aggsol
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Lone Wolf
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Post by aggsol on Aug 16, 2018 10:02:32 GMT
Anyone ever counted that? Or how many words per section?
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Post by johnbrawn1972 on Aug 16, 2018 19:19:31 GMT
Maybe a job for when you are retired?
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Post by Wilf on Aug 16, 2018 19:43:13 GMT
"FF" isn't a word as such, so three: "the", "average" and "book".
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Post by philsadler on Aug 16, 2018 20:21:46 GMT
I can tell you the word count of my own books for what it's worth:
Hellfire - 50256 Riders of the Storm - 64668 House of Pain - 80060 Deathtrap - 79975
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 16, 2018 23:54:45 GMT
Anyone ever counted that? Or how many words per section? On the assumption that a quick and dirty estimate is probably of some interest to get things started: The Port of Peril (which I have to hand) has 266 pages if the Background but not the Rules is included. A randomly picked page has 53 words across the first five lines, so it averages just under 11 words per line. The same page has 20 actual lines on it. 266 x 20 x 11 = 58,520 words. If that method is not completely unsound it's probably accurate to within 5% either way. Whether that's typical of FF books or even Ian Livingstone books I don't know, but it wouldn't take you a vast amount of time to find out. Edit: FWIW my 167 section mini Murderous Mire is roughly 21,800 words long if you include the spells.
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Post by unknown on Aug 17, 2018 6:18:46 GMT
Wow Phil.
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aggsol
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Lone Wolf
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Post by aggsol on Aug 17, 2018 7:24:44 GMT
Thank you for your counts. Maybe I buy an ebook edition and try to parse the file. I guessed it has less than a novel with the same page count because of sections and illustrastions.
I just wrote 50 sections with less than 5000 words, so I was wondering if my narrative is detailed enough.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Aug 17, 2018 12:24:19 GMT
Thank you for your counts. Maybe I buy an ebook edition and try to parse the file. I guessed it has less than a novel with the same page count because of sections and illustrastions. I just wrote 50 sections with less than 5000 words, so I was wondering if my narrative is detailed enough. I suppose there was a fair bit of variety between the authors. Legend of Zagor must be about twice as thick as Seas of Blood for instance.
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Post by hynreck on Aug 17, 2018 12:30:43 GMT
It's all very subjective. Is your narrative detailed enough? It could be sparse or detailed and still fit the bill. Maybe if you are unsure yourself have a few people read some paragraphs and comment after. Word count is meaningless, unless your under some sort of contract/budget where you've been ask not to go over a certain size.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Feb 9, 2019 12:07:30 GMT
Word count of the gamebook 'Heart of Ice' (admittedly not FF and 455 entries) comes to 70,754 words. Not including rules about 69,941.
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Post by guest22 on Jul 27, 2020 8:48:41 GMT
I think the early ones had a much lower word count. The books were a lot thinner and more direct in their prose.
It would be interesting to know what the word count of Deathtrap Dungeon was for example.
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Post by philsadler on Jul 27, 2020 13:47:06 GMT
On the shelf Portal of Evil looks very wide compared to the others.
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sylas
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"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Jul 27, 2020 13:55:39 GMT
Wondering if anyone knows which 400 refs FF gamebook has the most words, including rules. Knights of Doom might be a contender.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Aug 9, 2020 5:09:26 GMT
I don't have my contracts with me at the moment, but I believe the FF contracts specified a maximum word length (30,000 springs to mind). And I seem to recall that in the last couple of years of the original run, this contractual word length was adjusted downwards.
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Post by daredevil123 on Aug 9, 2020 10:01:49 GMT
My 100-para adventure Wight Christmas had 14,176 words, not including rules. At that rate, a 400-para book would have nearly 60,000 words. 30,000 doesn't seem like that many.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Aug 9, 2020 10:22:41 GMT
My 100-para adventure Wight Christmas had 14,176 words, not including rules. At that rate, a 400-para book would have nearly 60,000 words. 30,000 doesn't seem like that many. Nope. It didn't seem like that many at the time! I may be misremembering the word limit, though. I do recall we weren't allowed to go above 400 paras, which I really wanted to do. And I seem to recall there was a move at the end to drop that to 300 or something, which I thought was ridiculous.
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Post by tyrion on Aug 9, 2020 10:28:38 GMT
My 100-para adventure Wight Christmas had 14,176 words, not including rules. At that rate, a 400-para book would have nearly 60,000 words. 30,000 doesn't seem like that many. Nope. It didn't seem like that many at the time! I may be misremembering the word limit, though. I do recall we weren't allowed to go above 400 paras, which I really wanted to do. And I seem to recall there was a move at the end to drop that to 300 or something, which I thought was ridiculous. Wasn't bloodbones supposed to be 300 paragraphs long when it was originally number 60?
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Aug 9, 2020 11:00:52 GMT
Nope. It didn't seem like that many at the time! I may be misremembering the word limit, though. I do recall we weren't allowed to go above 400 paras, which I really wanted to do. And I seem to recall there was a move at the end to drop that to 300 or something, which I thought was ridiculous. Wasn't bloodbones supposed to be 300 paragraphs long when it was originally number 60? Yes. It would be interesting to see what the 300 section version of Bloodbones was like.
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sylas
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Aug 9, 2020 11:08:14 GMT
Probably much the same but without any of the jungle sections.
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Post by stevendoig on Aug 9, 2020 11:15:42 GMT
OK folk, I have grabbed my favourite ff 'masks of mayhem' and worked out word count as best I can!
Discounting rules sections and full page illustrations it has 167 pages. The average number of words per page varies massively but is 200 Max and probs a bit less.
So at most masks is 33,000 words but more likely 30,000
However - looking at it on my shelf it is a slimmer book so my uneducated guess for the average ff is 35,000
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sylas
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Aug 9, 2020 11:48:26 GMT
From The Shadows - 78648 with rules and pre-generated characters, 75527 without.
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sylas
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 24, 2020 12:57:00 GMT
Knights of Doom may be the longest 400 ref FF book. Estimation is 60k total words and 56k without rules. We'll find out in a month or two...
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vagsancho
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Post by vagsancho on Sept 24, 2020 17:29:15 GMT
Knights of Doom may be the longest 400 ref FF book. Estimation is 60k total words and 56k without rules. We'll find out in a month or two... Longer even than curse of the mummy?
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sylas
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"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,677
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 24, 2020 17:40:36 GMT
Knights of Doom may be the longest 400 ref FF book. Estimation is 60k total words and 56k without rules. We'll find out in a month or two... Longer even than curse of the mummy? Going by the book's thickness I would say yes.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,677
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Nov 17, 2020 22:58:35 GMT
Right then. Knights of Doom has 52667 without Rules; 55326 with. A bit under my estimate.
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Post by tyrion on Jan 26, 2021 22:17:30 GMT
Which is the shortest ff book? Not counting starship traveller or freeway fighter.
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Post by tyrion on Jan 26, 2021 22:19:02 GMT
Sorry, double post.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Jan 26, 2021 23:18:18 GMT
Which is the shortest ff book? Not counting starship traveller or freeway fighter. I would guess one of Andrew Chapman's, his writing is very terse. Or perhaps Citadel of Chaos for the same reason.
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Post by dragonwarrior8 on Jan 27, 2021 0:36:49 GMT
Warlock of Firetop Mountain looks the skinniest on my bookshelf so based on that questionable logic I'll nominate that one.
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sylas
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Jan 27, 2021 22:26:38 GMT
Forest of Doom may be a contender.
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