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Friday 28 June 2013

We'll never reach infinity

You can't keep a secret in the internet age. I'd barely heard the news myself when readers of this blog started asking why the Infinite IF gamebooks had disappeared from the Osprey Adventures site. Weren't we going to team up with Osprey to bring back the Virtual Reality and Way of the Tiger books in digital form? That was the plan last summer. So what happened?

Now it can be told. Fabled Lands LLP won't be partnering with Osprey after all. It was an amicable parting and we wish them huge success with the Osprey Adventures line. Think Nazi occult secrets, zombie hunting guides, Cthulhu investogators' handbooks, dossiers that lift the lid on Area 51 - all coupled with the awesome full-colour artwork you'd expect of any Osprey book.

It became clear that gamebooks didn't really fit in there. Personally I wish we'd realized that before I spent eight months writing tedious Javascript and pasting it tediously into Excel because that's the way the toolset for these books worked. Oh, and it was undocumented. And occasionally the syntax would change. So that was a lot of fun. But it wasn't anybody's fault. Sometimes you get into something - pointing a gun at an archduke, digging a trench in the Somme valley, and the next thing you know it's out of everyone's hands.

When we finally had breathing space to sit back and look at the almost-complete e-gamebooks, that was when we saw they didn't have a natural home alongside either myths and legends or dark Fortean stuff. Had I written all-new gamebooks it might have been different. I wish I had done that, in fact, because the Dark Osprey books in particular are a really cool genre to work in.

The silver lining is that this change of plan means there will be print editions of those books. The Infinite IF series was going to be epub3 only, but now that I have the edited and revised text of the books, it's not too arduous to set them up in paperback on Amazon. Those should be ready in time for Christmas. More news about that in a month.

If you actually prefer digital gamebooks, I have nothing to promise right now, but don't give up hope. Jamie is looking into various other ways to get those versions completed and published. Meanwhile, I'm just happy to swap Javascript for Serif PagePlus (my DTP software of choice) and to set up some covers featuring Jon Hodgson's glorious artwork.

10 comments:

  1. Yay, print gamebooks!

    I am not of the vinyl-loving mentality, I do not worship celluloid as superior to digital in film, and I do not regard practical effects as being more artistic or more convincing than CGI; but, I shall probably never be able to think of a “proper” book as anything other than printed. So, print gamebooks are good.

    It is a shame, though, not to have another established publisher moving the gamebook format forward, even if only as e-books. From the outside, the issue of the Infinite-IF gamebooks not being a good “fit” seems arguable; the Myths and Legends line, for example, pops up in various places in bookshops. I’ve already seen them in the Children’s section and in the Fantasy Art section, so, whether interactive fiction would have worked within the same imprint might depend on marketing and your point of view.

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    1. If we had had a shot at being in bookshops then I think the partnership might have worked. But the Infinite IF series were to be digital-only, meaning they could only work if they appealed to the same readership that Osprey was able to target online for the Myths & Legends books. I also think you cannot offer ebooks without giving readers a print alternative - in fact, I think the two should ideally be bundled, so that you buy both print and digital for the price of one. It would indeed be great to have an established publisher as partner, but originally I thought we were going to be doing print versions too. Established publishers don't really add any value to ebooks and apps.

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  2. More publishing issues? I've waited years to complete my Virtual Reality collection, please make it the last for my sanity's sake! My copy of Heart of Ice is so, so lonely...

    By the way, instead of just releasing your gamebooks in digital form, why not go the extra mile and adapt them as FMV games? Kickstarter is available in the UK now, you know... :3

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    1. Just realized you mentioned your skepticism about Kickstarter just a few articles ago. Sorry about the lame joke. I'm not a regular on your blog and just happened to find out about the disappearance of Infinite IF by coincidence today. Still, one can dream...

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    2. I'm not at all skeptical about Kickstarter, I promise you :) The blog post was just to point out that money raised by a KS campaign is not all profit, and unless you're offering something that has zero manufacturing cost (like an ebook or videogame) that makes it hard to pay the artists, writers and designers.

      Having said that, Jamie and I would love to adapt any or all of our gamebooks as CRPGs. If we won the lottery, that'd be our first priority.

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  3. I should add that when I saw "We'll never reach infinity", my initial thought was that it must refer to the number of paragraphs in the Fabled Lands series, and I was hoping that the first line of the post would then be: "...but we're going to try".

    Oh well, never mind.

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    1. If it's any comfort, Graham, that is my own automatic response to such a sentiment. "Though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run." But when I say that I don't mean to imply I'm necessarily thinking of FL. Those books were written 18 years ago; those authors no longer exist, and I think if the FL series is ever to be completed, it would be best served by new writers who could consult Jamie and me if they really felt they needed to. Where the hell is fanfic when you really need it?

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  4. Aaaarrrgghhh ... Coming to this blog this morning, I hoped to find out what the hell happened to "twist of fate" 2nd ed which should have been published around spring 2013 (and the whole bloodwsord 2nd ed too). The "best gamebook ever", as some people said. And now, this ...

    But it is great to keep us informed and telling us what happened :-) It is a torture not being able to read these books (twist of fate: 62£ on amazon this morning (cheapest price) :-( )

    Maybe Kickstarter could be an option. I would happily order in advance my "twist of fate" 2nd ed. Maybe you could set up a poll to see how many people reading this blog would pay for their exemplar via kickstarter or another similar solution.

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    1. Your wish is my command. Twist of Fate (fully revised and now with its new title) will be out in paperback by the end of the summer and it won't cost anything like £62. Bloodsword will take a bit longer because all those books need to be edited, and with the tactical maps the layout is a lot more work, so look out for a Kickstarter campaign next year. Also there's going to be a KS for "that Wild West gamebook" by Jamie and Ashton Saylor, and this fall we're involved in one for a very famous gamebook series. More news about that in a month's time.

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    2. Fantastic :-)
      I am sure that a lot of people around the world are going, today, to happily put aside the money needed to collect all these books :-)
      At least some worthwile interactive entertainment!! :-)
      Best regards,
      Vianney

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