003: Can Phil survive the city of thieves? (Read below) OR Don't be silly (Also read below)

So I have in my possession two FF gamebooks and as part of my research the plan is to play through them, see how they work and hopefully give me some ideas for my attempt. First up is City of Thieves - I have the necessary equipment and I've promised myself that I won't cheat. Every choice made is final, every dice roll counts.

First up, character design. Skill - basically how good I am at fighting, maximum score 12 (6 basis plus one dice roll), minimum 7. Then stamina, how many hits/damage I can take, max score 24, min 14. Then luck, which if I remember right, crops up here and there to add tension (max 12, min 7 again).

So my man has the following stats (drum roll please)
Skill: 12
Stamina: 20
Luck: 9

Ok, not a bad start there - I'm a good fighter with a bit of staying power. This is all good news. It also seems that I can take some provisions that restore stamina and a magic potion that restores one of the three categories. Think I might go for a luck potion as it also add one to the initial score. The food will keep my stamina up and my skill is already nice and high.

On to the adventure. Basically I've been persuaded to help out a distressed village. I need to go find an old wizard who'll help me kill this bad guy called Zanbar Bone. Fairly standard stuff! The only problem is that the wizard, Nicodemus, lives in the City of Thieves, dun dun duuuuuuun.

Now, I'm not going to write about every decision made, just the highlights. Opening the story I have to get in to the blasted city. Tempting as it is to fight the city guard straight away, I'm thinking it'd be better to be a bit more diplomatic. Maybe just ask to see Nicodemus, that can't go too wrong, can it?

They attempt to arrest me for no good reason. Sod this, violence it is.

I'm free, phew, now to explore the city...

....and within 5 minutes I'm in a bar brawl with a troll

My superior skill comes into play and I win without taking any damage. Good stuff. I hope they'll serve me a sodding drink now.

A drink and an attempted mugging later and I'm off to the market

I like markets! The money I reverse mugged the muggers for gets me a load of new kit and I make it unscathed to the bridge that the wizard is supposed to live under. After the innkeeper gave me directions to the wizard I have been quite direct in my approach, so have probably missed some chances for adventure along the way. But, I have a mission to complete!

So I meet the wizard who tells me that to defeat this Zanbar character I need:
a unicorn tattoo on my flipping head(!)
silver arrow
black pearl
hag's hair
lotus flower

Right then, off to find the nearest Tesco

Got the arrow, but have also taken an arrow to the shoulder (not the knee, neatly avoiding an annoying internet meme). Still alive, and on we press.

Now got the lotus, although I did have to fight some "leaf beasts", I kid you not, possessed topiary

I am now the proud owner of a stupid tattoo right in the middle of my goddam forehead, grrrr.

 Arghhh, a brutal fight versus two city guards and I'm forced to flee. A farmer and his kid help me escape the city, but I don't have all the items. Is this the end?!

In short, yes.

Crappit.

Humph.

002: Check out my crap artwork (read below) OR See how I get on with an old FF book (go to 003)

So my trip to the attic uncovered City of Thieves and Freeway Fighter. I'll write more about these later. In the mean time, here's the pathetic sketch I've developed over a couple of lunch breaks of the early chapters of my attempt at a Game Book (or Interactive Novel as I've discovered a slightly more pretentious way of referring to it all)

001: Do you read my preamble (read below) OR skip this claptrap (go to 002)

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!!