I’m sure that other commenters have mentioned it already, but this is the very definition of “a mixed bag”. I hate to state the obvious, but gamebooks are divided into two parts: games and books.

The “book” part has some legitimately hilarious writing. This guy has talent and after reading the opening I was really excited to read more.

The “game” part, however, is legitimately horrible. It’s like the absolute worst of the old text adventure games that are based on either luck or noticing incredibly obscure details.

HERE IS MY ADVICE: You should either A.) play until the twist where they reveal the “villain” of the story, then just give up, or B.) was through the other comments here and just cheat, because you are probably NEVER going to figure this out on your own.

I’m eager to play the sequel to this and I desperately hope the creator has altered his approach, because there actually is a lot of potential.

NUE
Wed Jan 26 14:15:43 2022
Skull - non-optimum ending reached

well, dang.

Andy P
Sun Aug 28 23:40:54 2022
Skull - non-optimum ending reached

If I am the last crewmember on the ship, are the deckchair-rearranging stewards hallucinations?

YARD
Fri Sep 22 18:33:16 2023

Well, I did have to eventually resort to consulting this section to go through this - but only because of the interface. I think the only other time when "Continue" wasn't just "go to next ref" (like it is here too, by the time you are about to reach 100, or if your pockets get full when looting the locker) and had actually meant "USE an item now or die later" was in Hellfire, and I completely forgot about it. Almost as awkard as A Flame in the North suddenly caring about the difference between owned and equipped at the very end.

Or perhaps, I thought that if he can call out the code automatically, he would figure out how to try the screwdriver on his own, and that what I was really lacking was the right combination of a power pack and a connecting cable (or two power packs in case it needed combined power, or even grease if that's what would help the screws) for it to occur automatically once it got assembled.

For that matter, there was also a period of guessing that the robot dog blowing some stuff up with missiles could reveal something useful later on, or even that the medbay sobering you up was a necessary precondition to enabling the ship's controls. Oh well.

Not sure what to say about the rest. A lot of it is certainly amusing, but other moments, like the Titanic reference or the twist, are way too ludicrous for the few laughs they add. Together with that mandatory fight with an effectively equal chance of insta-winning or insta-losing, it kinda cancels out.

The now-traditional section.

SPOILER

END SPOILER

YARD
Fri Sep 22 19:39:38 2023
Star - optimum ending reached

Oh, and just making sure to leave a starred comment, I guess, since I have already moved on to the second installment earlier.

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