Gamebook store

Wednesday 20 October 2021

A big thank you to Polish gamebook readers


I wrote Heart of Ice nearly thirty years ago, and it's still my own favourite of all my gamebooks. So it was really wonderful to hear that the Polish edition, currently crowdfunding, has already raised €13,000 and it still has three weeks to run.

"Where do you get your ideas from?" I'm sometimes asked. And in this case I can tell you. It was in Oxford in December of '76, as I beheld the majestic buildings of Christ Church softly lambent under an icy black star-filled sky. At the Mountains of Madness converged from one side of my imagination, It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World from the other, and a week or so later I was running it as an Empire of the Petal Throne adventure for a score of friends from school and college.

For the gamebook version, fifteen or so years later, I had to switch the story to my own setting (Tekumel rights not being available) and the ice age world of the 23rd century leapt obligingly straight onto the page, no doubt with a little mental midwifery courtesy of Jack Vance, Robert A Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke. Little did I know as I wrote that book that it would still be bringing pleasure to readers all these years later. So once again: thank you, Polish gamers!
 

20 comments:

  1. Serce z lodu jest numerem jeden. Mlot slonca jest jednak blisko

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    1. Thank you, Andy. (And a big thanks to Google Translate too..!)

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  2. Just thought I'd pop in and pay Mr Morris a complement and despite what people may think this is a complement

    The complement is that despite the fact that as far as I'm aware Mr Morris is at least 50 and likely older he looks very good for his age

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    1. You get an even bigger thank you than Andy, because I'm actually 64.

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    2. I said at least 50 and likely older and I'll freely admit that when it comes to guessing someone's age its very likely that their are very few people in England that are worse then me

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    3. I've though of another complement for you Mr Morris

      The complement is that I know 4 people that are round about the same age you are but you look a lot better for your age the you do

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  3. I've had a idea. What do you think?. Also I've spotted and corrected a few mistake

    Even though I'd like to I'm starting to think that I'll sadly never be able to pay you, Jamie, Paul Gresty and whoever does the art £151,800 each per book for the last 5 books or a total of £759,000 each or a total of £3,795,000 and another £520,000 per book or another £2,600,000 to whoever makes them I've got another offer I hope I'll 1 day be able to afford

    The offer I hope I'll 1 day be able to afford is £50,000 for each of you per book or £250,000 each or £1,250,000 in total and another £24,000 per book or a total of £120,000 to whoever actually makes them to make me and only me custom made versions of Books 8 to 12 that will challenge even my almost invincible Super-Human Character

    Naturally if you did make me and only me custom made versions of Books 8 to 12 that will challenge even my almost invincible Super-Human Character I will give all the info I have on my almost invincible Super-Human Character

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    1. Ooops when listing the offers I forgot to mention that the 5th person that gets a large lump sum is whoever publishes the books. Sorry

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    2. I'll be rooting for you to win the lottery this weekend!

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  4. Those 2 posts about how good you look for your age and how I'd single-handely fund Books 8 to 12 if I could were by marshalljames, that's me

    I just didn't realize that something had gone wrong and my computer had automatically logged me off this site. Sorry

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    1. Somehow my name on this site changed JMISTHEKING, I did it but as I've never done it before I thought it would be in general, not on this site. Sorry

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    2. That's probably a Google thing. They own Blogger these days.

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  5. If I do win the lottery and fund Books 8 to 12 I have 4 things I insist on and I don't think their in any way unreasonable. Do you?

    The 1st is that The 1 Mage per Book whose Character Sheets come with The Book must be named after my 6 Favorite Characters Childhood Friends. Which means they must be called Brian, Edward, Laura, Shaun, John, Courtney and Hazel

    The 2nd is that I must be legally recognized as the person that funded them

    The 3rd is that 2 characters that must 1st appear in Book 8 are to be recurring Characters that appear at least 3 times in Book 8, at least twice in Book 10 and they are to be named after my 2 favorite characters from my Code Lyoko Dreams that don't appear in The Code Lyoko TV Show

    My 2 favorite characters from my Code Lyoko Dreams that don't appear in The Code Lyoko TV Show names are unique and the way they are unique is that their both spelt with 2 N's but only pronounced with 1 N

    As a example The Boys Name is spelt Erinn but pronounced Erinn and The Girls Name is spelt Erina but pronounced Erina

    The 4th is that A Creature from A James Bond Dream I had on Wednesday The 13/10/2,021 be a recurring monster that the 1st 2 or 3 times you meet it you can't defeat it you've got to use your intelligence to avoid it but eventually you can defeat the thing

    1 idea that I like is that the things dumb enough to eat anything once and its stomach acids aren't strong enough to dissolve A Nahual Weapon so put 1 in its stomach

    The idea is that if you have a certain codeword then your Character will know that its stomach acids aren't strong enough to dissolve A Nahual Weapon

    You have the option to cut it open but if you do you'll lose a few points of Charisma but you'll get A Nahual Weapon and I'd advise making in the best in the book

    Info on The Beast and what it could do in the dream

    The thing is Gargantous, in the dream its The American Version of The Loch Ness Monster, the things A Alligator and A Carnivore that only eats humans, but its 40 foot tall, 22 foot wide and 14 foot tall and it weighs 25.3 tons

    Not only did the thing actually scare bond but if the thing appeared in A Golden Dragons Gamebook then its scary enough for the mere site of it to make even A Blood-Fiend run in terror

    I'll also mention that the things skin is thick enough to stop bullets, it can bring A 70 foot tall Redwood Tree down by Shoulder-Charging it and it can also bring A 70 foot tall Redwood Tree down by smashing its tail through its trunk

    The thing can toss boulders weighting 1 and a half tons into the air with 1 hand then use its tail like a bat to launch them at foes and the thing can life a 70 foot Redwood Tree with 1 hand but it needs 2 hands to throw it

    Not only can the thing have A 12 ton four-by-four truck ram into it at 84 miles per hour without even flinching it can knock the vehicle to the ground with 1 swipe of its hand

    Then it can pick the vehicle up two-handed then toss it with enough force for the vehicle to go 39 foot into the air then land 65 foot away from it

    In the dream the thing maybe a seemingly invincible living breathing killing machine but like all Wild Animals it is terrified of Fire

    The only reason that bond survived is because A Freak Lighting Bolt struck A Tree that was between Bond and it, the tree set alight

    A branch fell between Bond and it, its fear of Fire meant that it couldn't get any closer and Bond took advantage of the fortuitous turn of events and legged it

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    1. I've spotted 1 2-part mistake. Sorry

      If I do win the lottery and fund Books 8 to 12 I have 4 things I insist on and I don't think their in any way unreasonable. Do you?

      The 1st is that The 1 Mage per Book whose Character Sheets come with The Book must be named after my 5 Favorite Characters Childhood Friends. Which means they must be called Brian, Edward, Laura, John and Courtney

      The 2nd is that I must be legally recognized as the person that funded them

      The 3rd is that 2 characters that must 1st appear in Book 8 are to be recurring Characters that appear at least 3 times in Book 8, at least twice in Book 10 and they are to be named after my 2 favorite characters from my Code Lyoko Dreams that don't appear in The Code Lyoko TV Show

      My 2 favorite characters from my Code Lyoko Dreams that don't appear in The Code Lyoko TV Show names are unique and the way they are unique is that their both spelt with 2 N's but only pronounced with 1 N

      As a example The Boys Name is spelt Erinn but pronounced Erinn and The Girls Name is spelt Erina but pronounced Erina

      The 4th is that A Creature from A James Bond Dream I had on Wednesday The 13/10/2,021 be a recurring monster that the 1st 2 or 3 times you meet it you can't defeat it you've got to use your intelligence to avoid it but eventually you can defeat the thing

      1 idea that I like is that the things dumb enough to eat anything once and its stomach acids aren't strong enough to dissolve A Nahual Weapon so put 1 in its stomach

      The idea is that if you have a certain codeword then your Character will know that its stomach acids aren't strong enough to dissolve A Nahual Weapon

      You have the option to cut it open but if you do you'll lose a few points of Charisma but you'll get A Nahual Weapon and I'd advise making in the best in the book

      Info on The Beast and what it could do in the dream

      The thing is Gargantous, in the dream its The American Version of The Loch Ness Monster, the things A Alligator and A Carnivore that only eats humans, but its 40 foot tall, 22 foot wide and 14 foot tall and it weighs 25.3 tons

      Not only did the thing actually scare bond but if the thing appeared in A Golden Dragons Gamebook then its scary enough for the mere site of it to make even A Blood-Fiend run in terror

      I'll also mention that the things skin is thick enough to stop bullets, it can bring A 70 foot tall Redwood Tree down by Shoulder-Charging it and it can also bring A 70 foot tall Redwood Tree down by smashing its tail through its trunk

      The thing can toss boulders weighting 1 and a half tons into the air with 1 hand then use its tail like a bat to launch them at foes and the thing can life a 70 foot Redwood Tree with 1 hand but it needs 2 hands to throw it

      Not only can the thing have A 12 ton four-by-four truck ram into it at 84 miles per hour without even flinching it can knock the vehicle to the ground with 1 swipe of its hand

      Then it can pick the vehicle up two-handed then toss it with enough force for the vehicle to go 39 foot into the air then land 65 foot away from it

      In the dream the thing maybe a seemingly invincible living breathing killing machine but like all Wild Animals it is terrified of Fire

      The only reason that bond survived is because A Freak Lighting Bolt struck A Tree that was between Bond and it, the tree set alight

      A branch fell between Bond and it, its fear of Fire meant that it couldn't get any closer and Bond took advantage of the fortuitous turn of events and legged it

      Delete
  6. I have a question about your Fabled Lands/Vulcanverse Cross-over idea but in the post on it I can't make comments. Can I ask here?

    The problem is that I haven't read Vulcanverse Books 1 and 2 yet and I don't know what they use for health

    The main problem is that your cross-over rules idea didn't show how to convert Stamina from The Fabled Lands to whatever Vulcanverse uses

    Saying that I would suggest something like for very 7 full points of Stamina your Fabled Lands character has you get 1 point of The Vulcanverse equivalent

    Even then that may be way too much, after all I'm a expert at The Fabled Lands and as my best ever Fabled Lands Character has 186 Stamina and that would give his Vulcanverse version 26 of The Vulcanverse Books version of Stamina

    On second thoughts that would unfairly penalize those Players whose Fabled Lands Character has very high stats and a very high rank but every time they've rolled for A Stamina increase they've rolled a very low number

    Don't doubt me, this can happen and I know it can. I've been doing The Fabled Lands for almost 23 years, 7 months, in that time I've done 20 playthroughs of The Fabled Lands and the very thing I've described has happened to me twice

    I've had a better idea, which is that the amount you divide your Stamina by to be determined by your Stamina

    Some ways I'd do that is if its 19 or less increase it to 19, if its 20 keep it, 21 to 50 lower it to 20, 51 to 100 lower it to 22, 101 to 175 lower it to 24 and 175 or higher lower it to 26

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    1. Ooops I've just I spotted a few mistakes in the 1st part of the last paragraph. Sorry

      It should say if its 18 or lower increase it to 19, if its 19 increase it to 20, if its 20 it doesn't go up and it doesn't go down

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    2. In fact that was a deliberate omission. The Vulcanverse rules don't have an equivalent for Stamina/hit points. The player-character is either healthy, wounded or dead.

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    3. I'm getting The Vulcanverse Books for Christmas and I didn't know that The Vulcanverse rules don't have an equivalent for Stamina/hit points

      But now that I think about it I should have realized that the only reason someone as great as you wouldn't have made rules for converting A Fabled Lands Characters Stamina into The Vulcanverse Version of Stamina is if their wasn't A Vulcanverse Version of Stamina

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    4. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the Vulcanverse books.

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