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Isle Of The Cyclops




ffproject
Thu Dec 1 18:39:06 2005
Isle Of The Cyclops

The prolific Andrew Wright has produced yet another gamebook, this one using non-FF rules. See the downloads page.

Andrew Wright
Sat Dec 3 11:01:33 2005
Actually, Andy, the link doesn't appear to work on the downloads page for Isle of the Cyclops. Is it because you have it set at CYCLOPS.DOC instead of as a PDF?

cheers

Andy
Yes it is. Thanks for pointing this out, I've fixed it now.

dark
Tue Dec 6 19:33:01 2005
I'm looking forward to Isle of the Cyclops being posted up on the site so that I can play it.
Pdf's are a bit of a pest with speech synthesisors, and anyway, finding page numbers with ctrlf without accidently viewing spoilers can be tricky.
Despite its obvious high quality, I wouldn't hold your breath for this one. The different combat system and open ended approach to Isle Of The Cyclops makes adaptation tricky. I haven't decided what to do with it yet.

Andrew Wright
Tue Dec 6 23:15:11 2005
How would a .doc version of Isle of the Cyclops be with speech synthesizers? I've got one, the problem is it is in two columns using the Bembo typeface font, and if you don't have Bembo, then the layout is all over the place.

cheers

Andy

dark
Fri Dec 9 22:43:11 2005
Well, a doc would be fine, but I'm not that certain about colums, or this Bembo font business, pluss there's stil the problem of turning to different pages within the text. I did a few experiments with Impudent peasant (sinse i finished that one), but searching for no 9, when told to turn to page 9 usually brings up every fight in the entire book with an enimy of a skill of 9, pluss the original page turning reference.
It would be handy if page numbers were written as: @@09, then you could use ctrl to find stuff.


OK, the next time I adapt a gamebook I'll also produce a text file where each reference number is prefixed by @@. If any public spirited individual with too much time on their hands wants to do this for any of the existing gamebooks, then I would be happy to post the result on the downloads page.

ffproject
Mon Apr 3 19:08:37 2006
Isle Of The Cyclops

Here at last is the online version of Andrew Wright's latest. I took the easy way out and changed the rules to standard Fighting Fantasy. Apart from that it's fairly true to the original.

Gaetano
Fri Apr 7 20:53:43 2006
Isle of the Cyclops is an entertaining adventurette (is that a word?) For those who don't know, this adventure was written using the style of the "Fabled Lands" Series. The online version is somewhat adapted, as stated. For those who would like to see the difference, the original is available in the "downloads" section of this site.

dark
Sat Jul 15 23:32:08 2006
Ooopse, I have dropped in here a time or two, so I really should have remembered that.

The other night I completed Isle of the Cyclops, but I'm afraid I wasn't overly impressed with it as a whole. I liked the RPG-esque way it had a central town, and an area with various monsters that you could go between, but there really needed to be more to do in the game. I thought after you defeated the Cyclops there might be some more content, since he
SPOILER  
END SPOILER

but I was obviously mistaken. Also, I didn't think the final cave was particularly impressive, just several tests of luck, which weren't really too bad since I started out with a high score.

The only thing in the book that slightly confused me was the way that the
SPOILER  
END SPOILER

asgardian
Sun Jul 16 06:28:50 2006
Re: Isle of the Cyclops - the encounters are all random. Keep trekking around the inner area of the island and you'll find him.
All in all not a bad game, but I felt the characters were too weak. None of them had the necessary SKILL and LUCK required. But, we've discussed that ad infinitum.
I would say that regardless of your choice of character there is a better than even chance of getting through to the end.

Gamebook Fanatic
Sun Jul 16 07:42:44 2006
The Isle of Cyclops is not originally meant to be played under FF rules. It is based on the Fabled Lands gamebook series. The novelty of this series is that they are supposed to make up a complete realm of its own and each book contains a different land for the adventurer to explore. The fun part is that you can travel between the books on a neverending adventure using 1 item you find in 1 book in another, or starting a quest in 1 book and travelling to another book to complete it. (sometimes having to travel between multiple books to complete 1 quest, picking up different hints/encounters/items required).

That's why, on its own, the book doesn't look too impressive, and some parts of it may not make sense. Our host not only has to adopt it under FF rules, but because there are no other books in the series now for you to travel to, some parts of the book give you an abrupt ending because the host can't just connect it to another book for you to travel. And some of the seemingly useless items are probably meant to be useful in another book. Of course, it doesn't help that Isle of Cyclops is much shorter than the original FL series (each book in the original has about 700 paragraphs, which gives you a MUCH bigger place to explore). Unlike the FF books, each FL book doesn't give you a specific major quest to complete, but rather hundreds of minor possible quests as you exlore each individual location. You don't really have a 'good' ending to the series, as the only way you can really 'complete' the book is to explore every possible area and complete every quest you can find... which may well take years... hence it feels awkward under FF rules.

If you want to see what FL series is like, look at the original Isle of the Cyclops in the downloads page here. Or you can try to find the original series if you are lucky (sadly, I think they are not only long out of print, but the series itself was never quite completed. 12 books were planned, but only 6 were ever published).

Isle of the Cyclops
Sun Jun 10 04:40:20 2007
Just finished the Island of the Cyclops.

It was good in the sense that it was different.

It did have a "video game" feel to it however. It was a little too 2-D for my taste. The locations lacked personality and so did the characters.

Developing further would certainly improve this adventure in my opinion.

Still, thanks for sharing.

Wrong Way Go Back

I like the premise. I hope there will be a sequel which will be longer and with less randomness involved.

Neil
Sun Sep 23 02:26:50 2007
Just did Cyclops island. cool first fighting fantasy i've played in years it will not be the last.

Jordan
Tue Sep 25 15:47:45 2007
How do you do Cyclops Island, neil? I keep encountering the same things.

Andrew Wright
Sun Sep 30 07:17:27 2007
With Cyclops Island, to kick things off, you might want to visit the tavern in the village and buy a round of drinks.

Also, the encounters on the island are random so you might need to do a bit of wandering back and forth before you find everything at a given location.

cheers

Andy

duffmeister
Mon May 19 15:46:20 2008
Is Andrew Wright going to do a sequel to Isle of the Cyclops? I think a series of sub-adventures each on a different island of the archipelago would be great, especially if they could be linked in a non-linear way, i.e: 'You can leave the isle of bleuch, to go to the isle of eurk play 'Armpit of the Orc' and if you wish to go to eeeeh play 'Gob of the Goblin'. I loved how non-linear the adventure was.

Darkness
Sun Jul 12 20:26:54 2009
Did Andrew Wright ever write any other fable fantasy (apart from Isle Of The Cyclops)?

Andrew Wright
Mon Jul 13 01:54:16 2009
Hi Darkness,

No unfortunately I didn't. I did plan out 200 refs for the sequel to Isle of the Cyclops (called 'The Valley of Bones'), but never actually started writing it.

At the moment I've got too much on my plate to start writing it now, though it may still happen in the future. After all, a lot of my adventures here were originally planned years ago and only finished relatively recently.

Having said that, if you like the style of Fabled Fantay, you might like 'The Hills of Phoros' which was my 100 ref entry for Wayne Densley's 2008 Windhammer Gamebook competition. You can find a copy here:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/fabled_lands/files/Amateur/

although you have to be a member of the group first.

cheers

Andy

Andrew Wright
Mon Jul 13 16:43:52 2009
I planned a 200 ref sequel called The Valley of Bones but have never got around to writing it. Maybe one day...

If you like that style of adventure though, join my Fabled Lands Yahoo group. As well as the Fabled Lands adventures, there's my 100 ref adventure The Hills of Phoros which was an entry in Wayne Densley's 2008 Windhammer Gamebook Prize.

cheers

Andy

Arguth
Thu Aug 13 23:04:02 2009
Andrew Wright, you write very well, I especially liked The Lair of the Troglodytes. Now there are 2 characters that keep coming up in your script. Melric and Ritharve. Are they 2 characters you made up, or are they genuinely characters from the Fighting Fantasy world that are hidden away in one of the books? Either way I'd like to buy a book where those two would feature.

duffmeister
Fri Aug 14 15:10:18 2009
Arguth,
Melric and Ritharve are not the only recurring characters in the Andrew Wright books. I won't give anything away, but a certain character from the Black Lobster also turns up in 'Isle of the Cyclops'. I like the way that each story has links to the others without the books simply being a'series; of successive adventures, since I feel the continuity of the books makes for a much more interesting idea