[Let's Play] Lesser-Known Gamebooks......?

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply

Which of the below Gamebooks are you most interested in playing?

Stephen Thraves Compact Adventure Gamebook #3: Shadows of Doom
0
No votes
Sonic the Hedgehog Adventure Gamebook #3: Sonic vs. Zonik
0
No votes
The HeroQuest Adventure Game #1: The Fellowship of Four - In the Night Season
3
100%
Nintendo Adventure Books #11: Unjust Desserts
0
No votes
Adventures of Goldhawk #1: Darkmoon's Curse
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 3

SGamerz
King
Posts: 6293
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:45 am

[Let's Play] Lesser-Known Gamebooks......?

Post by SGamerz »

It's the holiday season.......and I'm still stuck home with a bad flu. :sad:

Oh well, I figured I might as well take the time home to get this poll for my next LP thread up. It'll probably be a few days before any of you return from your holidays to see this thread...by which time, hopefully, I'll be ready to get the LP started! :p

Anyway, for my next non-FF LP, what I've done is taken the bunch of shorter gamebooks (most of which only lasts over 100 sections) of which I own only 1-2 out of an incomplete series (saving my more complete series for later). So this is what I have for selection:

Stephen Thraves Compact Adventure Gamebook #3: Shadows of Doom
by Stephen Thraves (duh!)
Image
YOU, a brave Barbarian warrior, have received a desperate suumons. The son and heir of Lord Taenir has been kidnapped and the ransom demanded is six jewels, each the size of a man's fist. But such jewels can only ne found in the shadowy depths of the Volcano of Doom, a terrifying world where cruel and hideous monsters lurk...
This is from a series of short gameboooks that were designed to be portable and convenient for the player, in that they're all small enough to be fit into your pockets, and contain all of the necessary accessories fold-out flaps attached to the front and back covers, and dice are unnecessary. The game designs are pretty similar for each book in the series (with a few exceptions), in that the PC get the chance to find between 1-3 accessoris (usually including a map) to help him solve the puzzles that he'll encounter in the adventure. Some of them feature its own unique rules, in this case Shadows of Doom features a very crude combat system where you pick a random code from a list of possible codes and refer to a chart to see if you win, lose, or need to pick another code. Sturcture is pretty repetitive, though.

Sonic the Hedgehog Adventure Gamebook #3: Sonic vs. Zonik
by Nigel Gross
Image
The Green Hill Zone is under attack from a new enemy. reports come in of a fast-moving blue creature bashing everything in sight. Surely this can't be Sonic? Or has Robotnik cooked up another monstrous plan to crack the blue wonder?

It's up to you to find out. Use your speed, skill and agility in this part-story, part-game adventure. But think fast and move quickly - only the best can keep up with Sonic.
The longest of the 5 books in this poll, this is, obviously, based on the popular video game. Player plays the role of Sonic and have 6 attributes to keep track of. Instead of determining them by dice like many gamebooks, the player determines which attributes Sonic is better at, assigning best, second-best, and 3rd best scores to his best 3 attributes and lower values to the remaining 3. Tasks in the book (including combats) are performed by rolling against these attributes. Due to the subject of the book, the writing is propably catered to younger readers

In this particular book, Robotnik has created a clone of Sonic (dubbed 'Zonik') and Sonic and Tails have to stop it from wreaking havoc in Sonic's name!

The HeroQuest Adventure Game #1: The Fellowship of Four - In the Night Season
by Dave Morris
Image
Four adventurers - the young wizard Fortunato, the elf Eildonas, the mighty barbarian Asgrim, and Anvil the dwarf - are drawn together on a quest to ensure that the terrible power of Kyrax cannot again sweep the land. Don the mantle of one of the four would-be Heroes - and prepare yourself for a heroic venture. Can you survive he challenge?
Ok, the back cover summary of the book was actually much longer than this....but I nipped most of it because they have nothing to do with the gamebook. Heroquests books are basically part-novel, part-gamebook. This is the only one of the series I own, and the novel takes up over half of the book, introducing the background of the 4 characters, how they met and befriended each other, and how they went on to successfully prevent the dragon Kyrax's resurrection. The short game at the back has little to do with that particular story, though, the only connection is that you will be playing the 4 pre-established characters.

The plot of the game itself is a pretty basic "rescue the young maid from the resident evil vampire lord' story. The unique part of this book is the fact that this can be played as a multi-player game, with up to 4 players each taking the role of 1 adventurer....although the design is rather primitive compared to other gamebooks that offer multi-player options (like the Blood Sword series by the same author....which I plan to run here eventually if there's sufficient interest).

Nintendo Adventure Books #11: Unjust Desserts
by Matt Wayne
Image
It's Yoshi's birthday party, and Mario, Luigi and all his dinosaur buddies are there to help him celebrate. All is well until Yoshi slurps down his birthday surprise and suddenly starts gobbling up everything - and everyone - in sight! Can the Mario Bros. control the dinosaur's runaway appetite and rescue his disgruntled lunch?
Another one that's clearly aimed at (even) younger readers, especially since a lot of the puzzles in the book involve graphic games like mazes and word scrambles.

The "disgruntled lunch" mentioned in the book summary is, in fact, Luigi, as the major portion of the adventure involves the player (as Mario) makes a journey into Yoshi's belly to rescue his brother who had been swallowed by the sick dinosaur (while fending off the attacks of Koopa Troopas who follow him into the dinosaur).

Adventures of Goldhawk #1: Darkmoon's Curse
by Ian Livingstone
Image
The once peaceful land of Karazan is deeply troubled. Its king lies dead, the victim of an Orcish arrow; the evil wizard Darkmoon has stolen the king's crown and now the heir to the throne, Prince Goldhawk himself, has been poisoned.

YOU have been called to this troubled land by Marris the court magician. Your task is to return the king's crown to Castle Karazan. Orlando, the Tin Pig, is your only travelling companion. Edge, the Sword, is your only weapon. Many will try to stop you, some may help you. But no matter who, or what, stands in your way, you must succeed.
Yes, I'm considering running an Ian Livingstone book. This was supposed to be a series meant to introduce pre-teens to the Fighting Fantasy. Due to the younger target readers, this book is nowhere near as difficult/unplayable as his normal FF books. Again, like most of the books in this poll, this is the only one in the series I actually own, so I'm not sure how successful the series turned out to be, but I thought this was a decent introduction to the series. The player is someone who has been magically summoned from the mundane world to possess the body of the poisoned (and unconscious) Prince Goldhawk. Structure is also much simpler than normal FF, with only a single stat (SKILL) serving as both fighting ability and Life points, and an inventory list to keep track of.

That's all I have for this poll. Hope you guys would be interested! :)

Merry Christmas to everyone, and Happy New Year! (And hope you guys enjoy a far better holiday better than I am!)
Silent Wayfarer
Knight-Baron
Posts: 898
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2009 11:35 am

Post by Silent Wayfarer »

I've actually played the Sonic gamebooks before, so I'll cast a vote for the Heroquest book.
If your religion is worth killing for, please start with yourself.
SGamerz
King
Posts: 6293
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:45 am

Post by SGamerz »

Anyone else interested in playing the Heroquest book? I'd like more than 1 interested player before I start a LP.....
User avatar
SlyJohnny
Duke
Posts: 1418
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:35 pm

Post by SlyJohnny »

Never read the Heroquest books, quite liked the board game. I'm game :)
User avatar
Darth Rabbitt
Overlord
Posts: 8869
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 8:31 pm
Location: In "In The Trenches," mostly.
Contact:

Post by Darth Rabbitt »

I'll third Heroquest.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
Post Reply