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A Midwinter Carol |
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duffmeister Thu Dec 31 18:18:35 2009 |
Just finished playing 'A Midwinter's carol'. An excellent idea brilliantly implemented, and with a sense of festive cheer. Nice one Kieran. On another note, i'm not sure whethis will be the last post of the decade. Happy new year all! I hope you all go forward to the next decade with collosal bonuses to your skill stamina and luck in the adventure of '2010-2019' |
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ffproject Fri Dec 24 18:17:54 2010 |
A Midwinter Carol I've made an online version of Kieran Coghlan's festive gamebook. Tomorrow is the 14th of Snow's Cloak, the Midwinter Festival and all Arion is preparing for the festivities. All that is except you - Ethelred Samiar, the Baron Den Snau. You have no time for the present giving and "good will to all men" that this sanctimonious holiday demands. No, you have great plans for tomorrow. The Love of Libra Orphanage has failed to pay back the money you lent them and you're going to have the place closed down tomorrow... |
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Jordan Sun Dec 26 13:02:38 2010 |
Thanks for the online version of Midwinter, Andy. Loved it. Looking forward to more works from this author. |
| Thanks. You might also like to visit http://www.ffgamebooks-online.com, where an online version of Kieran Coghlan's Feathers Of The Phoenix has just been added. |
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Haoie Fri Sep 2 00:09:44 2011 |
Just played a Midwinter Carol for the first time and I thought it was quite cute! Especially since Deathmoor was criminally underrated despite its flaws. But didn't the Baron die in the book officially? |
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Kieran Sat Sep 17 14:24:56 2011 |
Hi Haoie, glad you liked Midwinter Carol. I had to get quite creative with the baron's fate in Deathmoor and make it so he was only believed dead. |
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Marissa Mon Mar 24 21:56:20 2014 
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Thought this was really good. It's verry accessable on my machine |
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Marissa Mon Mar 24 22:07:24 2014
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I got killed in the game. :( |
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RedQueen Wed Nov 26 06:31:39 2014
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lol, that was a quick death, time to try again... |
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hunt Fri Nov 28 10:09:55 2014
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good |
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Gabriel Barros Thu Dec 25 04:25:06 2014 |
Feels funny to play on this date, great story, cheers !!! |
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Gynogege Wed Dec 23 22:43:39 2015
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Quite interesting story. Frankly I plan to write a gamebook (in french) taking place in Arion so I am quite interested in yours. I'm glad to see that you believe Jonthane is not the King who defeated Morgana but rather is son if I understand well the first dream. That's my opinion too but Titannica does not agree. The style is very pleasant and I like the parallel with Dickens' story. It's not very difficult but I don't think it's meant to be... |
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Kieran Wed Feb 17 15:19:43 2016 |
Glad you liked it. Yeah I don't think Jonthane can be the hero of Masks because there's no mention of said hero having a sister as co-ruler. Also the hero of Masks would put on his helmet and go rescue Telessa himself rather than hiring an eejit like Fang-Zen. |
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Jonathan Sun Aug 7 13:03:42 2016 
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Good take on A Christmas Carol |
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Yaztromo Sun Aug 7 20:03:13 2016
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Nice to re-live this old story impersonating the wicked one ;-) |
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Yaztromo Sun Aug 7 20:12:31 2016
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Having fun! |
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Yaztromo Sun Aug 7 20:42:02 2016
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It's reassuring to see that an evil madman can become a good madman, but will always be a madman ;-) |
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Robert Douglas Tue Aug 9 16:11:53 2016
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A well-written, witty and interesting FF version of A Christmas Carol. Would probably have liked more items and choices - even if eventually they led to the same conclusion as in the novel. Being a gamebook, the player's choices are accepted as the Baron's history being reviewed. Good idea about having the Baron's mind/spirit form being assailed by varied opponents during the deja vu, all of which eventually help in transforming his worldly opinion. Finding certain items might help jolt his memory, and for example I'd like to give a little scenario: a certain locket from a past love to be remembered by when he announced his departure to work/study at a certain guild that promised better wages than what her father offered - only that he later sold the trinket to help pay his rent. You can see the downward spiral to his dark position. But 'finding' the trinket in her dead hand (age, plague, suicide?) during his 'spiritual' journey fills him with deep regret and improves his nature. It also becomes painfully apparent to the Baron that she actually went to visit his lodgings...and in passing found the precious locket in a pawnbroker's window! Still helplessly in love, she purchased back the trinket and returned home in tears. Meanwhile, the younger Baron is oblivious to all this, desperately working hard to accumulate money in preparation for marriage...that will never happen. The love of his life never visits as promised. He becomes heartbroken, then bitter, and gives every ounce of himself to attaining money. Yet for his spiritual self all this is a sudden revelation. The spirit explains how the Baron's greed blinded him to true love and happiness, how 'less' money would have given his far greater 'rewards', a family heir for example. The Baron at first protests by saying how was he to know, but acquiesces that his focus on money certainly drove him to sell the beloved locket. It's possible that, once in funds, he tried to get the locket back - by which time, of course, it had long been sold to the very person he wronged. Very dark stuff. But just an example of how items and story scenarios can complement each other. |
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bcyy Wed Aug 10 03:44:28 2016 |
Born to an extremely privileged family, I have little experience with how pawn brokerages work, but the entire concept just seems so ethically wrong to me. If people who are capable of returning a loan need to borrow money, a bank would lend it to them, ergo people who go to a pawnbroker's are not expected to repay a loan. If they do not repay the loan, which has already been demonstrated to be what the pawnbroker expects in the first place, then the transaction serves only to relieve them of their most treasured possessions at a discount price relative to their market value. Even more damaging this transaction is when the sentimental value of those possessions are factored in. This sentimental value must be very high, or else the owners would have gotten a much better deal by selling the items outright, instead of pawning the items in vain hope of redeeming them at a later time. Yet even more damaging this practice is to the society when one considers that those who pawn their possessions are usually the most fiscally responsible of the poor, who would rather lose those possessions than default on their debts, and who are consequently more likely to be driving engines of the economy in general. In short, I really don't see why pawn shops ought to be legal in the first place. Maybe someone who is more familiar with the pawning business can enlighten me by presenting an argument to the contrary? |
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Gavin Wed Aug 10 08:54:03 2016 |
To quote the final boss of Outsider's husband, its better than a loan shark. |
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Yaztromo Wed Aug 10 19:53:33 2016 |
I'm not very familiar with this business as well, but pawnbrokers don't have much bureaucracy and don't depend too much on your credit rate, as you are pawning your guarantee. This way, if you have a bad credit rate but you believe now you can repay your debt, it's a quick option and an alternative to selling your goods for more in the first instance. |
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Robert Douglas Mon Aug 15 03:01:39 2016 |
@ bcyy, Not sure if pawn shops are still legal nowadays, but unfortunately they did a roaring trade in times past. Banks have taken the role of providing money but with the condition of added interest and that it must be repaid within a certain time period. Not sure when bank loans started in our history. I'm also not sure how pawnbrokers would operate as regards a possession in 'safekeeping' until the customer can repurchase (but doubtless it would increase in value over time so it's similar to bank interest; the former owner would have to cough up a greater sum to repurchase). Bear in mind there's a time limit until a possession may be sold to anyone. You're right in the fact that loan sharks would also add on interest that accumulates over time, although often they do pressurize clients into paying up, sadly. Banks have legal law on their side. Pawnbrokers can provide quick cash but often make a profit by reducing the true value during this transaction, charging true price to potential customers, perhaps a little more to actual previous owners for 'safekeeping' costs. One thing for certain: all three make profit in some way or another. Notably, there are adverts in the UK for people who wish to sell gold jewellery in return for cash - so 'pawnbrokers' do exist in one form or another. In the Baron's world (Titan) they certainly do, while banks don't (or so I gather). Don't forget about antique shops and auction rooms. Would they follow a similar process to pawnbrokers? I don't know. Not forgetting those second-hand price deals, a simple process by placing an advert in the supermarket or local newspaper. How many such goods have been sold lower than what they were actually worth just for the sake of freeing up space? The true worth of a possession depends upon the situation at the time. Is a person considered less because they were desperate or it made financial sense? Once, a famous man was poor and out of favour so he had to sell his watch to buy food. Hard to believe this same man went on to rule over a prosperous French Empire! And yet, perhaps he regretted selling such a watch...? |
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bcyy Wed Aug 17 11:14:59 2016 |
@Yaztromo You have a point there. I guess when banking systems are inadequate, they can perform a certain role... @Robert Titan has no banks? Are you sure? I'd have assumed that Baron Sukumvit would have used at least some of his dough to open banks - seems like an infinitely better investment to me than building dungeons for wannabe adventurers to challenge... Napoleon sold his watch? I don't remember such a detail, yet I can't think of any other ruler of the French Empire who had experienced poverty before coming to power... |
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i died:( Fri Dec 23 12:05:28 2016
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It was basically like a Christmas carol with fighting. |
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A.E.Johnston Sun Dec 25 10:48:51 2016
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Always fun to replay this during Christmas time. Merry Christmas to everyone! |
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bluejuice915 Fri Mar 31 01:00:47 2017
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This was OK. The adaption of A Christmas Carol was unoriginal, which has been said, but still required some creativity. The logic of what you had to do didn't make much sense. The choices were good, but the battles could have been much better. I'm being generous on this grade for kindness reasons. Grade: 83 |
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RogueOne Fri Nov 10 17:00:25 2017
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Done! |
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RAfał Wed Feb 7 19:51:37 2018 |
Very suuuuper story please more more more |
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paul Sun Mar 17 11:13:36 2019
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should have contined to the orphanage but i felt that revenge would be in character. |
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A.E. Johnston Mon Mar 18 06:10:11 2019 |
Paul you're a beast!!! How many of these stories did you play? It looks like you completed everything that was uploaded to the site, well done, lol. |
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God Wed Jun 17 08:55:52 2020
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good |
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rafael Wed Dec 16 15:13:04 2020
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This is super but what i can make to be baron good man? |
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YARD Mon Aug 21 10:08:34 2023
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So, as usual, I played to completion and then read the comments. From what I read, it appears that this story is a spin-off of a 1994 canon FF story, Deathmoor? On its own, that's not an issue: the brilliant Princess of Zamarra, by the same author, is a sequel to a different canonical gamebook as well, after all, and it's no issue at all. In fact, I didn't really realize there was a whole completed story in the background (and not just detailed background lore) until after beating it and coming back to it. Unfortunately, here, it's very, very clear that you are missing something fundamental, and without the context of that other gamebook, it's hard to care about any named character. The references to Arachnos are particularly confusing, and the whole plan with the kidnapping feels far too abstract to care about. Not that there's any more context about the Baron's royal relatives, or the wizard. That episode with him is confusing in how abruptly the story moves on past it and we never learn what he was doing (and if it mattered to anyone else) and nor do we learn how the Baron became the Baron in spite of being third in line to the title? These shortcomings are felt really acutely here, because as an adaptation of a famous Dickens story, it is quite brief and sticks too closely to its source material to surprise. Even if this story really was meant to have the other gamebook as required reading, surely there was no barrier to add a few more refs, and use them to fit some spark, some texture to all of those important characters, presumably with details additional to what you would have known from that other story? I won't mention how much better Zamarra was at this, since the two works are over a decade apart and it's clear Kieran has only gotten better with time to create what seems to be his magnum opus, but it appears that "Melchion's Week" was written around the same time, and that one is much better, both in general, and in allowing every character to leave an impression in only a few refs. (So are a lot of other gamebooks here, for that matter, like Bloodsworth Bayou, Golem Gauntlet, all of Gavin's works, the two short stories from Robert Douglas I have seen to date, etc.) That, and there are some narrative issues where I think even such background knowledge wouldn't have helped. I.e. there's the lack of ending variety, where you can make a lot of wrong choices in the dreams, but they all lead to the exact same bad ending (in contrast to not just Zamarra, but also "Melchion's Week" which had so many well-written and consistently amusing suboptimal endings) Once you do get to the end, the
SPOILER
which determines what ending you get feels like a total deus ex machina. And I'll admit I'm not very pleased with the "best" ending
SPOILER
P.S. Given that this story is also quite "dreamy", perhaps it could also be a good candidate for generated illustrations? Granted, the lack of illustrations is not even close to the main issue here, but at least it's the one thing which can be improved without involving Kieran. |
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Kieran Fri Sep 8 23:08:11 2023 |
This was written for a competition for the official FF site. It had to be Christmas themed and 50 sections max. In the end I missed the deadline for the competition so I guess I could have expanded it, but hey, I'm lazy. It has a number of references to both Deathmoor and Masks of Mayhem - the Word version carries a spoiler warning for both books. Admittedly these references are probably very confusing to those unfamiliar with either book! |
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YARD Sat Sep 9 08:23:49 2023 |
Yeah, while on one hand, the ways in which the stories on here manage to work in the canon books are often really inventive, I do feel that multiple stories lean on those connections far too heavily, and unfortunately, this seems like one of them. For the record, I have been checking out the archived canon FF book reviews recently, and the ones for Deathmoor are particularly epic. https://web.archive.org/web/20170905062914/http://user.tninet.se/~wcw454p/docs/ff55.txt Amongst all the other things it brings up, Leigh Loveday's review makes me wonder: was the Princess meant to have gotten married to that book's protagonist after the successful victory? If so, is this narrative then premised on the idea it falls apart due to her PTSD? |
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Kieran Sat Sep 9 14:22:57 2023 |
The hero of Deathmoor is promised half the kingdom but I decided that after rescuing the princess, the two of them become engaged. The hero is being hunted by the Pelagines (sort of fish-men) for stealing one of their scarlet pearls so I posited that they eventually caught up with him and killed him which was a contributing factor to the princess' mental health issues. |
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A.E.Johnston Wed Jan 10 07:12:32 2024
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Played it many times before but always fun to revisit during Christmas. Wonderful job Kieran. |
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A.E.Johnston Wed Jan 10 07:33:57 2024 |
@YARD just in regards to your comments, as Kieran mentioned this story is only 50 paragraphs and it is difficult to put such a high level of backstory and detail into such a short game book. Comparing it to a visual media, a full 400 paragraph game book can be compared to movie, while a 50 paragraph game book is more akin to a 15 minute short. It’s far more difficult to introduce the same amount of depth and detail- I can vouch as even having written a 100 paragraph game book I felt quite restricted. The story is obviously based of a Christmas Carol, and this is satisfactory in my opinion in setting up a framework of the plot. I was actually not familiar with any of the FF references and was perfectly fine following along so I would have to disagree with you mentioning that this was fundamental to understanding this gamebook story. The one item that confused me originally was the kidnapping of the princess, but this is explained separately in a later paragraph that you may encounter. Personally I felt that it was enough as a placeholder to demonstrate that the protagonist participated in a “terrible act” befitting of his personality. Even if the kidnapping wasn’t elaborated on I feel I would have been fine, as it is enough to assume that it was a traumatic event orchestrated by the Baron, and a perfect example of his heartless behavior. I will whole heartedly agree that Kieran has greatly improved, and has some of the most humorous and entertaining writing on the site, and in addition Melchion is an excellent story too. |
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