Still, all that Javascript, Excel and ever-changing tools is now a thing of the past. The books are converted, and if you have an iPad you'll be able to read them when they're released. Unfortunately, apart from iBooks there aren't any ebook apps that are reliably compatible with Epub3, though you'd have to hope Google might champion a good one for Android soon. Or maybe Epub3 is just going to be that firework that never catches light.
Don't ask me the release dates, as this isn't my day job any more. If and when I know, you'll hear it here first, but all we'd better say for now is "spring" and leave the rest blank. In the meantime, here's a look at one of Jon Hodgson's cover paintings. This one is for Twist of Fate, renamed Once Upon a Time in Arabia for the ebook edition. The original paperback now sells for a few hundred dollars, but if you're the sort of person who can see the girl in the red dress amid the stream of numbers, just take a look at the flowchart here. (Blimey. Somebody has flowcharted about a hundred gamebooks? There's dedication.)
What a great piece of cover art! Very cinematic.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I saw that Twist of Fate costs some serious dollar second hand - which made me even more furious when I discovered my parents had junked it from my old room, along with my Cretan Chronicle gamebooks. The latter was also a serious loss, not because they were any good as gamebooks, but because, as the snipped review I've included below demonstrates, they were completely batshit crazy...
'Finally, the writers get very indulgent at times, and their writing becomes what can only be described as odd in the extreme. When you come face to face with the Minotaur, taking a non-standard action loses you 1 Honour point due to your "quaking." Taking another non-standard action after quaking, you come across one of the strangest paragraphs in Gamebook history:
"You are indeed right to shake at the sight of the Minotaur, for, after all, your brother, a distant relative of the beast, was not spared its wrath. Theseus was probably in fact only your half-brother (have 1 Shame point), with Poseidon as his true father. Although the origins of the bull which sired the Minotaur are shrouded in sea-spray, according to the most reputable sources Poseidon had a hand in its conception. The bull ravished Minos' wife, Pasiphae, who gave birth to the Minotaur. Theseus was thus the half-uncle of the Minotaur. For unravelling the genealogical complexities of the situation at such a stressful moment, have 3 Honour points, and return to 394."
At another time, when you glimpse Athena while leaving the Labyrinth, if you tell yourself you are hallucinating, you will really start hallucinating and you will then die. Maybe the writers themselves were on LSD when they wrote those parts.
I am aghast.'
That is weird indeed - yet we probably have to blame the ancient Greeks as much as the authors of the books. ("Half-uncle", is that even a word? In Greek myth I guess it is!)
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, the complexities of the Minotaur's heritage are an important plot point in the Cretan Chronicles - the crux of Book 3 is the player's torment by the Furies for slaying his own kin. The only relative that the player MUST kill to get to Book 3 is, bizarrely, the Minotaur. So, that little sliver of geneological exposition highlights the cause for the player's coming challenges in the next book.
DeleteCrazy Greeks. Great little gamebook series, though.
Oh yes, those Greek myths are much darker and more twisted than the Jackanory versions we read as children. Strictly speaking, though, the hero of the book has not slain his/her own kin in killing the Minotaur as the only connection is Poseidon, who is not in the hero's bloodline - unless the Furies are getting especially broad in their remit?
DeleteWait, wait, wait... I'm misremembering. If the hero marries Princess Ariadne at the beginning of Book 3, the Minotaur BECOMES the player's kin, and so do any members of the Cretan royal family that he's duffed up. So the hero must abandon Ariadne, or risk much hi-jinks from the Furies.
DeleteThat's it.
Hmm, but do the Furies pursue people for killing relatives by marriage (other than the spouse themselves, that is)? I'm not sure. The Theoi Project might have something on this:
Deletehttp://www.theoi.com/
Hey Dave, big fan. When are we going to see more unpublished dragon warriors material? Also, any news on the last half of the fabled lands series as I have been waiting many years to go to the underworld.
ReplyDeleteThe DW Player's Book has been in the works at Serpent King Games for some time, and it's nearing completion. That has been a long wait, but it's full of great new material by the SKG team.
DeleteMore FL books - same story as ever, if the demand is there we will do them. Our plan was to re-release the first 6 books as multi-platform apps and see if those could build a bigger audience. We honestly were expecting those to appear last summer, but it never happened. We'll keep trying.
That's an excellent Hodgson cover. Looks a bit Lands Of Legends-ish to my eyes...
ReplyDelete