleep from the teasing clutches of early morning. The unseen crumbling wall in front of me blends into hazy visions and drifting mirages. A woman laughs scornfully. "... do not trust to the power of magic. Well, soon now, you will..." I'm being chased and shot at by an entire armada, and I stop and leave my craft and suddenly it's like there never even was a battle... A merry bulbous face divulges, "... dead - or in pieces anyway...!" My steps are guided by the whims of others, I distrust them but I'm never able to act on my suspicions, I'm never permitted to change my course... The voice of a strange old man echoes oddly under a hollow sky: "... a false reply...!" He points his finger at me -
But there are many different dreams and a few of them I like better. I'm not even in the first one, just a succession of people walking around an estate dusting things. In another, it's a dog-eat-dog world and there just ain't enough damn dogs. And in yet another dream there are rooms full of stuff and I'm given a list of things to look for and I find them and point to them and they get crossed off my list and I go to the next room. I'm taking these things for a purpose. But even then I don't think it'll help me not miss my turn. I'll still be caught somewhere, the way still isn't clear, everything is fragmented: "Pieces enough, it's certain!" Why couldn't there have been a greater purpose? Why couldn't they have given me a better ship. They gave me all these weapons. I'd trade some of them in... ... and I'm trading something in for my freedom but there's a puff and a bang and a man comes running and shouts, THE END -
Out of the blue, I'm reminded of something I once heard in space academy: the tale of the Moron Quadrant. It tells of an entire sector of the galaxy, secluded away in a web of its own delusions, lost to reason and mourned by none. The residents of this world tinker madly with technology beyond their comprehension, assign words at random to describe what happens to them, and ascribe dread significance to pursuits with no meaning. Here, fierce struggles are fought over reins of power strapped to nothing; and would-be galactic conquerors oversee ramshackle establishments; and challenges are issued and duels fought for no gain; and grave missions are bestowed upon fools to pit themselves against other fools with nothing riding on the outcome. And this, it was said, would serve to explain why our own world looks the way it does, why it functions thus and so, how it can at once have trappings so grandiose yet conduct itself with such bluster and whimsy, how even those we term our very finest can bumble about as if constantly bemisted. For we are actors all, dressed up for a great play, then left without a script and floundering, weaving about drunkenly and hollering whichever words come into our minds, as if the stage itself provided the desired weight for our gestures; for we are also morons all, and capable of nothing better. And we can conceive of this, and nod sagely at each other, and still not understand what it means... ... and in a desperate frenzy I try to nod sagely, because apparently that's how you direct this craft I'm operating, but it fails and I sink and water starts filling up -
A trained warrior on a world of cutthroats, I turn my back on a stranger who cuts me DOWN -
I have this recurring dream where I forget even the basic functions of my ship and I FRY -
There was a solution to this game of floor plates but it's of no use and I'm ZAPPED -
Maybe it's not so bad here. Here in the confines of Spitflak's Street. As long as I don't try to get away. Mud's good. I hardly feel the cold now.
But I'm seeing that woman again and she shoots me out of the SKY -
I check some cargo and it talks back to me and KILLS me -
I step up to examine something but this means FALLING -
Did I miss my turn? I think I missed my turn somewhere.
And I'm seeing my ship going up in FLAMES -
I'm getting my HEAD bashed in -
And there's a BOMB -
There's STICKY GOO -
I EXPLODE -
DIE -
I wake up. Again. In the hut. I lie frozen, not moving, not sleeping. The only time they can't get me is when I'm not doing anything. I prod the wall with a nail, scraping off mud-plaster, then stop. They can hear that, too. That's doing something. Only when the sun paints fanciful polygons across the dirt floor do I stretch my cramped muscles, reach for my weapons and go outside... ... and the sky breaks open, an armada of drones and fighters and starcruisers falling down like steel rain, mutants hopping from the roof, jet-scooters closing in, jelly blobs rolling all along the street, cyborgs sniping, dog-men cackling, ogre-bots stomping, and every one shouting and burbling and buzzing, "Wrong!" "False!" "Die!" and all I can do is stand and scream into the wave of fire and metal converging on Spitflak's Street -
I give a mighty twitch, knocking an instrument panel aside. Where am I? The view is familiar. Did I sleep? Did I nod off here, in the pilot's chair on the Starspray, the pride of the solar troopers? Did I dream? I can't remember. Only one name lingers: Spit... something. The dream's gone to pieces. Pieces enough, it's certain. Ah, yes, now I remember. I attempted the time-warp. It plays tricks on you. That thing can do all kinds of bad things to your timeline if you're not careful. I'm not ever using time-warp again. Not for the rest of this week, at any rate. That's the problem with time-warp, isn't it? Never make a promise you may already be going to have broken. I set the controls for light-warp and press the buttons; the ship hums hoarsely like a tusked arcticat from Skloon and now we're away. Good old light-warp. It'll take point four seconds to reach my destination in real time, in subjective time that'll be just... But now the computer's giving off a proximity alert, that's typical, an ambush, there's an ambush in the 11th colourspace and I'm getting a first look... FREAKING SHIT THAT SHIP'S FREAKING P-LEVEL HOW'M I GONNA -
FF33: Sky Lord
Rating: 1/10
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Post by CharlesX on Jun 10, 2023 17:00:49 GMT
Per Jorner's Sky Lord review seems to capture with immense eloquence the awfulness of this FF, whatever its fans may say in its support I say it should be down there with CYOA at its most average, and Per Jorner would seem to say the same. I think I would enjoy playing Eye Of The Dragon or Port Of Peril but I'd have to be high (not drunk) to enjoy playing Sky Lord.
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