Sunday, October 27, 2019

Good things about Coils of Hate part 3 - the city and the atmosphere

NOTE: I wrote this post a long time ago and I've only just released it. Since then, Mark Smith generously gave me his permission to release a fan version I made which reboots the original book and (I hope) addresses the problems it had. You can get it from Drive Thru RPG for free!!!!!

So Coils of Hate in its current form does not work as a gamebook. However, the problem for this lies with technical issues of linking sections and actually, it has a lot of good stuff in place. I've been going through the book quite thoroughly recently and

Godorno is a stinking cess pit of a city. You live in a rotten hovel with nothing but a bug infested bed and a few utensils to your name. As soon as you leave it, the door breaks off and someone enters it to find something to steal. As you walk around the city, you see the poor, the starving and the diseased walking through streets with abandoned houses, cages full of plague victims and draconian militia. At one point, you see several human hearts float down the river. When you return, you find some friends starving in a cramped, damp cellar. You might also encounter Tyutchev in a cramped dive bar.

You go to other locations from the opulent Overlord's palace to the mysterious Tower of the Sentinel and there is a rich, vivid description of each place as you go there.

So, there is more to Coils of Hate than meets the eye. Why don't you have a read of it?

Saturday, October 12, 2019

200 Word RPG competition

Did you know that there is a 200 word RPG competition? Well, there is! The entries have just closed for this year, but there are plenty of 200 word RPGs to play.

After the deadline of October 12th 11:30PM EST (so 3:30AM GMT) - there's still time left - the winners will be announced on November 18th!

Take a look at the awesome competition, and, if you are quick, you can still enter!!!!

You can support the 200 word competition here.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Cybe's Website - awesome gaming and gamebook website



Alison Cybe is a great award winning author who has made many wonderful things including Shush! A Horror Anthology and I was a Gay Teenage Zombie.

She has also written many RPG adventures and has very thorough write ups on her fabulous website (It is so slick and gorgeous).

She also made a great video at Fighting Fantasy Fest.

Alison has write ups of the first 24 Fighting Fantasy books.

You can also get Alison's awesome playthroughs by supporting her Patreon for a mere £5 a month or more.

Happy gamebooking!

Sunday, October 6, 2019

The good points of Coils of Hate part 2: The NPCs

NOTE: I wrote this post a long time ago and I've only just released it. Since then, Mark Smith generously gave me his permission to release a fan version I made which reboots the original book and (I hope) addresses the problems it had. You can get it from Drive Thru RPG for free!!!!!

Here is part 2 on the good points of Coils of Hate - its NPCs. This book does not try to keep your interest with strange monsters and combats. In fact, there are few monsters in the book (Hate, a giant spider and some constructs). Most of your interactions are with other humans, but Mark Smith and Dave Morris go even further with this idea. In most gamebooks, you seem to have no place in the society you interact with - everyone seems to have no connection to you. However, in The Coils of Hate, since you have lived in Godorno all your life, the authors have come up with a list of people, their relationship to you and their personalities. This adds a lot more dimension to the gamebook and atmosphere to the city. Here is a list of some NPCs and how they interact with you.

The Overlord: I want to see more of him. We all know he has an oppressive rule, mismanages the city and encourages oppression of the Judain to cover for his mistakes, but we never actually hear him speak or see him do anything besides sleep. I want to know his motivations more. I would love to hear him make a speech on his philosophy.

Lucie: Lucie is a very interesting character. She actually helps you once (when breaking you into the prison of Grond), but most of the time she is a hindrance who likes watching you fight over her (against Tyutchev) or steals your amulet or even gets you killed for the price on your head.

Tarkamandir: It's not often people who sell you things get much characterisation, but this one does. You have a few conversations with him which imply that you know each other well.

Tyutchev: Although your character doesn't know him, anyone who's read any other book set on Orb does. He's here. He's causing trouble. And you still can't kill him.

Melmelo: The leader of the Thieves' Guild. A pragmatist who wants hate killed because it's bad for business. The text tells you that his approach grates against your idealistic outlook, and you have the option of killing him, but it's better to put your idealism aside in this case and join forces with him against the common enemy.

Marmeluke: A friend of yours who seems perpetually jolly despite having to eat cats. He does seem to have a lot of lady friends, however, so maybe that's why. He's very helpful and helps you get into Grond, which has a necessary item to kill Hate and survive.

Ruth: Mainly there for the situation of how you treat a pregnant woman when saving her could put your life at risk.

Caiaphas: Puts you in your place very early on. He is one of the few reasonable people in a city full of fanatics and haters.

Tormil: The captain of the guard who has a very minor role, but he demonstrates the greed that some people can exhibit in a crisis as well as the fact that even people who commit evil acts have loved ones (in this case, his daughter).

Sunday, September 29, 2019

The good points of Coils of Hate part 1: The hero

NOTE: I wrote this post a long time ago and I've only just released it. Since then, Mark Smith generously gave me his permission to release a fan version I made which reboots the original book and (I hope) addresses the problems it had. You can get it from Drive Thru RPG for free!!!!!

Coils of Hate is a gamebook in the Virtual Reality series written by Mark Smith. In the book, you are a member of the Judain community in the decadent city of Godorno. Your people are much hated upon and to make matters worse, about 5 sections into the book, the corrupt overlord of the city makes the hate official, banning Judain from the city unless they are slaves. You have to flee the city. When you return, things have really gone south. The overlord's men are hunting and killing Judain, there has been a plague and a giant purple creature is stalking the city, swallowing up people and undermining its foundations. For some reason, you are the only person who can stop all of this.

Now the book is maligned due to logic errors which cause a lot of frustration. Per Jorner has put in a lot of effort to catalogue them and Dave Morris has acknowledged that they need a lot of editing, but if you look past the logic errors, there is actually a lot of depth and great aspects to the book that surpass many other gamebooks.

The first aspect is the main character.

First of all, I would like to say that the character you play is an idiot. He (and, based on his relationship with Lucie, it is probably a he) does have some skills, but against the worst that Godorno has to offer, he is completely out of his depth. Want to fight Tyutchev? You'll probably die. What about go to some pub that thieves drink in? If you don't have streetwise, you'll get your throat cut. How about threatening or bribing a bunch of guards? You'll get peppered with crossbow bolts. Surely you can organise the resistance against the guards? No, they will also get peppered with crossbow bolts. How about tomb robbing? Can't harm the Jade guards. Killing the overlord? Failure is the only option. He doesn't even want a job, thinking that is beneath him.

Basically, it seems that the only thing you can succeed at is running away.

Now, I think the main character is an idiot, but I also think he is an extremely well fleshed out and written idiot with a depth that almost no other main character in a gamebook has.

He has a great can-do attitude: Despite only taking a few sections, your trip out of the city is vital at the beginning of the book - it gets you away from the city when things really go bad and crush the spirit of your people. You miss the plague and the initial attacks on the Judain. You also miss the first attacks by Hate. As a result of this, you are one of the few people in the city whose spirit hasn't been completely crushed, which means that you are ready to do whatever it takes to save your people. Due to the fact that everyone else is desperate, they actually listen to you.

He has friends and enemies: The character has people who know him and who he can drop in on. Now sometimes, these friends just pop out of nowhere, but they are introduced with familiarity. Tarkamandir, Caiaphas, Marmeluke and Lucie are exaples of the character's friends. The character knows Melmelo the thief and disapproves of him.

He has desires: He wants to make something of his life, which is what the introduction says, but not get a job. I'm putting this down to the arrogance of youth rather than the protagonist actually knowing that they will achieve something great. He must have a high opinion of himself when he is living in a broken down hovel yet somehow knows he is destined for greatness. He also desires Lucie. There are many points in the text where you can tell that the character is so besotted with Lucie that what is actually happening and what they are feeling are completely at odds.

He perceives things through an emotional lens: Most gamebooks simply describe the five senses to the reader, but this one demonstrates the characters thoughts and feelings. The book mixes the five senses and character perception well, so that you, as the reader can see that the character has a warped version of reality in places. This is most apparent when Lucie is involved. When she steals your amulet, your first thought is that she is being influenced by some supernatural creature, not the fact that she wants to sell it. There are also parts where there is a discrepancy between how skilled you think you are and how skilled you actually are. For example, in a section where you organise the resistance to take on the Overlord's men, you feel quite happy with your plan. And then the Overlord's men fire a bunch of crossbows at the resistance and completely curb stomp them. Oops.

So there we go. Here we have a main character who is really up against it. Their steps to being a hero is fraught with failure and sacrifice and yet, they are the only person who can do it as they haven't had their spirit completely crushed by oppression, plague of hate itself. They become a hero simply by just doing something.

I think this quote from Mark Twain sums up the hero perfectly:

"Only two things are required for success - confidence and ignorance."

Sunday, September 22, 2019

3 rules I had to be reminded of when writing Asuria

Asuria Awakens, my addition to the Tin Man Games Orlandes series is still out in the App store. It was released on September 11th 2015, making it almost its anniversary.

I thought I would share some lessons I leant whilst writing it.

1)  Don't annoy the player.

There's a reason why this is number 1.  It doesn't matter how clever you're being, or how great you're writing is.  It's all for nothing if it annoys the player.  I had a section in Asuria where you get sucked into a maelstrom and pulled into a giant monster.  Now, throughout the book, I wanted to give an impression of hopelessness and that winning was impossible, so in this section, I offered two choices - row or swim.  however, both choices lead to you being sucked away.  There was no functional difference between them.  The reason I did this was to make the reader think that they had chosen the 'wrong' choice and make them feel like it was hopeless.  However, I then thought that if they went back, chose the other choice and realised that there was not difference, then they would have got annoyed.  So I got rid of that bit.

2)  If you need an item, make sure you have a chance to get it towards the point you need.

I'm referring to point 4 on the terrific article linked above.  I wanted Asuria to be a book where you did not have to complete a set path to win and it would be quite forgiving in terms of instant deaths.  So there is only 1 section where you need an item or die.  And when I wrote it, you had the chance to find 3 different items that would save you.  However, when I went back through it, I realised that these 3 items were all at the beginning of the book and that you could go through 2/3 of it with not chance of success only for you to die at the end.  It is for this reason that I included a new location towards the end with a new item to help (the bat amulet in case you're wondering)

3)  If you give the player an option to leave, don't just let it lead to an insta kill.

This is one thing Dave Morris, author of the Fantastic Heart of Ice, does not like about gamebooks, so when I realised that I had done it in Asuria, I immediately changed it.  I had two bits where you could leave Casporur and head back to Orlandes before you finish (one by land and one by sea) and they might be justifiable too (you might have found the simulacra you were looking for and you were charged with the safety of Orlandes, not Casporur after all).  However, since I didn't want this to happen, it was an instant death paragraph.  However, after the interview, I inserted a combat to both bits where the simulacra you fight warns you that you will be followed wherever you go as a not too subtle message to stick around.  After a warning like that, I feel absolved of guilt about anyone who ignores that warning and heads home anyway.

Honourable mention: Never have a combat where you have an offence of 1.

Combat in Tin Man Games works like this. You roll a number of dice equal to your offence. Your opponent rolls a number of dice equal to their defence. The winner is not the one with the highest total number, but the one whose highest die roll is higher than their opponent's highest die roll. If the attacker wins, they deal damage equal to the number of all the dice added together. Then it's the other combatant's turn. This means that if you have an offence of 1, you are rolling 1 die. Even against a defender with a defence of 1, the chance of hitting is not large and if you do hit, you deal 2-6 damage at most, which means it will take a while to kill your opponent. I did not want lots of busy time, so I made sure that your character always has a dagger with an offence of 2 and it is impossible to lose it. Also, I had unavoidable weapon upgrades so that I knew the player could keep up with their opponents.

You can get Asuria Awakens from the app store.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

The creation process

I created SCRAWL as the easiest, quickest system to write a gamebook from.

However, I have discovered that making a system to enable something able to be done quick and easily is a long and difficult process.

Obviously, once the system is in place, then things will take off.

I got this idea from a book (it's title escapes me now) that talked about MacDonald's success. The book states that pretty much anyone could make a burger that is better than a MAcDonald's burger. However, the rub lies in making several burgers with the speed and consistency of MacDonald's burgers that are better than MacDonald's burgers. We couldn't do that. And that is why MacDonald's is a success. It is not in the quality of its burgers, but is ability to be able to cheaply set up a restaurant and easily train pretty much anyone to make their products.

This is my aim with SCRAWL.

I started writing a SCRAWL mini adventure and it took a lot longer than I thought it would because I didn't have a system in place. This was a blessing in disguise, because it made me realise that I needed something like a checklist to think as little as possible about the process and that to perfect it, I should start small.

So I did. I am currently on my first Small SCRAWL adventure, but I'm going to write more of them until I have the system sorted and then I will move onto bigger ones.

This reminded me of Ten short Fighting Fantasy books and one long one (I really wasn't very good at titles about 9 years ago!) which I had written specifically to hone my gamebook craft.

I did it by writing short gamebooks and then writing what I had learned from each one.

I think I need to do the same exercise with SCRAWL. Basically, even though it is my system, it already seems to have a life of its own and I need to get to know it better.

So there we go. My journey in writing gamebooks continues...

Sunday, September 8, 2019

Nine years on

Hello all! I'm a bit late! My first ever post was on August 27th 2010, so I am slightly late for my anniversary (also, the saved file in here said eight years on as the title. Whoops...)

So what's been going on?

When I started the blog, I was unmarried, working as a teacher and didn't have an A level in physics.

Now none of those things apply to me. However, things have calmed down recently and what the last few months have taught me is that I really needed some time to focus on gamebook writing. You don't know what you've got until it's gone.

I am going to do my best to not make one of those blogs where there's a post every few months that says 'I'm still here, just been busy the last few months, but I'll really get on it now!' etc. etc.

I'm going to make posts, little and often, and schedule them so that there's a regular release. Optimistically, that would be once a week, but expect once a fortnight and you won't be disappointed. I think more than that and each post will turn into one explaining what I've been doing and why I haven't posted.

Wish me luck!

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

SCRAWL Ultimate edition out!

Hello all! Remember me? I don't think I do. Isn't this Peter Agapov's blog anyway? He writes loads of great analysis and has wonderful insights.

Well, I'm back...very briefly to tell you about SCRAWL Ultimate edition (available now, pay what you want)!

SCRAWL is a system I created in order to save time for both the player and the writer - abilities give you rerolls rather than bonuses (no maths! No tests that are too difficult or too easy!), spells only give rerolls to ability tests or emulate minor magical items (No spells completely ruining the game and making me consider them every time I write an adventure!) and lots of other reasons that makes it quick and easy to play.

The ultimate edition lets you create a character in about a minute then lets you drop them in the middle of a wilderness to explore a land, go to settlements and loot dungeons.

I put it on Drive Thru RPG this morning and I was touched to see the number of downloads it got, so I'm going to do some adventures to slot into SCRAWL in the future.

I hope I'll be back on a more regular basis. Peter has done a great job with his wonderful posts and I am infinitely grateful that he has kept this blog alive.

I have so much to write about though - Fighting Fantasy Fest, gamebook ideas, gamebook analysis.

See you soon, I hope!




Sunday, June 30, 2019

Trap for Winners: a gamebook that turned into a computer game

Most of the time, I write about Gamebook Theory and I enjoy every single keystroke on that subject. However, this month, my post will be about a very good gamebook, which just recently became a computer game.

Let me first start with a little bit of gamebook history from the 1990s!


 After the fall of the Soviet Union, most of Eastern Europe suffered serious economic problems. In the winter of 1996/1997, Bulgaria's recession went even further and the country was hit by a few months of hyper-inflation. As a result, nobody could afford to buy a computer or a game console. These, otherwise unfortunate events, allowed the more affordable form of gaming - branching narrative literature - to become the kid's main choice for personal entertainment in that era and created a whole new generation of gamebook fans. In the midst of those events, a true legend emerged: the gamebook author Michael Mindcrime. According to his own words, after reading a gamebook for the first time, he though "This sucks! I can write a much better one". The rest is history. He became the most recognized, the most published and the most notorious gamebook author in Bulgaria.

You are probably thinking that Mindcrime doesn't sound like an Eastern-European name. You are correct. Back then, the consumers disregarded anything that was made in the Eastern Block, so many of the local authors were forced to use fake English names or western hemisphere sounding nicknames, if you prefer. His real name is Dimitar, but his family called him Misho. That is short for Mikhail, which in English is spelled as Michael. He came up with the last name of his pseudonym while working on his first gamebook. The whole time, he was listening to the album "Operation Mindcrime" by Queensrÿche. And there you go! Now the whole world knows how and why Dimitar Slaveykov became Michael Mindcrime.


"Trap for Winners" was his 22nd officially published gamebook. It saw the light of day sometime back in 1997 and it is one of his best works in the genre. For reasons I can't explain, I didn't get to read it back then, but everything else from that author was standing out from all other Bulgarian and English gamebooks I've ever seen. He is famous for perfectly balancing the difficulty in his gamebooks, for creating great informed choices and successfully integrating many logic puzzles and riddles in his adventures. The outcome in his games always depends on the player's choices and performance, not on blind guessing and pure chance.

So, when about an year ago, PrimeGames announced that they were about to make a computer game based on a Michael Mindcrime's book, I was absolutely ecstatic. I dug deep into my gamebook collection and there it was - the original, paper version of "Trap for Winners". I wasn't disappointed. It was a great read and I dare to say that the message it carries is more relevant nowadays than it was back when it was first realeased in 1997.


So, "Trap for Winners" puts the reader in the shoes of an undercover agent for the Department of Foreign Civilizations, who is dispatched to an enemy world. The adventure takes place sometime in the future when our home planet is trying to apply for membership in the Galactic Union of Advanced Civilizations.

After a devastating war with an alien race, Earth has emerged victorious and hastaken over  the hostile planet Dorya. As a part of Earth's Occupying Corps, the reader will have to investigate all the suspicious circumstances that have shaped the course of the war. He, playing as the undercover agent Steve Harrison, will have to balance between the pursuit of knowledge and securing the superiors' favor; between suppressing violent rebels and his own conscience. And what he'll discover just might change Earth's destiny forever.


See, even though, the book (published in 1997) precedes the War in the Middle East, many of the choices are similar to the problems the United States Military had to face there. The moral dilemmas of treating the enemy with respect or brutality are probably as old as the world. Also, should the locals, seemingly peaceful citizens, be treated as innocent people or handled with an iron fist? Would you be easy on the prisoners of war, let them rest and feed them well or would you rather push them to work harder in the prison camps? There are many choices like the ones above in "Trap for Winners". Neither one of them is entirely right or wrong. Depending on the reader, his preference and performance, there are three different victory endings available. Got you interested yet?


There are also many good things to be said about the computer adaptation by Prime Games too. First and most importantly, the translation from Bulgarian to English is excellent. Mindcrime was never famous for his literature, but his writing style is nevertheless pretty good. The translation and further editing allowed the quality of the text to be elevated at least one level up. It is easy to read, but not at all simplistic. The soundtrack is also very well selected. It helps the reader to unconsciously emerge into the world of the book. The gameplay is very intuitive. The few pictures in the game could have been done a little bit better and I wish there were more of those, but I also understand that this is one of the greatest expenses in the game design industry.

There is, however, one major difference between the gamebook and its adaptation for the personal computer and that is the minigame, which takes place during every mission on the planet Dorya. I've heard some complaints from fans that this addition to the original book distracts and takes the focus away from the actual story, but in my personal opinion, it is a well needed break from reading blocks of text. It took me a couple of failures to get the hang of it, but once mastered, I started enjoying these minigame missions.



Before I finish this post, I must say that Michael Mindcrime published a total of 30 gamebooks between the years of 1993 and 1999. Unfortunately for all his fans, he no longer writes interactive adventures. According to his own words, gamebooks can't provide enough income and he has moved on to other endeavors. However, 29 of his books remain unpublished in English, so I am hoping that the people at Prime Games would chose to translate and adapt many more of them in the near future.

In conclusion, I'd like to add that I've mentioned Michael Mindcrime, as an example of an outstanding gamebook designer, many times in my posts on Gamebook Theory, but never had a reference point to him for all my English speaking friends. I am going to be eternally grateful to Prime Games for translating his work into English and for making one of my childhood dreams - to play a computer game designed by Michael Mindcrime - a reality.

The game "Trap for Winners" is now available for purchase on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038100/Trap_for_Winners/

Peter Agapov
Game Designer at AugmentedRealityAdventure.com
President and Chief Executive Officer of American Limo Naperville
Former Road Captain of Marine One at Operation "Welcome You Home"

Friday, May 31, 2019

Gamebook Theory: Mistake #5 (creating a traitor instead of a hero)

This month, I'd like to take a look at the evolution of establishing the main character's stats in the gamebook genre. Unfortunately, the limitations of the medium don't allow us to test the player's speed and coordination, so we are stuck testing the protagonist's stats instead. The final outcome of the adventure very often depends on those numbers. Therefore, it is of vital importance that the reader has a way to influence the protagonist's stats. Otherwise, the eventual success in the game depends mostly on luck instead of player's performance.

Lets take a look at the evolution of establishing stats in the genre, starting with the oldest method and moving towards the newer and more effective ones!


1. Randomizing the stats, using dice rolls.


I still clench my teeth when remembering the bad dice rolls I had during character initialization in Fighting Fantasy books. I can't believe that some of my fellow authors still use the same outdated mechanic today. Its no fun being doomed because of bad luck in the very beginning of the adventure. This mechanic played its role in the dawn of the genre, but it should never be used in modern gamebooks.

Example: To determine your Initial SKILL, STAMINA, and LUCK scores:
SKILL Roll one die. Add 6 to the number and enter this total in the SKILL box
STAMINA Roll two dice. Add 12 to the number, box on the Adventure Sheet.
LUCK Roll one die. Add 6 to the number and enter this total in the LUCK box.

Using this method, with a little bit of bad luck, it is easy to create a traitor protagonist, whose skills work against the reader's interest instead of helping him achieve victory. Not fair, is it?


2. Building a hero by distributing a given number of stat points.


This method is much better and fair to the readers. It is better because they can create a protagonist in accordance with their own preference. It is fair because the final outcome of the adventure depends on the reader's decision how to apply the available points during the process of creating the main character. However, there is initially no way for the reader to know which skills would be vitally important for success in the game. Therefore, on the first couple of attempts, the outcome still depends on some luck and blind guessing, not on informed decisions. Another problem associated with this mechanic is the significant time consumption in preparation before the start of the game.

Example: Distribute 10 points between the following three skills however you please:
1.Swordfighting
2.Archery
3.Hand to hand Combat

Later in the adventure, the reader could be prompted to chose between sneaking into the chief's tent to strangle him, openly challenge the chief to a sword fight or killing him from a distance. Depending on the choice, a different skill would be tested.


3. Choosing a hero from a pool of pregenerated characters.


This method avoids time consumption and blind guessing in the beginning of the adventure. It is naturally expected that the author has done the heavy lifting for his readers and has created different protagonists with comparable chance of success. The outcome of the game should then be dependent on series of tactical choices in accordance with the main character, which was selected in the beginning.

Example: Chose one of the following:
Forest Elf: [Swordfighting: 3] [Archery: 6] [Hand to Hand Combat: 1]
Medieval Knight: [Swordfighting: 5] [Archery: 1] [Hand to Hand Combat: 4]
Desert Barbarian: [Swordfighting: 3] [Archery: 1] [Hand to Hand Combat: 6]

Once again, Later in the adventure, the reader could be prompted to chose between sneaking into the chief's tent to strangle him, openly challenge the chief to a sword fight or killing him from a distance. Depending on the choice, a different skill would be tested.

This method could be easily combined with the previous one by first choosing one of few possible main characters and then freely distributing a set number of points between their preassigned skills.


4. Train the hero and build up his stats during the adventure

My personal favorite method is building up the stats as the adventure progresses. Using this method, the faith of the main character falls entirely into the hands of the reader and the decisions he makes throughout of the adventure. When fighting the final boss at the end of the book, success depends on the stats accumulated during the course of the game.

Example:
- 1 -
You are a young and brave teenager. Your little beloved sister was recently abducted by the Evil Wizard from the North. You leave on the quest to find her and bring her back home. On your way out of the village you could stop by your cousin, who is one of the finest soldiers this land has ever seen (go to 2); you may decide to visit your grandfather, who was once part of the archer battalion (go to 3) or alternatively, you could see your uncle, who is the blacksmith (episode 4)

- 2 -
Your cousin gives you his enchanted wristband of power. Add 5 points to your Hand to Hand Combat skill and leave the village on paragraph 5!

- 3 -
 Your grandpa takes his old army bow down from the wall and hands it to you. It is enchanted. Add 5 points to your Archery skill and leave the village on paragraph 5!

- 4 -
Your uncle, the blacksmith, gifts you one of the newest swords he's made. There is an enchanted stone built into the handle. Add 5 points to your Swordfighting skill and leave the village on paragraph 5!

 -5-
On your way out of the village, you must decide which path you'll take. If you want to go through the Forest of the Elves (+5 Archery skill), turn to 6. If you prefer to cross the Desert of the Barbarians (+5 Hand to Hand Combat), turn to 7 or you could head out to the Castle of the Great Knight on paragraph 8 (+5 Swordfighting).

Yada, yada, yada...

- 100 -
You set a beautiful virgin from captivity in the Dark Castle. Before she heads home, she gives you a kiss on the cheek. Your self esteem is boosted. Distribute 5 points to skills any way you prefer and keep reading!

And so on...

At the end of the adventure: Chose between sneaking into the chief's tent to strangle him (Hand to Hand Combat > 7 requred), openly challenge the chief to a sword fight (Swordfighting skill > 7 required) or killing him from a distance (Archery skill > 7 required).

Note: The gains in the examples above are too obvious, because I wanted to illustrate the idea of building up the protagonist's stats. Apply some "fog of war" at your discretion to make the choices less predictable to your readers!


Of course, this method could also be combined with the two mentioned above: choosing a pregenerated character, distributing additional points between his skills and then receiving bonus points throughout the adventure.

Peter Agapov
Game Designer at AugmentedRealityAdventure.com
President and Chief Executive Officer of American Limo Naperville
Former Road Captain of Marine One at Operation "Welcome You Home"

Friday, March 29, 2019

Gamebook Theory: Grave Mistake #4 (branching alone isn't enough)

As I promised in my previous post, this month we'll talk about branching in gamebooks and here is a very bold statement about that:


Branching creates choices, but choices alone don't create a game.

To better illustrate what I am trying to say, I will give you the following two examples:

Example 1:

1. You are at a crossroads. If you want to turn left, go to 2! If you prefer to turn right, go to paragraph 3!

2. You found a Magic Sword. Continue to paragraph 4!

3. You fall into a trap. Your adventure ends here.

4. Using your newly found Sword, you defeat the bad guy and you win fame and glory. The end.

Is this example interactive? Yes, it sure is, because there is a choice to be made.

Is the outcome a direct result of the reader's performance? No, it is not. The outcome here depends on pure chance, because the reader had no way of guessing which choice leads to death and which choice leads to cake. This is rather a "Which Door Choice". Note: see the gamebook choice classification by Ashton Saylor!

Do you see what is missing? There is no test of performance. The outcome depends entirely on luck.



Example 2:

1. The local Elder tells you that according to a centuries old legend, the Magic Sword could be found in the lands to the north. You leave the village and the beautiful sunset behind your back. Soon you are standing at a crossroads. If you want to turn left, go to 2! If you prefer to turn right, go to 3!

2. You continue walking to the north. A little bit later you find a Magic Sword. Turn to 4!

3. You continue walking to the south. A little bit later you fall into a trap. Game Over.

4. Using your newly found Sword, you defeat the bad guy and you win fame and glory. The end.

Do you see the difference? Do you see how we tested the reader's general knowledge, attention span, memory and logic?

a) General Knowledge: it is a well known fact that the sun always sets to the west.

b) Attention Span: the reader had to notice the clues buried in the text: the sun is setting behind his/her back.

c) Short Term Memory: the reader had to memorize the information from the village Elder and the fact that the Magic Sword is in the lands to the north.

d) Logic: if the sunset is behind the protagonist, then he is facing east and therefore must turn left (to the north).

Of course, we don't have to test all four in every choice. We could test just the memory by mentioning in the introduction that there is a Magic Sword in the lands to the north. A hundred paragraphs later we could ask the reader if he wants to go north or south. Actually, in this example, we would also be testing the attention, not only the memory, but you get the idea.


I was very surprised to find out that many authors complain that they come up with too many choices for a given situation and they have a hard time bringing the number down to acceptable levels. Imagine that in the example above at the crossroads, we ask the reader if he wants to 1. Climb the nearby tree; 2. Dig a hole in the ground; 3. Kill the ant crawling on his arm; 4. Break the crossroads sign; 5 Stare at the clouds.

Sure, all those are valid action possibilities, but what difference does any of those choices make in the grand scheme of things? Each one of those scenarios simply redirects the reader to a separate narrative line, but it makes no difference for the final outcome of the adventure. Those choices are irrelevant to the actual game part of the gamebook and should be removed from it. This is like the Chekhov's Gun Principle: "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired". Otherwise, it should have not been mentioned at all on the first place.

I have the exact opposite problem: I can't come up with many enough (at least 2 or ideally 3) meaningful options, because every single choice in a gamebook must make a difference one way or another (change of stats, finding an item, gaining valuable information and so on).

In conclusion, I am eager to remind you that unlike traditional literature, the goal of a gamebook isn't to surprise the reader unexpectedly at the end of the story. It is the exact opposite. A good gamebook author would lead the readers hand-in-hand through the MODERATE CHALLENGES of the game and HELP them achieve ultimate success at the end of the adventure.

Peter Agapov
Game Designer at AugmentedRealityAdventure.com
President and Chief Executive Officer of American Limo Naperville
Former Road Captain of Marine One at Operation "Welcome You Home"

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Gamebooks are back in the primelight: ChooseCo against Netflix!

A couple of months ago, Netflix advertised their first release of an interactive movie. Shortly after, news started emerging in the global media about "Choose You Own Adventure" suing Netflix over the branching format. Here is an article published by USA Today: 'Choose Your Own Adventure' publisher sues Netflix over 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch'


How does this affect our beloved gamebook genre? Lets take a look and give it a thought!

First, I will give you my personal opinion about the Netflix Original movie "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch". It tells the story of a young game designer in the 1980s, who is creating a video game based on a gamebook. It has a great potential and a very promising beginning. It starts with the young programmer being invited to work at a professional video game publisher, where he meets one of his personal idols in the industry. Naturally, one of the first choices you have to make for the protagonist is: "Do you wish to work on the game at the office" or "Do you prefer to work on your project by yourself at home"?

If the choice, presented this way, seems completely blind to you, don't worry! That is exactly how I felt when I saw it on the screen for the first time and I had very limited time to make a decision. Thinking logically, I assumed that working at the office provided advantages such as access to unlimited professional resources, cutting edge technology and help from experienced game designers. Well, with a lot of creativity, the makers of the movie were able to trash this assumption. Sadly, the nonsense didn't end with this one. Instead, it gets from bad to worse further in the story. Because of all that, a movie couldn't possibly be more similar to "Choose Your Own Adventure" than this. All the illogical choices and blind guessing, the endless "try again" sequences and the whole arcade approach, forced me to give up at some point. The story also got weirder later on, but I guess that is to be expected with any "Black Mirror" production. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed.

Because of how bad it is, the owner of "Choose Your Own Adventure" brand (ChooseCo LLC) probably has a good reason to sue Netflix over the branching narrative and horrible choices. However, poor gamebook design is not difficult to find and I would be hesitant to give reserved rights of it to just one game designer.


Joking aside, I heard a lot of chatter that ChooseCo is focusing on suing people and companies left and right for just mentioning the CYOA brand. It seems that the people, who inherited rights over the iconic series don't care to publish something new with better quality, but instead they are putting all their effort into making money by harassing new gamebook authors.

This could play out in two different ways. As most intellectual property lawsuits, this one could be considered more expensive to fight in front of a jury and Netflix could decide to settle outside of court for the small amount of a few million dollars. However, if the online streaming service has any intentions to continue publishing movies with similar format, they wouldn't care about the cost of winning this battle and would want to set a precedent in court, teaching ChooseCo a good lesson that it is not okay to pursue branching narrative game designers for mentioning "Choose Your Own Adventure" and comparing their products to it. The statement "My car is NOT a Mercedes, but looks like one" doesn't infringe the brand Daimler-Benz in any way. The folks at Hyundai know that very well.
Hyundai and Mercedes

If the big shots at Netflix decide to follow the latter approach and take the ChooseCo accusations to court, they would do the world a log of good by releasing the authors of gamebooks from the fear of being sued over the branching narrative format or comparing it to the world-famous series.

Either way, it is good for the whole genre that this scandal is being monitored by news media around the globe, reminding people about the good old gamebooks and of something that was once a worldwide phenomenon. Hopefully all this fuss is going to create a fresh new interest in our beloved genre.

I would like to end this post with the bold statement that books from the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series shouldn't be called gamebooks at all. Branching the narrative creates options, but it doesn't create meaningful choices and therefore, those books have nothing to do with real games. However, more on that next month here on lloydofgamebooks.com in a post which will be called "Gamebook Theory: Grave mistake #4 (branching the story is not enough)".


Until then,
May The Dice Be With You!

Peter Agapov
Game Designer at AugmentedRealityAdventure.com
President and Chief Executive Officer of American Limo Naperville
Former Road Captain of Marine One at Operation "Welcome You Home"

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Seven No-Trump


Never tell me I that I don't follow through on what I've promised to do.

Some five years ago, I wrote a post for Lloyd of Gamebooks which served as a brief introduction to Roger Zelazny's Amber books and, more generally, the setting around those books. This was an introduction to a coming review of a gamebook set within that Amber universe, Seven No-Trump, by Neil Randall.

I've read through the whole series of Amber novels a couple of times since I wrote that post. I finished rereading them again quite recently. My passionate love for the series reignited, I hungrily began to seek out more Amber stories.

This is how, some years after I found the book, I came to read Seven No-Trump.

The premise of the Crossroads series of gamebooks is quite rare - each book takes place within an established literary fantasy universe, giving the reader the chance to play through as characters within that universe. I've played only a handful of these books; they tend to be extremely story-heavy, with the player often reading through several pages of text before arriving at a choice. The books are well out of print these days; they were first published in the 1980s and, to my knowledge, never republished since. Given that this series involves stories in a number of intellectual properties by established authors, I'd be very curious to know what sort of deals were struck in order to write these books. This is a reminder that the popularity around gamebooks in the 80s was a potent publishing force, for sure.

As mentioned, Seven No-Trump is one of two books in the Crossroads series that take place within Zelazny's Amber universe, both written by Neil Randall. In this book, the player takes the role of Random, brother to Corwin and the various other princes of Amber, shortly after he becomes King of Amber, as detailed in the fifth book of Zelazny's series, The Courts of Chaos.

Seven No-Trump conforms to the story-heavy format established by other Crossroads books - and, viewed as an Amber short story, it really gets things right. In Zelazny's third Amber book, Sign of the Unicorn, we get a chapter in Random's voice; that voice is developed to the full here. Random is flippant, yet appreciative of the gravity of his new role as king; he acts with a bravado that belies the frequent self-questioning and self-doubt of his inner monologue. He is, quite simply, written as a credible, interesting character. It's rare in a gamebook - in those gamebooks outside of the Crossroads series, at any rate - to see so much space dedicated to expressing a character's voice, and his inner thoughts. Readers of Zelazny's Amber series already know Random, and the guy is presented as a somewhat amiable delinquent in those books. And yet, even without knowing those books, the reader has enough space here to get to know, and grow to like, Random.

From the perspective of an Amber fan, and viewing this book as an entry into Amber canon - or, at least, canon-ish Amber - it is a great gulp of water after a long drought. Some of its key players are those Amberites who don't receive much direct attention in the Corwin or Merlin chronicles - Caine and Llewella, notably - and having the chance to get to know them a little better is delightful. Seeing Brand in action again is a fucking joy. Benedict is somewhat underused here; even so, seeing him on the page once more is like chancing across an old friend after a decade apart.

And, perhaps best of all, the story is engaging, and thought-provoking. We are not falling into typical fantasy tropes, here; rather, the story concerns the impact of art upon those who view it, and whether the realities we can imagine are true realities, with their own lives, their own inner existences. It is, for sure, one of the more profound gamebooks that I've read.

Yet Seven No-Trump has flaws, too. Its story is excellent, and yet as a game it is poor. Choices are infrequent, and it's rarely difficult to choose the 'best' option - I successfully completed the game first time through, by the by. The game mechanics are very Dungeons & Dragons in tone - Random essentially has the six familiar D&D stats, which fall on a range of 3 to 18 (you don't get to roll stats; Random is assigned his scores at the start of the game). And yet these mechanics don't convey particularly well the abilities that are evident in Zelazny's books. In game terms, Random's Strength and Constitution scores are unexceptional for a 'normal' human being - and yet, in the books, we've seen him lift a car that's stuck in mud, or tirelessly duel his brother Corwin for a whole day. I can see that the Crossroads books want to maintain a consistent set of game mechanics, but they just don't really work, here.

Moreover, for those who know the Amber books well, there are a number of inconsistencies where Seven No-Trump doesn't quite match up with the Zelazny novels. As far as I can see from the book's foreword and afterword, Seven No-Trump was written sometime between the publication of the sixth and seventh Amber novels. Certainly, it takes place after Random becomes king at the end of the Corwin saga. And yet many details are glossed over. In the novels, Random is married to Vialle; here, she is never mentioned. Likewise, Random's son Martin is absent, and unmentioned. More jarringly, Brand is alive, with no information concerning his return from the great Abyss that lies beyond the Courts of Chaos. When Random encounters Brand once more, his attempted murder of Martin has apparently been forgotten.

Yes, okay, Seven No-Trump has been written for readers who might not necessarily know Zelazny's books, and venturing into such areas might derail the narrative somewhat. Still, knowing the books well, you have to work to put such details out of your mind. Might Seven No-Trump take place in some sort of 'alternate Amber', where the rules of reality are not quite in sync with those established elsewhere? Or is the book's author merely cutting some narrative corners? Why even take the time to decide, really?

Let's summarise, then. As a novella, Seven No-Trump is fantastic. As a game, and a piece of interactive fiction, it just barely meets the minimum criteria. I came to the book seeking an engaging Amber tale, and I loved it.

Neil Randall wrote another Crossroads gamebook set in Zelazny's Amber universe, The Black Road War. I'll write up a review of that as soon as I'm able - sometime around the year 2024, maybe.