GrailQuest - General Discussion

[Draco Wolfsbane]

I really liked this series 'Back in the day' as it was a little different to all the other series's in that it played much more heavier with the humour (very British....and funny!!) and the intricate puzzles. They were/are really well written and well illustrated throughout. Any fan of Gamebooks that has not as yet checked them out, really should, as you will be in for a great time with Pip and, the slightly mighty and very annoying, Excalibur Junior!!

For full details: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grailquest

[vastariner]

Any series which features a vampire carrot has to count as being boffo.

[yvoire]

That was one of my favorite series. J.H.Brennan wrote the best death description. You could tell he really enjoyed having you die.

Splish-splash! (the sound of you wading into the river.)
Slurp-slurp! (the sound of mud gripping your feet so firmly that you can no longer move).
Munch-munch! (the sound of you being eaten by piranha.)
Follow your bones to 14

And the best of all!

Splat!
That's the sound of you losing a fight with a gorilla.
Go to 14.

[greenspine]

The 'death by self-decapitation while attempting to remove a cursed dog-collar' sequence in book 8 is one of my favourite passages in any gamebook.

[stevendoig]

Just bought a boxed set of the first three books from a charity shop this morning - £2.50 for the 3 , I thought that was reasonable! Very nice condition and the card inlays are still in place etc. Never played them afore so i'll do a few write ups over the next couple of days.

((incidentally if anyones interested, they had Green spine Temple of Terror and space assassin and the original citadel of chaos as well for £1.25 each - they were all in near mint condition! - if yer interested let me know, and if they are atill there next week I can grab them..)

[stevendoig]

Had a try of the first book last night.

a few thoughts.

Immediately I was struck by how different it was, and light hearted! I love how the book points out the silliness of fighting with two dice (well, one dice is fine, two are better!) Getting three rolls of the dice to get the best score is also great, and the fact that if you die, you start again without having to kill the enemies (coz they are dead already)

I loved the first part , meeting Merlin and realising I was getting some great weapons and boosts etc as I was thinking that the book was going to be awfy hard otherwise...


The second part was fine, but stupid me wasn't making a map (as per the instructions,) and I kept going round in circles!

I'll try again soon - but its certainly a very enjoyable style and glad I made the purchase!

[pip]

Good to see this wonderfully fun series finally got its own subforum.

[Peter]

Jul 6, 2014 10:10:51 GMT stevendoig said:

I loved the first part , meeting Merlin and realising I was getting some great weapons and boosts etc as I was thinking that the book was going to be awfy hard otherwise...

I'm glad you weren't put off by the extended introduction of book 1, that takes up the first 8 or so pages without giving you any options - hardly a gamebook at all.  I'm sure this would have worried me if this had been the first one I read.

They are definitely a humorous read.  And there is a lot more silliness to come!

[terrysalt]

This is a series I never liked as much as I wanted to. I remember getting frustrated trying to play by the rules which were rather unclear and poorly implemented. I think I was probably taking the series too seriously which in hindsight it probably wasn't intended to be.
The absolute best thing about the series was the maps though. More gamebooks should have used the idea of a map of the whole area and each location being stamped with the reference to turn to if you want to check it out. It actually felt like you were free to explore rather than being taken on a guided tour.