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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 29, 2013 19:30:02 GMT
This is the thread to discuss the Titannica wiki.
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Post by paltogue on Oct 1, 2013 7:53:47 GMT
Good work from yourself on Titannica recently. Unfortunately I've had very little time to get properly into FF recently (as opposed to quick comments on forums), so I haven't had a chance to do much editing of late. I would, as ever, like to change that...
You mentioned a while back about changing the location of Titannica to another wiki host. Is that right? Do you have any further thoughts on that, as I wasn't sure what you meant.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Oct 1, 2013 8:53:05 GMT
Good work from yourself on Titannica recently. Unfortunately I've had very little time to get properly into FF recently (as opposed to quick comments on forums), so I haven't had a chance to do much editing of late. I would, as ever, like to change that... You mentioned a while back about changing the location of Titannica to another wiki host. Is that right? Do you have any further thoughts on that, as I wasn't sure what you meant. I had thought about it, mainly to deal with the fixed width issue of the current wikia skin. However, they are bringing in a new skin (codenamed "Darwin") that will once more allow wider pages. So we should probably stay put for now.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Mar 13, 2014 13:01:25 GMT
Just a thought: Titannica has a page for Fighting Fantazine including a link, but there’s nothing about this forum as such. Would it be worth adding something separate?
A few people who are just looking for a forum might find their way on to the Fantazine as well as getting this place get a few more members.
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Post by deadshadowrunner on Mar 14, 2014 10:09:16 GMT
Good idea.And maybe an ad in the Fantazine too introducing this forum.
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symm
Squire
Posts: 13
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Post by symm on Mar 18, 2014 9:36:35 GMT
In the Equipment List of Talisman Of Death the following is missing:
5 torches
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Post by deadshadowrunner on Mar 18, 2014 14:39:11 GMT
Huh?Look here to see my flabbergasted look->
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Post by deadshadowrunner on Apr 1, 2014 11:32:42 GMT
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2015 21:43:44 GMT
Visited lately, very well done! I enjoyed the herbs, flowers, trees, shrubs and fungus sections. If only someone can make a magickal type book referencing all the enchanted meAnings of each herb.
Rust Shroom - Destroys metal (armour if wearing chainmail or plated) but also serves as a concoctive for curing athlete's foot and toe fungus so you can walk across the Great Plains in better comfort
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Post by greyarea13 on Sept 7, 2015 20:33:12 GMT
I've actually just written a 40-45K word herbal for Arion Games' Advanced Fighting Fantasy line, featuring over 250 herbs and fungi from all the FF gamebooks, plus new skills and classes etc. No word yet on when and where it will be published. A lot of it was based on work I had done for Titannica, so I'm glad you like those sections. :-)
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Post by Razaak's Ghost on Sept 23, 2015 9:02:32 GMT
Just a quick shout out to those who put in a lot of work on the Wiki. I find myself there from time to time and appreciate the resources. FF is a weird fandom with few havens, but Titannica is one of the best of them! Cheers
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Post by Jon on Nov 29, 2015 21:05:00 GMT
Why does Titannica say that gold pieces are one ounce when they are in fact 80 to 90 grams? Is this going to be corrected?
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Post by Dalthus Bire on Apr 22, 2016 13:10:59 GMT
Why does Titannica say that gold pieces are one ounce when they are in fact 80 to 90 grams? Is this going to be corrected? 1. It's a nefarious conspiracy. 2. Emphatically not.
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Post by CharlesX on May 19, 2024 19:24:55 GMT
Hi
Been reading Titannica's entry on Jon Green and have a number of issues with it. I'll quote the thing and go through them:
Difficulty is something Jon Green himself admits was a learning curve. Spellbreaker was definitely too hard (8% success chance must be a bit higher than odds of success, whatever "other statistics and so on" means) and its re-release by failing to give the surrender option or do away with any excessive do-or-die rolling actually changes little to nothing in the way of difficulty. There is, however, no such criticism of for example Ian Livingstone, who's first solo FF gamebook Forest Of Doom was relatively easy and then wrote more gamebooks than Jon that were too hard. Crypt Of The Sorceror (and Blood Of The Zombies) is often singled out, but some of his other gamebooks are about as hard as Bloodbones. Livingstone is a founder of FF so perhaps different rules apply, and perhaps different rules apply as well for gamebooks such as Sky Lord and Seas Of Blood which do not have special criticism. There is no softening with a mention Jon Green's last three FFs Stormslayer Night Of The Necromancer Howl Of The Werewolf have eased on the difficulty, and reading the entry one might gain the impression Jon Green only writes very hard gamebooks - if anything, his later FF and non-FF gamebooks have sometimes been easy.
To me this reads like an unfair hit job because although the piece mentions in passing his work is well-written, words like "ludicrous" "ridiculous" and "insane" might apply to Spellbreaker but there are an entire number of FF that are considerably harder than his other early FF. Comparing with Sir Ian again its notable Titannica does call out Crypt Of The Sorceror for its difficulty but not Blood Of The Zombies. I imagine Titannica's writers couldn't find the words, and\or wanted to minimise discussion or mention of this FF.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,744
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on May 19, 2024 21:20:53 GMT
@charlesx
Wasn't there an analysis not so long ago where Spellbreaker was indeed identified as the hardest books in the FF series? Yes, even harder than Crypt. Knights of Doom was also super difficult due to having to fail a Skill test while the rest of the book required your Skill to be high to stand a chance (a lot of people don't consider using codebreaking to solve the rune riddle a legitimate solution). Curse of the Mummy, like Crypt, has another high Skill final villain and not enough useful items to help you, unlike Knights of Doom. Aside from combat, the need to succeed on certain essential dice rolls was another problem as well as having to gather a Livingstonian amount of items to progress. Add all that up and there aren't many that were tougher than these.
Yes, Ian wrote more titles that were too difficult but they were also not as interesting as Jon's most of the times. The more interesting a book is, the longer and the more people are going to talk about it. I wouldn't agree that there's no criticisms for Ian's books. If anything, there's too many. Just not on Titanicca. A lot of people don't see Blood of the Zombies as a genuine entry to the FF series so that may be why they don't bring it up during FF discussions. For other difficult gamebooks, it might simply be the fact that many weren't rereleased so not everyone got round to reading them.
Let's just be thankful that both authors have learnt from the flaws of their past contributions and are now producing gamebooks with much more accessible gameplay. Perhaps it is time for these critics to acknowledge this fact rather than dwell on the imperfections of their past.
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Post by blueswift on May 20, 2024 2:03:02 GMT
Let's just be thankful that both authors have learnt from the flaws of their past contributions and are now producing gamebooks with much more accessible gameplay. Perhaps it is time for these critics to acknowledge this fact rather than dwell on the imperfections of their past. Would like to get your view on how plausible you think the below is. The below is mere conjecture on my part. No disrespect is meant to any of the parties discussed below. I just speculate that some unfortunate events happened behind the scenes. The reason why Jonathan Green’s early contributions to Fighting Fantasy are so difficult is because he was informed by the publisher that his books had to be so. Readers of FF wrote to Warlock magazine saying they wanted tougher adventures so the publisher informed him that he had to grant the readers' wish. Green was given very tight deadlines to meet. He did the best with the time he had but didn’t have enough time to playtest his works thoroughly to squash the excessive difficulty. Therefore, Mr. Green is in the very unenviable position of having experienced the stress of racing against some tough deadlines and has had to bear the ire of the fans for his works being overly tough. However, its not his fault that his deadlines were so merciless and he would have properly balanced his gamebooks if he could have. Furthermore, my guess is that Mr. Green was called in, perhaps without pay, to bail Charlie Higson out on The Gates of Death. This is especially unfortunate for Jonathan because he had other projects he was working on at the time. The reason I think Green may have gone without pay was because his name was not on the contract. Instead, the contract was between Higson and the publisher. Gates is tonally inconsistent. Sometimes it feels like FF proper and other times, its like the author had very limited experience with FF. My belief is that Green ghostwrote parts of Gates and was uncredited for it. I think that Higson didn’t realize how difficult writing an FF would be when he agreed to write the book. When it became clear that Higson was in considerable trouble writing this project, there was some scrambling as well as serious concern behind the scenes when the deadlines began to loom eerily close. Jonathan was brought in to salvage the project. The fact that, to my knowledge, Higson has had nothing to do with FF since 2018 when Gates was published is extremely telling in my opinion. So Green is in the unenviable position of working on a project, perchance with no pay, only for the fans to bash that project. My conclusion is that we, as Fighting Fantasy players, are extremely fortunate to have Green. Writing a 400 or more section adventure is a lot tougher than it seems and Jonathan has earned my respect by having the courage to admit that his early works had mistakes. To publicly admit one's mistakes is no small feat. Perhaps we should have been far kinder and more understanding.
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Post by CharlesX on May 20, 2024 7:13:45 GMT
Many thanks for this feedback. My large point was that Jon Green receives criticism for those FF which have been too hard (they have been way too hard, as you've said) and not gratitude for those that have been 'aright', but articles tend to focus on what's concerning rather than what works.
blueswift I don't know how far Jon Green took specific points mentioned in Warlock magazine about difficulty seriously (I wouldn't care what letter-writing fans thought if I were a professional author), but I have seen Jon Green on Youtube interview, and what he's said was he didn't take gameplay seriously enough in his earlier work (not at all, it would seem, for Spellbreaker), and incorrectly assumed his readers would mass cheat, it was more important to have cool-looking monsters and do-or-die rolls than a book that was most playable. So, good thing he listened to feed-back and changed his mind. IDK about Gates Of Death.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on May 21, 2024 14:05:18 GMT
[...]There is no softening with a mention Jon Green's last three FFs Stormslayer Night Of The Necromancer Howl Of The Werewolf have eased on the difficulty, and reading the entry one might gain the impression Jon Green only writes very hard gamebooks - if anything, his later FF and non-FF gamebooks have sometimes been easy. To me this reads like an unfair hit job because although the piece mentions in passing his work is well-written, words like "ludicrous" "ridiculous" and "insane" might apply to Spellbreaker but there are an entire number of FF that are considerably harder than his other early FF. [...]
Having looked up the history of the Titannica article it's worth noting that the meat of those paragraphs were written in December 2007, soon after Howl was published and before Stormslayer and Night (nevermind Secrets). Perhaps it would be worth editing the relevant bit to "Green's early books are reputed..." and adding a paragraph for the late and post noughties offerings.
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Post by CharlesX on May 21, 2024 14:59:41 GMT
[...]There is no softening with a mention Jon Green's last three FFs Stormslayer Night Of The Necromancer Howl Of The Werewolf have eased on the difficulty, and reading the entry one might gain the impression Jon Green only writes very hard gamebooks - if anything, his later FF and non-FF gamebooks have sometimes been easy. To me this reads like an unfair hit job because although the piece mentions in passing his work is well-written, words like "ludicrous" "ridiculous" and "insane" might apply to Spellbreaker but there are an entire number of FF that are considerably harder than his other early FF. [...]
Having looked up the history of the Titannica article it's worth noting that the meat of those paragraphs were written in December 2007, soon after Howl was published and before Stormslayer and Night (nevermind Secrets). Perhaps it would be worth editing the relevant bit to "Green's early books are reputed..." and adding a paragraph for the late and post noughties offerings. "Jonathan Green himself has admitted when interviewed he misjudged difficulty, and in his later works Howl Of The Werewolf, Stormslayer and Night Of The Necromancer, as well as his role as co-writer in Secrets Of Salamonis, he treated gameplay more fairly".
The problem is those harder works are fully half of the FF that he wrote, so I say until he writes another FF (or two more collaborations) I'm OK with tough criticism.
I have added the sentence above to Titannica's entry as I don't feel it is particularly controversial, and on that basis and the one above I have left the original criticisms of Jon Green's earlier works untouched.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 25, 2024 10:43:06 GMT
Furthermore, my guess is that Mr. Green was called in, perhaps without pay, to bail Charlie Higson out on The Gates of Death. This is especially unfortunate for Jonathan because he had other projects he was working on at the time. The reason I think Green may have gone without pay was because his name was not on the contract. Instead, the contract was between Higson and the publisher. Gates is tonally inconsistent. Sometimes it feels like FF proper and other times, its like the author had very limited experience with FF. My belief is that Green ghostwrote parts of Gates and was uncredited for it. I think that Higson didn’t realize how difficult writing an FF would be when he agreed to write the book. When it became clear that Higson was in considerable trouble writing this project, there was some scrambling as well as serious concern behind the scenes when the deadlines began to loom eerily close. Jonathan was brought in to salvage the project. The fact that, to my knowledge, Higson has had nothing to do with FF since 2018 when Gates was published is extremely telling in my opinion. So Green is in the unenviable position of working on a project, perchance with no pay, only for the fans to bash that project. Jonathan Green as Fighting Fantasy's Fire Brigade? Yes, I can see that as being plausible. If what you say is true (and i think it IS), it would have been better if he had been involved in the start and worked alongside Higson from the get-go. To be there for consultation on gameplay and lore and also both writers could have bounced ideas off each other. I have no idea if that would have been successful, for all sorts of reasons, but mainly concerning the creative process in general - would JG have kept having to say 'No Mr Higson, that's not how it works in Allansia' all day long? And you're right - we've not seen hide nor hair of Higson, have we? Why is that? My conclusion is that we, as Fighting Fantasy players, are extremely fortunate to have Green. Writing a 400 or more section adventure is a lot tougher than it seems and Jonathan has earned my respect by having the courage to admit that his early works had mistakes. To publicly admit one's mistakes is no small feat. Perhaps we should have been far kinder and more understanding. I would be happy if he was given the opportunity to write something every year, or as i suggested earlier to write collaboratively with 'big names' that will pull in the 'normies'. Also remember he was quite young when he wrote his first FF book. I'm sure most of us would not like a harsh eye cast on every piece of work we did in our late teens/ early twenties.
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Post by CharlesX on May 26, 2024 16:31:06 GMT
Furthermore, my guess is that Mr. Green was called in, perhaps without pay, to bail Charlie Higson out on The Gates of Death. This is especially unfortunate for Jonathan because he had other projects he was working on at the time. The reason I think Green may have gone without pay was because his name was not on the contract. Instead, the contract was between Higson and the publisher. Gates is tonally inconsistent. Sometimes it feels like FF proper and other times, its like the author had very limited experience with FF. My belief is that Green ghostwrote parts of Gates and was uncredited for it. I think that Higson didn’t realize how difficult writing an FF would be when he agreed to write the book. When it became clear that Higson was in considerable trouble writing this project, there was some scrambling as well as serious concern behind the scenes when the deadlines began to loom eerily close. Jonathan was brought in to salvage the project. The fact that, to my knowledge, Higson has had nothing to do with FF since 2018 when Gates was published is extremely telling in my opinion. So Green is in the unenviable position of working on a project, perchance with no pay, only for the fans to bash that project. Jonathan Green as Fighting Fantasy's Fire Brigade? Yes, I can see that as being plausible. If what you say is true (and i think it IS), it would have been better if he had been involved in the start and worked alongside Higson from the get-go. To be there for consultation on gameplay and lore and also both writers could have bounced ideas off each other. I have no idea if that would have been successful, for all sorts of reasons, but mainly concerning the creative process in general - would JG have kept having to say 'No Mr Higson, that's not how it works in Allansia' all day long? And you're right - we've not seen hide nor hair of Higson, have we? Why is that? My conclusion is that we, as Fighting Fantasy players, are extremely fortunate to have Green. Writing a 400 or more section adventure is a lot tougher than it seems and Jonathan has earned my respect by having the courage to admit that his early works had mistakes. To publicly admit one's mistakes is no small feat. Perhaps we should have been far kinder and more understanding. I would be happy if he was given the opportunity to write something every year, or as i suggested earlier to write collaboratively with 'big names' that will pull in the 'normies'. Also remember he was quite young when he wrote his first FF book. I'm sure most of us would not like a harsh eye cast on every piece of work we did in our late teens/ early twenties. Jonathan Green's involvement in Gates Of Death was above his abilities, especially as his work was uncredited. If I may meme how the writing went:
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 20, 2024 3:05:29 GMT
I was taking a look on Titannica and noticed that while there is a lengthy page for fan-written amateur adventures – including making a distinction between those based on one or more of the official books – there isn't anything for fan-alterations of the originals. That is: the thoroughgoing tweaking of sections throughout the book in question or the creation of additional/alternative sections to make an improved or interestingly different book in terms of statistical difficulty or for any other reason.
Offhand I'm aware of four:
Sylas's 'Escape from Zombie Castle', which attempts to improve Blood of the Zombies by Ian L.
Sylas's 'Crypt of the Sorcerer (revised edition)', which attempts to revise the book of that name by Livingstone, I. My own 'Decrypting of the Sorcerer' which inserts sections to improve that same book
and now
CharlesX's 'A less trying Trial of Champions' which inserts sections to improve the book of that name by that co-founder of Fighting Fantasy... you know... the one who isn't Steve Jackson
(There's just the suggestion of a theme here.)
But presumably there are more than that out there? Do people know of any and/or have strong feelings about whether a page listing them would be worthwhile?
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 20, 2024 13:40:33 GMT
As I said elsewhere on this site I'm not so into social media such as Instagram - not everyone is - but either way a Titannica page would raise awareness both of the revised edition's existence and of rewrites. While people's focus is understandably on difficulty soulreaver informed me via PM he has a project to rewrite a number of FF, with the intent of doing away with continuity and fundamental errors, he mentioned something about gameplay, as well. That was quite a while back, and after I told him I wasn't interested in helping, he has not PM'd again, so I've no idea how this might be progressing.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,744
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Aug 22, 2024 22:35:10 GMT
As I said elsewhere on this site I'm not so into social media such as Instagram - not everyone is - but either way a Titannica page would raise awareness both of the revised edition's existence and of rewrites. While people's focus is understandably on difficulty soulreaver informed me via PM he has a project to rewrite a number of FF, with the intent of doing away with continuity and fundamental errors, he mentioned something about gameplay, as well. That was quite a while back, and after I told him I wasn't interested in helping, he has not PM'd again, so I've no idea how this might be progressing. Crypt of the Sorcerer and Knights of Doom are the only ones I've revised. With Blood of the Zombies I was trying an alternative way to play the book as the rules as written do not make the book playable at all. I had the intention of revising Starship Traveller as well (typed up already) with additional encounters, added interaction with the crew, and a more challenging solution required to get home (among other little things). However, before I got started, I asked whether anyone would actually be interested considering it's not a widely liked book. There was very little interest overall so I didn't waste my time and dropped the project to do other things. I still have my ideas somewhere if interest were to rise again. Another idea I had, but have yet to begin working on, is altering the game mechanics of Blood of the Zombies completely so that it utilizes the standard FF rules with Skill, Stamina and Luck and regular combat.
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Post by blueswift on Aug 23, 2024 1:19:54 GMT
Crypt of the Sorcerer and Knights of Doom are the only ones I've revised. With Blood of the Zombies I was trying an alternative way to play the book as the rules as written do not make the book playable at all. I had the intention of revising Starship Traveller as well (typed up already) with additional encounters, added interaction with the crew, and a more challenging solution required to get home (among other little things). However, before I got started, I asked whether anyone would actually be interested considering it's not a widely liked book. There was very little interest overall so I didn't waste my time and dropped the project to do other things. I still have my ideas somewhere if interest were to rise again. Another idea I had, but have yet to begin working on, is altering the game mechanics of Blood of the Zombies completely so that it utilizes the standard FF rules with Skill, Stamina and Luck and regular combat. Dear Sylas, Should you end up revising Blood of the Zombies, I submit this idea for your consideration: doing away with the requirement that all zombies must be slain. That compulsory feature of the book is one of its major problems. As for Knights of Doom, is Mr. Green aware of your revisions? If so, are you permitted to share his impressions of the suggested changes?
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 23, 2024 10:00:29 GMT
As I said elsewhere on this site I'm not so into social media such as Instagram - not everyone is - but either way a Titannica page would raise awareness both of the revised edition's existence and of rewrites. While people's focus is understandably on difficulty soulreaver informed me via PM he has a project to rewrite a number of FF, with the intent of doing away with continuity and fundamental errors, he mentioned something about gameplay, as well. That was quite a while back, and after I told him I wasn't interested in helping, he has not PM'd again, so I've no idea how this might be progressing. Crypt of the Sorcerer and Knights of Doom are the only ones I've revised. With Blood of the Zombies I was trying an alternative way to play the book as the rules as written do not make the book playable at all. I had the intention of revising Starship Traveller as well (typed up already) with additional encounters, added interaction with the crew, and a more challenging solution required to get home (among other little things). However, before I got started, I asked whether anyone would actually be interested considering it's not a widely liked book. There was very little interest overall so I didn't waste my time and dropped the project to do other things. I still have my ideas somewhere if interest were to rise again. Another idea I had, but have yet to begin working on, is altering the game mechanics of Blood of the Zombies completely so that it utilizes the standard FF rules with Skill, Stamina and Luck and regular combat. I admittedly don't own\haven't read Blood Of The Zombies but from the solution it looks like one reason Sir Ian changed the rules was fighting takes longer and the book is very, very much a long fightfest, in a bad way (at least Jon Green's books have more variance and testing as well as tough difficulty).
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,744
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Aug 23, 2024 22:18:31 GMT
Crypt of the Sorcerer and Knights of Doom are the only ones I've revised. With Blood of the Zombies I was trying an alternative way to play the book as the rules as written do not make the book playable at all. I had the intention of revising Starship Traveller as well (typed up already) with additional encounters, added interaction with the crew, and a more challenging solution required to get home (among other little things). However, before I got started, I asked whether anyone would actually be interested considering it's not a widely liked book. There was very little interest overall so I didn't waste my time and dropped the project to do other things. I still have my ideas somewhere if interest were to rise again. Another idea I had, but have yet to begin working on, is altering the game mechanics of Blood of the Zombies completely so that it utilizes the standard FF rules with Skill, Stamina and Luck and regular combat. Dear Sylas, Should you end up revising Blood of the Zombies, I submit this idea for your consideration: doing away with the requirement that all zombies must be slain. That compulsory feature of the book is one of its major problems. As for Knights of Doom, is Mr. Green aware of your revisions? If so, are you permitted to share his impressions of the suggested changes? Indeed. Getting rid of the tally system was something I already included in the alternate play mode. I would also rewrite the Background and Epilogue because it's completely ridiculous. Jon Green is aware of the revisions. Jon also mentioned that the Skill Test you need to fail in order to find the runes was an error on his part as he had intended for the reader to be able to reach that area without such difficulty. I made alterations to the sections leading up to it for it to read as Jon intended and made it so that having Tracking would actually be useful rather than detrimental. I don't remember what else he said about it. It was some time ago.
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 25, 2024 19:34:18 GMT
As I said elsewhere on this site I'm not so into social media such as Instagram - not everyone is - but either way a Titannica page would raise awareness both of the revised edition's existence and of rewrites. While people's focus is understandably on difficulty soulreaver informed me via PM he has a project to rewrite a number of FF, with the intent of doing away with continuity and fundamental errors, he mentioned something about gameplay, as well. That was quite a while back, and after I told him I wasn't interested in helping, he has not PM'd again, so I've no idea how this might be progressing. Crypt of the Sorcerer and Knights of Doom are the only ones I've revised. With Blood of the Zombies I was trying an alternative way to play the book as the rules as written do not make the book playable at all. I had the intention of revising Starship Traveller as well (typed up already) with additional encounters, added interaction with the crew, and a more challenging solution required to get home (among other little things). However, before I got started, I asked whether anyone would actually be interested considering it's not a widely liked book. There was very little interest overall so I didn't waste my time and dropped the project to do other things. I still have my ideas somewhere if interest were to rise again. Another idea I had, but have yet to begin working on, is altering the game mechanics of Blood of the Zombies completely so that it utilizes the standard FF rules with Skill, Stamina and Luck and regular combat. Forest Of Doom is effectively revised in the Kindle Tin Man via a hard mode which rolls for your Skill as 1d6+4. At some point someone has to do away with or alter the Bowmen loop at the end, with every encounter playing out exactly as before (acknowledgement would be humorous if nothing else). I see it as a gamebook where a Creature Of Havoc style roll for where you go next could work. A lot of the encounters are very creative and well-written, but the true path is linear and pretty bland. You can also acquire a ton of gold and spend nothing. Side point, I might be remembering this wrong, but at one point you can attack someone for their gold rings (a rider or something) and if you defeat them, you don't get any gold.
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Post by Per on Aug 25, 2024 21:19:33 GMT
A lot of the encounters are very creative and well-written, but the true path is linear and pretty bland. You can also acquire a ton of gold and spend nothing. Side point, I might be remembering this wrong, but at one point you can attack someone for their gold rings (a rider or something) and if you defeat them, you don't get any gold. The true path isn’t too restrictive compared to later books: The two checkpoints in the first half require precise turnings, but after that you can take several paths through the second half. You are right about the rings, it was something I noted while doing the rare entries round.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 29, 2024 2:17:18 GMT
As I said elsewhere on this site I'm not so into social media such as Instagram - not everyone is - but either way a Titannica page would raise awareness both of the revised edition's existence and of rewrites. While people's focus is understandably on difficulty soulreaver informed me via PM he has a project to rewrite a number of FF, with the intent of doing away with continuity and fundamental errors, he mentioned something about gameplay, as well. That was quite a while back, and after I told him I wasn't interested in helping, he has not PM'd again, so I've no idea how this might be progressing. Crypt of the Sorcerer and Knights of Doom are the only ones I've revised. With Blood of the Zombies I was trying an alternative way to play the book as the rules as written do not make the book playable at all. I had the intention of revising Starship Traveller as well (typed up already) with additional encounters, added interaction with the crew, and a more challenging solution required to get home (among other little things). However, before I got started, I asked whether anyone would actually be interested considering it's not a widely liked book. There was very little interest overall so I didn't waste my time and dropped the project to do other things. I still have my ideas somewhere if interest were to rise again. Another idea I had, but have yet to begin working on, is altering the game mechanics of Blood of the Zombies completely so that it utilizes the standard FF rules with Skill, Stamina and Luck and regular combat. Does Escape from Zombie Castle (assuming that I'm right that that's what it was called) exist in its entirety somewhere? I thought that I'd seen it but perhaps I was mistaken. If there is to be a list on Titannica it should probably be quite liberal in listing things, both in terms of the type of alterations and the reason(s) for making them – so long as these differences are acknowledged/categorised. This could include more than one variation on a book written by the same person.
The Starship Traveller project certainly sounds interesting, though I take your point about the popularity of the book. I'm not sure that I've attempted it since my first playthroughs ?35 years ago ( ) so it would be a pretty dubious claim if I said I'd play a new version ASAP. Crypt of the Sorcerer and Knights of Doom are the only ones I've revised. With Blood of the Zombies I was trying an alternative way to play the book as the rules as written do not make the book playable at all. I had the intention of revising Starship Traveller as well (typed up already) with additional encounters, added interaction with the crew, and a more challenging solution required to get home (among other little things). However, before I got started, I asked whether anyone would actually be interested considering it's not a widely liked book. There was very little interest overall so I didn't waste my time and dropped the project to do other things. I still have my ideas somewhere if interest were to rise again. Another idea I had, but have yet to begin working on, is altering the game mechanics of Blood of the Zombies completely so that it utilizes the standard FF rules with Skill, Stamina and Luck and regular combat. I admittedly don't own\haven't read Blood Of The Zombies but from the solution it looks like one reason Sir Ian changed the rules was fighting takes longer and the book is very, very much a long fightfest, in a bad way (at least Jon Green's books have more variance and testing as well as tough difficulty). I haven't played the book either (why bother? We know it's unplayable), and probably shouldn't discuss it too much in this thread, but it seems pretty clear the idea was just totally misconceived. In a video game people might enjoy killing hundreds of zombies because you can see them moving and every one tests your reflexes. In a gamebook it requires an effort of imagination to find each fight engaging. If defeating hundreds of zombies seems cumbersome it's not because the combat system needs to be simpler than the super-simple FF system, it's because there are (duh) too many combats.
That's aside from the absurdity of a student pluckily picking up a machine gun and taking on a task better suited to at least a dozen elite military personnel.
It would seem to make sense if your only task was to escape, but if the task was to kill every zombie the better way for a gamebook to deal with it would be making most of it about decisions and puzzles. So there might be paragraphs saying things like
"...finally the catch is released and water starts to flow past the locked door. Soon the basement will be completely flooded and Roznik assured you that these things eventually lose their function underwater. Whether you can all this 'drowning', you're not sure. Add 87 to your running total."
There might just be, say, 20 zombies you destroy in combats and these could be made varied, complex and memorable.
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