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YARD Fri Sep 8 12:15:24 2023 Shrine Of The Salamander 
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I have to say, it is fun to go through a single author's works, and see how the things change, stay the same, and loop upon each other! While this tale may not involve the adventuring duo that featured in Andrew Wright's first three stories, it is otherwise remarkably full of references to previous works - be it the alcoholic drink from Lair of the Troglodytes, another gastronomically gifted Mind Flayer like in The Black Lobster, bees and beehives playing an important role like in Impudent Peasant!, alongside an infinitely-spawning fight very similar to what that story had. That, and there is also another reference to the canonical Demons of the Deep, like in The Black Lobster, though this time it's clearly a rival of what was probably the most memorable character in that story. The journey is also very fun on its own, although the narrative leaves a questionable aftertaste. In terms of morality, nearly all the canonical stories had been extremely straightforward, and predictably, this applies to a fair few works here as well. Then, an encouraging fraction here genuinely attempt moral ambiguity, which I appreciate dearly. And lastly, there is the uncomfortable category where the events appear far more ambiguous than the narrative is willing to acknowledge. Up until now, Nye's Song was the only example I could think of, and my reading of it may be considered esoteric (is the invasion of England by Thuggee-led undead and demonic hordes actually worse than the Bengal Famine it would have averted?) Here, though, I don't think it's particularly arguable that you serve evil while considering yourself a hero (like most villains do, anyway). Not only do the Salamanders hold a very good claim to the artifact, but your city is literally ruled by slave masters who need the artifact to keep the slaves that toil in the mines in check...and we are heroic for helping them do just that? I wouldn't have minded it if the narrative seemed more aware of it (i.e. A Princess of Zamarra is very clear in its true ending that what you have achieved is hardly a boon for anyone outside of the orc tribes of Khul and Zamarra's ruling classes), but the true ending here is clearly meant to be read as an unadulterated triumph. As for the rest, it's great when the story doesn't just have a lot of artwork, but artwork which was actually purpose-drawn, and not slotted in awkwardly from elsewhere, at times with clear mismatches between it and the text! The spells are fun, too, although there are perhaps too many of them for an adventure of this length, since the balance is clearly off. The Galehorn's spell wrecks practically everything and is just so much better than the rest. Meanwhile, picking a Giant's Tooth at the start is literally a total waste, and there doesn't seem to be any situation where a Fire Water is usable AND preferable to alternatives either. The items you can exchange for provisions also seem rather underwhelming at that point. It doesn't help when some fights deny you spell use for what appear to be balancing reasons, yet seem to have no internal narrative justification for that. (that Beetle, or the merchant, anyone?) And at a certain point, there's some weirdness I'm really not sure about.
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Finally, proofreading.
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MPerera Fri Sep 8 01:56:35 2023 A Flame In The North
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This was a challenge and I died quite a few times, but it felt great to finally win that awful battle in the end! Too bad there isn't a third book, this journey really deserves completion. |
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YARD Thu Sep 7 16:54:05 2023 Impudent Peasant! |
Interesting, and I guess I can see some play-by-post traces here if I look closely enough! This actually gets me to wonder if converting some of the more-famous play-by-posts which have proliferated on the internet in the two decades since this plucky website came online would be feasible. At least some of them have to be worth it in terms of writing, narrative stakes, etc., right? Though, either way, I suppose more people need to know about this place as a prerequisite. Thanks again for returning to comment after so long! |
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YARD Thu Sep 7 16:47:49 2023 Lair Of The Troglodytes |
Oh, wow, I got you to comment on this work for the first time in...11 years! What a welcome surprise! Thank you for responding and sharing this background! |
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YARD Thu Sep 7 16:02:55 2023 Beggars Of Blacksand
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This was going pretty well until the story felt the need to use the same plot twist as Escape Neuburg Keep. It felt really cheap there, and is not much better here, undercutting most of the initial narrative stakes just the same. And with how underwhelming the writing of the real primary villain is, I actually preferred the other, "failed" ending to the intended one. Proofreading (mostly missing hyphens here.)
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YARD Thu Sep 7 15:49:46 2023 The Black Lobster
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After beating In The Footsteps Of A Hero the other day, I decided to power through the other two Blacksand-set stories on here in short order, and here we are! Not sure how I feel about this one. On one hand, I absolutely LOVED seeing that reference to Demons of the Deep - up until I found this website, it was one of the only two original gamebooks I ever came across. (The other one was Seas of Blood - I guess my initial exposure to Fighting Fantasy was rather atypically marine-themed!) And I still enjoy adventures with low-powered and atypical characters a lot. Chapter titles are also a nice addition - I was at first wondering if it was going to go all the way with ref names, like Soul Tracker, but I guess not. At the same time, it feels rather arbitrary altogether. Halron's alcoholism (why would a tavern-keeper need any real money in the first place, anyway?) strangely doesn't come into play much, when compared to even the author's own Lair of the Troglodytes. Perhaps it would have been too much of a retread, but then there wouldn't be the addition of recurring characters from Andrew's previous two stories. Unexpectedly, they are not particularly welcome here. as they appear implausibly dumbed down compared to their previous iterations. It's also strange that you have no choice but to talk to them (and lie to them out of spite), yet the follow-up from that inevitable action is completely skippable, in a way which doesn't make much sense.
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On the other hand, the final encounter is both all-but-unskippable, and doesn't make much sense. If it was that easy for someone like them to exhort taverns, how did you even get by for so long? And surely even they would have been able to understand that since your establishment generates money, they could keep coming back and claiming at regular intervals (since if you couldn' repel them once, why would you succeed the next time?) All the railroading towards that battle simply isn't very satisfying. Out of the two endings, the one which involves the axe is just not very interesting (with even a few works on here featuring variations on this ending) or even hopeful (as the character doesn't come across particularly suited for that life, to say the least). The other ending is a lot better, but the path to it is not very satisfying.
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The key conversation in the lead-up to that ending option really needed to be more involved, with more dialogue options to navigate before pulling this off. Sadly, the supporting characters don't get much of a chance to be remembered, since their encounters are rather one-note due to their brevity. I think that this would have likely worked better with the adventure Finally, proofreading.
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MPerera Thu Sep 7 15:38:02 2023 A Shadow In The North
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This was pretty good. I especially liked the spells. Provisions don't restore as much stamina as I expected, but there were enough opportunities to either buy more food or gain stamina. |
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Andrew Wright Thu Sep 7 12:16:23 2023 Lair Of The Troglodytes |
This was the first amateur Fighting Fantasy adventure I ever planned and wrote, using the advice on Mark Popp's very old fightingfantasy.com website (of which there is a copy in downloads section I believe). I was living in Bangkok as an young English teacher, and would sit at the pool drinking beer and planning it all out. It was fun to write and plan and I'm glad you enjoyed adventuring in it! :-) |
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Andrew Wright Thu Sep 7 05:45:54 2023 Impudent Peasant! |
Thanks for playing this and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think it was inspired by a competition, or maybe just the thought of what it would be like to grow up in a typical Allansian village, with all the potential carnage on your doorstep. I did do it as a play-by-post with 6 playtesters on the original FF forum I believe, which was fun. Apologies for all the errors! |
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Robert Douglas Wed Sep 6 15:09:15 2023 Below Zero Point |
With regards to the previous comment: I highly recommend Peter F Hamilton's excellent Night's Dawn trilogy. Approximately 3,300 pages of pure sci-fi fun in space opera form. And I didn't regret one page of it; time well spent. Such a read was long overdue because of previous commitments. And I would do so all over again. Meantime, I'm due to start the sixth instalment of Earth's Children, at 800 pages in length. On the other hand, perhaps you don't quite have the patience to read even a fraction of that? Seriously, I've never understood why some gamebook readers don't simply sit back and take a more relaxed attitude to enjoy a colourful narrative and story - something which has taken the author many non-profit hours to create, write, and edit. Just skipping all that fun only to focus on the options, and then get angry at failing, only once at that, speaks volumes about a person's overall character. Giving up at the first hurdle. It's very sad that too many people will be going through life missing out on too many important things. So many life lessons gamebooks have to offer, yet nevertheless they go over certain heads. |
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YARD Tue Sep 5 13:02:00 2023 In The Footsteps Of A Hero
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Yet another fun, bite-sized adventure on here! Also my first to be set in Port Blacksand: I think there are at least three on here from it, including this one? (And all of similar length, for that matter.) Before I say anything else, I must note it was quite amusing to see that Valience got such a fanclub for herself in the comments of this thread! While you gotta love anyone who can decapitate a SKILL 12 creep menacing your character in two blows (certainly didn't expect this as what is often the first encounter in a "fairly easy" gamebook!), I am a little surprised Angela Luna from Soul Tracker didn't seem to gather quite as much devotion. Then again, that was probably the byproduct of most people's opinion on Soul Tracker getting overwhelmingly coloured by "What do I have to do to get past DESTRUCTION: 3?", leaving little room for reflection on anything else. As far as non-playable female characters on here go, I found it a little sad to see Autumn Moon of Nye's Song or Grauch of A Princess of Zamarra (or the Princess herself, for that matter) go rather unremarked upon even in their own threads. As for the story itself, I'll say that I still consider the 50-ref format just a little too small altogether for this medium. Yet, this work is one of the best at working with this size. To me, it's almost on par with Andrew Wright's Impudent Peasant! in that regard, the latter pulling ahead mainly because in its marketplace scene, the things you could buy were all useful in at least some sense. In here, half the items that are purchasable are either awaiting that sequel, or are simply red herrings. Even so, it feels more comfortable with this length than either Bad Moon Rising or The Cold Heart of Chaos, both of which feel like episodes clipped out of a larger story; fine episodes, but lacking in internal development all the same. At the same time, I must say their authors, Davy Stedham and Al Sander, were all significantly stronger writers in a literary sense, same as Andrew Wright. Their ~50 ref managed to make even minor refs feel vivid, and while there are flashes of that here as well (the poor ending at 6 is surprisingly poignant, and I liked the option to run away and avoid getting framed) it's clearly on a level below them altogether. I don't know where Victor Cheng was born and whether English was first or second language for him (as it is for me), but at the end of the day, the words on the page are still there. Having that said, I must also give him credit for being a lot better at proofreading than some of the other authors here, including the aforementioned ones. Relatively few typos/grammar issues here this time.
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Less important observations.
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YARD Mon Sep 4 12:21:01 2023 The Cold Heart Of Chaos
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Well, well, well, this is a 54-ref work, and apparently it was intentionally written as a prologue rather than something truly standalone. I wish these limitations weren't there, but I would say it does about as well as it could even in their presence! In particular, I really like the way this work makes skill checks feel as not just a formality, or perhaps a way to suddenly fail that you just have to hope to pass, but as genuinely gruelling struggle against numerous obstacles from your character. Out of what I have seen to date, only Nye's Song really captured this feeling this strongly. (Although my beloved A Princess of Zamarra, as well as The Word Fell Silent and Soul Tracker, also come to mind if effective use of skill checks is to be discussed.) That, and ref 2 is one of the most impressively written bad endings I have ever seen. The others, such as 36, are really good as well. There is also a decent amount of variation for such length, including near the end. However, it is funny that
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Lastly, I should note that it's considerably better proof-read than some of the other similarly-old and similarly-sized works, which have somehow managed to be absolutely littered with various grammatical issues in spite of their short length. However, it is not completely free of such issues either. (To day, Bloodsworth Bayou might have been the only one that was free of them.)
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MPerera Mon Sep 4 00:00:50 2023 Gem Runner
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Won, but it was a tiring and not very interesting process. Mostly a matter of collecting gems and guessing which direction to go in or which block to step on. |
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MPerera Sun Sep 3 23:28:53 2023 The Word Fell Silent
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Realistic if depressing ending! |
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MPerera Sun Sep 3 21:30:01 2023 Bodies In The Docks
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I wish it had been longer! |
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YARD Sun Sep 3 15:32:19 2023 Bad Moon Rising
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After checking out the remaining options, I really appreciate that here, traps are not eternal, and actually degrade and rot! While I certainly agree with one of the other comments there isn't exactly character development or the like going on, the only example where I can recall it happening in a slmilarly-sized story was A Midwinter Carol, where it was extremely awkward. (Brings to mind some critical arguments that adult personalities are typically sufficiently strongly formed that character development ends up unrealistic more often than not.) Refs like 14 are fun enough to read that all is forgotten. First things first, though - some comments have already mentioned this many years ago, but I have to confirm that at 78, "Go east ?" seemingly redirects back to 78.
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MPerera Sun Sep 3 15:10:21 2023 Escape Neuburg Keep
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I was able to beat this one by immediately scrolling to the bottom of each page (to avoid the stomach-churning descriptions) and refusing to say anything. |
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MPerera Sun Sep 3 15:00:42 2023 Beggars Of Blacksand
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Finally won this one!
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YARD Sun Sep 3 14:42:08 2023 Hellfire |
So, this is the URL where I got the Spider-Man bug: (DELETED) I think the bugs to do with POSSESSIONS might be caused if their presence is combined with some of the things you do not need on the true ending path? Then again, perhaps I really did not look hard enough that time. Also, I am glad to see that some typo fixes have already happened by now! Now that I finally know how to win, I can focus more on the text specifically, and have to offer some more.
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I think I have in fact discovered one way in which this version is harder than the document due to interface specifically, and it's hardly what I would have expected.
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Lastly, I just want to say that
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| Thanks for the URL, I've fixed the Spider Man bug now. It is an issue associated with clicking on USE at a mid-fight reference, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are other instances of it out there. |
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YARD Sun Sep 3 14:23:59 2023 Bad Moon Rising
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Wow, this is the first gamebook I won on the first try, and with SKILL of 7 to boot! I didn't try too hard, and really expected to get killed by the options somewhere down the line, but nope, somehow the most important skill checks got passed, and the whole thing worked! In all, Bad Moon Rising certainly warrants its "easy" rating. Personally, I prefer at least the difficulty of Impudent Peasant! (where some wrong choices can still kill even really early on), up to about A Princess of Zamarra, with the upper end of difficulty like Hellfire and Soul Tracker requiring the ability to anticipate some extremely arbitrary logic more than anything else. Still, while this is about as easy as Tomb of the Ancients, Bad Moon Rising is a far superior work, with a much stronger sense of location and a far better defined protagonist (not to mention more interesting supporting cast.) There's only so much to say about a winning run of <50 refs, so I might as well post what I have encountered so far right now, to preserve this moment, and proofread the other paths later.
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