Gamebooks

[nife2o4]

I thought I'd bring this topic over from the chat room to show that it's not going to cause too much loss of message board discussions.

I was thinking about the gamebooks I used to play back in the late 80's. Things like Choose Your Own Adventure, Way of the Tiger, the Fighting Fantasy series, the Grail Quest series. I was wondering if anyone else has fond memories of these books.

Here are some links to help jog memories:
http://www.lairs.com/
http://www.advancedfightingfantasy.com/gamebooks.htm
http://www.gamebooks.org/

I think my favorite books were Appointment with F.E.A.R. and the 6 book Way of the Tiger series.

In Appointment, you played a superhero with 3 days to find and stop a major Supervillan meeting. You chose one of 4 different superpowers, so there were several different paths through the book. Oddly enough, it seems that superhero adventures are as underrepresented here as on the computer, since this book and a few marvel books are the only superhero gamebooks that I could find information on.

In the Way of the Tiger series, you played as a ninja, and you could select different skills. Your character carried over between books, and improved as you continued through the series.

Does anyone else have any favorites that they remember? Any good suggestions for books to try and find in the used stores?

[Murph]

I had some called Lone Wolf, which I discovered shortly after the Choose Your Own Adventure Books. You played a...well, some sort of psionic character, I guess, who was also well-versed in weapons. You could choose different skills/disciplines, that would affect how the game went. It was very RPG-ish, it seemed to me. I really enjoyed those.

[mtkafka]

Damn yeah, those books rocked! I played almost all of them up til arnd the late 30's (at least in America). I remember liking also the Crown books of Jackson's (not the American Steve Jackson!), they were actually pretty hard, for a choose your own adventure.

Going to that site. Wow. That brings back some cool memories of those books. I remember liking House of Hell, er, being scared playing it. My favorite was the City of Thieves book? Like #5. I also liked Deathtrap Dungeon. And Appontment with HERO was cool. I prefered Livingstone's because he had some cool parts in his books, like really imaginative stuff.

Cool the books took a lot of different pnp rpg genres. Alot of these books filled my needs to 'play' a somewhat of a pnp type game ... by myself! They also had the Gamma Worlds type books too iirc.

Sucks, I had like all of them up to #40, but somehow I lost them. I'd actually consider getinga awhole collection. There's somrthing about those books that were cool.

etc

[Gordon Cameron]

They were fun. I read a lot of the original Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books (Cave of Time, By Balloon to the Sahara, etc.) but most of them were ridiculously arbitrary. "You see a fork in the path. To go left, turn to page 15. To go right, turn to page 28."

/turns to page 28

"A giant bear pops out of the forest and eats you. You have died."

I also read some of the old D&D books (I think they had spinoffs in the Gamma World and Star Frontiers universes as well), one or two of Steve Jackson's books, and at least one book in the Interplanetary Spy series.

A fun little glitch in gaming history, made basically irrelevant by the advance of computer gaming... (Even if you like text-based games, a Zork-style text adventure is probably a more satisfying way to do this sort of thing.)

[Tyjenks]

I loved the Lone Wolf series, Murph. I think those were my favorites. I have all of mine still on a bookshelf. I have carried them around since I moved out some 12 years ago. Saving them for my kids in hopes it will foster a love for fantasy and gaming.

Steve Jackson had a 4 book series entitled "Sorcery" that started with The Shamutanti Hills. Those were great fun as well. He and Ian Livingstone did some others together and separately they I still have.

EDIT: Oh yeah, those were the Fighting Fantasy Series. I was too lazy to go down the hall and look at them. I was so nostalgic I wanted to hurry up and post something while I still had a big dumb grin on my face.

The biggest thing I remember is how hard it was to find them down South here. I always checked like three book stores and did not realize there was such a thing as asking the employees to order them for me. I do wish someone was doing something in that vein. It pretty much kept me interested inn reading through my early years when I was into video games so heavily.

[Tyjenks]

A fun little glitch in gaming history, made basically irrelevant by the advance of computer gaming... (Even if you like text-based games, a Zork-style text adventure is probably a more satisfying way to do this sort of thing.)

I actually have a Zork book in the "choose your own adventure" style.


Wow! Thanks for the links. I would have never guessed there were websites with such complete info on that genre that had a somewhat brief place in history. If I did not think it before, I now know there is absolutely anything and everything on the web and it is all only a search and a click away. 15-20 years ago when they were actually in print it was like pulling teeth trying to find them. Two decades later I could have pratically all I wanted delivered to my doorstep by Tuesday if I had the funds abd the desire. Ahhh, the wonders of technology.

[nife2o4]

I was going to say something lamenting about the loss of these books with the advent of computer gaming. I still would hope there is a place for these kinds of things. As much as I love my computer, there are still times it is nice to have an actual physical thing. I think part of the charm of those books is the books themselves, with the hand drawn pictures for certain sections and the book smell. I'm probably just getting old and nostalgic now.

I just don't like reading things on the computer. Slightly off topic but PDF manuals suck donkey balls. I like having a paper manual that I can lug around and read while I make dinner or watch TV waiting for computer time to arrive.

Anyway, back to the gamebooks...I loved the House of Hell book, but it was hellishly (bad pun) difficult. You had to have a fear rating of 11 or 12 to have any hope at all of finishing, and then I remember that they had lots of places where things just scared you and you got nothing for it. You just had to avoid that action the next time you played. **SPOILER** I recall that if you opened the back door there was a goat head guy that caused you to gain like 2 or 3 fear points and you got nothing else out of it **END SPOILER**

That is another example of the guess correctly or you're screwed problem with these books, but even video games can suffer from these problems.

I'm still trying to remember all of the gamebook sites I was looking at. There were a few that had screenshots of lots of book covers. The covers really helped me remember some of the books.

[Don Quixote]

Wow. I still have a big collection of these things here. I'm a fan.

I'll agree- the Way of the Tiger books and Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series were probably the best the genre produced. The Way of the Tiger books were good because they went such interesting places- one of them, you became the ruler of a city, and most of the book was a city simulation where you tried to keep the people happy while making money from taxes and such. The money was then spent on troops for a war, and you had to make all the decisions in battle, too. It was neat to feel like your decisions meant something. The only bad thing about them was they probably had one of the worst endings for an epic series in any form of media, period.

The Sorcery books were good for the sense of place that they had. You moved through the world on your quest, and interacted with it's inhabitants, and you felt like you were there. It was neat.

On a couple of side notes, Aren't Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone involved in the computer games industry at this point. I think Livingstone is the creative director over at Eidos, and Steve Jackson is involved with Big Blue Box (Project Ego for the Xbox). It's funny how this seems to work- so many old PnP designers/authors seem to have made the switch along with the rest of the world...

[nife2o4]

The only bad thing about them was they probably had one of the worst endings for an epic series in any form of media, period.

I definitely agree with this. I was extremely disappointed by the ending of Way of the Tiger. First time through I thought I'd screwed something up and gotten a "bad" ending. So I played it again, and got the same ending. I think I tried twice more before I gave up and read the book section by section. That's when I found out it wasn't the "bad" ending.

They really need to do something to redeem that ending. A seventh book that actually has a suitable ending for a 7 book quest would make me very happy. Time to find email addresses for Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson so we can petition for the ending the series deserves :)

[Don Quixote]

Yeah. I even went through all the other books in the series, hoping for a paragraph that said 'if you are ever about to die at the hands of a god, with no way out, blow this whistle, return to this book, and turn to page XX for the proper ending' heh.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, someone's posted an adaptation of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain for Neverwinter Nights. It's over at the NWVault on IGN. I haven't played it yet, though, so I can't comment any more than that.

[Chris Floyd]

If you Lone Wolf fans haven't already seen it, check this out:

http://www.lw-oasis.org/aon/

[mtkafka]

If you Lone Wolf fans haven't already seen it, check this out:

http://www.lw-oasis.org/aon/

http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home

It's moved, and it has all those books too! and even some .pdf companion stuff.

Nostalgia!

etc

[Robert Sharp]

I wish someone would do this with the other (non-Lone Wolf) books too. I never tried some of the ones mentioned in this thread.

[LarryLard]

Wow this takes me back. These sucked up a major part of my time back in the day. Highlights were:

- the space-set books that had something I now realise was a total lift of Star Trek's dilithium crystals - you spent most of your time desparately hoping this next planet would have some, any, so that you didn't hit a brick wall Game Over
- the GrailQuest series, featuring some very British humour, and a trusty sword named EJ (Excalibur Junior). One book required you to write a poem/[i] then turn to X Y or Z depending on how many rhyming lines you had managed, or something along those lines. How trusting is that!?
- I remember the series that started with The Shamutanti Hills, only because I could only ever find the first and the last; and also for discovering (spoiler!) that to win the last you really [i]had to have won all the previous ones!

[deccan]

Cool thread! I always thought The Way of the Tiger story was unfinished, is Inferno! really the end?

And anyone remember Blood Sword? Great literary style, always wanted to know how that one finally ended.

Nobody mentioned the two player duel books by the same people who did The Way of the Tiger yet. Those were great! The arena one even had a randomizing engine to setup the arena slightly differently when a game started.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Hahahaha. I fucking hate these books. Way to make me buy a book that's really only a fraction the length that it seems, with a subpar plot/setting to boot, homos!

My buddy had all the CYOA books. I had Be An Interplanetary Spy! which had like puzzles and shit and you had to be an idiot not to finish it, and there were very few filler endings/pages. Also, Steve Jackon's ones, which actually sort of rocked, because you rolled up a character and played the book like a one-man RPG. The worst though, were the Endless Quest books. No shit, I never finished one of those tortuous motherfuckers.

[Robert Sharp]

Endless Quest books were really bad. I read them in 6th grade, and still knew they were bad. The Jackson books were cool though, at least the ones I got to "play". That's why I want a website with the scans. I can't justify buying these old books at this point, but I'd like to skim them again.

[XPav]

I had a Dr Who gamebook. I swear, the thing was bugged, because there was no way to get to half of the book. I never checked for a patch, either.

It started me cheating, and I cheated on every single other gamebook ever. I mean though, there was one... "Something and Something", maybe Swords and Spells or something, where one of the branches was...

If it is Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, go to Page 23
Otherwise, go to page 24

Page 23: You die.

Great. Thanks. Artificial measures to increase playtime! At least I know where Bungie got the idea for the Library from.

[Bill Dungsroman]

I had a Dr Who gamebook. I swear, the thing was bugged, because there was no way to get to half of the book. I never checked for a patch, either.

It started me cheating, and I cheated on every single other gamebook ever. I mean though, there was one... "Something and Something", maybe Swords and Spells or something, where one of the branches was...

If it is Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, go to Page 23
Otherwise, go to page 24

Page 23: You die.

Great. Thanks. Artificial measures to increase playtime! At least I know where Bungie got the idea for the Library from.
Pretty sure they had an assortment of 100 random pages, ones that had no precednt page, that they put in every book to make them seem bigger.

[forgeforsaken]

How can this thread not have the Wired article on the "choose your own adventure" reprints? Done in CYOA style.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/start.html?pg=3

Actually nevermind, that article isn't that interesting.

[Jason Lutes]

There have been two adaptations of Lone Wolf gamebooks for NWN: Test of the Sun (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=modules.Detail&id=3868) and Mysteries of the Night (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=modules.Detail&id=3869). Both are very highly rated, but I never got very far in them because nothing could compare with the graphics engine of my imagination interacting with the cool black and white illustrations and numbered text paragraphs of the original.

I loved the Sorcery! series, it's great to be reminded of it. I can still picture the covers of those books perfectly. Steve Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_%28UK%29) (not to be confused with the Steve Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(US)) of GURPS and OGRE fame) and Ian Livingstone wrote them near the tail end of their time at Games Workshop, which they founded. Jackson went on to co-found Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux, and Livingstone is now chairman of Eidos.

In addition to the ones already mentioned in this thread, I remember the Middle Earth Quest gamebooks put out by ICE. What set them apart was how you could move around on a fold-out hex map and read paragraphs depending on the hex you moved into. They weren't as engaging or satisfying as the Lone Wolf or Sorcery! books, but they were an interesting change of pace.

This thread has kept me up way past my bedtime! Googling all of those old titles to see what's out there. Underdogs even has an extensive gamebooks section (http://www.the-underdogs.info/gamebook.php), bless 'em. Tons of scanned-in material there, so much stuff I never knew existed...

[Bill Dungsroman]

I loved the Sorcery! series, it's great to be reminded of it. I can still picture the covers of those books perfectly. Steve Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_%28UK%29) (not to be confused with the Steve Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(US)) of GURPS and OGRE fame) and Ian Livingstone wrote them near the tail end of their time at Games Workshop, which they founded. Jackson went on to co-found Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux, and Livingstone is now chairman of Eidos.
Wow, thanks for the info, LEWTS. I always thought it was the same Steve Jackson for both.

[Rob Beschizza]

Does anyone remember a series that took this to the gibbering extreme of representing a Dungeon Master/Eye of the Beholder-style grid RPG?

Yes. There was a page picturing all four compass viewpoints for every location in a grid-based dungeon. IIRC, there were also repeats of the whole grid that included enemies and items that could be picked up.

Rob

[Rob Beschizza]

Wow, thanks for the info, LEWTS. I always thought it was the same Steve Jackson for both.

What makes this even worse is that they've both hired one another at various points. I think there was a Fighting Fantasy book where British Steve comissioned American Steve to write it, both of them were credited, and everyone thought it was a printing error.

[Robert Sharp]

wow, I played some of those Jason and had forgotten all about it! I also didn't know there were two Jacksons. That helps explain how he(they) found time to be so prolific.

[soondifferent]

There's also a City of Thieves/Deathtrap Dungeon/Warlock of Firetop Mountain mod for Morrowind: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=856

Sorcery! is definitely the best of the FF books. I have fond memories of the more unorthodox ones too: Robot Commando, Appointment with FEAR, Sky Lord. Anyone finish Creature of Havoc?

[Kryten]

I've still got my FF books, up to book 19 from memory. Deathtrap Dungeon and City of Thieves rate as highlights for me, for some reason (despite trying) I was never able to finish Starship Traveller.

Did any one ever play the "multiplayer" double book Clash of Princes? That was hella good for it's time. Sadly, I turned me into a PnP RPer, but not my brother.

[Jason Lutes]

Here's one you guys don't remember:

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/204/vistula6lv.jpg

This thread reminded me of a bunch of stuff lying at the bottom of a box in the basement. Circa 1984, I was obsessed with gamebooks and typed up a bunch of my own on a manual typewriter.

The absurd thing about this particular one is that it's an adaptation of a text-based computer RPG called Eamon Adventures, which I had played on a friend's Apple ][+. I played and replayed the adventures to get them all right, then typed them up into choose-your-own-adventure form, complete with simple RPG rules. Sadly (or perhaps happily, given the purple juvenile prose), I was the only person to ever play the things. Even sadder, having typed them up myself, I of course knew where every decision would lead me, so it wasn't exactly the most exciting way to spend an afternoon.

I still don't know what to think of the fact that the ways in which choose to waste time haven't changed much in 22 years.

[Lunch of Kong]

If your inking/lettering skills have improved, it was all worth it.

[John Many Jars]

The Steve Jackson of GURPS and OGRE fame does deserve mention, IMO, because all the adventures published for The Fantasy Trip (i.e., Melee and Wizard built up to be a true RPG) were playable as solo adventures --- bona fide choose-your-own adventures focused on combat.

Of course, TFT combat was such a bloodbath that no one was really going to make it through alive.

[Robert Sharp]

I started creating a choose your own book too. It was in a spiral somewhere that is almost certainly destroyed now. It was a tedious process, actually. I did mine like those books (maybe Jackson's?) that had multiple entries on every page. So you often read a paragraph or two rather than a page or two before making a choice.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Here's one you guys don't remember:

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/204/vistula6lv.jpg

This thread reminded me of a bunch of stuff lying at the bottom of a box in the basement. Circa 1984, I was obsessed with gamebooks and typed up a bunch of my own on a manual typewriter.

The absurd thing about this particular one is that it's an adaptation of a text-based computer RPG called Eamon Adventures, which I had played on a friend's Apple ][+. I played and replayed the adventures to get them all right, then typed them up into choose-your-own-adventure form, complete with simple RPG rules. Sadly (or perhaps happily, given the purple juvenile prose), I was the only person to ever play the things. Even sadder, having typed them up myself, I of course knew where every decision would lead me, so it wasn't exactly the most exciting way to spend an afternoon.

I still don't know what to think of the fact that the ways in which choose to waste time haven't changed much in 22 years.
HAHAHAHAHAHA shit, I was about to slam you for kiping the titles from them old games' titles. Sweet. What's funny is, your cover art isn't appreciably worse than the interior art from the older D&D manuals.

[Inactiviste]

Arise !

Did you guys read the Kieron Gillen piece on RPS about Seventh Sense (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/27/hungry-like-the-wolf-seventh-sense/) ?

It's a free Lone Wolf interpreter, complete with different rulesets, and it look pretty amazing. Lone Wolf was amazing when I was 12, the second one really was a favourite of mine, and it's one of those decisive books that shaped my imagination...

EDIT : maybe this would be better suited to the games forum, but used the search engine, and well this thread was here...

[Robert Sharp]

Awesome, thanks! I played the web version of the first book a bit, but having a program track it all is better. The other, more complicated one was cool too. It must be in another thread. What was it called? It had several books that all formed like a campaign world...

[jemann]

Awesome, thanks! I played the web version of the first book a bit, but having a program track it all is better. The other, more complicated one was cool too. It must be in another thread. What was it called? It had several books that all formed like a campaign world...

That would be Fabled Lands (http://flapp.sourceforge.net/).

I never quite understood the adulation for Lone Wolf - it tended to be excessively linear, and Dever's storytelling became pretty predictable over the series. But this version is, indeed, very slick. I am taking notes...