IF means Interactive Fiction, which are basically old-school style text adventures. Hence their possible aversion to rules, dice-rolling, and, gasp, random events.

Robert Douglas
Thu Nov 12 04:24:41 2015

@ Andrew,
I remember those 'Choose your own Adventure', where the reader simply made choices - no dice, no scores, no attributes. Just choices. Would those be classed as IF? I'm also wondering if anybody ever read the Grail Quest series? It was a parody of King Arthur, Merlin, and his knights, with Pip being the player's character. I bought one from a second-hand bookshop years ago. It was a well-written and very tongue-in-cheek adventure. But both FF and Lone Wolf dominated the market so Grail Quest, Way of the Tiger, etc never really got a look in.

Gavin
Fri Nov 13 09:13:02 2015

I read and liked the Grail Quest books but the joke got tired around the fifth book, with ridiculous multi-party combat.

Andrew Wright
Sun Nov 22 03:30:51 2015

Stillman's reviews are up:

http://stillmanscifi.com/windhammer-reviews.html

Ooh, they burn, they do...

Tammy
Sun Nov 22 07:46:08 2015

Just got the email. I'm really proud to see who won first prize. :)

Robert Douglas
Sun Nov 22 12:21:01 2015

Well done to the prize winner, merit, and commendation awardees. My bold knight jousted but was unseated and hit the dust. Looking forward to next year's Windhammer tourney.

Andrew Wright
Sun Nov 22 14:54:01 2015

Yep that was a good winner! :-) Back to the drawing board...

Wayne Densley
Tue Nov 24 00:57:43 2015

Arborell.com is pleased to announce that the 2015 Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction has been won by Felicity Banks for her alternate historical adventure, After the Flag Fell. Merit awards have been won by Philip Armstrong for his quirky fantasy adventure, Sabrage, and Richard Penwarden for his fantastical western, Gunsmoke Along the Fey Frontier. Also this year Commendations have been awarded to Tides of Chrome by Steffen Hagen, Droidchangers: Fight or Die by Andy Moonowl and Alchemist's Apprentice by John Evans. Congratulations to all who have found success.

Sixteen entries were accepted for the 2015 competition, the high quality of those entries a testament to the talent and originality of the authors who took part. It proved again gratifying to see the wide range of genre and subject matter that encompassed this year's competition. In a list of well written and innovative gamebooks alternate histories and fantastical worlds sat comfortably alongside hard-metal sci-fi and real world adventure. Amongst these entries magic found its place once again and brooding horror lurked at every turn. All things considered a truly excellent range of new gamebooks.

As with last year the 2015 competition proved a remarkably close and hard-fought contest, with many strong contenders for the six awards. All who have taken part this year should be proud of the quality of the entries they submitted. It indeed bodes well for 2016, gamebooks in general, and the continuing success of the Windhammer Prize.

As has been the case in past years all entries have now been placed into the Windhammer Prize gamebook archive and can be accessed from that page along with all other gamebooks submitted to the competition since 2008.

May Glory and Renown follow all who entered.

Regards
Wayne Densley
http://www.arborell.com/windhammer_prize.html

Andrew
Mon Sep 5 18:37:16 2016

Anyone entering Windhammer 2016? I'm trying rapidly to beat the clock and put the finishing touches on my latest gamebook entrant.

Robert Douglas
Mon Sep 5 23:31:07 2016

Hi Andrew,
Good luck in Windhammer 2016. In answer to your question: no. Perhaps in the future I'll enter the tourney field again.

A.E. Johnston
Wed Sep 7 20:16:14 2016

Hi Andrew, no unfortunately not this year. I had an entry for 2015, and I have a great story I'm working on, but I need more time to work on it and have other obligations at the moment. I would like to enter it next year though.

On a side note, good to see you Robert, haven't been on in a while and always nice to see someone familiar and friendly.

Robert Douglas
Thu Sep 8 00:30:24 2016

Hi A.E.Johnston,
Good to see you too! I've been around for about a couple of weeks after a lengthy period of inactivity (FF Project-wise). Like you said: obligations. If things go okay for me, I won't be around for a couple of months as I've applied for a new job and I'll be concentrating on my reading. I do have a short adventure in the works but it's intended for something other than Windhammer. If it's not accepted then I can always have it posted on FF Project. Apart from that, Sean Calibre Book 2 is also a work in progress.

Andrew Wright
Fri Sep 9 11:29:58 2016

Unfortunately it got cancelled this year. Not enough entrants. :-(

Robert Douglas
Fri Sep 9 17:15:06 2016

It's a shame that Windhammer got cancelled. How many entrants put their names down?

Yaztromo
Fri Sep 9 21:21:24 2016

I can't believe it!!!

Tammy
Sun Sep 11 05:49:47 2016

I think changes have to be made to it especially how readers vote. The voting process is ridiculous I've been told. I'd be happy with just three types of winning levels rather than six but this is just my opinion. I never entered this year and probably won't in future, not that windhammer is a bad thing, it can be good for morale and break it too.

A.E. Johnston
Mon Sep 19 06:50:54 2016

Oh wow, that's really shocking. Last year had something like 16 entrants. I hope I have time to submit something next year this is really a great competition and I really enjoy supporting it.

Stuart Lloyd
Sun Sep 26 18:31:37 2021

For all those who miss the Windhammer competition, come to my blog on the 3rd October where I will announce the first Lindenbaum Prize for short gamebook fiction.
http://www.lloydofgamebooks.com

Stuart Lloyd
Tue Sep 28 10:05:08 2021

@Tammy

What changes would you propose and why?

Asking for a friend.

Tammy
Wed Sep 29 20:54:01 2021

Okay, lol had to recall all the way aback to 2016 to remember what kind of changes may be done to voting and sadly cant. I am assuming perhaps i meant that there should be gold, silver, bronze type awards instead of multiple rankings of winners. Never liked that system either because someone who has worked exceedingly hard on their gamebook, submits their work, and gets last place is a slap to the face and hard on moral whereas there are now less writers competing and entering by the year because of fear of rejection and nasty reviews by other non associated websites talking down the pieces submitted. Windhammer is great but as i said trying to recal so far back what a better voting system may look like, rather than grind loss into the nonwinners why not offer a different way of rewarding instead of first, second, third prizes with money offers or basically no prize. Perhaps all stories get reviews from other gamebooks ppl in our community, that would mean alot. Perhaps offer the first prize a chance to be featured on a gamebook site like yours Stuart, their gamebook on there (playable too). Or maybe perhaps involve others familiar with gamebooks fan fiction too to turn it into a simple tiny digital game or i dont know pay someone to turn it into a book or pdf depending on what level of percentage it won at via votes. As for voting not sure how to stop someone from cheating as i realized the voting part anyone can vote and one would never know if the win was genuine or not, unless, the vote is PUBLIC and counted over a series of weeks to a month. My opinion but not sure what else to tell your friend. Good luck! :)

Stuart Lloyd
Wed Sep 29 23:15:06 2021

Thanks, @Tammy. I'm sorry, 5 years is a long time to remember a gamebook competition.
I will offer encouraging feedback. For me, that was the best part of Windhammer.
I've put this out on the Gamebook Authors' Guild on Facebook and the Interactive Fiction and Gamebooks group on Facebook. They are supportive of each other and I expect that they will be supportive of new authors.
I will host the gamebooks. I could ask someone if they would turn it into a digital game. That was going to be a Windhammer prize on year - being in a Tin Man Games app.
As for cheating, I guess I could check the unique number of the location of some emails to make sure no one has made a load of emails. I don't think I could do something if someone gets all of their friends to vote. Maybe I could do a vote via some website rather than emailing me.

Robert Douglas
Thu Sep 30 00:20:39 2021

@Tammy,
That's a very good point you raised regarding a gamebook coming last within competition parameters. Certainly, there's something to be said for constructive criticism - and over the years I've taken on board some advice for future reference. It's always nice to know about mistakes and where improvements can be made. But, like you said, with all that time and effort, it is a shame when somebody comes last. And some comments can be really on the harsh side. To this end, I'd like to quote something from the author Bernard Cornwell, 'I have one golden rule: I never read reviews - the bad ones go to the heart, and the good ones go to the head'. Likewise, I requested of Wayne Densley (the Chronicles of Arborell webmeister) that I wasn't interested in being sent reader comments during the last Windhammer competition. But from authors who understand writing, and how to convey valued advice to potentials in a positive way, I'm more than happy to digest. It is in fact an honour that such authors take precious time to read through the text, take notes, and write up several paragraphs of how the story, grammar, and approach could all be improved! As for the Windhammer Competition, I did enjoy the writing and sending of a gamebook entry, but one reason I didn't enter the recent tourney was due to other commitments. As I understand it, sadly the last Windhammer took place in 2015. Even though six gamebooks were voted through (one achieved winner's prize, two earning merit awards, and another three achieving commendations), it must be remembered that when announcing the Competition results Wayne gave, as always, a well-deserved praise to all (sixteen) entrants for their time and effort. Which is a very nice acknowledgement. One important lesson to all writers is never be discouraged by harsh criticism or not winning a competition.

Stuart Lloyd
Thu Sep 30 14:08:09 2021

@Robert @Tammy
You both make great points. I'm going to be really positive about peoples' entries even if they don't get a prize. I think apart from the people who got prizes, no one knew the actual ranking system.
However, I need to balance out the bad feedback. There was a writer who had a werewolf themed blog who wrote really critical reviews. However, I'll emphasize that a) writing a gamebook in itself is an achievement b) everyone starts off bad at things and that if people review a gamebook, they are probably comparing it to the best ones they know.

Robert Douglas
Thu Sep 30 15:05:52 2021

@ Stuart
That's the best way to look at things. Regarding your second point, I remember when I first started writing/creating gamebooks, during the late 80's (when I should have been revising for my GCSE exams!) - let's just say that they needed a LOT of work to become acceptable reading. Like most things, competency also comes with practice. 'Practice makes perfect' is one of my favourite phrases. Word processors, as opposed to the older electric typewriters, really helped with the editing side.

121 to 145 of 145 | [next] [previous] | [first] [last]