I agree with the other comments about the title, that is very nice in itself but in my opinion doesn't fit too well with this story.
Sunni Thu Jun 12 13:54:28 2014
I had an initial skill of 7, lost 1 skill due to sword-throwing zombies (what an idea!) and somehow still managed to perform amazing acrobatics to save her own skin.
This lady is 1 lucky b**** and she didn't even have a luck check.
Love the dialogue.
5 down, many more to go!
bob Fri Sep 26 23:42:10 2014
Love this
TheRJMonk Fri Dec 12 13:39:34 2014
this is the 2nd book completed in 5min
leonna Sun Dec 21 07:15:32 2014
great game
Jeremy Sun Jan 18 07:55:52 2015
I beat it and enjoyed it
Liam Fri Feb 13 00:48:25 2015
If I had the time right now to play this game I would/ good game very hard .
dark Sun Apr 5 13:36:41 2015
Good fun, particularly with such a great protagonist who's jaded view on life (and indeed the afterlife), we get to experience.
I just wish there was more of it, or indeed the sequel mentioned in the comments sinse I'd definitely like to know more about Martine and Jack's further misadventures.
Paul Weston Wed May 20 21:43:19 2015
That was a lot of fun. I guess I won, that is I am still alive but I wasn't sure if I achieved the end goal or not. Damm near killed me a number of times. Love the narrative and the humour and adult language made it very interesting. I liked it.
Rose Sun Jan 3 17:43:32 2016
Really good! Second one I have completed now!
Aliemma Thu Nov 3 18:41:22 2016
This was a pretty fun one. It's too bad I can't get my hand on the real deal...
Bored Sat Feb 25 14:12:28 2017
It plays like one of the supernatural ep in tv, much actionism but no character depth or story arc. Replace the guys with dean and sam and its a supernatural ep.
Kostas 30 Thu Sep 14 20:52:03 2017
This is my first expirience with an interactive role playing story and I believe that I might got hooked with the genre already.
SPOILER
Vladimir I haven't spoken my last word yet...
END SPOILER
Alice Mon Nov 6 11:57:30 2017
Goes on for quite along time, I have to keep returning back to the same page after going down all the passages. It is quite hard to get killed and hard to gain attributes. Many stages are repeated so you are repeating challenges and losing attributes as you do it although you should only be able to complete a challenge once.
k Mon Nov 6 12:20:16 2017
I just survived by clicking random options... but I couldn't go east when I selected it.
bluejuice915 Mon Nov 20 17:22:19 2017
That was wonderful for a short play. I especially liked how play on the way in influenced the play on the way out. I do think some more could have been added for the conclusion, but it was also a relief to not have any instant-losses at the end. Overall great. 98/100
RogueOne Wed Nov 29 22:22:45 2017
Done!
Josh Wed May 9 18:19:14 2018
Had a blast with this.
I read tons of Choose Your Own Adventures as a kid, and would have loved to play D&D (or something similar) but didn't have anyone else interested in playing. These Game Books would have been perfect, but I only found out about there existence yesterday (I'm 32). Reading up on Game Books brought me to this site, and this story jumped out at me (love the CCR song), and the story didn't disappoint. Not sure how difficult this one rates to others, but I made it through first shot and had some good fun.
Was a great first experience with Game Books, and I'll definitely be looking for more!
Thanks!
paul Sun Mar 10 19:40:38 2019
blimey,i actually completed one. that was fun!
a confused random player Wed May 22 17:32:12 2019
with all the howling and the snarling in the intro, it seemed to be some kind of werewolf story, but the main character is a hobbit or midget? its ok as a adventure but the who is who and what races they are seemed a bit confusing?
Stan SKZ Mon Apr 19 08:58:56 2021
wow im good at this
Stinger Mon Aug 16 14:30:22 2021
Question is there a way to make off with the final prize? If so, Vladimir has to be killable somehow...
Mage Mon Oct 18 06:07:31 2021
Easy....
Kirs Tue Apr 19 19:20:59 2022
At least I tried tho- Very entertaining
YARD Sun Sep 3 14:23:59 2023
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.
SPOILER
At 12, no option to walk away from the iron grille and go either east or west? (Not that it appears necessary to win.)
12, 16, 17, 29, 33, 41, 78 - extra spaces before question marks.
1
"Out in the torch lit street, walking quickly, your cloak and Jakob's great-coat" (shouldn't hyphenation be reversed here, going from great-coat to torch lit?)
5
" it's ragged little feet"
7
"The right hand wheel"
12
"looks far too heavy for you to think of moving," (it?) + "right hand" (twice) and "left hand".
13
"begin to hit it open palmed." (hyphenation?)
17
"It's off white" (hyphenation?)
24
"to discard the shield ," (extra space.)
26
" with a tall vaulted ceiling." (Comma?) + space before the final comma and a question mark.
29
"The corridor is low ceilinged" (hyphenation?)
30
"you notice a couple of torches strapped to the walls, and, after a short struggle, manage to get it lit." (them?) + "is a another grid-style portcullis" + "by two stone lions heads" (?) + space before the final comma and a question mark.
32
"The wheel spins round bonlessly." (?)
35
"two open mouthed lions" + "wider set" + "Peering into their maws, but it's difficult to see much inside either of them." (Shouldn't it be "You peer" or something?) + space before the final comma and a question mark.
42
"- deduct one stamina point." (not capitalized?)
44
"isn't enough to let you see (how?) deep it is."
62
"Billy's other henchman's gaping open mouthed at his screaming boss" (hyphen, and the apostrophes are weird.)
72
"and his two thugees" (?)
77
"foot of the grave-marker - a stout stone podium, on top of which lies a carving of a tall, stern faced man made of some rough looking, dappled grey rock." - again not sure about where hyphenation is present and absent.
"It's started to rain" (?) + "overgrown south-east corner" + "reading the grave-stone" + "The whole front-plate" (is all this hyphenation necessary?)
+ ""Right," you say "tie the rope" (punctuation?)
END SPOILER
YARD Sun Sep 3 15:32:19 2023
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.
SPOILER
27 + 46 - space before the final comma and a question mark.
"You wander down a half flooded corridor" + " it's stench"
28
"from it's moorings"
33
"at the cross roads."
36
"with that headaching purple light"
47
"and very very tired." (comma?) + "ice cold water"
END SPOILER
davy Fri Feb 2 19:56:24 2024
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.