I just found out that Steve Jackson's adventure gamebook series is coming to iOS and I am totally hyped!
The younger forum members may not remember, but about 20 years ago adventure gamebooks were quite popular where I live. The books usually consisted of ~400 paragraphs where a certain decision of yours would make you continue at an associated paragraph number. I especially remember the "Fighting Fantasy" series by Jackson and Livingstone!
But to my mind, the best was the 4-book series "Sorcery!" also known as "Analand-Saga" here in Germany. At the time I read/played it the books were already out of print and I could never get my hands on books 3 & 4.
Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone!! Oh, the memories! I loved their adventure gamebooks. Only a few were released in portuguese, but I had most of them. I even tried to write these kind of books when I was a kid.
So, here's the important question: did you actually played the books like they were supposed to, rolling dice and doing combat, or did you just read them? I only read them and I used to have like 5/6 pages hekd with my fingers so I could choose the best place to go all the time. And now I realize, how am I going to do this in a digital book...?
I only owned two (lived outside a major city, so no easy access to them). One was a doctor who about civil war, other was Avenger! Way of the tiger book 1. Ninja-hai. Good times. I think I played them once, then read some, did a second more informed play-through then read it all.
I also tried to make a simple BASIC program of this type, with the combat automated, but never could get the hang of combat in a sensible way. Abandonware, one could call it.
(May 14th, 2013, 09:35)Ichabod Wrote: Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone!! Oh, the memories! I loved their adventure gamebooks. Only a few were released in portuguese, but I had most of them. I even tried to write these kind of books when I was a kid.
So, here's the important question: did you actually played the books like they were supposed to, rolling dice and doing combat, or did you just read them?
I tried playing with dice once in a while, giving me the maximum stats at the beginning. But since I still died in some fights, I soon stopped that and adopted an "fight-auto-win" strategy.
Jkaen Wrote:My immediate thought was also how to cheat by putting your fingers in various pages too!
Engadget.com:"The iOS game sidesteps the need for organic books and (unfortunately) our tried-and-tested multi-fingered bookmarking system, digitally keeping note of all your decisions along the way -- in short, no cheating."
Well, finally time to see if I can beat it without cheating!
The actual combat system was really tedious, and incredibly dependent on how high you rolled for skill at the start of the game.
Moonrunner was my favorite of the ones that I played. The system of collecting keywords as you progressed that would come back to help or hinder you later was a good one, that genuinely made a second playthrough quite different. And it had the "Pick 2 cool skills from this list" system that was used in a few of the books.
I had one of the Sorcery books too, and it seemed pretty good but kept bringing in irritating references to the other books in the series that I couldn't follow (Did you encounter the Snake Lady in the city of thieves? Go to the number inscribed on her ring! Or just sit around here like a chump, Mr 1 book.)
Wow, this is a funny coincidence. I used to play these books as a kid, and last month I found my stash hidden at the bottom of my old bedroom cupboard. My girlfriend and I have been playing them together, and we're going for the ultimate goal I could never achieve as a kid - completing Sorcery, fairly, from beginning to end. We just finished the Seven Serpents last night.
The spell memorisation system was what made Sorcery great, IMO. Does the App version keep that?
I definitely played some book like this once. It was pretty fun, even if I died a few times. @NH Choose Your Own Adventure books were a little different, but also fun.
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0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
The name of these books are awesome. Here's the list, let's see if we played all them between us. I'll start, striked ones I already played (a lot of these weren't released in portuguese):
01. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain 02. The Citadel of Chaos
03. The Forest of Doom 04. Starship Traveller
05. City of Thieves
06. Deathtrap Dungeon
07. Island of the Lizard King
08. Scorpion Swamp 09. Caverns of the Snow Witch 10. House of Hell
11. Talisman of Death
12. Space Assassin 13. Freeway Fighter 14. Temple of Terror 15. The Rings of Kether 16. Seas of Blood 17. Appointment with F.E.A.R. 18. Rebel Planet
19. Demons of the Deep
20. Sword of the Samurai 21. Trial of Champions 22. Robot Commando
23. Masks of Mayhem
24. Creature of Havoc
25. Beneath Nightmare Castle 26. Crypt of the Sorcerer
27. Star Strider 28. Phantoms of Fear
29. Midnight Rogue
30. Chasms of Malice
31. Battleblade Warrior 32. Slaves of the Abyss
33. Sky Lord
34. Stealer of Souls
35. Daggers of Darkness 36. Armies of Death
37. Portal of Evil
38. Vault of the Vampire
39. Fangs of Fury
40. Dead of Night
41. Master of Chaos
42. Black Vein Prophecy
43. The Keep of the Lich-Lord
44. Legend of the Shadow Warriors
45. Spectral Stalkers
46. Tower of Destruction
47. The Crimson Tide
48. Moonrunner
49. Siege of Sardath
50. Return to Firetop Mountain
51. Island of the Undead
52. Night Dragon
53. Spellbreaker
54. Legend of Zagor
55. Deathmoor
56. Knights of Doom
57. Magehunter
58. Revenge of the Vampire
59. Curse of the Mummy
60. Bloodbones
but about 20 years ago adventure gamebooks were quite popular where I live. The books usually consisted of ~400 paragraphs where a certain decision of yours would make you continue at an associated paragraph number. I especially remember the "Fighting Fantasy" series by Jackson and Livingstone!
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