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Post by paulmc on Mar 22, 2020 6:16:58 GMT
I am thinking about writing a gamebook that is deliberately so bad that is funny. It is to subtly mock tropes of FF gamebooks and become a parody of the series.
Does anyone have any ideas or things to include? A good name for it?
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Post by daredevil123 on Mar 22, 2020 12:11:50 GMT
How about "Eye of the Dragon"? |
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Post by a moderator on Mar 22, 2020 16:07:08 GMT
I once started on something along those lines, and what I wrote of it still exists. Here's a sample: 1 You are standing in a large underground chamber. Where it is, how you got this far, and why you decided to come here I neither know nor care, and I suspect that you're not much more interested. It's all about the fighting and the treasure, isn't it? The chamber has two exits, one marked 'EAST', the other 'WEST', though both are set into the same wall and appear to lead in the same direction. On the floor in front of you is a corpse, which clutches a crumpled sheet of parchment in its left hand. If you wish to leave through the exit marked 'EAST', turn to 2. If you wish to go through the exit marked 'WEST', turn to 3. If you wish to examine the parchment in the corpse's hand, turn to 4. 2 A heavy portcullis crashes down behind you. A plaque attached to it reads, 'There's no retracing your steps in this adventure. But look on the bright side. If Ian Livingstone had written it you'd already have a 50% chance of being doomed to failure.' In smaller print is the warning, 'NoWayBack Portcullises Inc. accept no responsibility for STAMINA loss or death incurred by adventurers so stupid as to try and lift this one. Now push off down the corridor or we'll unleash the wandering monsters.' If you head along the corridor as advised, turn to 5. If you ignore the warning and try to lift the portcullis, turn to 6. If you wait for the wandering monster to come, turn to 7. 3 You step through the archway, and the floor beneath your feet begins to tilt downwards. This is obviously a trap, albeit a distinctly unoriginal one. Still, it'll work just as effectively as any new-fangled gimmicky trap if you don't do something. You could try dashing forwards to the next slab in the passage, you could attempt a standing jump onto that slab, or you could attempt to control your fall, and just hope that the trap isn't an overkill job leading to a spiked pit or a vat of acid. If you dash forwards, turn to 8. If you jump, turn to 9. If you simply drop, turn to 10. 4 If you're expecting the corpse to animate and attack you, you've read too many horror stories and/or gamebooks. This is just a dead adventurer, killed by something that snuck up on him while he was concentrating on updating his map of this dungeon. That's what the parchment is - his map. Unfortunately it's badly-drawn, not to scale, with lots of crossings-out. As if that's not bad enough, its writer died before he finished drawing this chamber, so it doesn't indicate which way he came in. To leave by the 'EAST' exit, turn to 2. To go through the 'WEST' exit, turn to 3. 5 The corridor leads into a roughly square room illuminated by a lamp that hangs from the ceiling. In the centre of the room is a large wooden chest. There are doors in the walls to your left and right, both of them displaying signs that read 'NORTH'. Given the type of person most likely to be found wandering around dungeons like this, you're probably keen to find out what's in the chest. But you're not so stupid as to assume that any valuables it might contain are going to be unguarded. Are you? And in the tradition of the extracts featured at the end of many of the second run of Wizard Books FF releases,
this route through the adventure ends here. 6 You grasp the portcullis and, muscles bulging with the effort, completely fail to budge it even a millimetre. Lose 2 STAMINA for the effort. You notice that the message on the plaque has changed to read, 'Don't say we didn't warn you.' Something taps you on the shoulder, and you turn to find that an Ogre is standing behind you, stooping slightly so as not to bang its head on the ceiling. "They warned you about me, too," it growls, and lifts its club to attack you. In homage to the 'tasters' for other gamebooks that appeared in a lot of the second run of Wizard Books FF releases,
this minor cliffhanger is as far as you're going to get. 7 After a few minutes a secret door opens further down the corridor, and out steps an Ogre. It is too tall to stand upright, and you can't help but wonder why so many hostile creatures can be found inhabiting areas totally unsuitable for them. Still, this is hardly the time to wonder about the psychological or ecological implications of such oddities, because the Ogre is now heading towards you. You wanted this fight, and now you've got it. Well, you'd have it if I were including absolutely everything I'd written for the parody,
but I'm not, so you don't. 8 As you move further from the point at which the floor is pivoting, you increase the imbalance, so the slab descends more quickly. Perhaps you'd have figured out that that was going to happen if you'd paid more attention during your physics classes. If you get lucky you *might* make it to that slab anyway. I suppose you'd better Test your Luck. Or don't bother, because I'm only posting the first 10 sections of the parody,
and the possible outcomes of the roll fall outside their scope. 9 That leather armour is going to weigh you down. I really don't know why adventurers bother with it, I mean it's not as if it ever actually provides any protection in combat, yet it's almost always there in the introduction to fantasy adventures. But I digress. You're performing a standing jump from a slowly moving surface while encumbered, but you don't have to jump record-breaking distances, so a plain SKILL roll should do it. Don't assume that having a SKILL of 12 means automatic success. Don't assume there's any point to making the roll, either,
because this is as far as the extract goes. 10 You fall several metres onto a hard surface. Throw one die, deduct that many points from your STAMINA, and be thankful that you didn't fall into a stream of molten lava or a pit with no exit at ground level and no possibility of climbing out. Not that you are going to be able to climb out of this one, as the trap has already reset itself. Still, there is a dark passageway leading out of this pit. Yes, just one. Now, are you going to take the obvious exit, or just sit around until you rot? The full (well, fuller - I never did finish the silly spoof) text does allow you to choose either option
(the latter one leading to a generic 'You die' section), but I've posted enough to give a taste
of what I wrote. If enough interest is shown, I might have a go at completing the thing
and posting the rest, but it's not a high priority. |
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Post by Peter on Mar 23, 2020 6:48:40 GMT
You need an old man somewhere, preferably blind, who offers you information (or an item) critical to your success, in exchange for a measly contribution such as a gold piece, or simply a kind word or helping hand.
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Post by a moderator on Mar 23, 2020 12:13:33 GMT
As regards defeating the major villain, there are two obvious routes you could take. Either he can only be destroyed by a ridiculously specific combination of items (all of which are conveniently available in his base) or the hero must undertake a hazardous quest in order to learn the secret of the villain's weakness, which is if you hit him with your sword enough times to reduce his Stamina to 0, he will die! |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Mar 23, 2020 13:34:32 GMT
If enough interest is shown, I might have a go at completing the thing and posting the rest, but it's not a high priority. I'd definitely be interested. |
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Post by stevendoig on Mar 23, 2020 14:20:36 GMT
me too! also paulmc go for it!- we all need a good chuckle the noo!  |
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