Since we're on the subject of announcing new gamebooks, I might as well spring my own bit of news. I've just completed a new, 400 section gamebook called "Soul Tracker." I'm quite excited about it. It's currently hand written in a notebook, so I'm in the process of typing the whole thing out and doing some final editing. It will take me at least a month (perhaps 2) to have it finalized, but when I do, I will submit it to the site for the 'downloads' section.

It's completely different from House of Horror, actually its different from any gamebook I've ever read (and I've read quite a few). I won't give much away, at any rate it's rather difficult to describe. It's a rather strange hybrid of detective noir / horror / cyberpunk / western. Yeah, weird, but hopefully in a good way.

Josh
Sat Jul 12 16:52:57 2008

Gaetano,

YAY!!!

I can't wait!!!

Gaetano
Mon Jul 14 16:23:31 2008

Thanks for the encouragement, Josh.

ffproject
Wed Sep 3 14:43:14 2008

Soul Tracker

I've added Gaetano Abbondanza's new gamebook, Soul Tracker : Day Of The Supernaturals to the downloads page. Due to the fact its rules are quite different to Fighting Fantasy I'm not sure yet whether I will attempt an online version.

Haoie
Thu Sep 4 00:03:00 2008

Kudos on the new Soul gamebook. It's looking pretty complex so far, nothing like a regular FF entry as noted before. But from initial glances, it's very richly detailed and well narrated.

Juliu$
Tue Sep 9 10:24:23 2008

Great job on Soul Tracker, Gaetono. Though I havent finished it, I quite enjoy its original concept.

Gaetano
Tue Sep 9 20:22:03 2008

Thanks!

Ibrahim Sat Nov 8 03:35:11 2008	Hi andy. Do you think there will be another playable gamebook on here before or around christmas? Thanks for hosting this great site by the way.
	I think there will. See below.

ffproject
Sat Nov 8 17:09:40 2008

Soul Tracker - Day Of The Supernaturals

I've added an online version of House Of Horror author Gaetano Abbondanza's new gamebook.

duffmeister
Sat Nov 8 20:42:47 2008

Congrats on 'Soul Tracker' Gaetano, love the gamebook. I've failed several times now, but the style, setting and characters are great.

Ibrahim Sun Nov 9 07:47:05 2008	Hi Andy. I got the following error when playing Soul Tracker: Soul Tracker UNKNOWN Roll + 714 FAILURE ERROR: Can't open file. This was directly after following the man from the coffee shop and then making towards the building when I was spotted. Please could you fix this as soon as possible?
	I've fixed this, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Ibrahim
Sun Nov 9 11:06:12 2008

Hi Everyone. I am pleased to say that I have now completed Soul Tracker. Thanks for such a good book, I don't want to give away anything so I'll say no more. I particularly like the combatless method of play, getting rid of that tedius routine I think made the story more enjoyable for me at least anyways.

Gaetano
Sun Nov 9 21:32:01 2008

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. And thanks Andy for the time consuming task of converting the book to an online format. It was a great touch to give players the three options in assigning skill points at the beginning.

Incidentally (and I think I'm speaking for all of the authors who's works appear on the site) if there are things you DON'T like about a book, it's perfectly fine to post those thoughts as well. Keep in mind, though, that comments like "Combats are too difficult" or "This character wasn't believable" are much more helpful than, say, "This adventure stinks to high heaven".

Jordan
Mon Nov 10 05:36:12 2008

Soul tracker was an excellent adventure, with twists and turns, as well as nail-biting suspense. Is there only one "true ending"?

Gaetano
Mon Nov 10 05:56:19 2008

Yes, but more than one pathway to achieve it.

Ulysses Ai
Tue Nov 11 02:29:09 2008

When I played the paper version, it seemed there was only a single pathway.
Isn't it true that:

SPOILER

END SPOILER

In any case, I don't mind. :)

Gaetano
Tue Nov 11 06:23:16 2008

Hello Ulysees- In regards to your question:

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Since you read the paper version, any thoughts on the text layout? Was it distracting, interesting, or did it make any difference at all?

Kee
Tue Nov 11 10:33:56 2008

Still working on Soul Tracker here...

Speaking of your question, Gaetono, I found the 'adventure sheet,' was rather confusing but other than that, there wasn't any particular difference to the online one.

Ulysses Ai
Tue Nov 11 22:56:46 2008

Gaetano:

If you are asking about the use of titles instead of numbers for passage headers, I though it was interesting and I certainly enjoyed the novelty of it.
I also thought that having 4 entries for each title, and the adventure spanning 4 days, was a great way to allow the reader to take an option at will, yet for day-specific outcomes to occur. As far as I am aware, in Soul Tracker this was only used for visits to the infirmary; but is is an idea that allows a lot of flexibility, without being onerous for the reader (i.e. if it is Thursday, turn to 23, if it is Friday, turn to 27, etc).
The only criticism I have is that some of the 'scenes' covered several shortish passages, when they could have covered a single long one. This meant that when reading, especially for the second, third and fourth times, I had to do a lot of scrolling. An example of this is the visits to Van Clark's house. I am aware that the conversation varies according to prior experiences; in my books when I reach a point where there are multiple versions of the same situation, I write multiple versions of the same scene, copying the parts which are the same, and inserting the differences, rather than making a reader jump between passages. The advantage of this is that the scene is uninterrupted; the disadvantage is that the whole gamebook overall is larger in size.
Perhaps it is just a stylistic thing, as some people might not like long passages, while I prefer to reduce page-turning.

Anyway, thanks for an interesting gamebook.

Gaetano
Wed Nov 12 01:23:14 2008

Thanks to everyone for the comments. Kee, sorry you found the adventure sheet confusing, I was trying to lesson confusion by creating the sheet, since there are several aspects of the game mechanics that are different from other gamebooks. Of course, the goal is simpy to keep track of stats in a way that makes sense to you as the reader / player, so whatever works best for you is the way to go.

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