You know those people that hark back to their childhood when everything was better? Those people that at some point in their mid-life start trying to re-live cherished memories? They're really annoying aren't they?
Anyway this blog is to follow my progress writing a Game Book, my favourite sort of book as a youngster.
I only have assorted vague memories of these books, so this first post will be an attempt to get down in writing everything I can remember about them. Then the research can begin.
A Game Book is a work of fiction written in the second person (very few books are written like this). You are the main protagonist, and as such make the decisions that move the plot forward. So you'd get to the end of a short chapter and be asked something like "Do you go into the scary looking house OR leg it back into the haunted forest". Each choice would have an associated reference/chapter to go to in the book, meaning you didn't actually read it straight from page one to page 200, rather you'd jump all over the place.
My favourite books in this genre were the Fighting Fantasy (FF) series by, er, Ian something, Livingstone? and Steve Jackson I think (but the surnames may be the wrong way round). As I said before, the research comes later - for now I brainstorm.
These books gave you a starting premise (usually involving some force of evil that needed sorting out) then tasked you with coming up with a character. To come up with a character you'd be told to roll a dice for each of a few catergories (Strength, skill, luck; that kind of thing). However, I ALWAYS cheated at this to make sure my character had the maximum stats. Playing the books with a low score anywhere tended to be a frustrating experience.
In fact I often cheated at the dice bits - chance would play a big part in a lot of the action sequences, fights etc. I just liked making the decisions and moving the book forward. The dice stuff could largely do one.
Ok, so what books stick in my mind?
Most of the FF books were the sword and sorcery fantasy sort of setting. But there were a few sci-fi ones and these tended to be my favourites.
I remember one (possibly the only one I completed without major cheating) where you were some kind of intergalactic bounty hunter tasked with finding the president's kidnapped daughter (although my memory here might be getting mixed up with some film or TV show of the same era - another task for the research)
Quite a few involved robots or space ships (an 80's kid's dream). There was another where you were a super hero - I vaguely remember writing a book report about it for homework!
However, I think my favourite book was actually one of the fantasy ones called "City of Thieves" where, for some reason or other, you have to go to this horrid city full of pirates, evil wizards etc that you had to do something in before going and challenging the big baddie. I remember the bits in the city being awesome.
Ok, so that's about the sum total of my recollections. If I'm to write my own version of one of these, then much research is required. For starters, getting my hands on some examples.
TO THE ATTIC!!
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