Let me make it clear, I am not claiming that Gamebook Adventures is
the best genre of them all nor I am saying that it has the greatest
potential. I am simply stating that I have found Gamebooks to be
teaching the most meaningful lessons of all the games I've played so
far. This genre, probably for the lack of other game mechanics, puts the
protagonist in many different situations and the player is given a
few possible actions to choose from. Making such a choice
evokes critical thinking, educated guessing and calculating risk.
Meaningful choices haven't always been part of the Gamebook Adventures. Just take the arcade approach of the first Fighting Fantasy
books for example! They are filled with "Which Door", "Cake or Death"
and "Shell Game" choices (more on this terminology can be found in the
blog about Gamebook Theory by Ashton Saylor)
and the only way to get to a good ending in those books was to explore an adventure land that is full of countless instant death chapters and way
too many fighting encounters (too much of the game was left to pure
chance) until the ultimate path was eventually
discovered through trial and error entirely.
Please, don't get me wrong! I have a lot
of respect for the pioneers in the genre, the legendary writers Steve
Jackson and Ian Livingstone. They laid down the basic foundation of
something that captured the hearts of millions around the globe. Their gamebooks have been keeping the love for adventure alive in many generations now. All I
am saying is that gamebooks have come a very long way since the dawn of
the genre back in 1982 when "The Warlock of Firetop Mountain" was
released in Great Britain. I believe that the ultimate example of how
much gamebooks have improved since then, is the great work of Stuart Lloyd presented at the Windhammer Competition for Short Gamebook Fiction. This has eventually led to his mobile platform game Asuria Awakens developed by the computer and marketing geniuses Neil Rennison and Ben Britten at Tin Man Games, the parent company of GamebookAdventures.com (not to be confused with my current project Visual Gamebook Adventures).
So,
what is wrong with Gamebooks? While I was doing my research on the
genre, I ran across quite a few posts that discussed recurring problems found in old and new gamebooks. Some were even saying that those problems can't be fixed and we should leave our beloved genre in the past. Especially
disturbing is the theory that narrative is not a game mechanic. If this is true (and it is true) how do we create a gamebook adventure that relies on testing the personal skills and qualities of the gamer, just like a real video game does? How do we engineer a gamebook adventure where a successful ending depends on quality of gameplay, not on pure chance?
This
is what I have to say about it: There is absolutely nothing wrong with gamebooks and they don't need fixing. What needs fixing is the way we design those gamebook adventures. The problem lies with authors who want to write an adventure without spending the time to research and learn the basic mechanics that make gamebooks work. This is exactly what happened in Eastern
Europe in the late 90s when the whole genre crashed and burned. It slowed down to a halt simply because there was too much junk on the market. The
situation is similar with all the free mobile games available today. Too much junk out there. The consumers often get lost in an ocean of low-quality titles and end up disappointed with the questionable quality. The bottom
line is that the game market suffers because people quickly lose interest
after a few failed attempts to find something worth their time. Like that isn't enough of a problem, "free to play" games with in-app purchases are the worst possible thing that
has ever happened to the gamer. Winning the game is now based on
the amount of money you spend rather than the skills and qualities
players learn and apply. These games are despicable money generating
machines that focus on the economic aspect instead of rewarding the
gamer for good performance. Put in other words, they are "free to
play", but they are definitely not "free to win". I am very glad that
this unfair to the reader monetizing system can't be integrated in the genre of Gamebook Adventures.
To
summarize this post, I am going to say that narrative and gameplay mix
just fine. But this is true only if we have the right author to mix them correctly.
Take a good look at the amazing adventures written by Ashton Saylor and Stuart Lloyd. You'll see exactly what I mean. Both of them have excellent blogs
on Gamebook Theory that I would strongly encourage you to read, especially if you
are planning to write a short adventure or even a long gamebook. Their
thoughts on how to start writing a gamebook adventure, how to approach the
design process and what NOT to do are
priceless. However, there isn't much out there on what to do and how to do it right. Because of that, I will focus on the subject of how to design your game in a way that gives your players full control over the final outcome, positive or negative. To do so, I will be using the foundation Ashton and
Stuart have already built for us in their posts on Gamebook Theory.
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"
Hmm. Is there anything wrong with them? From what I've seen, "Gamebooks" are in the midst of a renaissance unlike anything that has gone before. The fact that you have entire companies built around gamebook or gamebook-like games (Failbetter, inkle, Tin Man, etc) shows as much, I think.
ReplyDeleteTo the extent that there is something wrong with gamebooks, I think it is that very many of the modern games built using such techniques are stuck in the past - driven to be even "purer" than the old gamebooks themselves. With a book, I could always decide to browse the pages once I got tired of banging my head against the text - not so in modern apps (often requiring that you start over). One of the things that I really like about the Inkle guys and their games, is that they have been very willing to experiment with the formula - not just creating gamebooks on a mobile device, but actually trying to make gamebooks that take advantage of the digitial medium in neat ways (e.g., the great map in 80 days, the rewind at any point system of Sorcery!).
Monetization is just monetization, IMO - neither inherently good nor bad. That being said, many visual novel games (almost gamebooks with pictures) have "free to play" monetization, so I don't see any reason why it couldn't also be used in gamebooks.
Thank you for your reply, Michael. I agree with your opinions, but I was talking purely about paper medium and how non-computerized gamebook adventures are affected by bad game design based on randomness. I believe that you will better understand my point if you read my next article: http://www.lloydofgamebooks.com/2017/05/gamebook-theory-mechanics-of-gamebooks.html
DeleteThe issue of many low quality ("junk") and often free gamebooks out there is valid for absolutely avery form of written entertainment.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that access to publishing is made easier and cheaper by technology led to the fact that there is a very wide offer of amateur books (and gamebooks) that everybody can download and they are often poor quality, as there is no need for a filter from professional publisher that wants to make money of of them and therefore has to guarantee a certain quality standard.
But this is just marginally involving gamebooks, as RPGs and standard literature see the same dynamics, so I don't think this can be highlighted too much as a specific gamebooks issue.
Thank you for your reply, Yaztromo! I was referring to the junk of all genres on the mobile market, not just gamebooks. I believe the problem is much greater with the other kinds of games and the gamebook adventures are to some extent still pure.
Delete