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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:43:46 GMT
masterchief: _________________________________________ Do you love this book so much you tuck it under the covers at night? Did you hate it so badly you used it as loo-roll? Let the world know!
~MC~
~ Vae Victis! ~
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:49:13 GMT
hynreck: _________________________________________ Here goes...
Well, this one's got one of the most memorable cover, right? In fact, I'm guessing all covers done by Iain McCaig are now instant classic. Martin McKenna's take on the shapeshifter is good, but nothing can beat the original.
The inside illustrations are hit or miss, I believe. Some are really pretty, but others comes out weird. Landscapes are the prettiest.
The story... what story? It's pretty weak, well, overall the book itself is pretty weak, but at the very least it shows Ian Livingstone's evolution. After all it was his very first on his own, mistakes, strange decisions, were bound to happen.
The main problem is, apart from the loop-thing which causes continuity problems, is the lack of coherence of the books. The whole forest is just an excuse for stringing together different "sketches", situations imagined by the author to move the story forward but poorly linked together, there's not much logic to this forest. Maybe if it was called Forest of Chaos...
Of course, all books are nearly written the same: Different situations are imagined, challenges, and they are stringed together to create an adventure out of them, but usually, it is better done, more coherent, more fitting of the overall world or thematic, just look at Livingstone's own City of Thieves as an example.
This book I first read in French as a young one, from the public library I believe, so I didn't come around to buy it until much much later, for completion sake. So I bought a later copy in French: La forêt de la malédiction (literal translation would be something like The Forest of Curses).
But today I also own the Wizard re-edition.
One thing I might add, and it goes for nearly all the books as far as I know, is that there's always more illustrations in English than in French. So for me, I discover new illustrations that I've never seen before. A bonus.
The reason for that, I believe, is that when translated in French, English usually takes many more words, thus more pages. The only way to make the books the same number of pages as it's English counterpart would be to cut on illustrations...
Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:50:33 GMT
paltogue: _________________________________________ One thing I might add, and it goes for nearly all the books as far as I know, is that there's always more illustrations in english than in french. So for me, I discover new illustrations that I've never seen before. A bonus. How fantastic! I can only imagine how much fun it would be to discover "new" illustrations for the books.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:52:05 GMT
hynreck: _________________________________________ It is very cool indeed. I knew nothing of this (of course) until I was flipping through the pages of one of my new books (some brand new Wizard) and I think it was Legend of Zagor or something and I did a double take, like, is that some new illustrations? I've got no memories of this. And in the same book I noticed that there were quite a few I didn't remember. So I dig out the french version and compared and sure enough, new illustrations! So I quickly came to the conclusions that this wasn't new art being commissioned, but something missing in the French version altogether.
So far, from what I have in french and thus, can compared to, I've only found that The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and perhaps, Island of the Lizard King have kept their illustrations intact. All the others have more in english...
Like in Citadel of Chaos, in french, we don't have the illustration of the Ganjee.
Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:53:00 GMT
masterchief: _________________________________________ My goodness, that is an amazing find. As Paltogue says, I'd be overjoyed if I discovered a different version of a fave FF and it had 'new' illustrations in it. The only thing that's come close is when I finally go a hold of A4 Out of the Pit after only owning the pocket book for years, and it has all the colour section in the middle. That and the version of House of Hell with the censored (removed) picture intact.
~ Vae Victis! ~
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:54:15 GMT
daikoku: _________________________________________ What censored picture??
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:54:59 GMT
hynreck: _________________________________________ It's the one with a woman lying naked on a sacrificial altar, a slab of stone or something, about to be killed by some goat-headed priest. The robe from the priest is covering the "naughty bits" of the woman. Really, nothing much to get excited about, but I hate censorship, so I'm glad they put it back.
On a similar matter, it would be great if they ever re-release Beneath Nightmare Castle, that they put back the illustration of the woman with tentacles coming out of her mouth.
Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:55:27 GMT
arkansaw: _________________________________________ Doesn't look that tasty though, maybe the kids would have better imagination?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:56:19 GMT
hynreck: _________________________________________ Yeah, this is not really what I'd called a sexy illustration. Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:57:05 GMT
vastariner: _________________________________________ Dwarves are meant to be tough and hardy warriors. Why didn't they send troops through Darkwood Forest? Pfft.
Then again, surveys suggest six out of seven dwarves are not happy.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 14:59:26 GMT
masterchief: _________________________________________ ...surveys suggest six out of seven dwarves are not happy." I think that deserves the special Mistercheef award [image] ~ Vae Victis! ~
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:00:52 GMT
wilf: _________________________________________ Yeah, this is not really what I'd called a sexy illustration. Is there any truth in the rumour that the paragraph on She-Satyrs was edited out of Out Of The Pit because the accompanying illustration (as printed in The Crown Of Kings) showed their naked breasts? I always found it odd that they were the one species mentioned in the Encounter Tables at the back that were not actually depicted in the book.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:02:08 GMT
masterchief: _________________________________________ Probably. But then, why leave it in Crown of the Kings and all it's reprints? And, again, it's not sexy at all... If anything, it's quite sickly. If it had been, say, one of the vampires in Revenge of the Vampire then I could understand, that could be depicted in a sexual / violent nature. But not these things...
~ Vae Victis! ~
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:07:18 GMT
kieran: _________________________________________ [image]doesn't look that tasty though, maybe the kids would have better imagination? Ah the infamous cut illustration. Thanks for putting it up - I've never actually seen it before.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:09:03 GMT
paltogue: _________________________________________ If it had been, say, one of the vampires in Revenge of the Vampire then I could understand, that could be depicted in a sexual / violent nature. Ooooo...
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:09:59 GMT
hynreck: _________________________________________ Yeah, the breast on the She-Satyrs are nearly non-existent... Those vampire ladies as drawn by Martin McKenna, though, hmm.
Concerning the dwarf thing, that would have been cool to meet patrols of dwarves roaming through the forest, both from Stonebridge and Mirewater, that would have given the book a better sense of cohesion.
o_q lali-ho!
Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:12:06 GMT
greenspine: _________________________________________ It's pretty weak, well, overall the book itself is pretty weak, but at the very least it shows Ian Livingstone's evolution. After all it was his very first on his own, mistakes, stranges decisions, were bound to happen. He wrote the original version of Eye of the Dragon on his own before doing Forest. Eye is easily the worse of the two, and a fair bit more stereotypically Livingstonian (notably the way that, if you don't take the right turning at the very beginning, you're pretty much doomed). Concerning the dwarf thing, that would have been cool to meet patrols of dwarves roaming through the forest, both from Stonebridge and Mirewater, that would have given the book a better sense of cohesion.o_q lali-ho! It would have been more interesting to have the Dwarves playing a bigger part. As it is, they come across as a pretty pathetic bunch.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:12:56 GMT
hynreck: _________________________________________ Yeah it would have made sense to have dwarves, any type, looking for the hammer, after all.
For Eye of the Dragon, haven't read it yet, so I'll take your word for it. And I won't be reading it for a while, since it's number 60 on my list and I'm at number 6 right now... Deathtrap Dungeon. (reading all the books in order, some are brand new, some I've read plenty of times already...)
But I'll get there one day!
Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:13:50 GMT
schlendrian: _________________________________________ @ fewer illustrations in the translated books:
I just discovered the same, though its probably even worse in German - Forest of Doom contains a mere 4 illustrations! Most other books have around 12 of them.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:14:20 GMT
hynreck: _________________________________________ Yikes, 4 illos is pretty bad, you Germans seems to have it worse than us French, so far.
Speak in extremes, it will save you time.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 1, 2013 15:17:15 GMT
oakdweller: _________________________________________ Nostalgia time - this was the book which introduced me to the wonderful world of Fighting Fantasy. I spotted Forest of Doom in a Puffin Bookclub catalogue when I was eight. Being an admirer of nasty beasts, my eye was immediately caught by Iain McCaig's exquisitely realised Shapechanger. Like a lot of eight year olds, I always judged books by their covers and asked my mother to order it for me along with Fighting Fantasy (the multi-player book) without having read the background information that was provided. When it arrived I opened it up to leap into chapter one to see what this clothed lizard man was all about... EH?! What's all this about "rules" and not reading the paragraphs in order? Scores? I never need scores to read a book before.
I brandished my new book at my mother and complained - somewhat ungratefully - "There's something wrong with my book!" She patiently leafed through the introduction and said "Oh, I see it's a game. You roll dice to fight the monsters and choose which way to go and what to do".
A game in the form of a book? "How stupid," I said and put the book on my shelf to gather dust. Thankfully, one dull yet fateful afternoon - almost a year later, I picked The Forest of Doom back off the shelf to marvel at the cover art again. I opened the book at random and read about the ape man in his tree house. I then had a go at turning to one of the references for the list of options and was surprised to see that it really did follow on from what had come before. Intrigued, I took a look at the rules. It all looked a bit mathematical, which was never my strong suit, so I asked my ever patient mother to play it with me. We played it through once until I discovered that the rules were nowhere near as complicated as they had seemed. Simple though the encounters were, I was so taken by the novelty of being able to interact with the likes of wizards, fishmen, dwarves and odd creatures which turned into mushrooms when you killed them, that I was hooked and wanted more. Just a couple of weeks later I was treated again (far too spoilt really, but I think that my pestering was accepted because it involved something educational!) to something with an equally cool monster on the cover called Deathtrap Dungeon. A collection had begun.
Having played this one through a couple of months ago with my class of 9-11 year olds, I was struck by how basic the whole experience is when you compare it to later titles such as Spellbreaker and Legend of the Shadow Warriors, let alone the intricate headaches of Magehunter or The Knights of Doom. So, even though I have a strong nostalgia buzz with this book, I have to admit that the narrative is weak. The encounters are little more than barely-connected set-pieces. Granted, the outdoor location moves us away from the "open this door or move on" monotony, but only the aforementioned mushroom clones and their fire demon master hold any intrigue now. As a book for first-timers it's ideal, as the only frustration is that of being turned to a different direction to the one that you've chosen quite often - a far lesser irritation than Warlock's dratted maze.
Malcolm Barter's artwork did a lot to draw me into the creepiness of Darkwood Forest at the time - I particularly loved the way that he drew blades. However, I'm less enamoured with them now, feeling that they lack the intricate detail that I love so much in most of Russ Nicholson's work. They still have character, but they could've been given a few more flourishes (I'm afraid that I can't be more specific as I've rather stupidly left my copy at work).
I read somewhere on the Net recently that a company ran some "Forest of Doom Holidays" in the 80s, apparently in my home county of Oxfordshire. They were a disappointment to most of the customers. I'd be intrigued to know details of what they attempted though. My mind is now cluttering itself up with daft variations on this touristy idea: City of Thieves Bus Tours, Romantic Gondola Rides to the Island of the Lizard King, All You Can Eat Night Dragon, Black Vein Prophecy Luxury Hotels (you wake up dead in your hotel room and have wander about aimlessly trying to figure out how to escape Ibiza), House of Hell B&Bs and - for the truly intrepid - THE SKY LORD EXPERIENCE. I'll stop this review now before I get any sillier.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Oct 25, 2014 23:51:20 GMT
Where Steve Jackson’s solo outing in Citadel of Chaos could have been subtitled ‘Lessons in Magic’, Ian Livingstone’s tagline for Forest of Doom could be ‘Learning to collect artefacts for very specific situations’.
Welcome to Darkwood, the home base of everyone’s favourite wizard Yaztromo, and the place you go in search of Gillibran’s hammer parts without which his dwarven kin are stuck in a state of can’t-be-arsed-ness. That’s the premise and it doesn’t change one bit which essentially makes this a dungeon crawl adventure with a forest theme. The setting is quite a good one though, with interesting encounters such as getting caught in a hunter’s trap, meeting were-creatures and hostile vegetation that are relatively simple but help create the feel of a forest environment.
Your options to progress, however, are incredibly linear: Do you want to go North, East, or West? It feels completely random in your choices as you have no idea what any of these will lead to. It comes across in the encounters too: Do you have item X? If you do, turn to Y; if you do not, turn to Z. Very little room is left for interaction. Ironically, it’s the short, non-vital dungeon crawling scene in the Fire Demon’s cave that works the best. Strange things are happening but at least they are happening for a reason and not because the Random Forest Encounter Generator said so. The exploration through fungus beds watched over by Clones guards has great atmosphere and follows on well to meeting their master. More of this would have been appreciated.
The romp through Darkwood is fun in places but there isn’t enough going on with a purpose. You never get the idea of knowing what to do or where to go. While this might give it some replay value, one might just get bored with the randomness of paths and give up without seeing it to the end. The maze in Firetop Mountain was definitely the weaker part of book 1. Knowing this and presenting Darkwood Forest in a similar fashion, inevitably brings similar results – could do better.
5/10
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Post by champskees on Oct 27, 2014 6:17:04 GMT
Your options to progress, however, are incredibly linear: Do you want to go North, East, or West? It feels completely random in your choices as you have no idea what any of these will lead to. It comes across in the encounters too: Do you have item X? If you do, turn to Y; if you do not, turn to Z. Very little room is left for interaction. I don't know if linear is the right way to describe this adventure; perhaps straightforward? To grab the two vital parts of the hammer, yes, but otherwise I would say this is one of Livingstone's more open books, particularly when compared to his 400 para dungeon crawls. Even if you miss the head and handle you have a chance to go back which is pretty cool.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Oct 27, 2014 19:05:07 GMT
yes, straightforward is what i meant.
I was actually thinking on my scoring for Forest of Doom today and feel i was perhaps too harsh with the low rating. The replay value does put it in a better light as you say. That said, I feel i still can't rate it any higher than a 5 which will now be its current rating.
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vagsancho
Knight
Posts: 809
Favourite Gamebook Series: CRYPT OF THE SORCERER
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Post by vagsancho on Jul 23, 2015 15:39:30 GMT
Fantastic book. I prefer this one to the Warlok of Firetop Mountain. Not magical however. A thousand miles from the amazings City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon an Crypt of the Sorcerer!
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nicodemus
Squire
Posts: 20
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery!
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Post by nicodemus on Aug 7, 2015 23:05:17 GMT
I remember this book because it was the first I made a sucessful map. And I managed to win in the first try. I consider this an easy book. It's nice and generic, but I prefer others, obviously. I even prefer Warlock at Firetop Mountain.
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Post by johnbrawn1972 on Jun 29, 2017 21:20:07 GMT
Updated so the solution is now readable and also more logical.
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Post by stevendoig on May 14, 2018 20:56:23 GMT
re - reading and mapping this book the other day, I am struck by how little of a forest Darkwood is! It appears to be merely a circular rim of trees with a large grassy plain contained within. (and a river)
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on May 14, 2018 21:42:27 GMT
re - reading and mapping this book the other day, I am struck by how little of a forest Darkwood is! It appears to be merely a circular rim of trees with a large grassy plain contained within. (and a river) Someone once described it as a donut of trees which I thought quite apt. I remember playing it as a child and getting confused when it says about 2/3 of the way through something like "you see the trees of Darkwood Forest ahead of you" and I thought "Hang on, wasn't I in Darkwood Forest?"
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Post by peasantscribbler on Jan 28, 2020 22:07:01 GMT
re - reading and mapping this book the other day, I am struck by how little of a forest Darkwood is! It appears to be merely a circular rim of trees with a large grassy plain contained within. (and a river) Someone once described it as a donut of trees which I thought quite apt. I remember playing it as a child and getting confused when it says about 2/3 of the way through something like "you see the trees of Darkwood Forest ahead of you" and I thought "Hang on, wasn't I in Darkwood Forest?" It is interesting that within the FF world there are two ways of looking at the forest. Like most people, your character considers the wooded area to be Darkwood Forest, but there is also a view that both the wooded area and the area encompassed by the wooded area is Darkwood Forest (for example, this how the forest is labeled on Bigleg’s map). I think this reflects a (medieval) human way of thinking about forests, as the nobles who claimed ownership of the forest would extend their claim to the whole area, including the plains, hills, rivers, and un-wooded parts within the forest boundaries. Although the forest would provide a small amount of resource extraction, its main function for the nobility would be to serve as a recreational hunting preserve. I suspect that there was a time (perhaps a relatively short time) when a noble family used the entire forest for recreational hunting. However, by the time of your character’s adventure in the forest, this family’s influence and claim over the forest is much degraded, and they have largely given up enforcing boundaries or warding off the various poachers, squatters, outlaws, and creatures that have moved in. They are clearly no longer maintaining much of the infrastructure (i.e. paths and river crossings) that they built. By my count, there are four huts and cottages that are accessible by paths within the forest; these probably once belonged to peasants serving this noble family. (I do not count Quin’s hut because it is clearly different from the others, being made of mud and having a domed roof. He probably built it himself.) Two of them have been abandoned and another one ( the witch’s hut ) is likely housing a squatter who moved in after it was abandoned. Arragon’s cottage is a little different as it is made of stone, suggesting that its original owner spent a little more on it by contracting masons from Stonebridge to build it. Likely, this was originally the forester’s cottage, and Arragon is a descendant who has inherited and doesn’t want to abandon such a nice home. Having lost the position of forester and the associated protection of the noble family, Arragon now resorts to his deceptive ruse to protect himself.
Even with diminished power and influence over the forest, the noble family is still a major presence in the area. The wealthy hunter that you encounter on your adventure is almost certainly the current head of the family, and he is still dedicated to hunting on the forest plain, although I doubt he ever ventures much further south than this. Fairly recently he has imported wild boars into the forest plain for hunting purposes, as can be inferred from finding a gold ring in the nose of the wild boar you encounter (and by the fact that the hunter is hunting boar when you find him). The hunter’s manor house is outside of the forest and likely on its northern perimeter near Stonebridge. After leaving the forest, and on your route to Stonebridge, you pass by ploughed fields that probably belong to the hunter’s estate. The stone crypt in the northwest corner of the forest indicates a high status background for its occupant that would be a fit for belonging to the estate, and it is at the right end of the forest. There is the strange matter of the key to the crypt being held by one of the wild hill men. It seems unlikely that the wild hill men would bury their dead in such a matter or have the means to do so. If I’m right, the noble family entrusted the key to the wild hill men when they became aware of their ancestor’s undead status and penchant for eating flesh. The family abandoned the crypt and allowed their path to the crypt to become overgrown. By constrast, the wild hill men have some interest in providing the ghoul with flesh to eat, and they are the ones who dumped the goblin in the crypt for the ghoul to skeletonize. I think that the ghoul is the undead version of a past head of the noble family who created a non-aggression pact with the wild hill men at a time when the family was losing ground in defending the forest from outside encroachment. The wild hill men would have free access to the forest high ground and would also fight off other outsiders from invading their new turf. The wild hill men still maintain some level of respect for the man with whom they negotiated this pact; perhaps, they also believe that the pact maintains force while this man lives, even if in undead form. Their colloquial nickname ‘the little people’ was probably bestowed on them by the nobleman when the pact was negotiated and it stuck.
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