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
Star - optimum ending reached

Done!

Bob
Tue May 22 10:47:50 2018
Star - optimum ending reached

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

END 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

END 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.

61 to 73 of 73 | [next] [previous] | [first] [last]