Windhammer review part 2 - Peledgathol, the Last Fortress by Ashton Saylor

Here is my feedback for Peledgathol, the Last Fortress by Ashton Saylor who won a merit award in this year's Windhammer competition.

Fariness of dice

If you make the right choices then all combats you fight would involve enemies having a skill 2 higher than yours, making it easy to defeat them with a 1d6.  The exceptions are a giant spider with a skill 4 higher than yours but only 1 strength, meaning that you have 3 chances to roll a 5-6 on 1 die and a giant goblin that you don’t have to fight.

When determining the success of a military mission or the number of dwarves who come to your fort or the number of battle points your get, 2d6 may be a big range.

Champion appeal

The book is quite difficult to win.  It is a strategy game in a gamebook and I failed a few times, but I was satisfied with my success.  It is a good challenge, not too easy or hard. 

First time died fighting goblins paragraph 93.

Died on 82

Died on 89.

Turned into Devra on page 20

Died on my next go because by battle score was too low.

I won on my next go because I realised that the way of winning is by getting the resources in the right order (ore first so that you can make weapons and then get 80 extra warriors and a general if you use the apprentice craftsdwarf) to upgrade my fort then obtaining lots of extra commoners and warriors. 

Explorer appeal

There are plenty of options for you and decisions for you to make – where should you make your fortress?  What should you do with each season?  Which part of the caves should you escape through?   There are plenty of things that you can do.

Puzzle solver appeal

The puzzle comes when you determine how to deploy your forces and obtain as many battle points as possible.  It also comes with the order in which you do things over the seasons in order to maximise your defences and get as many warriors as possible.

The solution to the puzzle is working out what to do at the beginning (so you have the correct resources to start with), where to put your fortress and in what order you do the seasonal actions.

Storyteller appeal

It’s good that you don’t get rewarded for taking too many risks and that fits the situation – your character is a responsible king, not some lone adventurer.  You also have to lose resources or people on your journey and that is something that the king has to deal with.  Berek Stonewhisper doesn’t make it so sacrifice is inevitable.  You need to know how to minimise the losses.

There are plenty of interesting characters and your interaction with them is a big part of the book as you have to lead them and, in some cases, be responsible for their deaths.  

The story itself is quite an archetypal one – you are thrust into a huge role of responsibility and have to complete a long journey then kill your family’s killer. 

Who I voted for

This year, I voted for Peledgathol, the Last Fortress for its strategy system and having a story where you have to make difficult choices and A strange Week for King Melchion the Despicable for its puzzles and story with a great twist.

Windhammer Competition review part 1 - Rulers of the NOW

Hi all.  I'm copying Andrew Wright by talking about my entry to the Windhammer competition.  In my case, I have made two vlogs with my opinions about my entry, Rulers of the NOW.  The first one was made before I knew the results of the Windhammer competition and the second one was made after I knew the results and I had received the feedback from various readers.

Once again, I would like to congratulate Andrew Wright, Zachary Carango and Ashton Saylor for receiving their rewards.

I have learnt a lot from the Windhammer process.  I think the main lesson that I have learnt from the varied and sometimes contradictory opinions I received is that there is no such thing as the perfect gemebook.  I want to write more about this, because I think my article about gamebook player types does not cover all the needs of the people who play gamebooks but it was a good realisation that no one gamebook is going to appeal to everyone.

I want to write Rulers of the NOW as a full 666 paragraph gamebook and when I started the project, I wanted it to have EVERYTHING.  I now realise that this train of thought was actually slowing me down because when I wrote a paragraph, I was worried that it would not appeal to a certain type of gamebook player.  However it dawned on me that any gamebook paragraph ever written would not appeal to 100% of gamebook players.  This realisation will inspire me to just get on with it and write a gamebook that I want to do with less thought into pleasing everyone.

I have put my comments in video form because I will not write any spoilers that you will accidentally read.  Instead, you can play the books then play the videos.

Here is my video before the results::

Here is the video, post results:

Next week, I'll be writing about some other entries to the Windhammer Competition.

Happy gamebooking!

Windhammer Prize results announced

Wayne Densley has announced the winners of the 2011 Windhammer prize.  


Congratulations to Andrew Wright who won the competition with his mythological adventure, Sea of Madness and to Aston Saylor and Zachary Carango who won merit awards with their entries Peledgathol - The LastFortress and Above the Waves.  I loved all of the entries to the Windhammer competition and I would also like to thank Wayne for hosting it.  I'm already looking forward to next year!


You can find the 2011 page announcing the results here.
You can find all of the entries from the last four years here.
To look at the core Windhammer gamebooks, go here.


Here is the message:


Hi All,


Arborell.com is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2011 Windhammer Prize
for Short Gamebook Fiction is Andrew Wright for his excellent sea-faring
adventure, Sea of Madness. Arborell.com can also announce that Ashton Saylor and
Zachary Carango have placed second and third in the popular vote and are
therefore worthy Merit Award winners with their entries, Peledgathol - The Last
Fortress and Above the Waves respectively. This year has seen an amazing
selection of entries, covering a wide range of fantasy and sci-fi settings and
all have done very well. Considering the limitations provided by the competition
guidelines the authors who have offered entries this year have shown once again,
that great gamebook ideas can be made to fit into very small spaces.


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. It can be disclosed that more than 5300 visitors made their way to the
prize webpages over the course of the competition and that from those visits
more than 2100 downloads were made of competition entries. From these downloads
more than double the votes were forwarded compared with last year. Thank you all
for making this the most successful Windhammer Prize yet.


All information regarding the Windhammer Prize can be found at
http://www.arborell.com/


May Glory and Renown follow all who have participated.


Regards
Wayne Densley
Chronicles of Arborell
2011 Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction
http://www.arborell.com/

Top 25 tweeters

I am flattering Scott Malthouse here by imitating his 25 Twitter accounts that you need to follow post by providing you with my own list of Twitter accounts.  So, in no particular order...

@Tw33t_RPG:  This account has bought gamebooks to twitter.  Follow this account to take part in the latest epic online gamebook.

@MirabilisDave:  The Twitter feed for Dave Morris, who has written or co written Fabled Lands, Dragon Warriors, the Knightmare gamebooks, the Heroquest gamebooks and several Virtual Reality gamebooks.  

@choiceofgames:  Choice of Games are a series of gamebooks in app form that range from you playing a dragon to a sailor and many other things in between.

@jamie_fry:  Author of the Fighting Fantasy collector website and editor of the official Fighting Fantasy site.

@TinManGames:  The feed for the creators of the brilliant Gamebook Adventure series.

@Gallicus:  Feed for the editor of the brilliant Fighting Fantazine.

@jonathangreen:  Writer of several Fighting Fantasy books, Doctor Who books and many more.

@Marc_Gascoigne:  Mark has written Battleblade Warrior, the Advanced Fighting Fantasy series and the Fighting Fantasy novels.

@AdviceToWriters:  Offers concise words of wisdom from famous authors.  

@radioovermoscow:  Feed for the author of the amusing and entertaining Fighting Dantasy blog.

@MicaByteS:  A company that produces great app games such as Pirates and Traders.  You can go to the website here.

@KoboldQuarterly:  Kobold Quarterly is an RPG magazine I enjoy.

Now that is one awesome cover,
thanks to Graphiczx design.

@adventurecow:  Adventure Cow is a website dedicated to making Choose Your Own Adventure style gamebook apps.  You can find one of my creations there, The Path to Greatness.

@Fantasticmaps:  The name does exactly what it says on the tin and that is to provide fantastic maps.

@graphiczxdesign:  This is an excellent graphics design company that were very helpful in making a cover for the full version of Rulers of the NOW.  

@MonteJCooke:  Feeds for the creator of the awesome Iron Heroes RPG.

@Negativethac0:  Tweets from a psychologist and gamer.

@destiny_quest:  The Feed for Michael J. Ward's Destiny Quest series which will be having a new addition next year.

@CrymsonKnight:  Feed for Shane Garvey, one of the authors of the Fabled Lands RPG, amongst other things.  He works with Greywood Publishing.

@blogcastfm:  Blogcast FM is a podcast full of useful information on how to create a successful blog from the people who have done it themselves.

@TheDrabblecast:  A great podcast of wierd tales.

@SJGames:  The feed for Steve Jackson, co creator of Fighting Fantasy writer of Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep and Robot Commando , president of Steve Jackson Games and creator of many games such as Illuminati.

He may also be known as the 'other' Steve Jackson to Fighting Fantasy fans (as opposed to the Steve Jackson who co founded Fighting Fantasy) and a source of confusion to at least one person (me) about which one is which.  Thanks to @FightingFantasy  for pointing that out to me.

@denofgeek:  News and reviews on sci fi and fantasy shows.

@majordufus:  Feed of Graham Bottley, author of 2nd edition Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

@scottmalt:  Writer and gamer with all Things Tunnels and Trolls related.  I love Tunnels and Trolls.  It's a flexible RPG system with many solitaire adventures.  Scott's blog is the Trollish Delver.

Actually it's 26...

Since writing, I have found out that Ian Livingstone, co founder of Fighting Fantasy also has a Twitter account @Ian_Livingstone.

So there we go.  Twitter is a great tool for networking and finding out what is going on with the people you follow.  For example, did you know that Ian Livingstone is penning a new Fighting Fantasy book?  Twitter told me.

And finally, it seems quite simple to get almost 1.5 million followers on twitter.  The secret is to be a cat as @Sockington will show us.

Until next week, happy gamebooking!

Ten horrors inspired by Magic the Gathering that can be used in gamebooks

It's almost Halloween, so I thought that I would go to my favourite collectable card game and treat you to some terrible monsters that could rise up from the night and hunt you down.

All of these creatures are black.  I will focus on other coloured monsters in another post.  It is quite easy to find lots of evil nasty creatures amongst black although people over at Wizards of the Coast have said on many occasions that black does not necessarily mean evil .  However, in the article, Mark Rosewater does state that black is the most predisposed for evil.

EDIT:  I wrote this post in July before I knew what cards would be in Innistrad.  As it turns out, Innistrad is all about horror based cards.  Take a look here.

Phyrexian Battleflies

I used to have nightmares about being covered in insects that would crawl all over my body and in my mouth while stinging me.  These battleflies a created on Phyrexia to do just that to the defenders of Dominaria.  A swarm of small creatures is difficult to defeat with a sword or other weapon that adventurers normally carry. However, sometimes a nice wizard might be able to sell you a potion of insect control.






Sengir Vampire

Vampires turn up almost everywhere in fiction to the point where there are loads of different versions.   Sengir Vampire is pretty similar to most vampires - it has the power to fly and it gets stronger if it kills something.  The flavour text also suggests that these vampires are immortal.  Having vampires is a safe bet for a bad guy.  They pop up in a few gamebooks, sometimes as main villains.




Consumptive Goo

Being slowly absorbed by some horrific pile of goo while simultaneously strengthening it is one of the more terrifying ways to go.  The death scene in Coils of Hate where Hate absorbs you is pretty chilling.  There is also a life draining goo in Beneath Nightmare Castle.



Nether Shadow

Another recurring nightmare I used to have (and sometimes still do) involves being paralysed in my bed while a shadow person watches over me.  It seems to be quite a common experience with possible paranormal connections (the blog of the book's author is here).  The scary thing about the shadow people is that they are insubstantial and can't really be killed by normal means.  The shadow also represents our repressed weaknesses in psychology.



Black Knight

Opposite of White Knight.  Sometimes it is harder to fight a Lawful Evil foe who is just as organised as you who won't turn against itself.  The good guys in Dragonlance found this out when they faced the Order of Takhisis.  Black Knights are known to be notoriously hard to kill  and they do things like open portals to the Ghastly Kingdom of the Dead.  It is also hard to kill black knights when King Arthur's friends dress up like them.


Drudge Skeletons

What's worse than watching a pile of bones assemble into a skeleton and attack you? Watching a pile of bones reassemble into the skeleton you just destroyed and attack you again.  The Prince of Persia got through this by finding a useful pit.  The hero in Moonrunner might come across a similar situation if they kill a certain guard in a windmill.

He wasn't kidding when
he said 'We have eyes everywhere'.

Initiates of the Ebon Hand

Secret cults are great.  They have eyes and ears everywhere.  You don't know who to trust and if you're not careful, you might end up being dragged to sacrificial altar just because your car broke down.  The initiates of the Ebon Hand corrupt whatever they touch (turns any mana black) but may also be destroyed by its power (so the initiate may die if too much black mana is made) which is the price of such greed.  Some initiates also get a big eye on their chest which reminds me of a real life cult conspiracy theory(?)

Fallen Cleric

The most terrifying zombies are those with just a hint of their old selves left.  


What's worse than fighting a servant of evil?  Fighting a servant of evil that used to be good but who was captured, killed and corrupted by evil magic.  Fighting someone you cared about really rubs salt into the wounds as you may have to do in Keep of the Lich Lord if you find your old friend Kandogor.  Having this happen to someone in a gamebook is a good way of making the reader care about defeating the big bad rather than just making them think of them as another generic 'evil' wizard.  


Cabal Inquisitor

Beneath Nightmare Castle is unique in the sense that one can argue being killed is actually not the worst thing that can happen to you. It ranks behind being driven insane by some alien abomination while parts of you are sawn off and attached to a sentient mass of limbs.  Cabal Inquisitors have a much more direct way of destroying your mind and actually look quite normal.  However, being left an empty shell is not a good way to go.

Squirming Mass

There's nothing like a bit of Lovecraftian horror.  strange tentacled cosmic horrors rise from the earth and from the sea which would drive us insane with the sight of them.  At least we wouldn't feel the tentacles suffocating us while the thing devours us slowly.  This card sums up the terror that just the sight of such a thing inspires.  However, such things may be quite weak.  This monster is a mere 1/1 and so can be killed by pretty much anything.  To be fair, it does follow in Cthulu's footsteps(does Cthulu have footsteps?) as the mighty 'god' went pop when it was rammed with a steam ship.

Innistrad


I wrote this article before the new Innistrad set was released or spoiled, so at the time, I had no idea that it would be chock full of its own horror based cards.  I will do a whole Innistrad horror post later on.

So there we go.  Once again, I have drawn from the deep well of inspiration built by Richard Garfield and improved upon by the staff at Wizards of the Coast.

How to write a gamebook part 12 - summary

Marr's been writing  gamebooks
since the'mirror incident'.

So we have come to the end of our how to write a gamebook journey.  I'm glad that I have done it as it's helped me to organise my thoughts on gamebooks and get a clearer idea on what I need to do.

Here are some parting things that I've learnt:

• Carry a notebook with you at all times.
• Get information from pretty much anywhere.
• Read gamebooks and sourcebooks for inspiration for systems.
• Come up with a good method to plan the book
• Get into a good routine
• Write, write write and don't give up
• give your book to others and listen to their feedback.
• Talk with other gamebook lovers from Yahoo Groups and forums.
• Have their feedback to mind when you write your next gamebook.  

I hope that you have got as much from it as I did.  Now fly my pretties and write lots of gamebooks!  

Windhammer reminder

Hi all,

Just to remind you that the voting phase of the Windhammer competition will finish on the 30th October.  If you haven't already, please read all the entries and vote for the two that you like best.

The link is here:

http://www.arborell.com/windhammer_prize_2011.html

Happy gamebooking!