Rhianna Pratchett writing gamebook fiction

[pendell]

Seen on Fighting Fantasy (https://www.fightingfantasy.com/crystal-of-storms), a gamebook series going back to the 1980s ...



Crystal of Storms, by Rhianna Pratchett

...

Rhianna Pratchett is the first ever female guest author to contribute an adventure to the bestselling Fighting Fantasy series. Daughter of the late comic fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett, Rhianna is a journalist and video game writer, who has worked on blockbuster franchises such as Tomb Raider, Heavenly Sword, and Mirror's Edge.


It's probably what you would expect from a gamebook , but if she has even a tenth of her father's genius...


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Dire_Flumph]

She's also one of the guest writers on Bardsung, a Dungeon Crawl/campaign board game in development that was up on Kickstarter last year.

Placing the expectations of her father's work on her is probably unfair, but the games I've played that she's written for have been solid so far.

[Fyraltari]

Didn't she work on the Overlord games?
These were really funny.

[Sapphire Guard]

Wow, that series is still running? I've played quite a few of them, very rarely beat one fairly, though.

Dead of Night was my favourite.

Heavenly Sword was decent, not great, I enjoyed Mirror's Edge.

[pendell]

Wow, that series is still running? I've played quite a few of them, very rarely beat one fairly, though.

Dead of Night was my favourite.

Heavenly Sword was decent, not great, I enjoyed Mirror's Edge.

I've got a soft spot in my heart for City of Thieves, which is a pretty good city adventure. I also have a fondness for the SF entries in the series such as 'Rebel Planet' and 'Rings of Kether'. They were widely panned by the community and, realistically, they aren't anywhere close to the best entries in the series, but good SF roleplay is hard to find.

For that matter, I should also point out 'Talisman of Death' , which is set in the same universe as the Way of the Tiger series was; with many of the same locales and the same NPCs. It was a blatant rip-off of LOTR in many ways but, for me, that only added to the charm.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

Night Dragon's probably my favourite.

[Sapphire Guard]

City of Thieves, Citadel of Chaos, Sword of the Samurai, were all fun. I did usually rampantly cheat, though. There was one where you were stabbed by a poisonous knife in paragraph 1, and the one where you were exploring some kind of crystal palace until a floating fortress passed by, can't remember the names.

Oh, also Armies of Death.

[factotum]

Thing I always remember about the very first one of those I played (Warlock of Firetop Mountain, I think?) was that it gave you a choice of which way to go right at the beginning. If you chose to go right, then you immediately came to a dead end, had to turn back, and go the other way instead. To which I thought, "What was the point of that?". *Don't give me a choice if it's not actually a choice*.

[Anonymouswizard]

City of Thieves, Citadel of Chaos, Sword of the Samurai, were all fun. I did usually rampantly cheat, though. There was one where you were stabbed by a poisonous knife in paragraph 1, and the one where you were exploring some kind of crystal palace until a floating fortress passed by, can't remember the names.

Oh, also Armies of Death.

One thing I like about the official app (which, somewhat sadly, is likely the best way to experience the gamebooks now) is that it supports some forms of cheating, including bookmarks and a brief window where you can reroll dice. Sadly it doesn't do my normal trick of just giving yourself maximum stats.

Do plan to get some physical books though, because it's not the same (and they're decent as inspiration if I ever run AFF).


Caverns of the Snow Witch was my first, which I never actually completed. Only borrowed any of the others from the school library, but it's been long enough that I can't remember what my favourite was.


As to Ms Pratchett, while she doesn't have her father's experience she certain has at least a portion of his talent, and it will be nice having more diverse authors writing the series. I'll definitely pick it up, it'll be interesting to see where she takes it.

[pendell]

One thing I like about the official app (which, somewhat sadly, is likely the best way to experience the gamebooks now) is that it supports some forms of cheating, including bookmarks and a brief window where you can reroll dice. Sadly it doesn't do my normal trick of just giving yourself maximum stats.

Do plan to get some physical books though, because it's not the same (and they're decent as inspiration if I ever run AFF).


Caverns of the Snow Witch was my first, which I never actually completed. Only borrowed any of the others from the school library, but it's been long enough that I can't remember what my favourite was.


As to Ms Pratchett, while she doesn't have her father's experience she certain has at least a portion of his talent, and it will be nice having more diverse authors writing the series. I'll definitely pick it up, it'll be interesting to see where she takes it.

My form of 'cheating' in the series is to reroll characters until I had one with skill 12. I'd take the other stats as they were given. Or another possible way is to roll one extra die for every stat (2 if the book required 1, 3 if the book required 2) and drop the lowest.

The problem is that it's only the first games in the series which stuck to the original design goal of "anyone can get through, regardless of stats". You could definitely do that in Warlock or Citadel of Chaos. But by the time you get up to something like City of Thieves you find yourself in mandatory encounters with enemies who have skill 11 (your max skill is 12), such that only characters who had at least a skill of 10 stood any chance at all.

Another way to cheat is to ignore the provision in the rules that skill can never exceed its initial value. Seriously, why shouldn't your character fight more effectively if they are wearing better armour, wielding a magic sword, and wearing a magic helmet? I get this was done for the purpose of preserving game balance, but the idea that you are no more effective with end-game gear than with your starting leather armour + sword combo just seems not fun.

Also, the games reward mapping. Some graph paper, circles for paragraphs connected by lines, is invaluable. It's pretty obvious these books were not meant to be completed in a single setting; they deliberately hide items and other plot-critical devices all over the place, forcing you to read and re-read in order to first find all the items you need to win, and then play some more to get down to the bare minimum number of paragraphs to go through to win. They must have done this to enhance the 'replayability'. If you won the first time you read it, you'd probably never pick it up again.


I don't really think of this as cheating so much as house-ruling. It's not as if I'm playing with other players whose experience will be ruined by these modifications.

Incidentally, I never much cared for armies of death, simply because you pretty much had to write down the paragraph numbers and price of almost everything, since even something as simple as the price of a random green vase in a pawn shop would come up in a riddle later. That's a lot of book-keeping for a casual run through.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

Another way to cheat is to ignore the provision in the rules that skill can never exceed its initial value. Seriously, why shouldn't your character fight more effectively if they are wearing better armour, wielding a magic sword, and wearing a magic helmet? I get this was done for the purpose of preserving game balance, but the idea that you are no more effective with end-game gear than with your starting leather armour + sword combo just seems not fun.


As I recall, quite a lot of magic items specifically say that they do allow you to exceed your Initial skill.

[Cygnia]

They adapted "Deathtrap Dungeon" for the PC...picked it up on Steam for $5 a year or so ago.

[Silent Hunter]

She's also the main representative for his estate when it comes for adaptations of her father's work; she's parted company with The Watch but there are more faithful adaptations planned.

[pendell]

So the book showed up today. Was published in 2020, so it's new.

Already having trouble.



To Mum and Dad,

Who showed me magic every day.



:Stops, tears up:

No, I WILL make it through this!

Funny, I never knew Sir Terry in person but it does still hit home.

UPDATE: Okay, read it through once.

The writing is top-notch, especially for a gamebook. I'll include some fair use snippets from some of the paragraphs.


Background 1:
You were born and raised in Pangaria, but whilst many of your friends have opted to join the working communities of their home isles... you wanted to see it all. And so you decided to join the Sky Watch, the guardians of peace within the whole of Pangaria. But your beloved home has a lot of peace to go around, and your first few weeks in the Sky Watch has been a rather dull parade of lost pets and mediating petty squabbles regarding overgrown shrubs. Your heart cries out for adventure.

And then one fine morning, an urgent message arrives at your Watchhouse summoning all the Sky Watch to an emergency meeting in the Citadel on Nimbus. It seems that adventure has finally listened and answered your plea.

...

The flyer's Goblin pilot wearily reminds you to keep all limbs inside the ship, lest you lose something essential.

...
the little airship has barely had time to set down when you leap from the bulwark and start to sprint towards the Citadel. Suddenly a great explosion rocks Nimbus and a wave of energy surges outward from the fortress, catapulting you through the air and over the edge of the island.

You plummet downwards...


And with that -- turn to paragraph 1!
There's also a fairly neat twist ending so I applaud the writer; for a gamebook , this really is quite good.

Fair warning: There's also some horror, thankfully not illustrated.

I should also note this is more an SF adventure than a high fantasy adventure. You'll be traveling on fliers and hover vehicles and bathyspheres so it has a very steampunkish feel, despite the fact everything runs on magic.

Another thing of interest is that goblins appear frequently in the story both as ordinary citizens and as allies. While the author does have encounters with monsters, and there are a few Always Evil creatures, for the mmost part she is extremely careful to point out that just because this particular monster is evil doesn't mean ALL the monsters of that type are evil.

You're well advised to show mercy whenever possible. Some enemies in one paragraph may be allies later on!

Where this falls a bit flat is as a game.

The path is quite linear. While there are branches and a few missable required items in your scavenger hunt, for the most part you can always circle around and backtrack if you missed a branch before. Unlike the earlier final fantasy gamebooks, which forced you to read through many times due to missing the One True Path and being instakilled at the end, there really is only one path through the story. Admittedly, this will take some reading because you're going to be hitting almost all 400 paragraphs on your way through. Still, I'm concerned about the replayability.

As with other games, a high SKILL is advised.
You get neither provisions nor a potion of strength/stamina/fortune to start with.. On the other hand, the game is extremely generous with both stamina boosting items and attack strength boosting items. While the rules still do not allow going over the initial skill, there are a number of times when attack strength will be boosted, separate from skill, so its' not the handicap it could be in later games. However, there is at least one mandatory encounter against a high SKILL enemy which cannot be mitigated with items.


There is one puzzle I had trouble with


What is the next number in the sequence:
1,4,9,18, 35 ?


Answer

68


I haven't figured that one out ,to be honest. But it's the only one in the book.

The worst part? You get nothing for solving it, which has to be a crime. All puzzles should have rewards!

All in all , it was truly a delightful experience, although more so as a read than as a game. I'd definitely buy it if she wrote another.



Respectfully,

Brian P.

[factotum]

Regarding that number puzzle:


Looks to me that you're adding 2^x + 1 each time, where x starts at one and increases--so the first time you add 3 (2+1), next time you add 5 (2^2 + 1) and so on.

[pendell]

Regarding that number puzzle:


Looks to me that you're adding 2^x + 1 each time, where x starts at one and increases--so the first time you add 3 (2+1), next time you add 5 (2^2 + 1) and so on.


Following the pattern

1
1 + 2^1 +1 = 1+2+1 = 4
4+ 2^2 + 1 = 4 +4 + 1 = 9
9 + 2^3 + 1 = 9+9 = 18
18 + 2^4 + 1 = 18+17 = 35
35 + 2^5+1 = 35 +32 +1 = 68


The pattern holds. Well solved! How did you deduce the pattern?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[factotum]

Dunno, must have seen a similar puzzle before because that's immediately where my brain went, or else it's because I was originally a programmer by trade and powers of two were quite important!