Three alternate paths to victory in a 50-ref story? I suppose this really is easy. Can't say it was particularly interesting either: i.e. the witch obviously only existed to fulfil a narrative function and the villain is lame. (The way the whole thing is described, you would get the impression he hasn't even benefited from it at all.)

Probably the only surprising moment was when you get attacked by a soldier in the inn. And perhaps the only true "trap" moment in the game, which is

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Literally everything else (besides not finding the blood secret at all, I guess) you can recover from. It's funny how this tiny story gets such a disproportionate number of comments, most just talking about how easy it was.

It's less funny that with 50 refs, there are still about 2 typos per 5 refs.

2

"By the time you espy the stone circle," + "You can see the holy sight about a mile away now." (are we certain it's not site?)

4
" 'Thankyou, my friend.' "

13

"She look at you with her piercing red eyes."

"is packed with various magical arcane " (?)

21
" 'Thankyou.' Rasps the figure."

"can be blessed in the crypt of the ancestors'" (missing period.)

25

"There appears to be two locations of interest to you"

43

"On it is the inscription 'Make a sacrifice you prove your worth.'"

YARD
Wed Aug 23 14:16:53 2023
Escape The Asylum
Star - optimum ending reached

OK, so this is it?

Finished this on the first try. Sorry to disappoint, but it involved no special feats: simply walking in circles a bit, getting two clues on the first floor, going up, two more clues on the other floor (and I suppose getting refreshed by the outside air a bit) then going down and going in what felt like circles again until the exit sign cleared. Can't say that the main character or his insanity was particularly interesting either.

At least the artwork for clues and the like is nice, and the story is largely typo-free. The exceptions seem to be:

4
"There is only one vehicle parked there, an white van"

50
"to supress the truth"

YARD
Wed Aug 23 13:48:50 2023
Sharkbait's Revenge
Star - optimum ending reached

Wow, after first finding challenges after beating Outsider!, I didn't expect a gamebook with a much lower length to also sport them, but it certainly deserves it! Unlike Douglas' similarly-sized works, Windjammer limitations are almost imperceptible here. The only example I can think of is when at 150 (or the equivalent ref if you follow the other path), there is no option to flee yourself if you do not have all of the requirements, and instead your character automatically marches on to his entirely predictable doom.

Besides Skin of Your Teeth, I also got Gandhi and The Other Successful Ending, but then I restarted instead of playing the challenge button again, and the record of that was lost. Still not sure how to get the Rich challenge, and the Warrior appears really luck-dependent.

If there's one thing I have to ask, it's this: do those scrolls actually work? I tried on refs 112, 5 or 77, to no avail. Even if the character in those refs is somehow not the right person (which seems extremely unlikely) at least some acknowledgement of you trying and failing would seem necessary?

Another thing is something I spotted in Rise of the Night Creatures as well: your most basic weapon (Butcher Knife in there, and a Dagger here) auto-equips, but the next strongest one (Silver Dagger and Sword) does not, even though it is entirely possible to find either of them while empty-handed.

Before I go for my usual haul of typos, I want to note a certain pecularity in writing, which occurs very often (though not always) to the point I'm not sure if it's intentional or not. This is the propensity to follow up quoted speech with capitalized verbs, which I am pretty sure is not the way, but is the norm here. The exceptions are something like ref 8, where it's "backstabbed us' shouts Blutz", and the norm is that path's ending ref, where it's "captain.' Says Blutz." or Background, with its "He won't forget who's in charge now!" Laughed the captain." If the capitalized way is wrong, then pretty much every ref with direct speech (i.e. ref 7) would need to be checked.

Now...

7

"He speaks with the upper class accent of a man who mixes with royalty regularly 'Why share your " (missing period.)

"pulls out a pistol and points it a Brandon's head. "

"You don't think I would make" (shouldn't it be past sense?)

15

"They rest upon what looks like giant threads of spider silk" (not sure about singular vs. plural)

44

"'Listen,' replies the small man 'All you need" (missing period.)

48

"You see the eyes widen as you reveal the treasure you have bought with you."

53
Is it intentional that Skull and Crossbow is not italicized?

58
"His warm, friendly, outgoing personality must his antidote to smelling of fish the whole time."

68

"put his cronies in charge of the city and the sent his men through the streets, arresting and executing so called followers of Caldoss."

77

"but he is not buying it 'How do I know" (missing period.)

78
In front of the door are two guards.Will you: (missing space.)

84

"I'm sure will you need it"

90
"One of their ships has weighed anchor just outside the reef Relieved" (missing period.)

"if your ex shipmates did tell them" (missing dash?)

121
"The spider trips up over a human skeleton, leaving to enough time to flee from the clearing."

I didn't get the full quote from ref 35, but I think that the sentence with "Fishpool Street" also should be double-checked.

Thanks, fixed the clear mistakes. I don't have the inclination to go through and correct the punctuation relating to quotations, especially as I'm not certain how it works myself. All the challenges can be done but of course luck plays a part. The scrolls do work and where to use them is not an arbitrary guess, there are clues in the text.

YARD
Wed Aug 23 05:11:38 2023
A Saint Beckons
Star - optimum ending reached

Finally, I have some gameplay questions/suggestions.

I quite appreciate that even this rather short story has quite a few backgrounds (and which are much better done than their equivalents in Any Port in a Storm). My first win was as a Halberdier, which is a weird background, because you are quite weak initially, then breeze through the last two fights (assuming you have done everything for a full victory and have the relic.) Light Billman and a Man-At-Arms with a Warhammer both appear to be more viable altogether, though. And anything with penalties against armour seems like a total waste, because there are relatively few unarmoured opponents in the first place, and they do not tend to give much trouble.

It appears that regardless of what you pick, the player will always see "You also carry a Rondel Dagger" ref, which was probably added in the online version. Can this ref also be expanded with an explanation of how the Armour system works, since right now there is literally no other way to find out besides reading the comments?

I also understand that what happens at 66 is meant to make playing as an Archer more beneficial, but honestly, Archer with the Kern Axe is already by far the easiest background to beat the game with (yeah, there's that one hard fight with the cavalryman at the end, but it should still be survivable if you switch to the holy mace.) Can it at least become a Luck check instead of an outright instakill? (This story already has almost no luck checks - never thought I would find myself missing them!)

At the market, the two non-meal options (blanket and flint) both make for some nice lore, but appear to be functionally inferior to just buying more meals, since there's no upper limit on the number of meals you can carry (and no downside to just spending all your money at the market if you follow the right path to victory). Blanket costs as much as 4 meals (12 Stamina worth) yet only prevents a loss of 2 Stamina. Flint lets you restore 4 Stamina at one point, yet costs as much as 3 meals (9 Stamina).

SPOILER

END SPOILER

I think it would be a good idea to also make the lack of a blanket cost you 1 Skill. You can already lose 1 Skill point from that one fight if you have followed the wrong path, and many famous people outright died weeks after getting drenched in the rain for hours (just refer to a certain short-lived US President, some medieval royals and more recently, the creator of T-34 tank), so while the relic should save you from this fate, losing Skill points is anything but unreasonable.

Lastly, somewhat spoilery possible bugs.

SPOILER

END SPOILER

YARD
Wed Aug 23 05:10:25 2023
A Saint Beckons
Star - optimum ending reached

Now, it's time to talk about the part I REALLY hate, which is that INCREDIBLY stupid gameover near the end which occurs automatically under most circumstances, and the alternate gameover which actually makes sense almost never happens for no understandable reason.

SPOILER

I am talking, of course, about going to the Raven's camp and getting killed there. I see someone else complained about it before as well, and with all due respect to Robert Douglas, his response "Even the best agent/professional can make mistakes which actually creates some edge-of-the-seat twists and turns in a plot... EVERY real-life spec ops soldier worth their salt will tell you - that nobody, including themselves, is infallible. Everybody takes wrong turns in life." is completely ridiculous when throughout the story, you can get not one, not two, but SEVEN or EIGHT separate "hints" (some of them are like flashing neon signs, really) that the Raven is evil, yet only one of them actually stops you from going to the camp.

0: In his rantings, Brother Jacob somehow makes the conclusion that the Raven would necessarily be implicated in the scheme if you are telling the truth. I do not like this part, because it appears to come out of nowhere (same as the whole scene with his unchallenged accusations, really), and would like to see it removed, but while it's here, it's certainly a hint.

1: Prior explicitly tells you he doesn't trust the Raven and it's pretty clear he is suspicious of his involvement.

2: If you go talk to Pilgrim Seb, the protagonist's OWN THOUGHTS say that Raven must be playing some game. That choice ALONE should prevent you from going to the camp, regardless of anything else.

3: Visiting Tobias (necessary to reach Sheinton in the first place and avoid the caravan ending) tells you about the Raven's behaviour towards Annabel. Not directly related to theft itself, but certainly not good.

4: If you rescue Mary, she proves beyond doubt that the Raven is evil.

5: Lukas accuses the Raven if you beat him, regardless of what happens next. Yet, sparing him is the only thing which stops you from going to camp, and not anything else.

6: Mary's brothers tell you what happens once you reach Sheinton, and it is completely impossible to avoid that if you have made it that far. Even the Priest will tell you the Raven's soul is like that of Satan himself.

7: If you get healed by the Priest, he'll also tell you to beware.

In the light of all this, just the unavoidable hints (1, 3 and 6) should make going to the camp a choice rather than a necessity, even if the player simply gets a different gameover as the result. Getting 4 or 2 should prevent you from going to the camp same as 5, even if it won't let you win without doing everything else actually required by the narrative.

END SPOILER

YARD
Wed Aug 23 04:20:44 2023
A Saint Beckons
Star - optimum ending reached

Well, this was certainly a Robert Douglas story, for good and ill.

To start with the good, it has that same highly evocative writing style as his other stories. Even Any Port in a Storm, which I found relatively weak altogether, still had a thick Scottish atmosphere which you don't usually find without specifically seeking it out (and certainly not in combination with the story's other elements). The Walter Scott-style narration here is perhaps a little more common, but that doesn't make it any less great to read. I kept having to look up some of the period-specific words, but that only made it more rewarding.

This work also appears to have evolved from his two other Windjammer stories on here, the aforementioned Any Port in a Storm and Nye's Song. There are almost no moments as capriciously arbitrary as Nye's Song infamous skill checks and unlike that other walk through the Scottish colony, the right options usually still have fighting and such associated with them, and picking those right options requires a little more thought, like having the knowledge to avoid a big juicy trap option placed near the start.

The ill here is that it is still a contest entry limited to 100 refs, and never expanded afterwards. Consequently, there is some awkward writing with long refs that should have at times been split up. I.e. that gear shift in one of the first refs, from the two soldiers being best buddies to your character mentally contemplating an ambush on them, is incredibly jarring. That thing where "a vivid dream" is suddenly mentioned out of NOWHERE could have been addressed with a short ref just alluding to it in between the time "the world goes black" and you waking up. Similarly, there's no explanation how the protagonist and Seb already happen to know each other.

There's also the stupidity in one of the initial refs, where Brother Jacob (who has literally never been mentioned before, and is never mentioned again, yet is immediately introduced as if the player is meant to have seen him before and as if he and the protagonist have history) keeps going on with ridiculous accusations which only require some testimony from Brother Roubert (regardless of the preceding choice you make) to be dismissed immediately, yet that never happens. (Not that the accusations mean anything anyway.)

I have had to split this post up because it apparently exceeds word count limits (not that there's any message explicitly saying that in the website's software, like when the message gets held up by word filter: it simply doesn't go through), so I'll just drop the typos here and continue in the next post.

"No sooner have you closed your eyes than a beautiful chant relaxes your whole mind."

"even a cuckoo adds its familiar call -for"

"having being afflicted by a deep fever" - all three of those are in "Background".

6
"The Prior Abbot's words re haunt your restless thoughts:" (What's with so many stories on here having random "re"s in them?)

15
"The conditions now being more pleasant" (?)

23
"Hopefully, one day, Saint Milburge's relic will re Much Wenlock."

25

""Oh well," shrugs Basil" (missing period.)

33
"You let him come -then suddenly dodge aside" (space.)

41
"pale sunlight glints from the polished steel of a crossbow."

44
"His eyes widen, gurgles surprise - then is still." - a word might be missing here?

60
"congregation assembled outsides its doors"

62

"Pray you heard tell of"

65

"proved a most tempting and personally beneficial one.Doubtless"

70
"All ideas of burning the young woman quickly loses appeal;"

73
""But you fear there's more this theft than meets the eye?" "

83
"There nobody around on this bleak autumn afternoon. "

106
"Sighing at Gilles wasteful sacrifice"

129
"You spend a last supper with the the Prior Abbot and the Wenlock monks"

"you are a solider, after all,"

Fixed these where definitely wrong. The "re"s are my fault, they are an artefact of the conversion process.

YARD
Mon Aug 21 13:47:01 2023
A Strange Week For King Melchion The Despicable
Star - optimum ending reached

I have gotten the "CONGRATULATIONS" endings before, twice, and found this work great, but I decided to give it another look after a less positive experience with A Midwinter Carol, also written by Kieran around the same time, to see if I might now think worse of it.

I need not have worried! The writing of every ref is just as fun and inventive as I found it before - further, I have won relatively quickly back then, and so I missed a whole lot of truly inventive and consistently amusing ways to fail (as well as a third way to win in addition to the two I knew about) - ways to fail which nevertheless consistently feel fair in hindsight (none of the abritrary "with no visual cues, you turn north instead of south and immediately die/are incapacitated" of certain other gamebooks). Perhaps the only exception is the tapioca encounter, which might be a little less obvious than Kieran intended, since the ref does not really specify just how large it actually is. I was certain that contracting it would shrink it to something fist- or at most arm-sized and that certainly didn't happen.

Unfortunately, the one minor, yet detectable downside are the typos. I think this gamebook might have set a record for typo-density-per-ref out of the ones I have seen so far.

1 - a missing question mark in the sentence with "unusual".

4
"and a sickly yellowish fog surround everyone."

8

"This elicts no response."

11

"going through the whole spectrum of the emotion." (?)

12

"not only how your "cure" having worn off,"

14

High Priest's name is misspelled + "charge on (?) you" + "as one of the guard"

17

"the atrocitities of war"

24

"It is only as the monstrousity" + "shattering the place you were just standing"

26

"he says, indicating you wish a dismissive hand gesture."

+ "now (that?) they have had their memories jogged"

27

"A blast of air sends you flying into the air," (no other way to write this?)

32

"bedecked with (a?) carving" + "Zyterr" (rather than the other spelling).

41

"and, as you them in dismay,"

42

"and have heard tell (?) he lives in these parts."

54

"all writing tentacles"

56

"Upon the throne sits a bent figre" + "Similary bent and mishapen" (possibly two typos in that excerpt).

57

"You clamber through the sun-bleacked mountain"

58

"a tome entitled "The Sorcerous Eunch""

60
"near enough false to knock your teeth out."

61

"All him in shock."

63

"Suddenly the grounds gives way beneath your feet"

64

"in a pincer like grip" (probably misses a dash)

69

"From the shadows steps yours illusion" + " out of the building, which turn out to be"

71

"I have been learning magic form the wizard Davor"

72

"you hear the unmistakeable (?) sound of singing in the distance."

76

"He looks defiant(ly?) at you" + "Don't be afeared" (intentional, as I have seen that in another ref too?)

77
"such a magical construct need no brain for thought"

85

"Miss. Ronson" (is a period necessary here?) + "The colour swirl before your eyes" (an "s" is clearly missing somewhere.)

92

"eager to re Melchion and finally free him of his curse."

98

"Zyterr" again + "Melchior" (?) + (potentially) "as everyone else runs screaming.No spell affects the horrible monster."

99

"will allow you to fully recover.Cursing"

Lastly, I would suggest to proofread the illusion contoction recipe REALLY carefully. Firstly, there are there numerous missing plural forms. Secondly, I am not sure if this was intended by Kieran or not, but the recipe always fails if you try to follow it exactly as written, and you must assume there is a major typo to succeed.

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Thanks, fixed all of these now except for one or two which are not definitely wrong.

YARD
Mon Aug 21 10:16:28 2023
Gem Runner

Wait, so this work and Golem Gauntlet are both by the same author, and this one was written years after Golem Gauntlet? How?!

...Come to think of it, I might have heard something of a supposed writer's curse where the writer who reaches a breakout success with the very first book is then likely to disappoint with the second, but I was hoping the gamebook world would be more insulated to this. Oh well, it is what it is.

YARD
Mon Aug 21 10:08:34 2023
A Midwinter Carol
Star - optimum ending reached

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

END 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

END 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.

YARD
Mon Aug 21 09:36:52 2023
Waiting For The Light

To ffproject: I see. Perhaps it would be a good idea to place a version of this answer in the FAQ?

I should also say that unless you explicitly decide to hover the author's name, there's really no way to tell that it is clickable - after all, it's written exactly the same as the rest of the heading, with the same font, same colour and no underline/italics/etc.

YARD
Sun Aug 20 13:31:37 2023
Waiting For The Light
Star - optimum ending reached

An interesting experiment, and I do not regret the experience, although I think it's a bit too "in your face" about its psychoanalytical nature. A larger work with more "layers of obfuscation" would probably be more impactful altogether. (Though I see some commenters were impressed as it was, but at least as many were just confused.)

I.e. most Silent Hill games since the second one have been about the protagonist's psyche, which was approached with varying levels of skill by different studios. When I just started, I thought it would present itself as more clearly recognizable horror throughout, like Silent Hill 2 itself. Instead, it's more like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories with how apparent it is about its ultimate purpose. If my point is not yet clear: Silent Hill 2 remains considered a classic, and a remake would have never been announced if there wasn't a lot of demand for it. Shattered Memories had a reasonably positive reception and you can still find its fans out there, yet it's largely forgotten by now.

Granted, I'll admit that I still had to resort to reading the comments here to win. Mostly because

SPOILER

END SPOILER

It's also interesting that this is apparently the first, and so far only, work on here to be almost entirely illustrated, thanks to AI image generation? (Almost - some "interstitial" game show and forest refs are still "bare".) I wonder if any others on here are slated for such treatment, or if the "dreamy" nature of this one would make it a one-off? In either case, I think the pictures might already influence narrative judgement.

SPOILER

END SPOILER

I think the only typo I saw was

6
"You answer before your opponents has a chance"

Lastly; I keep suggesting the addition of filters to the main page/sidebar, but I think being able to sort by the number of refs would be an excellent feature for when one is set on whether they want a short experiment like this, a somewhat longer trial, a standard-length adventure or a sweeping epic. It's not exactly easy to glimpse that information from the titles alone. In addition to sorting by author and by the number of comments, I think it could really be one of those changes helping to breathe more life into this hidden gem of the internet.

If I can get a better grip on AI image generation there could be some more extensive use of it here, as it stands it only really makes sense for the less 'real' scenarios. I've also put some in Escape The Asylum, for example.

There's a limited amount of filtering, realistically I'm not going to add any more.

http://www.ffproject.com/all.htm - shows all the gamebooks and the number of references.

If you click on an author's name, for example http://www.ffproject.com/gby23.htm, that author's gamebooks are shown.

If you click on a year, for example http://www.ffproject.com/year2014.htm, that year's gamebooks are shown (the year the online version was added, not when they were written).

YARD
Sun Aug 20 12:39:10 2023
A Day In The Life
Star - optimum ending reached

I have beaten this one before, a couple of weeks ago, but now I decided to try again while actually having the music from bands mentioned in the text whenever they come, and it's certainly more fun that way! (Speaking as someone who is only mildly connected to scene, having never been to any concert and whose favourite band is Nightwish, having heard little from any of the 5...6...? bands mentioned in the gamebook.) I wonder what it would take for FFP to include support for embedded audio in addition to (occasionally) embedded pictures?

Out of the three Gavin's gamebooks I have played on here (this one, Outsider! and New Day Rising) it's actually this one which I consider the "best", in the sense of being the easiest to recommend. Yes, an epic like Outsider! is absolutely a landmark, yet it is one of great highs and great lows alike, and the path it follows is not as well-trodden as some others in the genre, but still at times (overly) familiar. This is just an unashamedly fun work, with a premise an average person would never think of, full of lived experience (forgive me if that term has become ironically lifeless in the recent years) and that is perfectly scoped to achieve all its aims.

YARD
Sun Aug 20 10:38:49 2023
Nye's Song

Heh, it's funny that this story by Robert Douglas has practically the same number of comments as another, slightly newer one, Any Port in a Storm. I have already commented on its page that I prefer this story a lot more, and the reasons why. I suppose I'll add just a couple more thoughts:

1) In multiple comments, the author says that the way to make The Sequence easier is to go through the church first. The thing is, not only are there still considerable odds of failing even then, but doesn't that also

SPOILER

END SPOILER

2) I'm not sure if the title image was picked by the author or FFProject, but it's rather misleading, since it shows a Mark tank, yet from the description, the Dreadnought is actually a wheeled APC? Well, more like a wheeled IFV which somehow fits three turrets with 40mm guns yet can still only shoot down one ghost at a time (this in spite of 40mm being a relatively small caliber best known for being used in the legendary anti-air Bofors autocannons all the way back during WW2!) but I think you get my point.

Either way, this is actually one of those stories on FFP where I would like to see more set in its world.

I found the image. It's more effort than you realise to track down images without any details contradicted in some way by the text, so you shouldn't be too surprised.

YARD
Sun Aug 20 10:25:44 2023
Any Port In A Storm
Star - optimum ending reached

So, are there only 100 entries in this story? Are all the triple-digit ones (i.e. 118) online additions for the sake of gameplay?

Either way, I didn't check the author at first, but I could tell that this story had the same writing style as Nye's Song. I guess the intersection of undeath and religion with modernity and militarism is also a shared element in both stories. I liked Nye's Song a lot more though. Partly because it had a much better balance between narrative and interactivity, one where you could really feel the tension throughout. Yes, there was that infamously drawn-out sequence in the middle that often randomly cut runs short, but it was still mostly a good idea, and altogether, the work was far more engaging than "investigate every "side branch" out there until you win". (Yes, some other stories on here can go overboard with trap options, but this swings too far in the other direction. While the competition limits make that understandable, no-one has ruled out post-competition edits either, have they?)

The other reason is because I found the premise there a lot more interesting. Alternate history, hard or soft, has a practically indefinite range of narrative possibilities, and the premise of Indians resorting to occult powers to turn the tables on their colonizers and succeeding beyond their wildest dreams is no "WW2 with stronger Nazis" or even alt-US-Civil War, that's for sure. Yeah, pushing all the way back into their invader's homeland and raising this many undead was a bit of an overkill, but the conflict is still ambiguous, at least to me.

Here, I suppose I have to admit the story does do a little bait-and-switch in pretending to be pure Lovecraft only to reveal that it pulls from much more ancient mythos instead. Still, I don't really like the traditional "deal with the devil" stories, since it all begs the question - if making a deal this extensive is that easy, why haven't we seen much more of it? I brought up Berserk when discussing Outsider! the other week, since while that story certainly shares in both the "author started writing as a dissatisfied teenager disease" (if you read even a little of it, you'll see what I mean) and "GRRM disease" (author starts writing with a clear ending in mind, than realizes he and the fans got so invested into the story the obvious conclusion would be anticlimactic, and desperately spins his wheels trying to reach an alternate, grander path that may not exist), one thing which really sets it apart is how it really shows a low-fantasy medieval world where nearly anybody could essentially do a deal with the devil and actually reap enormous rewards from it.

I also find it funny that at 74, we can take a walkman, but not an axe, but considering how little combat there is, particularly on the intended path, it is at least not truly annoying like the similar omissions in Rise of the Night Creatures (or A Princess of Zamarra, before I pointed it out.)

I'll give the writing credit for being well proof-read, though - the only typo I spotted while going through it was "This whole place, it's people, seem unnaturally evil." at 58.

P.S. An earlier comment mentioned a "near-miss" ending. Would that be triggered if

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Regarding references above 100, yes, that's exactly it. Typically it is necessary when the text offers options without corresponding references to turn to, such as 'take object X if you like' or 'you can drink this potion later and Y will happen'.

YARD
Sat Aug 19 15:51:07 2023
Gem Runner

And this actually makes me think of something: could we have

a) the ability to sort playable works in additional ways? I.e. by the number of comments, or perhaps the number of "completed" comments. While there are clearly not going to be dedicated reviews, that should be an interesting alternative.

b) failing that, at least some clarification that the playable gamebooks in the sidebar are sorted by submission date, and not anything more important than that? Someone new to this can easily assume that the order refers to perceived quality.

YARD
Sat Aug 19 15:46:38 2023
Gem Runner
Star - optimum ending reached

So, it seems like even on this website, I'm the first one who has actually bothered to complete it?

Either way, I'll agree with all the preceding comments that it's quite a disappointment. The premise is really promising, but not a whole lot is done with it, and the random encounters the rift is used to justify are nowhere near as meaningful as they could be. If anything, the narrative ends up going in one of the less interesting directions possible for this.

I'll admit that the unusual decision to make most combat encounters deal 3 damage makes you think a little harder about your decisions, and it is something more gamebooks might benefit from. However, going through the maze, with its clearly arbitrary geography, is very much trial-and-error (I ultimately resorted to typing up notes, which I have not done for any other adventure here yet), as is eventually understanding which gem to use when, which screws up what should have been a fun process.

Oh, and that completely arbitrary choice of direction at the end, which either leads you to an ending or an instakill, and with seemingly no foreshadowing, is not fun. Neither is guessing the path out of five a point a little before that, or some of those instakill skill checks.

Altogether, it reminds me quite a lot of Golem Gauntlet (another adventure with fixed stats and a somewhat similar structure) but that one is just so much better-written, it's hardly a contest.

Lastly, some typos.

19
"lifelessly off you left"

48
"clothed entirely in black robes, which also covers its face"

53
"You cautiously walk down the dark passage, feeling your wall along the wall."

105
"GIANT AMEOBA" (wrong spelling).

21
"You materialize... and instantly de-materalize!"

86

"You reason the dimensional accident has obviously effected"

YARD
Wed Aug 16 23:56:38 2023
General Chat

The website in particular, yes. I know that FF in general has a much longer history.

ffproject
Wed Aug 16 18:19:15 2023
News

Escape From Firetop Mountain

I've added Gabe Fandango's gamebook Escape From Firetop Mountain to the downloads page. In this one you are the prisoner freed by the hero in The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain. Download it here.

Gabe Fandango
Wed Aug 16 14:50:07 2023
Gamebooks

Thank you. I've sent the soft copy to the above address. :)

bcyy
Wed Aug 16 09:53:45 2023
General Chat

@Robert:

Indeed, I wouldn't say that video/computer games are in the same category as gamebooks. That relation is similar to that between novels and movies. You can always make a movie out of a novel, and vice versa, and the same can be said of gamebooks and games, but it is not the same.

I also agree that FF would be left behind as an estate/legal entity. Unless, of course, the heirs of the original authors choose not to inherit the franchise for some reason.

@Tammy

Not to be pedantic, I think you meant to say that copyright for the current FF gamebooks will be free to the public, right? The original version of Mickey Mouse is free to the public, but the newer versions of the same mouse aren't, and neither is Walt Disney.

@ YARD

By "this project", do you mean FF, or do you mean this website?

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