| home |
| faq |
| rules |
| links |
| downloads |
| guestbook |
| contact |
Contractual Obligation |
| 41 to 73 of 73 | [next] [previous] | [first] [last] |
|
Ulysses Wed Apr 28 22:37:47 2010 |
Ryan: The 'next' tile:
SPOILER
|
|
ryan Thu Apr 29 23:15:44 2010 |
SPOILER
SPOILER
|
|
Ulysses Fri Apr 30 07:27:31 2010 |
Ryan You mentioned you were able to go upstairs, which is a lot more difficult than getting the tile from the champion:
SPOILER
|
|
ryan Sat May 1 01:26:23 2010 |
SPOILER
SPOILER
|
|
ryan Sat May 1 03:38:14 2010 |
SPOILER
|
|
Ulysses Sat May 1 11:19:05 2010 |
Ryan: Contractual Obligation If I tell you everything it will take all of the enjoyment out of the gamebook. Many others have managed to crack it, so it's not impossible. The fact that you are able to achieve difficult tasks and yet get stuck on easier ones suggests to me that perhaps you are playing with preconceptions or an inconsistent strategy; in either case the challenges present you with an opportunity to understand more about your own approach and mindset. In regards to the point you mention specifically:
SPOILER
The difficulty in obtaining the tiles was designed to increase in difficulty with ruby tile from the Royal Champion being the easiest (one item, 2 actions required), the sapphire tile from the chaimberlain being harder (2 items, 3 actions). The diamond tile from the Royal Execution was intended to be many times more difficult still with several items and actions required, plus a trap to make the whole thing impossible. However, you don't seem to be stuck on the hard bit yet. The way this gamebook was intended to be played was that a reader would explore, find clues in the descriptions of each area for items that could procide further access (e.g. if something is described as having a coin slot, the player will then be on the lookout for a coin). In this way they would find new areas and items, and succeed as long as they avoided the trap. The Golden Crate
SPOILER
I know being stuck is frustrating, but you are asking for much more help than the norm. I would also like to reiterate my recomendation that you play through the series right from the start with the same character, otherwise when you play episode 8, you will suffer a lot ;) |
|
ryan Sat May 1 20:46:03 2010 |
I am playing from the start, but I'm stuck on the crate so I tried the 2 newest in another game
SPOILER
|
|
Ulysses Sun May 2 01:55:45 2010 |
Ryan, Giant Robot
SPOILER
|
|
Walker Long Wed Oct 31 16:43:14 2012 |
Hi Guys, finished Crate and Trout. Great fun. You are correct about C. O.. Round and round we go. Found a robot that shoots body parts but m;ust have been to soon. What a puzzel! Walker |
|
C-Star Wed Oct 31 20:55:03 2012 |
I actually had to draw a map for C.O., the place was so confusing. And, I may be wrong, but I believe it's possible to fail certain puzzles and miss key items, thus making the book impossible to finish, even though you don't die or get any kind of 'game over' sequence. Ulysses, could you clarify this? And Walker, did you get the Star of Cha-Ching in Hypertrout? |
|
Walker Long Fri Nov 2 11:44:53 2012 |
I may have gotten a commendation as when I replayed and replayed I think I saw a "Commendation" at the start of the new game. I don't remember receiveing it however. Sometimes the voice synth misses things. i have gotten the red card and the card workedto get the 1 tile. I got to the robot from the well and he shot all his body parts so, too soon. It is tough so I wrote notes to find how to get back to places but WoW, it is a maze in there. Walker |
|
C-Star Fri Nov 2 16:04:22 2012 |
Yeah, to win C.O. you need to find 3 golden tiles. I can only remember how to get 2. And I'm pretty sure that they're all missable. Eg one part requires you enter an office and drug the person inside with Palkasian spirits. Walk in without the spirits and you cannot re enter, thus making the book un-finishable. I had to download the offline version and read that to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do and when to do it! Good luck with it. |
|
pi4t Thu Feb 28 14:28:17 2013 |
I've also discovered a minor bug which seems to be in the writing of Contractual Obligation. If you
SPOILER
That's more addressed to Ulysses Ai than the admin of the site, obviously. |
|
Ulysses Fri Mar 1 04:00:28 2013 |
@ pi4t Yes, you're right. There should be an intervening passage describing:
SPOILER
I can't explain why that that got left out, but there it is. Since this is a major error; if I have some time I will fix the text version, resubmit it to the site and request the electronic version to be amended. Hopefully adding in one reference won't be too troublesome. |
|
D-L-T Tue Oct 15 02:42:53 2013 
|
You look over the remains of the powerful robot and nod your head at the undeniable evidence that you are super-cool and tough. lol.
SPOILER
|
|
PotatoCakes Tue Dec 24 04:13:10 2013 |
Alright been having trouble with this for a while and through reading of the other questions, I need to ask about
SPOILER
|
|
D-L-T Sun Dec 29 08:53:30 2013 |
@potatoCakes: If I recall correctly, you get the blue card by giving someone a drink (in the correct location at the right time). as for "the enclosure", I'm not sure exactly what you're asking about... |
|
Orilos Wed Jan 29 17:30:19 2014 |
I need help...
SPOILER
|
|
Norman Tue Sep 22 22:20:41 2015 |
This one is bamboozling me. It's taking me longer than all the others. Any advice on which item to grab from the vending machine, anyone? So far all I've managed to consistently figure out is how to:
SPOILER
|
|
Ulysses Mon Sep 28 10:03:36 2015 |
Hi Norman If you are still struggling with CO, the answer to what you need from the vending machine is found in:
SPOILER
Don't be afraid to go in there. |
|
dvd Mon Dec 21 23:32:02 2015
|
very nice job! well it was "never a tiny bit frustrating, and especially not when "
SPOILER
However, nice one! |
|
Shadow Thu Jul 21 11:01:01 2016 |
Whenever I enter the torture chamber, I never get the option to leave. Is there something specific I need to do there? |
|
Ulysses Fri Jul 22 11:07:25 2016 |
@Shadow
SPOILER
|
|
Shadow Fri Jul 22 20:23:23 2016 |
How do you get the coin from the grate, I think I've explored everywhere, but can't find anything useful. Also can't find a way upstairs, though I think I know where to get there just not how. Something to do with the torture room items? And finally, does the mirror have any use, without revealing what it's use is if it has one. |
|
RogueOne Thu Dec 14 23:47:31 2017
|
Done! |
|
Bob Tue May 22 10:47:50 2018
|
Love it, the way this reads is fantastic. great writing, nice twists and unusually enough all the things you need to do are logical. yes thats right i did say they seem logical, mad, but logical |
|
Yoz Ben Wed Oct 20 18:51:36 2021 |
I'm late to the party, but what a great site! I thoroughly enjoy the WWGB series so far, incredibly well written! I believe the obvious comparison to the Hitchhiker Series has been made before, but I have to repeat it, meaning it a very big compliment. Great parody of SciFi, Fantasy, and FF tropes, both in the stories' contents and through the mechanics! I also love how later entries in the series poke fun at stuff that happened earlier. I have to say I was disappointed though when at the end of Contractual Obligation
SPOILER
I for one would have enjoyed to see the genre's sexism subverted further (take, for example, the hypersexualization of any and all female characters, or "the princess" as a trophy but not a person, or the treemaidens' fear of spiders, or ...), not just by overdoing the trope, but also destabilizing it with other means. I mean, honestly, I think I have yet to find a gamebook that offers a hero (YOU!) that isn't silently assumed to be male and heterosexual (and probably white, which usually doesn't come up though. I guess because in those settings Black people are simply not even thought to exist). Playing with such implicit assumptions baked into genre conventions should be actually a rich field for comedy in such an approach as WWGB. There's of course a humourous approach to this in the series when it comes up, but also much reinforcing tired tropes (yeah sure, overdoing tropes is part of the fun - but subverting them is too)... I'm interested and looking forward to how that's handled in the following entries! I've read mention of a planned story where the hero is an Orc, turning some of the "common wisdom" about orcs on its head? Has that happened? Heaven't found it yet, looking forward to that one, too, if it exists. The Golden Crate was my favourite so far. So good! Lots of different locations, lots to discover on paths that may lead somewhere or not, and it doesn't matter if they do because the writing makes exploring so much fun. Lots of possibilities to improve a character that can be taken on to the next book, strengthening the connection between the episodes. Lots of red herrings, too. I love that you're still given a whole story to play/read that just turns out differently when you make a "wrong" choice earlier on, instead of giving you insta-death all the time. Even going through all those varied settings slightly differently on the alternative paths - wow! That surely makes the "game side" harder, but does wonders for the "story side"... Lots to explore for sure. Great read! I've found the entries in the series I've read so far to be quite varied, too, both in setting and in game mechanics. Contractual Obligation was rather straightforward, as Bob said above. You see the puzzle, you know what item to use (if you've come across it). Kind of like an easy point-and-click adventure (well not THAT easy! It's still text, and by Ulysses Ai!). |
|
Yoz Ben Wed Oct 20 18:54:54 2021 |
Those points where paths diverge by the sequence in which one does seemingly unconnected things are my only gripe with the series. Of course that is kind of realistic, life is full of chance circumstances we can't influence or even perceive. But from a game perspective, I strongly dislike that I can't get around that with exploring or wits or smashing, only with either luck (not LUCK) or cheating. Also, I can think of several alternative mechanisms, depending on the situation - LUCK rolls for example. Or a possibility to circle back to this point later. LucasArts Adventures used to let you do the conversation topics unchanged in any order you wanted where it was about flavour and info, but when there was a fork in the path during conversation, you would be given slightly different conversation options based on what you had chosen earlier, thus giving you a clue there actually WAS a fork. But all in all I guess there were as many non sequitur in any of those cherished old adventures as in a WWGB book. Which is a tremendous thing to accomplish while still providing a great story with a complex path structure. The original WWGB was great, too, as far as I'm concerned. I read about plans to re-write it, but that was posted years ago so maybe I've played the rewritten version? Great introduction to the series! I'm glad it didn't matter in which order I searched the areas of the ship's bar, though. That might have turned me off and I would have missed out on what is some seriously funny writing and great worldbuilding. Chapeau! |
|
Yoz Ben Wed Oct 20 22:22:15 2021 |
Well, after posting, in The Dead World I came across the sections about
SPOILER
And then after finishing Dead World, I come onto the start for Return To G15-275, with the image suggesting a fork in the road. Or, space, ok. So, all topics I brought up have been covered. How about that for coincidences. Very well written, again, and beautifully imaginative. Thank you! |
|
Ulysses Fri Oct 22 01:11:19 2021 |
Hi Yoz Ben. Thanks for those compliments! To answer a few of your questions: - The original WWGB was never rewritten. The issue as I recall it was that too many of the choices were based on luck (e.g. do you want to go left or right down these identical corridors). But it's a short adventure anyway. - The orc story was one that I started but haven't touched for years after pausing gamebook writing. It was turning out to be very long, and complicated and throughly awesome, although I might have a different view if I read it now. It would be a shame to never finish it, but if I was to resume writing gamebooks again that particular title would be 6th of 7. - As an update on the WWGB series, at the end of Return to G15-275 there are three endings which I originally intended as all valid, creating three starting scenarios for the final episode. I subsequently changed my mind about that, and started on a multidimensional adventure that would bring all of the alternate realities back into the singular storyline. Therefore, if I was to finish the WWGB series it would be: the shortish (150) multidimensional adventure, the final episode that would be the biggest and most complicated as it brings together all of the threads from the previous adventures, and then the secret additional episode about taking a honeymoon on a gamepark planet where YOU are the hero. - Incidently, the 7 gamebooks and the writing priority I mentioned above are the three episoides of the WWGB (all about one third done), the sequel to Ravages of Fate (about half done), the sequal to the sequel to the Ravages of Fate (planned), the orc adventure (one third done), and a bigger and better version of deathtrap dungeon (one third done). As you can see, I am very good at starting things and not finishing them. I am also not planning to resume gamebook writing anytime soon, but I haven't given up on the idea completely. I still write a lot, I am just writing other things. - A general comment about the WWGB main character; it will probably be no surprise that the entire series, and even the individual episodes to some extent are unplanned. The main character was conceived as the most mundane and common trope of all: the loser who aspires to get together with the object of his attraction. From there, I just asked myself 'what would be funny?' While I wouldn't recommend analysing the character or trope very deeply, I would say that as the stories are written from his perspective, the female characters are objects because his attraction to them is more about what he defines as success for himself, i.e. 'getting the girl' which is an entirely self-centred pursuit that does not involve knowing or even caring about the female characters at all. Even his ultimate goal of pursuing a relationship with a shapeshifter (who can take whatever form HE wants) underlines that his pursuit is entirely about his own self and he has little awareness of the female characters as people. This is not to say that I wrote the series with this in mind or to make this point, that's just how I see the juvenile male mind working (or at least it's how my mind mind worked when I was a teenager). Hopefully it's quite clear that the main character of WWGB series is immature, no matter how much SKILL he has. The remaining episodes (if they are ever completed) do contain more complete female characters with their own independent concerns and choices, but again not because I was trying to grow the main character, I'm still just following what I think is funny and trying to do something different with each episode. |
|
Yoz Ben Fri Feb 18 15:13:56 2022 |
Hi Ulysses! Thanks for answering in-depth to my (admittedly lengthy) posts! As I said, I enjoyed those gamebooks a lot. They definitely are a great series already, with or without further entries. But, of course I'd greatly enjoy further episodes! As for being great at starting things and not finishing them, I'd counter that nine(?) gamebooks on this site say you're great at starting and finishing great stories with complex mechanics and funny writing. You mention you're writing other stuff now, not gamebooks - may I ask? I enjoyed reading the series, did wonders to take my mind off things. I figure I might enjoy checking out your other work too, if it's published somewhere? I think while playing those gamebooks, I noted some minor errors like a missing word or similar stuff that a spell-checking software won't notice ("water" instead of "waiter" etc). I was doing some proofreading in other contexts at the time, so I was in the habit, and at some point started jotting down notes when I came across something like that. If those might be useful to you in order to straighten some of those minor kinks, I'll gladly shoot you a mail. If that kind of thing is rather more hassle than it's worth, all good of course, too. Let me know :) So, here's to hope for another entry in the series at some point! Cheers |
|
Ulysses Sat Feb 19 03:37:41 2022 |
@Yoz Ben My other writing isn't published anywhere at this time, but rest assured when it is I will be drumming up interest through every avenues available to me, so you should hear about it sooner or later. With the errors you've noted, as the only place these gamebooks are published is here, I suggest you use the Contact email and send your notes to the Webmaster. Depending on the number and how you have referenced the errors, he may take the time to fix some of them. Either way, thank you for noting the errors. |
|
Tammy Sat Feb 19 04:30:43 2022 |
The princess trophy in my stories is usually a sadistic cannibal, so I'd recommend against saving her. |
| 41 to 73 of 73 | [next] [previous] | [first] [last] |