News for March 2022 and upcoming news for April 2022

 Hello all!  Here is this month's news.

Gamebook releases

Lone Wolf

You can now get the Definitive editions of Lone Wolf 4, Chasm of Doom and Lone Wolf 5, Shadow on the Sand. Definitive Editions – Magnamund - Holmgard Press

Adam Mitchell

Adam Mitchell is releasing another D66 gamebook, A Bullet is Forever. The book is set in World War II. It will first be available on Amazon.

Amazon.co.uk: Adam Mitchell: Books, Biography, Blogs, Audiobooks, Kindle

Choose Your Own Adventure

To celebrate Pi Day (March 14th), Choose Your Own Adventure is releasing The Dregg Disaster: An Algebra 1 Gamebook by Chris Matthews.

Algebra I teacher Chris Matthews guides students through Algebra I lessons in this unexpected framework: each choice you make leads to an equation unlocking the next chapter of YOUR adventure with the nefarious Dregg corporation, and brings you one step closer to undoing their evil actions, and becoming an Algebra I Wizard!

The book is out in October.

The Dregg Disaster: An Algebra 1 Gamebook – Chooseco LLC (cyoa.com)

RPGs

Advanced Fighting Fantasy

This is not new but Andrew Bartlett has made an Advanced Fighting Fantasy module called Viscera which is a collection of how adventurers can get scarred and injured.

Viscera 1.02 280317.pdf - Google Drive

Arion Games has released Return to the Pit miniatures

Advanced Fighting Fantasy Minis: Return to the Pit Set IV - Arion Games | Kapsalis Miniatures | Advanced Fighting Fantasy | DriveThruRPG.com

Crowdfunding

Destiny's Roll

KALEIDOSCOPE FRENZY is the fifth book in the DESTINY'S ROLE adventure gamebook series and is the long-awaited sequel to FRAGILE BEAUTY which appeared in DESTINY'S ROLE 0: ZERO TO HERO. FRAGILE BEAUTY was a modern day-set hard boiled detective adventure concerning the mysterious disappearance of a young woman. KALEIDOSCOPE FRENZY follows on from that adventure, allowing the player to continue the story using the same character or, like all DESTINY'S ROLE gamebooks, KALEIDOSCOPE FRENZY can also be played stand alone with no previous knowledge of FRAGILE BEAUTY, but the concept is that the FRAGILE BEAUTY case greatly increased the fortunes of your character, to the extent that work is now in ample supply. 

Destiny's Role 4: Kaleidoscope Frenzy by Mark Lain — Kickstarter

Social media

Joe Cheal has set up a Facebook group for his gamebook series, Imaginarium Gamebooks. You can find it here.

There is a forum here with gamebook playthroughs:

In The Trenches - The Gaming Den (tgdmb.com)

Podcasts

Instadeath Survivors'Support Group

This month, we have had episodes with Jeremy Morgan who was part of  the Pericle team, a playthrough of Steam Highwayman and some news reports from me.

Future episodes will be with the authors of the Lone Wolf definitive editions.

You can get the episodes here

Welcome to Instadeath Survivors Support Group by Instadeath Survivors Support Group (anchor.fm)

For early access to ad free episodes and bonus content, you can support Brian on Patreon.

Brian Hazzard is creating A podcast about gamebooks and the readers who adore them | Patreon

Fantastic Fights

This podcast is currently playing through Masks of Mayhem.

Fantastic Fights — Haunted Phonograph

Campaign on Dice

The podcast is revisiting The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

Campaign On Dice – Podcast – Podtail

Google Alerts

I have a weekly Google alert for "gamebook". Normally, the links I get are all about golf game books, but last week I got a link about how the Infosec Institute won an interactive fiction award for a gamebook about infosec: InfoSec Institute Wins Best in Class Award for Choose Your Own Adventure® Security Awareness Games (itnewsonline.com)

Orphaned sections and their uses

 Hello gamebookers! If you haven't already voted for the Lindenbaum competition, there are 16 days left, so please vote!

Today, I wanted to list all the uses of orphaned sections. For this post, I'm defining an orphaned section as a section that is not mentioned in any other section. You are never told in the gamebook to turn to it from another section. 

It sounds like orphaned sections wouldn't be needed. I mean, the whole point of a gamebook is to turn to sections, after all? 

Nope, it turns out that there's lots of reasons for them.

To start the book

I suppose you are told to turn to this section at some point in the book, but not from another section. People have to start somewhere, both metaphorically and literally, so the start section has to be an orphaned section for this reason.

To make up numbers

You have finished your gamebook and it's 399 sections long. Maybe you like round numbers, so you stick in a short section that sounds like its something that someone would read, but it's unreachable. There, you now have 400 sections. This is actually true of Fighting Fantasy 1 - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Section 192 is an orphaned section. 

Answers to riddles

Creatures in gamebooks like asking riddles with numbers as answers, which is very convenient because then you can just turn to the section that is the answer. You also have to state that if the section makes no sense, then it's the wrong answer and the return to the original section (or another section with a wrong answer). If you really want a particular riddle, but the answer is bigger than the largest section number or another important section is the answer, you could tell people to multiply the answer by 2 or add X or some other function. 

To represent a word

Maybe your character needs to give a password or someone's name. Well, you can use that as an answer by doing the old A=1, B=2, C=3... trick. This way, you can convert a word into a number.

To prove you have an item

Some gamebook items have numbers associated with them to open up secret sections. These items used to have numbers carved onto them, but some people wanted more creative reasons to have a number associated with an item (I mean, after all, how many of your possessions have numbers carved into them?). For example, being associated with a number (like how many years old it is) or a person or place is associated with it (in which case, use the A=1, B=2 trick). 

If the item has more than once use, then one use could involve its number, one could involve multiplying its number by another number or adding or subtracting another number from it.

If you need 2 secret items, then you could add their numbers (such as in Siege of Sardath with the potions or the rings)

To find out what certain items do

If you have a mystery potion or other item in a gamebook and you want to increase the tension by not telling someone what they do, then you can tell them that they can find out the results by turning to a certain section. This is fun (for the writer) and tense (for the reader).

To find out what certain stat changes do

Some stats are significant if they reach a certain value (usually 0) and if they don't automatically mean death (which sometimes doesn't require its own section), then they will require their own section. To be fair, they still usually mean death, just a different kind of death (such as committing seppuku in Sword of the Samurai or running out of time in Slaves of the Abyss), but sometimes, they might mean something else has happened (such as reducing your Ferocity to 0 in Crimson Tide).

To find out what are in certain places

It can be boring having sections that constantly ask if you want to go left or right or open a door, so one way of saving sections for more interesting things is having maps with section numbers on them, such as in this map from Grailquest 3. 

To be all meta and tell you that you have won without you playing the gamebook

Finally, this little gem, Inside UFO 54-40, mentions that you cannot reach the end in any conventional sense and it is right. The winning section is an orphaned section that you can only read by flicking through the book. Cunning twist, Mr Packard!

AFF2 monster - Mothman

The mothman is seven feet tall and has a 10 foot wingspan. Mothman sightings usually occur before or after a disaster in the area where the disaster took place.

MOTHMAN

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED:  1

LOCATION:  Anywhere

REACTION:  Unfriendly

INTELLIGENCE:  Average - High

CREATURE TYPE:  Humanoid

SKILL:                      7

STAMINA:               12

LUCK:                      7

MAGIC:                    0

MAGIC POINTS:     0

SKILLS: Strength 3, Awareness 3,

WEAPON: Large claws

ARMOUR: Light

SPECIAL:

Flight: The mothman can fly.

Glowing eyes: The mothman can make their eyes glow at will (as the spell)

Disaster sense: Whenever a disaster is just about to happen or has just happened (up to a week) in a mothman area, roll a die. On the roll of a 1, then a mothman will turn up.

Conspiracy theories part 2

 So, a while ago, I wrote a post on conspiracy theories which I only published in 2021 - it must have been part of my big collection of posts that I built up in case I didn't have time to write any for the week. For the most part, it worked, but sometimes the posts were released years after I had written them and sometimes they were about games that had decided to close on the day I published the post.

So, when I wrote about conspiracy theories before, I thought they were some harmless bizarre stories circulated in only a tiny proportion of the population and that it did no harm. When did I write that post. I think it was 2015.

I had no idea how far conspiracy theories could go.

The answer, it seems, was too far.

Now, in 2022, we now know that the internet is awash with people spreading false information (I'm not going to say it), hacking prominent figures' emails and releasing anything remotely incriminating in order to change elections. Companies are gathering our data and controlling what we see on the Internet so that we spend all our time on it. That usually involves reading things that completely agree with us or reading things that are guaranteed to make us full of rage so that we engage with them more.

The first Rulers of the NOW I wrote was set in 3012 and was a parody of a world where the conspiracy theories were true. Now, things are getting a little too real.

Rulers of the NOW has evolved. It is now set in a future I will probably be alive in. I wanted it to be like the book Make Room! Make Room! (which the film Soylent Green is based on).

I suggest you scoop it up.

Make Room! Make Room! is based in the near future (for the 1960s) in a world that is incredibly overpopulated. It follows a detective and his quarry and the horrible world they live in. Towards the end, the detective's flatmate has a monologue about how birth control is a good thing and might have stopped the situation they are in now. 

The book is telling you the consequences of an action and then telling you how to stop it. It is trying to show you a possible future and also how to avoid it.

The book is also based on very current worries of the time. In the 1960s, people were worried about the problems of overpopulation.

I want Rulers of the NOW to be a Make Room! Make Room! for 2021 - giving the possible horrible consequences of our current situation and hopefully, what I think we should do about it.

I finally released Rulers of the NOW this January. In fact, March 5th (the day before this post was published) 2042 is the date your character does something pretty risky. 

You can get Rulers of the NOW for free (at the time of posting, if you have any money, I would suggest you donate it to Ukraine instead) from Drive Thru or Itch.

That's enough for one day. I'm getting hungry. I'll go and eat something healthy.

You are what you eat!

News for February 2022 and upcoming news for March 2022

 Hello all! I'm sorry I'm late with my post (again). Here is the latest news in the gamebook and interactive fiction world. There's a lot on!

Patreon

Ganesha games is creating support materials for games such as 4 Against Darkness. This is run by Andrea Sfiligoi who had to abandon his old studio in Ukraine. 

Ganesha Games is creating Support materials for tabletop games | Patreon

Music

London-based duo Andy Wood and Mark Cholerton met aged-ten thanks to a shared love of Lone Wolf and have set out to create a new song inspired by each book in the saga.

As musically-inclined chaps with a creative drive, they've been inspired to write and record a musical equivalent to all the great fan art we've seen over the years,

"We don't have any specific ambitions for the music other than sharing it with our friends, families and hopefully the Lone Wolf community out there," says Andy. "It's very much a passion project which helps us stay connected and sane amidst our busy day jobs and family lives."

So as we remember Joe, let's also give a little love to the amazing fans he helped inspire.

Brotherhood of the Crystal Star

New book releases

Don Bosco

This March, Don Bosco is releasing The Supergame.

This is Book 3 of the thrilling LAST KID RUNNING gamebook series for 10 to 12 year olds. YOU decide how the story unfolds.

You are Runner X, one of six contestants in the final round of Last Kid Running, the craziest game show streaming on the mobile web.

You’ve been waiting eagerly for this. But the pandemic strikes, and the ingenious Dr Yamato creates a home-based VR version of this event instead, to keep the fans entertained.

It turns out to be a wild and futuristic adventure, with five levels full of twists, thrills and tricky challenges. Plus, you’ll need to solve the Riddlemaster’s Remarkable Riddle, which is the most baffling brain-teaser you’ve ever encountered.

Do you have what it takes to be the LAST KID RUNNING?

Read and find out!

Super Cool Books: LAST KID RUNNING _____ Book 3: The Supergame coming in March 2022, final gamebook in the trilogy

Dave L Lewis

Dave L Lewis has released Army of Bones, which is the sequel to his first book, The Demon Sorcerer.

You are a legend in your home world. YOU are the Wizard’s champion, slayer of the Demon Sorcerer and master of the blade, but your great deeds have attracted many powerful enemies. An ancient evil has risen from the Underworld. If you have any chance of defeating it, you will need more than just your brawn and wits. This time, you will need to make allies out of enemies. Set in a world of magic and mayhem, Army of Bones is the thrilling sequel to The Demon Sorcerer gamebook. Taking six years to create, the book includes full page illustrations, four hundred sections and an epic quest where you can shape your own destiny. Prepare to be thrown into a world of savage monsters, mighty Gods and battling armies.

Your adventure awaits!

Army of Bones: An Adventure Gamebook: 2 (The Demon's Bane Series) : Lewis, D L, Lewis, D L: Amazon.co.uk: Books

The Demon Sorcerer: An Adventure Gamebook: Amazon.co.uk: Lewis, D L, Lewis, D L: 9781916125001: Books

You can get a limited number of signed copies here: Army of Bones: An Adventure Gamebook by D. L. Lewis (PB) | eBay

Here is Dave L Lewis's Facebook group DLLewis Gamebooks | Facebook

Marvel

Marvel are releasing gamebooks!

ACONYTE BOOKS & MARVEL ARE ON A MISSION… TO THE MULTIVERSE – Aconyte Books

Destiny Quest

Michael J. Ward is releasing the Destiny Quest companion.

The DestinyQuest Companion » DestinyQuest (destiny-quest.com)

Audiobooks

OUT NOW – we are extremely excited to announce the EXCLUSIVE release of TITAN: THE FIGHTING FANTASY WORLD – an audio guidebook to the incredible fantasy gamebook world of Steve Jackson and Sir Ian Livingstone.

Spokenworld Audio

Computer games

To Carry a Sword

This is a computer game which Richard S. Hetley is involved in.

Story-rich roleplaying game mixing interactive events, strategic planning, and real-time combat. Become the guard of a medieval caravan in a journey where the social connections you make are just as important as the money.

To Carry a Sword on Steam (steampowered.com)

Zines

Red Ruin Publishing

Casket of Fays, the free Dragon Warriors zine will have issue 6 out around March. Keep your eyes peeled! The Cakset of Fays website is here.

Voidspace Zine

This is a new zine about all things interactive fiction.

voidspace _ – interactive arts (voidspacezine.com)

Podcasts

Fantastic Fights and Where to Find them

This podcast is currently on Robot Commando. Mech vs Dinosaur goodness.

Fantastic Fights — Haunted Phonograph

Instadeath Survivors' Support Group

Brian is currently playing through the awesome Steam Highwayman series and talking to me about the latest in the gamebook world.

Welcome to Instadeath Survivors Support Group by Instadeath Survivors Support Group (anchor.fm)

Crowdfunding

Only The Dead Will Hear Your Screams - A Horror Gamebook by Jonathon Kelly — Kickstarter

Competitions

Lindenbaum is still going! Remember to read the 16 awesome books and vote!

Lloyd of Gamebooks: Voting is now open for the 2021/2022 Lindenbaum Prize!

Voyages in social media

I found this in the Gamebooks subreddit

This is from Mattocreates:

It's called Ever Soaring and the first chapter is complete, consisting of just over 9000 words spread across 59 individual passages. It's set in the Warhammer 40k universe, but that's just the setting and you don't actually need to know anything about 40k to enjoy the story. Just be warned that it contains written depictions of graphic violence.

https://mattocreates.github.io

Armour rules in gamebooks

So if you play most Fighting Fantasy books, you usually get told htat you are wearing some leather armour when you start.  There you go, what more needs to be said about armour in gamebooks?

Ok, more I guess.  Armour seems to get an inconsistent approach in gamebooks, if it is not completely ignored.  I guess the writers are following the tenet that in a gamebook you do not want to create more rules or mechanics where necessary.  If a situation comes up rarely, then you should just assign a random die roll, give some common sense consequences and forget about it rather than trying to come up with a new rule.

Which is great until you realise that armour is not a situation that comes up rarely.

Now that I'm thinking (and writing) about it, it seems strange to me that a situation that comes up quite commonly does not actually get a clear rule for it.  In Fighting Fantasy, armour could add to your skill (leading to the question that since the rules say that you cannot go over your initial skill, does it do nothing if you are at your initial skill?), it could reduce damage in certain situations, it could increase your attack strength, it could reduce your opponent's attack strength, it could reduce damage on a die roll, reduce damage for certain or reduce damage for certain, but wear out after x hits.

So armour does come up a lot, in any gamebook series that involves a system for determining combat at any rate.  So it does need a system.  Which one could we use?

Armour makes you harder to hit

Works quite well in Fabled Lands - you have to get over your opponent's defence score with 2d6 + your combat score to hit them.  Defence is based on combat + rank + armour.  This is a good system as long as it is not too hard to hit people as it will lead to stalls.  Also makes logical sense that armour makes you harder to hit and damage.  Tin Man Games has an armour system which makes you harder to hit, but does not reduce damage.  Space Assassin has a system where armour makes you harder to hit, but every hit it absorbs makes it weaker. The pitfall with this is that if one combatant has a really high armour, it might make them hard or impossible to damage, making combat a joyless slog or a frustrating dead end.

Armour as damage reduction

it makes sense that armour reduces damage and that is find when you are dealing d12 damage a blow to an opponent and plate armour reduces it by 4, but when you do 2 damage with every hit, you have very little room to play with.  You can reduce 50% of the damage or 100% of the damage.  Not really an option.  It is possible in a system where you could lose a lot a hit points in one hit (Lone Wolf could have used this system, but decided to do something else).  Ways to get around this include a limited number of uses or damage reduction only occurs on a certain die roll.  Good ways around it with a bit more book keeping.

Armour as a skill or attack strength bonus

As long as the skill bonus applies, this makes sense.  If you are harder to damage, it will make combat easier and so you will be more likely to win.  A shield can be used offensively, which is another reason it can increase your attack strength.  Increasing skill in Fighting Fantasy is a little unrealistic - if you can't go above your initial skill, then wearing armour has no effect (?).  If it can, then for some reason, armour makes you better at all the other things skill covers in Fighting Fantasy including jumping, sneaking and climbing.  Things that armour should hinder.

But a helmet is no use here :S

Armour that has a benefit in story

A more realistic approach, but one that requires more effort.  Your helmet prevents damage to the head, your shield blocks an arrow etc.  Adds a nice touch if you can be bothered to use it.



Armour as hit points

Used in Lone Wolf (combined with armour as Combat Skill increase).  A chain coat adds 4 to your endurance for example.  At first, I couldn't see how that would make sense, but there is a reason to it.

If for example, you have 20 endurance points and you lose 10, you have lost 50% of your endurance. A chain coat prevents some damage. 

If you wear armour that increases it by 5, and lose 10 endurance, you have lost 40% of your endurance.  The armour has not magically made you gain 5 points of endurance - it has reduced the damage you received by 10%.  Of course, there are flaws - it reduces damage from hunger and other things that it shouldn't.  And also healing becomes less effective as it is restoring a smaller proportion of your endurance.  however, it is super simple and no more die rolling or maths is required beyond adding two numbers.

So there you are.  What's your favourite armour system for gamebooks?

The Warlock Returns charity auction for MIND

Hi all! 

I'm sorry for missing a post last Sunday. I was sorting out the Lindenbaum entries. I'll do an extra post this week where I release those entries.

Today, however, there is something else that would interest you. And that's a chance to get some sweet gamebook collectables whilst, at the same time, donating money to a worthy cause.

The people at the awesome Advanced Fighting Fantasy Fanzine, The Warlock Returns (which you can get on Drive Thru from Arion Games - issue 5 is the latest issue!) have put together a charity auction where the money will go to MIND, the mental health charity.

The goodies include signed gamebooks, original artwork and book bundles. You can see what's on offer here.

You can donate to MIND here: Sam Byford is fundraising for Mind (justgiving.com)

You can also watch the livestream for the launch of the auction: The Warlock Returns | Charity Auction - YouTube

The auction closes on February 28th.

Mental health is also an important part of our lives. Even before the pandemic and lockdown, a lot of peoples' mental health was not great. This is probably due to a lack of visible resources for mental health, peoples' general reluctance to talk about their mental health and also society's general portrayal of mental health issues as things to not be talked about. Most people can go out in society and seem happy and content. However, a lot of people are probably just masking their mental health issues because they might feel that they shouldn't talk about them or that they will be ostracised.

The trouble is with mental health issues is that they don't go away if ignored. They usually grow and come out in unexpected ways. Which is what I discovered when, as a teenager, when my mum lost her job and I started taking some acne medication that caused depression (and might have caused liver damage - talk about the medicine being worse than the disease) that I could power through it for a few months, but, later on in life, it clouded my outlook on things, causing problems that weren't there. At the time, no one knew, so I should have said something.

Which is why either bidding on gamebook goodies or donating to MIND is a good idea for all concerned.

So, once again, here are the links:

You can watch the livestream here: The Warlock Returns | Charity Auction - YouTube

You can donate to MIND here: Sam Byford is fundraising for Mind (justgiving.com)

You can bid for things here: The Warlock Returns auction for FF & AFF ttRPG Fans - GalaBid

The auction closes on February 28th.