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gamebooks
Escape The Asylum
Gem Runner
A Princess Of Zamarra
A Saint Beckons
A Day In The Life
Rise Of The Night Creatures
New Day Rising
Bloodsworth Bayou
Golem Gauntlet
Shrine Of The Salamander
A Flame In The North
A Shadow In The North
Escape Neuburg Keep
Any Port In A Storm
Below Zero Point
Tales From The Bird Islands
The Ravages Of Fate
Nye's Song
A Knight's Trial
Return To G15-275
Devil's Flight
Above The Waves
The Curse Of Drumer
The Word Fell Silent
A Strange Week For King Melchion The Despicable
Sharkbait's Revenge
Tomb Of The Ancients
A Midwinter Carol
The Dead World
Waiting For The Light
Contractual Obligation
Garden Of Bones
The Hypertrout
The Golden Crate
In The Footsteps Of A Hero
Soul Tracker
Planet Of The Spiders
Beggars Of Blacksand
The Diamond Key
Wrong Way Go Back
Hunger Of The Wolf
Isle Of The Cyclops
The Cold Heart Of Chaos
The Black Lobster
Impudent Peasant!
Curse Of The Yeti
Bad Moon Rising
Riders Of The Storm
Bodies In The Docks
House Of Horror
Rebels Of The Dark Chasms
Midnight Deep
Lair Of The Troglodytes
Outsider!
The Trial Of Allibor's Tomb
Hellfire

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Scott
Sat Dec 9 12:09:24 2023
The Trial Of Allibor's Tomb
Skull - non-optimum ending reached
A thoroughly enjoyable adventure, a classic dungeon crawl, reminds me of a combination of warlock of firetop mountain and deathtrap dungeon.

Adam
Wed Dec 13 17:35:45 2023
Escape The Asylum
Star - optimum ending reached
This was my first Fantasy Fight book and it was pretty fun. I kept getting lost in the hallways but that was the fun of navigating and picturing my surroundings.

YARD
Thu Dec 28 20:46:21 2023
The Diamond Key
Star - optimum ending reached
Well....

Longtime observers here probably noticed how I set out to go through everything on here in the middle of the year, and nearly managed it too. It was at another one of Ulysses' works, Contractual Obligation, where I found I also had limits, and had to take a break three months earlier. I knew full well that The Diamond Key was the absolute largest work here, and I initially intended to save it for last, but the perspective of restarting CO was so unappealing, I had to change my plans.

I had high hopes, mainly due to the excellent The Ravages of Fate. In hindsight, I suppose I should have guessed that as the latter was one of Ulysses' later works, and this one of the earliest, there would be a substantial gulf - or indeed, that the The Ravages of Fate worked so well because it was so tightly wound and condensed. Then again, I also had the counterexample in front of me, as Gavin Mitchell's Outsider! is both larger than his (much) later works, and very clearly superior to them.

In all, I had hopes. Unfortunately, I can't say they were fulfilled. At one point, I would outright say I hated the whole thing, but now that I finally see this victory screen, I just feel the strange mix of contentment, exhaustion and disappointment.

Funnily enough, by typical gamebook standards I "won" on third try, getting to ref 800 then, and getting very close on the first try, where the character fell in the final battle. Only then did it take dozens more attempts to get here - which should say a lot about the difficulty curve, or the lack thereof.

If I have to start discussing the shortcomings of this, it might as well be here. I have seen comments from Ulysses Ai where he acknowledged that too much of the material is hidden away, but that's a bit of understatement. Some of the absolute best writing here can only be seen with a truly incredible confluence of events.

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Or ref 495 (plus the refs immediately before and after) which is absolutely beautiful and makes this stand out so much from a typical gamebook - and which also requires you to

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This wouldn't be that much of a problem, if it weren't for the incredible weakness of the many earlier events you have to go through. Most notably, EVERYTHING to do with the Griffon forces is narrative ballast. They are never interesting, inexplicably anonymous (it makes no sense why the protagonist who had just come from the south had never heard of that southern lord before), and their function could have been fulfilled by more Arantator forces with little loss to the narrative. Worst of all, the author wrote in two ways to deal with them, yet somehow both are INCREDIBLY stupid. I wish ref 495 replaced one of them - as is, the reaction of soldiers there makes no sense, and the other one is just laughable both in the security arrangements and the lack of desire to do anything after coming all that way already.

YARD
Thu Dec 28 22:04:38 2023
The Diamond Key
Sadly, too many other mandatory or near-mandatory events early on also suffer from giant lapses of logic - often combined with that surprising bane of too many gamebooks here, auto-choices. In contradiction to pretty much all interactive storytelling advice, The Diamond Key has a surprising dearth of actual interaction (whether through choices or checks) on its paths (as opposed to choosing paths) for much of the gamebook, and is almost completely void of consequences, then presents a massive glut of both at what amounts to the very end.

The one constant throughout the gamebook, though, is the truly broken gameplay, in the sense of combat and risk-vs-reward ratio. As promising as the system is (and I certainly like that thanks to it, human enemies have roughly the same stamina as you, rather than the frankly artificial disparities of ~10 points between the player character and a typical human(oid) combatant nearly everywhere else), the actual fighting is virtually never interesting or tense in the way so many other gamebooks here have managed it. A large reason why is being able to get some of the most helpful items in the game literally for free at the start thanks to highly generous check-free auto-choice refs, then encounter optional encounters upon optional encounters that all have some difficulty of discovery or of completion, yet whose awards are duplicative fully (I read here with surprise that the author considers being able to get three of the most powerful weapons at the same time a point of pride, rather than the VERY opposite) or partially (bonuses upon bonuses for an already broken character, or which merely present you with yet another way to "win" yet STILL get the exact same awful ending you would have already seen many times by then thanks to much easier ways of getting to it.

The effective default ending, 800, is really one of the absolute worst-written endings I have seen on here. It's less-dumb than the bad ending of A Saint Beckons, and has some stiff competition from Riders of the Storm or Wrong Way Go Back, but it's not a good place to be in. The way it's written, with that mirror of the Background paragraphs (a narrative device far less clever than many think it is) would have made sense for an ending where you abandon the whole thing once it gets hot and better yet, take the Key for yourself once literally nobody can stop you. However, that is something you are NOT allowed to do at that point (in spite of all those refs, and of being able to do/attempt a whole lot of fairly evil/selfish things both before and after) and after what you ACTUALLY achieve, with the powers you would have by then, that ending is completely nonsensical. At times, it outright breaks continuity, but sadly, it's far from the only thing to do so.

An incomplete list of continuity-breaking and rail-roading.

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YARD
Thu Dec 28 22:18:32 2023
The Diamond Key
Continued...

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Gameplay stuff/bugs.

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YARD
Thu Dec 28 22:25:53 2023
The Diamond Key
Extra spaces before question marks:

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Typos:

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YARD
Sun Dec 31 13:12:59 2023
General Chat
Happy New Year to the community here!

I was hoping to close out the year with a personal ranking ot all the gamebooks here, but there are still a couple left, so I'll have to wait for an opportune date in 2024. (Perhaps an anniversary ot something or other on here? I would be surprised if there were no such dates this January/February.) Still, considering I did not discover this place until June, it's been a lot, and I formed plenty of impressions here in the past several months. While there were more than a few downs, the times where writing here has surprised me in a good way more than outweighed those. Now, I just hope this place can stay strong, and that I'll be able to contribute to its archives, hopefully as soon as this upcoming year.

Again, Happy New Year!

A.E.Johnston
Mon Jan 8 06:16:29 2024
General Chat
@ YARD Sounds great and Happy New Year!

A.E.Johnston
Wed Jan 10 07:12:32 2024
A Midwinter Carol
Star - optimum ending reached
Played it many times before but always fun to revisit during Christmas. Wonderful job Kieran.

A.E.Johnston
Wed Jan 10 07:33:57 2024
A Midwinter Carol
@YARD just in regards to your comments, as Kieran mentioned this story is only 50 paragraphs and it is difficult to put such a high level of backstory and detail into such a short game book. Comparing it to a visual media, a full 400 paragraph game book can be compared to movie, while a 50 paragraph game book is more akin to a 15 minute short. It’s far more difficult to introduce the same amount of depth and detail- I can vouch as even having written a 100 paragraph game book I felt quite restricted.
The story is obviously based of a Christmas Carol, and this is satisfactory in my opinion in setting up a framework of the plot. I was actually not familiar with any of the FF references and was perfectly fine following along so I would have to disagree with you mentioning that this was fundamental to understanding this gamebook story.
The one item that confused me originally was the kidnapping of the princess, but this is explained separately in a later paragraph that you may encounter. Personally I felt that it was enough as a placeholder to demonstrate that the protagonist participated in a “terrible act” befitting of his personality. Even if the kidnapping wasn’t elaborated on I feel I would have been fine, as it is enough to assume that it was a traumatic event orchestrated by the Baron, and a perfect example of his heartless behavior.

I will whole heartedly agree that Kieran has greatly improved, and has some of the most humorous and entertaining writing on the site, and in addition Melchion is an excellent story too.

Stuart Lloyd
Sat Jan 13 13:37:10 2024
Lindenbaum Competition
Anyone planning on entering Lindenbaum? How are the entries coming along?
Deadline is 20th February!

https://www.lloydofgamebooks.com/2023/12/entries-are-now-being-accepted-for.html

bcyy
Mon Jan 15 16:21:59 2024
General Chat
Happy New Year, everyone!

I tried to send out the Xmas and new year greetings earlier, but couldn't access the webpage due to website certification issues. Any idea what happened?
Don't know, I haven't changed anything.

letícia
Tue Jan 23 01:53:12 2024
A Strange Week For King Melchion The Despicable
Star - optimum ending reached
muito legal

leticia
Tue Jan 23 02:05:33 2024
Escape Neuburg Keep
Star - optimum ending reached
livro ótimo

Andre M. Pietroschek
Sun Jan 28 14:50:57 2024
News
I hope that our host is well in 2024, and that this site still goes on. Be it mostly for the fond memories of aging people...

Have a good time!

毛线
Fri Feb 2 07:58:31 2024
The Ravages Of Fate
Star - optimum ending reached
剧情非常精彩,感谢作者!

Stuart Lloyd
Fri Feb 2 19:20:57 2024
Lindenbaum Competition
Remember that entries are being accepted for the Lindenbaum competition. The deadline is the 20th February at 5pm GMT.

https://www.lloydofgamebooks.com/2023/12/entries-are-now-being-accepted-for.html

Let me know if you are entering this year!

davy
Fri Feb 2 19:56:24 2024
Bad Moon Rising
cheers for the feedback buddy.
It's honestly like, twenty years since I wrote this so I am really not sure how much coherent feedback I can give. The core idea behind it though was the idea of playing a game as one of those random thugs or theives you kill without thinking about in most game books/fantasy games, and making them more real people - like, Jak and Marts are total nightmare horrorshows, but I still have deep affection for them even after all these years. I've known a lot of lost but not hopeless people like these guys over the years.

MPerera
Tue Feb 6 06:42:14 2024
Bad Moon Rising
Star - optimum ending reached
Short and sweet.

bcyy
Thu Feb 8 11:07:25 2024
General Chat
OK, so it seems that, right now, for chrome and edge, the webpage keeps getting redirected to Allen & Cook Incorporated, which is an accounting firm in California. It's weird, because the URL still says www.ffproject.com. I tried clearing my DNS cache, but the problem persists.

Firefox logs onto this site just fine.

It could just be a problem on my end, but I thought I'd pipe up, just in case this site is being hijacked or something. Feel free to delete this post if it is not a problem for anybody else (i.e. if the traffic volume has not decreased).
I've tried it with Edge and all seems well at the moment. I notice that this firm uses the same hosts as this site, so my guess would be that the problem is at their end and hopefully temporary.