Thanks for the advice Duffmeister. although it seems often to be the case that going back to the bit before the glitch will still lead to it happening in the same place, this has helped to dispatch the glitch and continue the adventure in just as many instances as well.

In regards to the Bodies in the Docks sequel, I didn't know there was one in the works? Is there anywhere I can find out more about this?

duffmeister
Sat Aug 30 09:11:47 2008

How long on average does a 400 ref gamebook take you guys to write?

Ulysses Ai
Sat Aug 30 10:50:41 2008

Writing times for my gamebooks:

The Diamond key took me six months to write (and was indirectly responsible for me failing some of my subjects that semester :P )
WWGB took only a few days.
Based on my work between these extremes, it seems the amount of time for gamebooks is an exponential rather than linear relationship. That is: a 100-reference gamebook will not take twice as long as a 50-reference gamebook; but much longer. Of course, the complexity of the game system and story path are other factors.
In general, I would say that a 400-reference gamebook of normal format would take about a couple of months of actual writing time (working an hour or two for 60 days). This would exclude the planning stage, which will vary in duration according to the idea itself. 'Normal format' means no complex rules, and standard passage lengths.

Perhaps my answer in the end is: it depends. Which I know isn't very helpful. If you are asking this question to assess your own production rate, I would say you are quite slow (too many gamebooks all at once?); but then again, it could be well worth the wait. :)

Gaetano
Sat Aug 30 23:59:25 2008

As I remember, I spent about three months on House of Horror . My current book...well, I guess you could say it took me 6 years.

I began right after HOH. That was a mistake, because I quickly got burned out. I completed about 120 sections, hit a massive case of writers block, put my folder in a closet and forgot about it.

In February, I decided to have another go. I spent 5 months writing the rest of it, and the last month typing it up. I'm almost finished.

I agree with Ulysses. Duffmeister, if you have several ideas, just concentrate on finishing one gamebook and put it out there.

tongu Wed Sep 3 02:43:10 2008	Has anyone ever heard of the Horror of Craggen Rock and the Forest of Dreams? These are online FF gamebooks and can be found on the Tales of Yore website
	Anyone who has looked at the links page of this site in the last couple of years will have heard of these gamebooks. I suspect they are very well known indeed by now as Nathan Page's site has existed for such a long time, it certainly predates this one by several years. You may be interested in reading this review of his gamebooks : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gamebooks/message/4879.

tongu
Wed Sep 3 04:00:01 2008

Sorry, I mean Yaztromo's Tales of Yore website

Kee
Wed Sep 3 04:12:49 2008

The gamebook i'm working on took me about 4 months to write and I'm now typing it up.

Ulysses Ai
Wed Sep 3 08:29:16 2008

A couple of people have mentioned 'writing' their gamebook and then 'typing it up'. Do people actually still write things on paper?

Gaetano
Wed Sep 3 16:23:43 2008

Hello Ulysses- yes, I actually wrote my gamebook on paper before typing it up. This is simply a matter of convenience- I'd do a lot of my writing out in public (bookstores, coffee shops, etc) and I find it easier to carry around a paper notebook than to always lug around my laptop. Although, to be honest, I was second-guessing this decision when I had to go back and actually type the thing out.

In regards to my gamebook, I knew right away that it might might not be compatible with an online translation on this site, due to the fact that it is so different. It really is designed to be read as a "paper" adventure, and I hope this doesn't stop anyone from reading it. Any and all comments are appreciated.

Juliu$ Thu Sep 4 04:36:32 2008	Am I allowed to submit any home-written gamebooks to this website?
	Yes of course. I don't guarantee an online version, but I will put anything that is complete on the downloads page at least.

Josephkw
Sat Sep 6 23:00:19 2008

I'm new to this site, but have enjoyed the FF series of books for years, so am thrilled to have chanced upon this online collection.

Which of the books/adventures are the most popular on this site--is there a "most played" or "most downloaded" list?

Most of all, I'd just like to say thanks to the many contributors to this project. I just played through "Rebels of the Dark Chasms" and that had such a professional feel to it with such perfect continuity and flow I was really drawn into the experience. Thanks again.

I haven't made any kind of popularity table for two reasons. Firstly, it's not much fun for whoever ends up at the bottom of it. Secondly, I suspect that enough individuals would feel compelled to manipulate the table to the advantage of their favourites to make the result meaningless.

I do have statistics for how many times the gamebooks are downloaded (when you have a website, you get this kind of information as part of the package). If you are really interested in this then email me and I will tell you but for the reasons above I'm reluctant to post it here.

Josephkw
Sun Sep 7 13:16:21 2008

Thanks for the reply, and your rationale is sensible enough. With that in mind I'll forego my curiosity as to the popularity of the individual adventures and will simply play through them all and select my own favorites!

Thank you again for hosting this site and taking the time to convert the adventures into online versions.

Darkness
Mon Sep 8 11:02:26 2008

Hellfire is a really challenging game that much I know. I am stuck on the part where you run into the burning lady in the passageway with the green flames. I threw holy water on her and even prayed and walked through whilst I died all those attempts. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I think making these games into online pbbg's would be great idea for which I hope to learn the codes to do so. Right now all I know is html, css and java and not sql and php. If you want to learn codes go to http://www.w3schools.com for free learning of computer codes.

Aren't these games online PBBGs already? They are obviously browser-based and they are persistent in as much as you can use bookmarks / favourites to save your current position.

Persistant Browser Based Games
Mon Sep 8 11:35:20 2008

Well, see these games don't upgrade really at all you go only so far as the majority of all pbbg games on the net improve as time progresses onwards into the adventure. There is a lot more player interaction and more choices and things at your disposal like characteristics, skills, powers, items, towns, people, quests, and etc you can choose. So, basically they might have multiple players or single players in a more comprehensive manner as opposed to this set format, but if you know the answer to the burning lady let me know okay?

Juliu$ Tue Sep 9 08:13:43 2008	Well, Im currently working on my first gamebook and I'd like to know that upon completion, how to I...er, how do you put this...submit it to this website?
	You can use the 'contact' link.

duffmeister
Wed Sep 10 08:22:50 2008

Good news, guys! CERN worked! They didn't make a Black Hole. The End of the World didn't happen, HURRAH!

Pity I slept through the experiment...

Jordan
Fri Sep 12 16:46:47 2008

What is CERN, and what was the experimentt?

Ulysses Ai
Fri Sep 12 23:25:02 2008

He's talking about the Large Hadron Collider which went online this week. This is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, and some people were afraid that it is so powerful it would create a mini black hole and the Earth would be sucked into it.

Particle accelerators are basically used to smash known particles together at high speeds (i.e. high energies) to try and generate unknown particles. In particular they are trying to find particles that are predicted to exist by theory, such as the elusive Higgs boson (a.k.a. the God Particle), which is theroised to give matter mass.

For more information check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

CERN is an acronym (in French?) for: European Organisation for Nuclear Research.

(P.S. Andy: The Hyperlink button didn't seem to work)

I have fixed the buttons now.

duffmeister
Sat Sep 13 08:48:38 2008

Although actually, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) has done very little colliding so far, I believe. They're just sending one beam of protons (Tiny particles with a positive charge) around at 99.9% of the speed of light. In a few weaks, they will send a second beam to collide with it, basically smashing apart the protons to create conditions similar to those of the Big Bang.

The four main reasons are:
1: The Higgs Particle. If you look at a drop of water, it is made of molecules, which in turn are made of atoms. These are made of protons, neutrons and electrons, and the protons and neutrons are in turn made from quarks which are made of... well you get the idea. The Higgs is the 'Final' particle. It is not made of any other particle, and is the ultimate 'Building Block'.

2:Dark Matter, an inc=visible substance from which over 20%n of the universe is built. If its nature is as they suspect, then they may be able to finally make it visible for a few moments.

3: Antimatter. This annihilates all matter (Basically, everything you see) and itself, leaving pure energy. In theory, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should exist (ie: There should be neither, due to their annihilation of one another) So why does matter prevail? I'm unsure how exactly the LHC will answer this one, however.

4: To reveal the truth about gravity. Most forces are far stronger than puny gravity, so why is it so weak?

I suppose that this isn't really FF stuff, but it's interesting (Actually, a gamebook set around this wouldn't be bad...). Anyway, I also found http://www.bbc.co.uk/bigbang.

Curious
Thu Sep 18 01:52:53 2008

I wonder if there is any project going on to play these games books on a nintendo ds, like the LONEWOLF books?

That would surley be amazing to be able to play these games off line, and carry them around in one`s pocket.

I have no such progamming skills, but would surley love to see such a project develop!

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