Hunger Of The Wolf

This is a new full-length FF gamebook by Kieran Coghlan featuring certain elements from Scorpion Swamp. I've added it to the downloads page. An online version will follow in a few weeks' time.

Phil Sadler
Mon Dec 25 00:02:53 2006
Hellfire

I thought that I’d give my own little Christmas present to our little circle of FF fans! It’s nothing much though so don’t get too excited. In fact it’s just a few notes about the conception of Hellfire and some titbits about some of the things never made it in the book. Be warned though that it will contain spoilers (the major ones of which are already hidden below), so don't read unless you have either already completed it or are at your wit's end and don't care anymore ;)

Firstly, the FF book that inspired me the most was Deathtrap Dungeon. This explains the abundance of precious stones you come across and some of the encounters such as the Bloodbeast, Pit Fiend, Manticore, Ninja and so on. However, until now no one but myself was aware that, at one point, the Mirror Demon used to appear. In the original hand-written text, she replaced the Night Horror, which explains why you meet the Horror in front of a giant mirror and also

SPOILER

END SPOILER

So why did this replacement of creatures take place? Well, as I was writing the adventure I had a list of ‘must have’ creatures that I was determined to have you meet in the quest at one point and one of these was the Night Horror. Suffice to say that when it came to placing him somewhere I suddenly realised that I’d already gone way over my self-imposed reference limit of 499 and quite simply had no more room to put him in. So I decided to replace someone else and that someone had to be near the end of the quest so that the Night Horror could retain some sort of ‘boss’ status. In the end the choice was quite clear: it had to be the Mirror Demon because she was ideally placed and was never that impressive as a ‘boss’ creature.

DD also influenced the idea of the Trinitour constantly taunting you and occasionally appearing now and again. I say this because I liked the idea of you not being alone in DD but that there were several other people in there with you. I didn’t want to just do exactly the same thing though because I feel that would have been a bit of a cop-out. So I did the next best thing and have the ‘boss’ constantly talk to you.

Fans off Deathtrap Dungeon may also remember a red line somewhere in that book that you were advised to drop your weapons before crossing (only to have to face a Ninja unarmed if you did just that!). In my book the same fans may have notice a piece of stretched skin at one point in the quest that advised you to leave your weapons! So I blatantly used the same idea but implemented it rather differently. I also used a similar idea for the various other signs throughout such as “Too a slow death” or “Come this way” or whatever they happened to be.

However it was not DD that influenced the items that you needed to ascertain, in this case it was in fact Temple of Terror. In ToT you had to find 5 essential artefacts for the final fight (and a few more were needed here and there). I knew my book was longer and so decided that the reader would need 6 artefacts (and a few more here and there, of course). Moreover, rather than just having these items be rather boring ‘Dragon artefacts’ such as those in ToT I decided to make them a bit more interesting and each would have a very specific use in the final fight. I then put each of these artefacts far apart from each other, spread somewhere throughout the adventure and have each guarded in some way, but not always by a monster because that may have got boring. ToT is of course where I also took the Night Horror from as well as the Giant Centipede and others.

Speaking of artefacts we come to the acquisition of variously coloured keys. Do you remember the crystal key? Well in the original text version the key did not appear at all and this was quite deliberate. I’m afraid to say that it was influenced by the poor feature in an otherwise good book: Midnight Rogue. You see there were anti-cheat mechanisms in it that manifested themselves as seemingly good ways to gain something but just led to a “You cheat!” passage. Well that’s what I would have called anyone who attempted to use the previously non-existent crystal key on the final door. Then I realised that this would piss off honest readers who would have constantly searched in vain for something that wasn’t there in the first place. This also ties in with the ‘hot cavern’

SPOILER

END SPOILER

I was even a little influenced by the horrible Crypt of the Sorcerer in that the Gargantuis appears. Unfortunately I was also influenced by it in another much worse way and a way in which garnered some of the most complaints about my book.

Phil Sadler
Mon Dec 25 00:06:23 2006
Hellfire

And so I continue having messed up the last spoilers! Anyway, the most complaints:

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Hey, don’t blame me after all – blame Crypt of the Sorcerer!

We all remember the wall of Hellfire, don’t we? Well did you know that it comes almost exactly half way through the book? Anyway it had to be a tough obstacle because that’s where I got the title of the book from after all. It used to be even tougher though, much tougher. In the first, unedited version, you had the same choice of options but when you chose a wrong one you had to fight one of 3 very powerful creatures (skill of 11 if I remember rightly). If you killed one of these creatures do you know what your reward would have been? Nothing. You would have been killed anyway. I can’t for the life of me remember what made me come up with that awful idea in the first place. I can’t even remember if it was an FF book or not, but I have an inkling that it may have been Scorpion Swamp! Well, what ever it was I’m glad I left it out of the final version.

Does anyone remember the infamous Password Door? Well, in the original text version the White Dragon never appeared at all and was in fact a Hell Demon instead (one of my favourite enemies). It was only after editing that I realised that there was no mention of a kriss knife anywhere in the text and had never been put there in the first place because I simply forgot about it! Well, by this time I was trying to lose references, not add them and so knew I had to replace the poor Hell Demon with something else and the White Dragon seemed to be one of the few creatures with similar statistics so it made it in the final text. This was good though because it aloud me to get in another reference to one of the other FF books I loved a child: Caverns of the Snow Witch (the Night Stalker and the Crystal Warrior also make an appearance at some point). I’ll always remember that book because my friend gave it to me for free when I was very young!

What about the giant mirror though and the Soul Demon that steps through it? Which FF book influenced me there? Well, none of them. I was actually one of the Way of the Tiger books that helped me out there. In one of those adventures you met an Old One who conjured a perfect version of you out of thin air; sound familiar?

What of the Trinitour’s personal bodyguard: The Abomination? Well it was the excellent Dead of Night that I have to thank for that, not to mention the hideous abomination of its own, whose fantastic description helped me realise just the sort of creature that would be guarding the boss. It was also Dead of Night that helped me make my decision to include the Night Demon at the end of the book. I did this for two reasons. Firstly, DoN featured a Snake Demon and I liked the idea of going up against a Prince of Hell. Secondly, I’m not sure if any of the Night Demons ever actually appeared in a previous FF book and if they did then I somehow missed them.

But what of the Trinitour himself? Well I’m not sure but I like the idea that the dungeon was a bit of a maze and at the centre of every good maze there is a Minitour. As for the name “Trinitour”, well it just sounded good.

As for the ending of the book, well, I was sick and tired of every gamebook known to man to finish with a stomach-turning happy ending where everything was fine and everyone was happy forever after. I simply wanted to change that. I wanted an ending that sticks in the player’s mind long after he has completed it, even if he doesn’t necessarily like it all that much!

Let’s have a quick look at the number of unavoidable fights In the book (15). Compare this to the following:

Deathtrap Dungeon: 15
Temple of Terror: 20
Island of the Lizard King: 20

And it doesn’t seem such a bad total, particularly when you realise that it's almost 100 references longer than they are.

What of the Instant Deaths though? Mine had 38 but what of the others:

Deathtrap Dungeon: 32
Temple of Terror: 24
Creature of Havoc: 47

Seems a reasonable total considering the increased length of the book, but perhaps still a few too many.

In summing up I would like to say that even I, the author, struggle to complete this book on anything less than a Skill of 11 (and on that occasion I had a passable Stamina of 18 but a Luck of only 8. Suffice to say that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done with a Skill of 10 (or even a 9 if most things go your way!) especially if your Luck and Stamina are good and hold true and you have fortunate rolls of the dice. To put things in perspective I have always struggled to complete Deathtrap Dungeon on anything less than a Skill of 12, and even on that occasion I had a Stamina of 23 and a Luck of 12! I also maintain that to complete either Island of the Lizard Ki

Phil Sadler
Mon Dec 25 00:07:39 2006
Hellfire

King or Caverns of the Snow Witch you’ll have a hard time with anything less than a Skill of 12 too, and a damn high Stamina to boot and, in the case of CotSW a very high Luck also.

I hope that you have enjoyed my waffling and musings. Now may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas!

redheart772002@yahoo.com Thu Dec 28 12:28:38 2006 General Chat	from wer websites can I downloads more fantasy fighting games:
	See the links page.

ffproject
Fri Dec 29 10:14:31 2006
Hunger Of The Wolf

Hunger Of The Wolf

Kieran Coghlan's new gamebook is ready to play.

U.A.
Fri Dec 29 13:14:25 2006
General Chat

Hello everyone. 
Just finished Hunger of the Wolf. 
My review: 8/10 
I enjoyed this adventure. It had a mature plot and was quite well-written. 
 
It might be interesting to see how much people have enjoyed each of the gamebooks. 
Below is my ranking and rating: 
Outsider (8/10) Excellent, but by the end was going on a bit long 
Hunger of the Wolf (8/10) 
Midnight Deep (8/10) An excellent story spoiled by a silly ending 
Bad Moon Rising (8/10) I'm enjoying this one right now 
Bodies in the Docks (7/10) I liked the non-fantasy setting with sufficient mystical elements. 
The Black Lobster (7/10) Good sense of humour 
Impudent Peasant! (7/10) Good sense of humour 
House of Horror (7/10) Interesting. 
Curse of the Yeti (6/10) Well-written. 
Cold Heart of Chaos (6/10) This was OK for a short adventure 
The Trial of Allibor's Tomb (6/10) Someone likes Deathtrap Dungeon 
Rebels of the Dark Chasms (5/10) This was OK for a short adventure 
Isle of the Cyclops (5/10) The luck-based confrontation with the cyclops ruined this one. 
Riders of the Storm (4/10) Not quite as silly and contrived as Hellfire 
Lair of the Troglodytes (4/10) I really don't like being a Dwarf 
Hellfire (4/10) Silly and contrived 
Just my opinion presented so that others may present their opinions.

Gamebook Fanatic
Fri Dec 29 14:21:34 2006
General Chat

U.A., I think you got some of them mixed up. The one where you play a Dwarf is in Rebels of the Dark Chasm, not Lair of the Troglodytes. You play as a Troglodyte (well, duh) in LotT.

Anyway, haven't finished Hunger of the Wolf yet myself.... but I must say the second plot (after you've dealt with Saul) really caught me by surprise. Great work as far as storytelling goes!

Phil Sadler
Fri Dec 29 15:41:16 2006
General Chat

What brilliant reviews U.A! Tell us though, what really irked you about my books? LOL! I mean they are far from silly and the very nature of all FF books means they are "contrived". Seriously though I enjoyed reading your post but I would only rate it as a 4: silly and contrived.

Gaetano
Sat Dec 30 06:53:59 2006
House Of Horror

Just read Hunger of the Wolf Myself. I must say that this adventure is just as good as any published Fighting Fantasy book (And better than many of them). The plot is interesting, the pacing is excellent, and the aforementioned plot twist caught me by surprise (in a good way) as well.

I also wanted to say that reading a book on Microsoft Word is fine, but it makes me realize how grateful I am that a website like this exits where these stories are placed in electronic format and all of the work is done for you (dice rolling, stat keeping, etc). Thanks to the webmaster for all of your hard work and I hope the site can continue to stay up.

Even if I never update it again, the site will stay up.

U.A.
Sat Dec 30 12:16:25 2006
General Chat

Thanks for the correction GBF.
I must admit that I was turned off quite early by that adventure and barely played it, so the details (or the major, obvious facts) didn't stick in my mind.

Phil. It is obvious from the posts on this site that lots of people enjoyed Hellfire, and for many it seems to be their favourite. Don't be concerned about what one person thinks. It's a matter of taste, after all.

Jamie Sat Dec 30 23:59:04 2006 General Chat	Hi. When I click the 'contact' link on the front page it opens a new window with a password dialogue. Surely this isn't meant to happen...?
	No, it's supposed to open a new window in which you write an email. It works fine for me in both Firefox and Internet Explorer but I'll keep an eye out for the problem you mention.

Gamebook Fanatic
Sun Dec 31 04:29:48 2006
Hunger Of The Wolf

Finally finished the new book!

As I said I liked the storyline, and now I can say that the game mechanisms IMO is well-structured.

I also think this seems to be the most balanced game in terms of difficulty (neither too easy nor too hard).

Exiss
Tue Jan 2 06:12:45 2007
General Chat

I have question: what requirements have to be met in order for a submitted gamebook to be accepted by the sitemaster?

Broadly speaking, my requirements for a gamebook that will be adapted for online play are as follows :

- It has to be (in my opinion only) at least as good as those already featured.
- It should be close enough to the standard FF rules (or a subset of them) for the software to deal with, although I will consider conversion to FF (as with Isle Of The Cyclops) or simplification (as with Bodies In The Docks).

I am more flexible about what goes on the downloads page. I'll happily put anything up there that is complete and reasonably well written.

Et.Z.
Tue Jan 2 13:38:33 2007
General Chat

U.A., I hope you understand Phil's reaction. Writing a book is so much work (I'm working on mine right now) and as any piece of art, people will be sensitive about it as they pour their soul into the process.

Maybe you should try to write your own book and think how you would react if people called your book ''silly and contrived''. After all the guy gave the whole thing to us for free.

I believe that Hellfire was too hard myself but I still enjoyed the book. That's plenty of other strengths to the book which makes it worthwhile.

Phil, I know you aren't working on a new book right now. I would like to know if you would consider participating in a collective effort.

Et.Z.

Et.Z.
Tue Jan 2 13:39:53 2007
Hunger Of The Wolf

By the way: Hunger of the Wolf?

Fantastic. Great book.

Exiss Tue Jan 2 22:57:31 2007 General Chat	Thanks for the answers, webmaster, that's helpful to know. I have just one more wondering: if I email a gamebook to you, would it need to be in the form of an attatchment (i.e. Word, etc.) or could it be written out in the email's text?
	Either is OK, although if you send it in the body of the email I will probably just copy and paste it into a Word document anyway.

Exiss
Wed Jan 3 14:30:56 2007
General Chat

Alright, great! Thank you. I'm hoping to be able to send you a gamebook of mine in the (somewhat) near future.

Magnus Munda Sat Jan 6 00:13:19 2007 General Chat	How about a forum with sections for: Reviews Walkthrough *General Gamebook convo Wouldn't that be neat or what?
	Thanks very much for the suggestion. It's a good idea, but will almost certainly never happen as I don't have the time. However there are several forums out there already that are pretty much what you are looking for, see the links page.

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