Hi all! I'm back!

@Volden
Not sure if this helps, but name changes aside, there are several gamebooks which were published under different names in different countries. e.g. FF#10 is "House of Hell" in the UK, "House of Hades" in the US.
PS for some reason, I read "Voivod" the first time I saw your name. :-)

@Yaztromo
Forget "Magehunter". It is possibly the only entry of the original series that is not being republished. Probably because of the many mistakes in the book (3 SKILL boxes instead of STAMINA and LUCK boxes, numerous typos, etc.), the copyright owners chose not to republish it. This means that one would have to buy a vintage Puffin, should one wish to own a copy. Coupled with the fact that the only pirated pdf version available online suffers from blurred scanning (I downloaded it), I should think that any copy you can find would easily be worth $100+, even with ripped pages.

Robert Douglas
Tue Mar 25 18:16:02 2014

@bcyy,

Welcome back! I knew about the Hell to Hades change (in US 'hell' is considered a profanity - although they certainly it a lot in the movies!) Voivod is the arch villain from 'Legend of the Shadow Warriors' isn't he?

It's a shame about Magehunter's typo errors as the gameplay and story ideas were quite ingenious. However, I'm only aware of Steve, Ian, Jonathan Green, Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson authored FF titles being republished under Wizard. I'm not sure if many of the other commissioned authors are being published electronically/digitally?

Yaztromo
Tue Mar 25 20:19:42 2014

That's quite unfortunate, as during last year or so I played/run quite a lot with the various stories of the so-called "Kallamehr cycle" (or Riddling Reaver cycle) and I really like them!

Robert Douglas
Tue Mar 25 22:08:00 2014

Perhaps many of the FF are available as e-books? I'm not sure.

bcyy
Wed Mar 26 06:20:11 2014

@Robert

Thanks!
Mental note to self: stop using the term "bloody hell" in front of Americans.
Yes, Voivod is indeed the guy from LotSW.
True - Moonrunner wasn't republished either. Didn't think of that. So it wasn't the typos, then.
Almost all FF titles are available as e-books, although I'm sure I'd be breaking quite a few laws if I uploaded them or provided URLs on this site, now that they're in print again.

BTW, why is it that half of the most awesome FF titles have errors in them? I recall Creature of Havoc also had a fatal typo concerning which section to turn to.

Robert Douglas
Wed Mar 26 13:38:28 2014

@ bcyy

Yes it's a shame Moonrunner wasn't republished (in paperback); has to be one of my favourite FF books. So, are most of the FF titles from Puffin series actually in e-book format?

It is a bit annoying about typo errors - I hate missing out occasional words myself - but where the 'turn to...' number is concerned it can ruin the whole experience. Gamebooks hinge on 100% accuracy where that's concerned. After writing a gamebook I make it a rule to check each entry and that their 'turn to' reference(s) make sense. One time I did spot a mistyped ref number - close one! - so I had to leaf through and find the correct entry that made sense. Sometimes it turns out to be a neighbouring entry to the mistyped one (i.e. 'turn to 56' where it should be '55'), or the numbers might be accidentally juxtaposed (i.e. so 'turn to 48' should be '84').

The occasional puzzle can also be ruined due to a mistake: Joe Dever admitted one of his puzzles in Lone Wolf had a different 'turn to' ref to the answer!

I'm guilty of this although in a different way: for Curse of Drumer's transition to online, I should have altered the dialogue went it came to that blasted clock code (all that about two makes a couple, thus halving it....remember?). Andy did actually ask me about this but I wasn't thinking at the time so his logic went over my daft head. I'd originally written it to cater for the fact there were only 400 entries - but with the online version you could select the actual numbers in without having to worry about halving it. Oops!

Robert Douglas
Wed Mar 26 13:41:15 2014

Ah, fourth paragraph, second line, tenth word in, should read 'when' instead of 'went'. I think the brain rushes ahead of itself sometimes.

bcyy
Thu Mar 27 01:39:10 2014

@Robert

Yes, almost all Puffin FFs are available in pdf format. I'd upload the ones I have, if it were not for legal considerations.

Don't worry - Curse of Drumer's brilliant.

Gaetan
Sun Mar 30 06:02:27 2014

@Walker

Did you reach the best ending? It looks like you died before doing so. The best ending pretty much wraps things up.

Gaetano
Mon Apr 7 21:33:01 2014

@ Ulysses,

I picture it as being more of an "ancient artifact" type of item, although my description of it is pretty sparse. Fee free to provide more detail.

Brewin
Fri Apr 25 06:42:10 2014

Hi guys,

I can't remember whether I've posted this link here before, but a while ago I put together a combat simulator for the Fighting Fantasy and Gamebook Adventures systems - it's a useful tool for working out how difficult etc any given combat actually is:

http://www.thebrewin.com/blog/entry/brewin-s-gamebook-combat-simulator

Enjoy :)

Robert Douglas
Wed May 7 13:38:46 2014

I'm wondering if anybody here is knowledgeable about special ops regiments, like the SAS or Navy Seals, and would do a gamebook based on their experiences?

bcyy
Thu May 8 03:42:22 2014

@Brewin:

Thanks! BTW, what random number generator did you use?

@Robert:

Sorry to disappoint you, but anybody who is knowledgeable won't be able to tell you, let alone write a gamebook about it. People get shot for revealing things like equipment details, order of battle, etc. They are not even allowed to discuss casualties their unit have taken, for 30 years since the casualties took place, lest the information they pass on be used by potential opponents to perform historical battle damage assessment.

All I managed to glean from a few military personnel I chatted up at various conferences is that Hollywood movies are a joke compared to the real thing in terms of combat capabilities, and that the real job is extremely tedious and boring. I got a few weird looks for my troubles, too.

Brewin
Thu May 8 15:58:11 2014

@bcyy:

The randomiser uses the Excel rand() function to generate random numbers... I can give you more details if you want (it's only skewed to one dice roll number or another after literally millions of rolls, so sufficiently "random" I think) but I'm guessing you were thinking it was using something else?

bcyy
Mon May 12 00:29:48 2014

@Brewin:

I see. Of course an Excel document would use Excel intrinsic functions, how silly of me! :-)

Yaztromo
Mon May 12 21:13:38 2014

@Brewin
Nice simulator!
It isn't really for solving a particular fight (for that I use www.random.org & co.) but to understand how difficult is a fight (or, better, a series of fights) when you design a gamebook.

Brewin
Fri May 23 07:59:53 2014

@Yaztromo
Cheers! You *can* use it of course for a particular fight (automated to a single trial with set assumptions on how Luck is used), but like you say, it's really a tool for designers to help them determine exactly how hard this or that combat actually is :)

Sunni
Tue Jun 10 05:29:36 2014

A big thank you to all the contributors here. Wish I still stayed in the UK.

Does anyone have any recommended software for mapping the gamebooks? Mindmapping software only work if the gamebook works like a tree which doesn't apply for many examples here

Robert Douglas
Thu Jun 19 15:55:36 2014

I must admit to being a bit of gloomer - somebody who comes over a bit negative, bemoans a situation. I'm all prepared to go to this celebration of the Wildlife Trust tomorrow, a casual affair with a few events planned. Thing is, I'm not quite the social type when it comes to the physical world...and already I've put all those attending in a bad light: 'it'll all be boring, arrogant types', 'clustered in their little groups', 'knowing my luck, something nasty will come crawling out of the woodwork'. In other words, I no longer dare to hope. I don't know. But the point I'm trying to make is that the arts (film, music, theatre, etc) are really the only thing I admire about people. Oh yes, and GAMEBOOKS! Ah, if it wasn't for these beauties, my younger days would have been much, MUCH worse. School? Erm, no, no thanks - waste of time for me. Revision? What?! And miss out on all those lovely adventures? ARE YE MAD?! Message ends.

bcyy
Fri Jun 20 01:33:22 2014

@Robert:

Is everything OK? You don't sound like yourself.
Remember to bring that potion of fortune along!

1021 to 1040 of 1584 | [next] [previous] | [first] [last]