Results of the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum competition

Logo by Pat ONeill

I am pleased to announce that the winner of the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum Prize for short gamebook fiction is An Island by Pádraic Henrysson-MacOireachtaigh.

Merit awards go to Jason Romein for Working Ogre-Time and Lewis Amerson for Mochilla.

Commendation awards go to Jonathan Ritter for Nineteen Ninety Nine, Steffen Hagen for The Fall of the Infinite King, Sean Loftiss for Noesis and R.L. Gill for A Golden Opportunity.

I would like to thank everybody who participated, the authors and those dedicated readers who took the time to evaluate all the entries, and also a further thanks to those readers who provided feedback and comment to the authors.

If you intend to write feedback in a public place, please email me the address and I will link to it.

You can find the entries here: Lloyd of Gamebooks: Voting is now open for the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum competition!

It is no small thing to as entrants to write original gamebooks. To write a gamebook (even one that must be limited to 100 sections) requires considerable time and creative effort. It is the type of writing project that can take months to accomplish and I appreciate greatly the work done by all the authors who entered this year's competition.

Many thanks for helping make this year's competition such an excellent competition with a wide variety of gamebook genres and styles. This was the second year I ran the competition and you continued to help me make it as brilliant as it was.

I would also like to extend thanks to Peter Agapov who sponsored the competition, Tammy Badowski who donated her time and talent to the competition and Crumbly Head Games who has donated free subscriptions to GBAT for the top 3 entrants.

I would also like to thank the judges - Peter Agapov, Sandor Gobei, Keith P. Phillips, Ashton Saylor and Hieronymous J. Doom for all of the time and effort they have put in to read the entries and write feedback for them.

I feel very lucky to have so many people make this competition wonderful.

Looking forward to next year!

Voting has closed for the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum competition

 

Logo by Pat ONeill

Hello all!

Voting has now closed for the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum competition.

If you would like to leave feedback to any of the entrants, you may do so by emailing lindenbaumprize@gmail.com.

The winners will be announced on the 10th June.

Voting is now open for the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum competition!

 Hello all!

Image by Pat ONeill

Voting is now open for the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum Prize. Voting is open until 5pm GMT on the 31st May 2025.

Voting

The Lindenbaum prize is awarded to the entrant who receives the greatest number of reader votes. This prize relies on votes provided by readers who have read enough of the entries to make a considered choice as to the relative merits of the gamebooks submitted. It is expected by the sponsor of this competition that votes will be provided on this basis. For 2024-2025, the voting system applied as follows:

A valid vote must be forwarded by email to Lindenbaumprize@gmail.com. A valid vote must nominate the three gamebooks most favoured by the voter from the competition entrants. A vote with less than three nominations cannot be accepted. A vote forwarded with more than three nominations will only have the first three accounted for in the voting tabulation.

Only one voter email is allowed per reader. All votes will be checked for duplication of email addresses.

Feedback to the authors may be forwarded to the competition sponsors at Lindenbaumprize@gmail.com. All feedback given will be provided to authors at the end of competition as a part of the email notification of results.

Voting will close on the 31st May at 5pm GMT!

Entries

All of the entries in a zip file

Scopes by A.E. Johnston                                        The House on Happy Hill by Andrew Wright

The Last Song of the Homura by Elie Merle        Working Ogre-Time by Jason Romein

Chirality by Jeremy Johnson                                  Be Her Mirror by Joi Massat

Nineteen Ninety Nine by Jonathan Ritter               Lost in the City by Joseph Fry

Voyage to Venus by Kieran Coghlan                       Mochila by Lewis Amerson

The Quiet Arcology by Per Jorner                            Noesis by Sean Loftiss

Fall of the Infinite King by Steffen Hagen                The Trickster by Thomas J. Betsworth

The Hunt for the Holder by Tiago Filipe Costa        Bound by Steel by Tom Perrett

Under the Stones by Shaun Hately                            A Golden Opportunity by R.L Gill

An Island by Pádraic Henrysson-MacOireachtaigh

Sponsorship

The Lindennbaum Prize is sponsored by Peter Agapov, contributor to Lloyd of Gamebooks and owner of  Augmented Reality Adventure Games who is very generously providing the first prize.

The Lindenbaum Prize is also sponsored by Crumbly Head Games who is providing free licenses to The Gamebook Authoring Tool as prizes and also has a free version of the Gamebook Authoring Tool that goes up to 100 sections.

Many thanks to Tammy Badowski for donating her time to the Lindenbaum Prize.

Submissions are now closed for the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum competition

                                                           

EDIT: Sorry, I can't count - we have 17 19 entries!

Hello all! 

Submissions have now closed for the 2024/2025 Lindenbaum competition.

I am excited to say that we have 19 17 16 entries for this year's competition. 

The entries will be made available on the 10th March when voting opens. 

Votes need to be sent to lindenbaumprize@gmail.com. Each voter must submit 3 books. If they submit less than 3, their votes won't count. If they submit more than 3, the first 3 will count.

As there are 16 entries, I have extended the voting deadline to the 31st May. The winners will be announced on the 10th June.

Happy gamebooking!

Sponsor's Award Lindenbaum Competition 2023/2024

I am glad to announce that Operation "Dead Dawn" by Tom Perrett is awarded the Sponsor's Award for the 2023/2024 Lindenbaum Competition.

You can download this gamebook in PDF format here

I came up with the idea about this award, because I felt it was very unfair that such a great gamebook didn't win any of the first three places in the competition. My personal analysis for this phenomenon is that most fans of the genre LOVE fantasy. I am assuming that the subject of fighting zombies didn't appeal to the judges as much simply because it diverts away from the traditional focus of this genre.

There are no current plans to make the Sponsor's Award an annual thing, but I do reserve the right to give an award if I do like a gamebook more that the rest and I feel that it was unfairly left without recognition.

along with the Certificate, the author received
a monetary award in the amount of 40.00 USD

 

The gamebook "Dead Dawn" was my favorite for winning the prize this year by a lot. This short gamebook is a piece of art in every way - writing, twists and turns, difficult choices, battle mechanics and so on. I've never been a fan of zombies in books, movies or games, but this adventure was so well done, I couldn't put it down.

 Here is what I praise Operation "Dead Dawn" for.

1. Very well done encounter mechanics. I would have preferred to have simpler rules, but I don't have a good suggestion on how this could have been accomplished here. Given the nature of the adventure and the specific focus on zombies, it probably couldn't be any easier on mechanics.

2. Excellent literary style, story line, and suspense. I was masterfully kept on my toes by getting enough foreshadowing without giving away any specifics. This made me keep turning to the next paragraph, rushing to find out what happens next.

3. I enjoyed having the difficult choices that didn't have a positive outcome either way. Example, shoot the Female Scientist when she got infected or try to carry out my orders and bring her home dead or alive. Also, when one of my soldiers died at the end, this evoked strong feelings of loss. I found myself mourning a friend and wondering if I could have saved him somehow. Love the way it was done.

4. Presence of Resource Management. I think this is an aspect that is overlooked in many gamebooks. Making decisions how to preserve resources during encounters always creates more suspense and gives the player choices outside of the narrative. Well done!

5. This brings me to the Battle Mechanics. Very well thought out with plenty of decision making, risk management and damage control. Combined with limited resources, the battle mechanics create a game within the actual game. Excellent work there!

6. Perfect balance between traditional literature and gamebook mechanics.

Final words.

What a great gamebook! It diversifies the traditional focus of fantasy into a completely different subject. Given the combination of suspense, great style, excellent choices and well done encounter mechanics, Operation "Dead Dawn" would be a perfect introduction to gamebooks for new, younger fans.

I, personally, can't wait for the next issue of the Lindenbaum Competition to see Tom Perrett's next gamebook.

If you have not yet played this gamebook, you can download the PDF from here

Special thanks to Stuart Lloyd for allowing me to go ahead with this award. And most importantly, thank you Stuart for running the Lindenbaum Competition and for keeping our beloved gamebooks alive!

P.S. Tom, if you have anything else published, please share it with us in the comments below! I am already a huge fan of your work. 

Peter Agapov
Contributor at LloydOfGamebooks.com
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"