Thanks to everyone for the kind words. And thanks Andy for the time consuming task of converting the book to an online format. It was a great touch to give players the three options in assigning skill points at the beginning.

Incidentally (and I think I'm speaking for all of the authors who's works appear on the site) if there are things you DON'T like about a book, it's perfectly fine to post those thoughts as well. Keep in mind, though, that comments like "Combats are too difficult" or "This character wasn't believable" are much more helpful than, say, "This adventure stinks to high heaven".

Jordan
Mon Nov 10 05:36:12 2008
Soul Tracker

Soul tracker was an excellent adventure, with twists and turns, as well as nail-biting suspense. Is there only one "true ending"?

Gaetano
Mon Nov 10 05:56:19 2008
Soul Tracker

Yes, but more than one pathway to achieve it.

Ulysses Ai
Tue Nov 11 02:29:09 2008
Soul Tracker

When I played the paper version, it seemed there was only a single pathway.
Isn't it true that:

SPOILER

END SPOILER

In any case, I don't mind. :)

Trevor
Tue Nov 11 02:33:14 2008
General Chat

Just curious about the list of games on the side of the pages here. What makes a book be put on the 'more' list ???

The reason for having a separate 'more' list is simply that I want the entire menu to fit on a normal size screen (normal being a full size window on my laptop). I don't have a rigid policy for which books go on the 'more' list, and I will probably swap things around from time to time, but those that do end up there are more likely to be older, sequels to other featured gamebooks or not the only gamebook by that author.

Gaetano
Tue Nov 11 06:23:16 2008
Soul Tracker

Hello Ulysees- In regards to your question:

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Since you read the paper version, any thoughts on the text layout? Was it distracting, interesting, or did it make any difference at all?

Kee
Tue Nov 11 10:33:56 2008
Soul Tracker

Still working on Soul Tracker here...

Speaking of your question, Gaetono, I found the 'adventure sheet,' was rather confusing but other than that, there wasn't any particular difference to the online one.

Ulysses Ai
Tue Nov 11 22:56:46 2008
Soul Tracker

Gaetano:

If you are asking about the use of titles instead of numbers for passage headers, I though it was interesting and I certainly enjoyed the novelty of it.
I also thought that having 4 entries for each title, and the adventure spanning 4 days, was a great way to allow the reader to take an option at will, yet for day-specific outcomes to occur. As far as I am aware, in Soul Tracker this was only used for visits to the infirmary; but is is an idea that allows a lot of flexibility, without being onerous for the reader (i.e. if it is Thursday, turn to 23, if it is Friday, turn to 27, etc).
The only criticism I have is that some of the 'scenes' covered several shortish passages, when they could have covered a single long one. This meant that when reading, especially for the second, third and fourth times, I had to do a lot of scrolling. An example of this is the visits to Van Clark's house. I am aware that the conversation varies according to prior experiences; in my books when I reach a point where there are multiple versions of the same situation, I write multiple versions of the same scene, copying the parts which are the same, and inserting the differences, rather than making a reader jump between passages. The advantage of this is that the scene is uninterrupted; the disadvantage is that the whole gamebook overall is larger in size.
Perhaps it is just a stylistic thing, as some people might not like long passages, while I prefer to reduce page-turning.

Anyway, thanks for an interesting gamebook.

Gaetano
Wed Nov 12 01:23:14 2008
Soul Tracker

Thanks to everyone for the comments. Kee, sorry you found the adventure sheet confusing, I was trying to lesson confusion by creating the sheet, since there are several aspects of the game mechanics that are different from other gamebooks. Of course, the goal is simpy to keep track of stats in a way that makes sense to you as the reader / player, so whatever works best for you is the way to go.

Gaetano
Wed Nov 12 01:26:09 2008
Soul Tracker

Lessen confusion. Really, I'm not as ignorant as my typing sometimes makes me appear.

Ulysses Ai
Wed Nov 12 22:50:27 2008
Soul Tracker

Just for clarification, I enjoyed Soul Tracker and found it to be a good, well-written story. I was providing critique only for the purposes of saying something useful.

By calling it an 'interesting' gamebook, I was highlighting my appreciation of the unconventional plot and structure.

I didn't mean the other 'interesting'.

Gaetano
Thu Nov 13 03:55:19 2008
Soul Tracker

No clarification needed, Ulysses. I took your comments exactly as you meant them. By the way, how close are you to finishing the next part of your 'wrong way go back' series?

Wayne Densley
Thu Nov 13 09:05:11 2008
Windhammer Competition

Hi all,

Only two days now remain before the deadline closes for entries to the
2008 Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction. This is a reminder
that if you wish to place an entry you only have until midnight on the
15th of November to do so.

If you are interested in voting the entries will be available to
download in pdf format from the 16th of November through links given
at the Windhammer Prize webpage at
http://www.arborell.com/windhammer_prize.html

Regards
Wayne Densley
Chronicles of Arborell
http://www.arborell.com/

ffproject
Thu Nov 13 20:07:31 2008
News

To The Death

Bearing in mind Ibrahim's comments above regarding the combat being tedious, I've improved things slightly by allowing some combats to be resolved with a single click. This only applies when you are facing a single opponent, AND you are fighting alone, AND there is no Escape option AND there is nothing out of the ordinary going on.

Hopefully this will not cause any problems - I'm sure someone will let me know if it does.

Ulysses Ai
Thu Nov 13 22:29:50 2008
Planet Of The Spiders

Gaetano:

I've actually finished the next three installments, but they are currently under review.
Al Sander, who provided me with an excellent and comprehensive proof-read of Planet of the Spiders is once again helping me out with Episode 3; but episode 3 is longish and he is quite busy at the moment.
Episode 4 is also being proofread, and I have already decided to make some minor changes to it.
Episode 5 hasn't been seen by anybody else yet, but I think I need to rewrite some parts of it as it is a bit comedy-deficient.
In terms of a time-frame, Episode 3 may be out sometime in Late December, with Episodes 4 and 5 out in January.

Incidentally, I have been trying to think of a name for the series. If anyone wants to suggest a series title, that would be appreciated.

Gaetano
Fri Nov 14 04:01:34 2008
General Chat

I've played around with a couple of the adventures to try out the new single-step combat feature. It works great! Thanks for this innovation, Andy, and thanks to Ibrahim for his original post.

Andrew Wright
Sat Nov 15 03:42:45 2008
General Chat

That new 'To The Death' feature is awesome! Kudos to Andy and Ibrahim.

Now that I've finished my entry for the Windhammer competition, I'm looking forward playing Soul Tracker!

cheers

Andy

Stuart Sat Nov 15 12:02:30 2008 Windhammer Competition	Sent off something for the Windhammer competition. I was just wondering, if it's in that, will it be ok to put on this site?
	I can't speak for Wayne, but it's fine by me. Most of the gamebooks on this site can also be found elsewhere, and I do recommend in general that authors distribute their work as widely as possible.

Dwarmin
Sat Nov 15 13:41:24 2008
General Chat

Hey all! I'm glad this site is actually still active and adding books.

I played Soul Tracker a while ago, using the PDF, and enjoyed it. I only died twice, mostly to poor choice rather than the authors whim, which is how it should be-can we ever expect a sequel? :P

And will Shadowcaster ever have the bugs ironed out? I tried it and ran into some dead end pages and things, and it was dissapointing.

robert kingett.
Sat Nov 15 16:28:36 2008
General Chat

i loved soul tracker, i beat it in a day, now i am going to try to go back and beat it a different way, but that is not y i am posting in this book...

i am looking for a guy who goes by the screen name dark, one of the authors told me that he has a program that will convert these texts into audio? like an audio book?

i know of only one other program that does this, but not many game books are avaliable for the program, so i am interested to try darks program.

if anyone knows the link, email me @ kingettblue at yahoo.com.

o, and this is the link to the Hyena home page.http://www.projectaon.org/staff/jens/

so if anyone knws how to find that program, or his podcast, could you please eail me @ kingettblue at yahoo.com.

thanks!

Dark's podcast is at http://www.blindcooltech.com. Regarding the text to audio conversion, I believe he uses a screen reader rather than something like Hyena.

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