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ffproject Wed Feb 22 22:22:09 2006
The Cold Heart Of Chaos
I've added Al Sander's gamebook to the site for online play. MS Word and text versions can be found on the downloads page.
James Sun Mar 5 14:06:34 2006
whoa!!! new gamebook!! :)
Well, savour it, because it's another short one.
wraith Tue Mar 7 13:24:23 2006
Awwright! New Story! :D
freakboy Thu Mar 9 19:24:35 2006
Yo waddup mates?! the new story luks pretty cool, don't it?
Tammy Wed Dec 18 18:36:16 2013
Sheesh, I keep dying at the wolf pack, is there a glitch somewhere?
ben Thu Dec 19 21:16:27 2013
short but sweet
gigs Tue Dec 24 09:18:22 2013
I hate the wolf pack, I am killed by it.
Elizabeth Tue Jan 28 07:06:39 2014
Wow great story! Will there be another?
Probably not, as it's been nearly eight years now. There are other gamebooks by Al Sander around, though. At this site, there is Beggars Of Blacksand which I think is the pick of the bunch. He also won the Windhammer prize in 2008 with Raid On Chateau Fekenstein, and the official site has Deathtrap Overlord, Blacksand Assassin and Assault On The Fortress Of Evil, which I think were all entries to various competitions.
abe Sun Feb 9 05:32:50 2014
I like the tests of Stamina. There are times in life that neither Skill nor Luck get you through, but rather your ability to just endure without collapsing. Well done.
nial Wed May 7 06:17:49 2014
Pretty cool
Spectator Wed Aug 20 03:26:09 2014
First try, woo!
targor Wed Sep 3 17:58:00 2014
Good one, but a bit too few choices.
Gabriel Barros Tue Dec 23 05:11:29 2014
It's short, but really cool and well made, took me two times to complete, well done friend !!!
Yaztromo Tue Dec 23 10:21:29 2014
Basically on this run I just rolled the dice: for SKILL and LUCK first and then for fighting the Snow Wolves...:-(
Reginald the son of Thagrimar Wed Jan 21 19:18:02 2015
Amazing, but too short for me ^^ Still, like it! :)
Jonathan Sat Mar 28 22:08:03 2015
A decent adventure, certainly phsically taxing for the dwarf.
dark Sun Apr 5 13:00:14 2015
I remember finishing this one previously and finding it not too hard, and sure enough it wasn't that bad, indeed sinse I had good attribute scores it was almost a forgone conclusion, I really wish there had been more choice. More than that though, this really feels either like a prologue or end to a much larger book than something stand alone, plus I confess the similarities in the plot and setting to the absolutely magnificen t Windhammer over on chronicles of arborell were a little on the nose too.
Certainly not bad, but not really enough to say much about.
This was an entry in one of Dave Holt's competitions back in 2004. The brief was that it should "only be a taster of a larger epic quest", which I think explains the way that the final paragraph is worded.
TrenceJ Thu Jun 18 18:17:29 2015
This is NOT Fairly easy, I've not got more than 7 sections in before death on 15 attempts.
Either that, or the dice rolls are Rather unbalanced.
David Brent Sat Jul 2 11:30:59 2016
Good story, well written. Enjoyed this a great deal!
Yaztromo Sat Jul 2 12:48:33 2016
I think that this format of adventure, short and full of action, suits particularly well this way of playing on line.
John Dow Sat Oct 1 14:14:33 2016
short
Cami Mon Feb 6 23:02:37 2017
Enjoyable! And still wondering what the backstory is...
Bob Fri Apr 21 01:57:52 2017
This was short, but it was very cool!
Migo Wed May 10 17:48:39 2017
Short, quite predictable. You'd need to flesh out the story quite a lot to avoid the twist being obvious from the start.
Well, it was fun all the same, and the storytelling was quite good in parts.
bluejuice915 Sun Jun 18 01:44:55 2017
Talk about a close shave. I forgot to eat provisions before the final battle and ended at 1 stamina. While the plot was good, and the choices abundant, battles are greatly preferable to tests. The insta-deaths were annoyingly good. A lot depends on getting good initial rolls to survive the wolf attack. Reasonable, and worthwhile if you like small, choice based adventure, but not my cup of tea. Grade: 90
RogueOne Wed Oct 25 19:31:35 2017
Done!
SPOILER
What is the point of the red rose mark?
END SPOILER
Alex Fri Dec 8 04:51:23 2017
Not interesting, There is only one path through and if you die every single wrong option then its not fun, basically forced to choose.
Fra Fri Apr 6 23:00:05 2018
Dead
paul Tue Mar 12 11:58:13 2019
didn't last long, should have tried to outrun the avalanche!
Ta123 Sat May 11 16:29:34 2019
Nice Game
Ross H Sat Jun 15 13:38:41 2019
This seems very hard
Snori Thu Jun 27 21:10:26 2019
Hm. First attempt and sudden death... Lets give the story second chance...
Thalantyr Wed Aug 21 01:40:25 2019
A bit too short. I liked it, tho.
Heksefatter Fri May 28 22:06:18 2021
I loved this. But I wish the tragic evil ending was a bit more fleshed out.
Mage Mon Oct 18 09:56:08 2021
And a short one to round out Day 1 of my nostalgia run here...
Although I think this one is more difficult than the "easy" rating that was assigned to it.
b8 Thu Sep 8 17:38:22 2022
i got eaten so many times. how is this 'easy'?
YARD Mon Sep 4 12:21:01 2023
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
SPOILER
Background says Diuron is presumed dead after he was captured by mutant goblins, but that whole episode somehow doesn't warrant even a single mention during your reunion. I did like that if you have managed to break through to him, he'll not only be at his weakest (while you'll be weakened if you do not talk to him at all before the fight), but there's an extra ref with a prayer over his body.
I am also curious about how Chaos is treated here. Not only does this story insist on writing it in lowercase (as well as "warriors of chaos" in the bad ending), unlike Hellfire, but the portrayal is different as well. Warriors of Chaos in Hellfire seemed far more energetic and independent-minded in Hellfire: the second one didn't seem to manifest existential anguish and depression both Diuron and the evil player show, and the first didn't ever seem to have her will overridden in the manner seen here. I do not know enough about the canonical books to even know when Chaos was introduced into the setting (and if it was before or after it entered Warhammer, since the two franchises started around the same time), let alone how it was portrayed there, so I wonder which of these FFP stories is closer.
END SPOILER
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.)
SPOILER
Background:
"Less than a year ago, Salamonis was threatened itself" (itself threatened?) + " find out first hand" (firsthand?) + "and (the) lack of aid by your people." + "you have only enough food" + "it could take you weeks yet to locate" (is "yet" in the right place?)
2 - "a well used" (hyphen.)
4 - "even you own clan!"
4, 5, 8, 9, 55 - spaces before question marks.
5 - " in mid scream"
7 - missing question mark at the end.
8 - "to almost half way up" + "to take in the implication this damage" + "less hide bound" (?) + the lack of a question mark in the penultimate sentence.
9 - "about half an hours walk" + "at right angles to the one you're in," (?)
11 - at least the last two sentences need to end with question marks instead of periods.
20
"as best you can." (as?) + the long sentence with three "enough"s is hardly ideal writing.
34, 42 - "dark edged axe"
36 - " so bone deep tired."
37
"How could I be such a fool." (question mark?) + "something unhuman" (inhuman? And would a dwarf even use either word in the first place?) + " dark tinged axe"
44 - "foot long claws"
END SPOILER
dlc Fri Jul 19 06:04:25 2024
my first time playing something like this and everything went right. thank you for making this!
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