Gamebook store

Wednesday 5 August 2015

After sundown


Suffering from Kickstarter fatigue yet? I hope not, as we have one more delectable item for your consideration: The Good, The Bad and The Undead, the gamebook that Jamie was scheduled to write under the working title of Undeadwood as part of our abortive deal to co-publish gamebooks with Osprey.

Ashton Saylor went and pulled the stake out of the project's corpse, and working with Jamie he's cooked up a terrifying, action-filled, interactive novel to fill the hot summer nights as insects buzz and burn in the oil lamp and an eerie howl echoes across the prairie.

The project has its own Facebook page and you can jump right in now and play the demo. This is a print gamebook, not an app (though who's to say that won't come later?) and it has some superbly creepy art by the eldritchly talented Callie MacDonell.

Just to whet your appetite, here's a snippet of my early discussion with Jamie about the concept:
Dave: This is quite interesting (probably an Inca myth originally) and avoids the old "vampires as bats" thing. Another way to get around that is to have the vamps take the form of birds. That's quite common in Romanian myth - usually owls (striges) as they're harbingers of doom. But in the Wild West they could be vultures, or maybe sort of vulture-harpy hybrids, all rank with disease. Harpies were notorious fo being disease-ridden.

Jamie: Chonchons are flying heads, though... But I like the vampire/bird thing. More Aztec. The Vampire Queen can do that anyway, maybe (turning into a vulture is good), but I think the rest of the vampires are pretty much standard vamps. Maybe they don’t get turned back by crosses and can enter the church, because they’re Native American vamps. Though maybe the usual tools should still work. When the Marshal arrives, perhaps the church has already been set alight, or for a while they get into it, safe for a bit but, it being a wooden church, the vamps set it alight. Or the Professor character does, or a captive human in return for freedom. Anyway, I think it’s important that they appear to be ordinary vamps at first. You know, that’s the trope. Then it gets progressively weirder, which will be cool.

Dave: I guess most of the vampires should just be the standard vampire type, ie essentially fast-moving, more-or-less intelligent zombies that drink blood. And only the "bosses" get to transform into things like vultures. The vulture was a symbol of the Aztec state, wasn't it - a vulture eating a snake, I think. That was their Romulus and Remus symbol. Of course, ripping out victims' hearts rather than sucking blood - that'll be a nicely original touch. The chonchons are odd because in some versions they're flying heads, but other folktales have them more like harpies, ie the head becomes a bird. Freaky stuff. Anyway, we don't have to be straitjacketed by what it says in the myths. We can make up our own weird shit.

Jamie: Should the ordinary vamps rip out people's hearts? At the moment, it’s only the Aztec Vampire Queen. That could work, though. She makes vamps, and because her victims are westerners they become traditional western vamps. Well, eastern relative to the Aztecs, I guess, but you get my meaning. So it should only be the Queen who rips out hearts. We save that for the final showdown; it’ll make her more boss-like and fearsome. Maybe the conquistador does the same. Also, she could have a few vampire Jaguar Knights who are her personal bodyguard, and maybe only they eat hearts.

Dave: Just the Queen, I agree. That's her gimmick for creating vamps. The others aren't - what do they call them? The master mold vamps who can create other "sires"? The other vampires would just be your standard blood-suckery types. Still nasty, though. Her guards could actually be were-types: Eagle or Jaguar Knights who become their totem animal. Maybe she has one of each, those are her Oddjob types, ie secondary bosses before you actually have to face her. Also did we talk about doing something with the idea of flayed skin? There was that Aztec deity, the God of Flayed Skin. So some of the vampires could peel a person, put on their skin, and they would appear like them for a while. Sort of Illusion Master style. There could be some tricks for seeing through it... the skin doesn't sweat or something. 
So there you go; that's how we work. A glimpse into the Morris-Thomson creative dynamic. Coming up over the next few weeks, we'll look at how Ashton Saylor took that raw material and crafted it into a new breed of gamebook.

STOP PRESS: Jamie has just (August 6) told me that The Good, The Bad and The Undead is now a Kickstarter Staff Pick.As he put it: "Multiple yee-hahs and an 'I mussst feeeed...'! It's great to have both The Serpent King's Domain and GBU as Staff Picks, so I'm a little excited."

16 comments:

  1. I’m not sure which is scarier: heart-ripping, skin-flaying vampires protected by shape-shifting knights, or the glimpse into the creative process that spawned those ideas...

    Either way, it’s enough to make me pledge for what promises to be an gripping new gamebook.

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    1. That's pretty much what all my conversations with Jamie are like, Lee.

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  2. Unrelated, but not sure where else to ask: I want to buy the Way of the Tiger re-releases linked on this page, but they are not available on the Canadian amazon, amazon.ca, only on amazon.com. Are there any plans to make these books available to Canadians? I would like to buy them all if I could. Thanks! Sorry if this was the wrong place to ask.

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    1. I wish we could get our books onto Amazon Canada. We print mostly through Createspace, who are owned by Amazon, so they should be on sale on amazon.ca, right? Well, you'd think, but this:

      https://www.createspace.com/en/community/thread/50145

      So I'll keep pressing Amazon to get this fixed, but I'm sorry to report no luck yet. We love Canada and it's not our fault, honest!

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    2. Thanks for the response Dave, that is VERY odd... especially considering that I bought all 6 Fabled Lands books and Heart of Ice from Amazon.ca a while back with no problems other than a bit of a wait period. Aren't they all done through the same print partner? Have you looked at Lulu? I know they have a Canadian print partner and put print books on Amazon too because I use them myself and I've been very happy with their service. I'm unfamiliar with Createspace though. I've also been told that Lightning Source is good for Canada, but I do not have personal experience with them.

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    3. My Mirabilis graphic novels with Leo Hartas were set up on Lightning Source, and they do seem to be more reliable in quality than Createspace in some territories, but we have generally used CS for our gamebook backlist as they have better links to Amazon. Or so I was led to believe. Lulu would put the price up a bit but that may be the only way to be certain of getting the books onto amazon.ca. I'll look into all the options.

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    4. Maybe it's possible to order through Amazon.com anyway, and order the books shipped to Canada? I'm living in France, and if various things aren't available on Amazon France (Amazon.fr) I'll get them shipped here through Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. In the past I've even bought some DVDs through the German branch of Amazon, Amazon.de, that I couldn't find elsewhere (though I don't speak German, so translating the text of the web page was kind of laborious...).

      So you should still be able to order them from Amazon.com. Of course, the delivery prices over to Canada may be pretty high - prohibitively high? - if you're ordering international delivery.

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    5. I'm often buying from amazon.de (usually the first to get US drama shows on DVD) and from amazon.com. That said, what on earth are Amazon playing at if their own print-on-demand company can't supply their Canadian subsidiary?

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    6. Btw Paul, I think Google Chrome automatically offers to translate web pages for you now, which is handy.

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    7. I could order it through Amazon.com, but I'd be paying a lot more (the Canadian dollar is the lowest it's been in over a decade) plus I'd have to pay around $30 Canadian dollars in shipping and import fees. I mean, if that's the road I need to go, I probably will, but it's expensive enough to turn an instant purchase into a 'maybe later'.

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    8. Yow! $30 in import fees? I'll look into the Lulu option - even with their higher print costs it could work out cheaper.

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  3. I continue to read this insightful blog, but have not posted in a long time. I want to thank everyone involved with the resurgence of print gamebooks. Dave, Jamie, Paul, Ashton, Mikael, Richard, Michael J Ward, Will Fincher and especially the backers of the crowdfunding campaigns!

    I am truly excited about the future, more so than I have ever been before! Without you, these books might not be published at all. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! Congratulations on the major success of the Fabled Lands: Serpent King's Domain Kickstarter as well! I have been waiting over 15 years for this :-)

    I would like to give virtual hugs to those of you who would accept them.
    *hugs*

    All the best and here's to the future! Cheers!
    -Mike Mielke

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    1. I'm a British middle-class male, Mike, so hugs are out, but I'll accept a cordial handshake.

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    2. *hand-shakes* It is interesting how I was in business since I was a child involved with writing theatre musicals. When in business and in life, I grew up giving handshakes; but in my adult years, most people I have acquainted myself with gave hugs instead.

      It's a sign of times evolving, that weird transition period that I'm still not accustomed to. When I extend my hand and folks give me a quizzical look and hug me, that is what I do in return.

      Anyway, I digress. I shiver with anticipation for the Fabled Lands 8-12 campaigns, and I wish we could do the time warp to jump into the future :-)

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    3. Working in theatre, on musicals? I'd say you're lucky to get away with just a hug :-)

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    4. I'm always up for a virtual hug. Though, in real-life, it may just be an awkward 'hello' wave.

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