You've heard quite enough about Kickstarter of late, and probably more than enough about my old gamebook Heart of Ice. A lot of people have said it's a good adventure. Many have even said "best gamebook ever" - but the competition for that accolade gets fiercer every year, so I couldn't possibly comment.
Megara Entertainment, who ran the recent campaign for The Serpent King's Domain, are now doing a pop-up 15-day Kickstarter campaign for hardback versions of Heart of Ice in French and English. Look at that positively arctic Sébastien Brunet cover. Brrr.
Anyway, if you're not thoroughly fatigued by the long hot summer of Kickstarter gamebook offerings, this looks good and, modesty aside, it is just about my own favourite of all my gamebooks. I'm also probably not going to authorize any more Kickstarters based on my old books after this, so you really will be getting a collector's edition.
Alternatively, if money's tight, there's always the paperback and Kindle versions:
I pledged to the 63 USD level. For my part, I hope your "no more Kickstarters" stance for your older works is temporary. I'd be happy to part with money for collector's editions of Necklace of Skulls, Once Upon a Time in Arabia and Down Among the Dead Men. They're all good books, and I'm something of a completest who would like to have them all in "collector hardcover." Plus I could donate the paperbacks to my public library and maybe infect people there with "game-book fever."
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, I'd be happy to support a Kickstarter for a new version of The Eye of the Dragon, either as a Golden Dragon edition, or, even better, as a Fabled Lands Quests book.
As another consideration, you could probably get a lot of support for a Kickstarter dedicated to Blood Sword 5.
I too hope the "no more Kickstarters" pledge doesn't hold - I would love for the remaining 4 Blood Sword books (Books 2-5) to be released in Megara's deluxe format. Book 1 is a beautiful edition.
ReplyDeleteI'm fine with Kickstarters for new books. I just don't want reprints of old works to draw attention away from ventures like The Frankenstein Wars, The Serpent King's Domain, and The Good, The Bad & The Undead - those are the sort of thing Kickstarter is meant to support, after all. But Heart of Ice is a good one to go out on, and I'm sure it will look fabulous.
ReplyDeleteIs this book different to the one that has been on sale on their website for a few weeks?
ReplyDeleteTbh I don't know. Presumably not.
DeleteAnd ironically it's your only real foray into sci-fi as a genre (in terms of true gamebooks). Do you ever wish you'd turned your hands more to this, or did you have one great yarn you wanted to tell, and did it?
ReplyDeleteI originally ran the Heart of Ice storyline as a scenario for Empire of the Petal Throne, and only created that near-apocalyptic SF setting for the gamebook. By that stage I did prefer not to do more traditional fantasy books. All the early gamebooks tended to be those settings because Fighting Fantasy, as a kind of sub-D&D, had established the genre and non-fantasy FF books weren't perceived as successful. But by the time of the VR series I had more leeway. Publishers saw the gamebook craze dying and were more open to experimenting with different kinds of setting. Hence I got away with pirates, the Maya, and the Arabian Nights. To answer your question, I would have enjoyed doing more SF. I ran a role-playing campaign set in the far future that I'd love to do something with, and there were plans for a one-off comic book as a prequel to HOI. Maybe that's what I should do on Kickstarter.
DeleteA prequel to HOI would undoubtedly be well received by your fans! Any chance that Curse of the God Kings or the Mists of Horror might turn up in a Kickstarter one day? The current gamebook revival has been great. Just pledged for the HOI hardback and it looks spectacular!! Hands down one of my favorite gamebooks.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the last chance to do that prequel comic would have been... a HOI Kickstarter campaign. D'oh.
DeleteWe take your word Dave... :)
ReplyDeleteAh... I see what you mean ;-)
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