Hello all! I'm very sorry, but the recent few weeks have been very busy. Here is a lot of news from the gamebook world.
The passing of Russ Nicholson
Russ Nicholson, a superb artist who has illustrated many, many gamebooks, passed away recently. He will be greatly missed.
I never met or worked with Russ, but I loved all of his artwork from the books he illustrated.
You can read dedications to him on Fabled Lands and on the official Fighting Fantasy blog.
New releases
The Citadel of Bureaucracy
The Citadel of Bureaucracy holds many perils for civil servants unprepared for its labyrinthine cubicle walls. Yet enter you must. Working against the clock, you must fight unreliable transit, dodgy IT, the dreaded Canada goose, and a rising sense of nihilism in order to get paid and clear your desk for a much-needed vacation.
YOU decide which paths to take, which dangers to risk, and which colleagues to confront. May the Janus-faced God of Finance and HR be with you, for you’ll find little succour in the Citadel’s unhallowed halls.
Novels | J.D. Mitchell (jdmitchellwriter.com)
One Roll Gamery
One Roll Gamebooks has released the Seeker of Valenreath
The Seeker of Valenreath: Amazon.co.uk: Makin, Matthew D: 9780645661507: Books
If you seek adventure, then enter the fantasy realm of Lorelos and embark on a quest to find an ancient relic. You are a Seeker and must choose one of multiple paths you can take to reach your goal. You will need one six-sided dice, a pencil and an eraser to keep track of your attributes, record your discoveries and determine the victor in battles. You will use a unique, 1d6 combat system to do battle with Orcs, Goblins and many other formidable foes. Your success will oftentimes be decided by your strategy and the roll of one six-sided dice, be it combat or the execution of a task or skill of your choosing. You may come across puzzles to solve and riddles to decipher. Use alchemy to overcome the many challenges you will face and discover items and potions to aid you in your quest. You will journey through the mysterious Faewood or the marshy Fens of Lorelos, before embarking on your perilous ascent of the Blackspire Mountains to find the entrance to the ancient ruins. The many challenges that you will face and the characters you will meet on your journey, are contained in this adventure gamebook of over 350 pages and 1000 paragraphs. There are multiple paths to achieve your goal and each playthrough will be different depending on your choices and selected abilities. Containing 50 hand-drawn illustrations, your friends and foes are revealed in 22 full page illustrations with many secrets to discover.
You can follow them here:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/onerollgamy
Escape to Glitter Land
Escape to Glitter Land (fungamery.com)
In this world are two kinds of people: The Privileged and the Unprivileged. Unfortunately, you are the latter. That's why you are trapped in Dunghill Land, forced to perform menial tasks day-in and day-out, just to survive. You long for a way out.
Meetups
Dragon Warriors Day of Legends
DRAGON WARRIORS is the key to a magic world. A land of cobwebbed forests and haunted castles. A land where dire monsters lurk in the shadows of the night, where hobgoblins shriek across the bleak and misty moors, where wizards and armoured warriors roam dank dungeons in their quest for gold and glory. The realm of your imagination.
On July 15th, 2023, we come together on a Day of Legends. We meet old friends and make new ones. We drink, we eat, we game, and we celebrate.
We gather just before midday at Brewdog Chancery Lane, London, UK. This is a face-to-face meet with no online element.
Day of Legends. The Ultimate Dragon Warriors Convention | Warhorn
Narrascope
Celebrating Narrative Games
June 9 – 11 at the University of Pittsburgh
In-person registration is now closed.
Online registration still open!
(through June 8th)
NarraScope first took place in 2019, live at MIT. In 2020, Narrascope was fully online, and for 2021 we skipped a year, returning for 2022 as an online event. Our conference aims to be a place for everyone interested in narrative games to hang out, exchange ideas and get inspired. We do this through a broad selection of talks, keynote speakers, discussions and workshops.
Subjects vary from interactive fiction tools to writing best practices and everything in between. Previous talks had titles like “Choosing Your Happily Ever After”, “Shaping Your Story with Emotional Intelligence” and “Adapting Film’s Techniques for Nonlinear Stories”, to give you a bit of an idea. The NarraScope History site lists everything we did over the past years.
Zines
Voidspace
Voidspace is currently on issue 6.
https://voidspacezine.com/2023/04/15/voidspace-6/
The Warlock Returns
The Warlock Returns is currently on issue 9.
The Warlock Returns Issue #09 - Arion Games | Advanced Fighting Fantasy | DriveThruRPG.com
Blogs
A Puzzled Adventurer's Journal is still exploring gamebook design.
A Puzzled Adventurer's Journal (puzzlejournal.blogspot.com)
Podcasts
Fantastic Flights gamebook podcast is currently on Armies of Death.
Campaign on Dice is currently on Battleblade Warrior.
Fighting Fantasy 21 - Trial of Champions - Vintage Gamebook Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Crowdfunding
Antarctica: a solo sci-fi post-apocalyptic gamebook by Chronicle Craft — Kickstarter
Embark on a journey through a post-apocalyptic world after the climate has changed everything. Explore, survive & forge your own path.
This Kickstarter is yet to launch.
Wallace Designs – Everything Martin Wallace
Wallace Designs is excited to announce its next major release, ‘Fighting Fantasy Adventures’, which will be coming to Kickstarter on the 1st July 2023. Based on the iconic series of books created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone the co-operative card game allows up to four players to experience the classic adventures in a completely new way. Martin Wallace, the co-designer of the number one rated board game ‘Brass: Birmingham’ has developed an elegant card-based system that gives the feel of a role-playing game without the need for a games master. The first campaign will comprise of five adventures, based on four beloved books, with the promise of more to come.
In Fighting Fantasy Adventures (Campaign 1), you can experience the stories in a whole new way. Now you can play with up to three friends, in a co-operative format. Gameplay is easy to learn and engaging, downtime is limited to some dice rolls and your characters level up after each adventure.
This Campaign includes the stories below:
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Island of the Lizard King
Deathtrap Dungeon
The Forest of Doom
Subterranea: Empire of Wrath A SAVAGE REALMS GAMEBOOK by Savage Realms Gamebooks — Kickstarter
The small becomes large as the large becomes small. What you would normally squash in the palm of your hand, now stands equal to you. The shock of the sudden change in perspective is nothing compared to the dangers you now face. A pin becomes a weapon that could save your life! The beat of a fly's wings now deafens you! A spider's web is the deadliest of traps! To birds, you are food, but to the Murina People, you are an imposter in their realm and imposters are unwelcome in the black eyes and outlook of the Rat Emperor himself.
The underground miniverse of Subterranea and its denizens await you...
This Kickstarter is funded, but you can still follow it.
Thank you so much for the update! Wasn't aware of "The Citadel of bureaucracy". Looks fun!
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