When life gives you limes...

Few people have done more to keep the gamebook flame burning than Stuart Lloyd, whose blog Lloyd of Gamebooks continues to feature top-notch news, ideas and design tips. And once a year the cherry on the cake is the Lindenbaum Prize, a competition that Stuart co-runs with Peter Agapov of Augmented Reality Adventure Games to find the new gamebooks pushing the medium forward into fresh territory.

Everything you need to know about this year's Lindenbaum Prize is right here. Entries open on December 6 and run through to February 20. Better get planning.

Ravages of Hate

It started with a throwaway remark that both of Mark Smith's Virtual Reality gamebooks are set in the same universe. Stuart Lloyd had got Mark's permission to revise the books and he mentioned that he was taking the opportunity to develop the part of Green Blood that takes place in the city of Godorno: "I'm going to let the character be able to explore Godorno and everywhere on the map before heading to the forest."

To which I replied: "If you’re bulking up the Godorno sections, and Godorno is also the setting for Coils of Hate, maybe there’s the opportunity to combine the two?"

"To make one mega book where the character can both save Godorno from Hate and the forest from the Westermen?" said Stuart. "It isn't beyond the realms of possibility. In Coils of Hate, the character has to flee the city due to the anti-Judain rhetoric. They then wander the surrounding area for a bit then go back. Maybe wandering the surrounding area could turn into a quest to save the forest as well? Then the character comes back? There are similar themes in the sense that human greed and hate are ruining things for everyone."

From that little acorn was to grow the magnificent blockbuster that is Ravages of Hate. You can get the first draft of the book here, and Stuart and Mark plan to run a Kickstarter to fund a print edition with new illustrations -- by real human artists, you'll be glad to hear, not Bing.

There was a third book, which I have mentioned before. I offered to help Mark flowchart that one before he plunged into the writing. I'll admit I had a little bit of an agenda when I made that offer. The publisher had made me fix the flowchart for Coils of Hate, or try to fix it, and I'd had to work on that while a deadline was looming on another book. So I was pretty frazzled after that, and given only two weeks before it went to press I hadn't really been able to make the flowchart work properly anyway. I dreaded having to do the same thing all over again, so thought the best thing would be to help Mark with the flowchart of the next one. At least that way I'd know how the story was meant to fit together, just in case the publisher expected me to clean up that one too.

But Mark couldn't work that way because it didn't fit with his creative process. He always took a novelistic approach to the writing, and having the plot constrained in gameplay terms from the outset would have hampered him too much. I didn't want to spoil that -- I've already said that I think the maturity of Coils of Hate's storyline and the richness of its characters are way ahead of anything I've seen in any other gamebook.

So when the publisher asked me, as I feared they would, to evaluate and edit Mark's third Virtual Reality book (titled The Mask of Death) I had to turn it down. I was still a nervous wreck from trying to knock Coils of Hate into shape. The manuscript went to VR series editor Ian Marsh. Had it come to me I would have kept a copy, being an inveterate hoarder, but sadly neither Ian nor Mark did, and now it's lost forever. (Unless, like one of those missing episodes of Doctor Who, it turns out that the publisher still has it in a desk drawer somewhere.)

It's a shame because Stuart could have included all three books in his magnum opus. Still, he's created a 1330-section gamebook as it is, so he deserves a break. Please let him have any playtesting comments (contact details on his blog) and be sure to back the Kickstarter. Maybe if the funding goes well, reconstructing that third book could be a stretch goal.

Completely unrelated to all the above, but as we're on the subject of old gamebooks, some readers of the blog have been asking about the HeroQuest series. The third of those is quite possibly the book I was meant to be writing when I was suddenly given the task of fixing the Coils of Hate flowchart. You can get them here: The Fellowship of Fear (book 1), The Screaming Spectre (book 2), and The Tyrant's Tomb (book 3).

Fighting Fantasy auction

Jamie and I, alongside luminaries of the hobby such as Jonathan Hicks and Stuart Lloyd, were recently roped in on a worthy cause promoting an auction to raise funds for Mind, a mental health charity.

There are lots of signed gamebooks and RPG supplements to bid for, but the prize I'd like most would be one of Matthew Dewhurst's masterful character portraits. (The only problem is which character I'd pick out of the dozens I've played over the years.)

Other treasures on offer include The Cursed King, an adventure for Dragon Warriors set in Thuland; lots of original art; some figurines; and signed copies of The Keep of the Lich Lord, Way of the Tiger, Fabled Lands and Knightmare. Remember that before "diamond-handed apes" started lobbing bundles of cash at digital NFTs, the original collector's items were actual physical things that artists signed. That's real non-fungible; accept no substitutes.

The auction runs till the last week of February and it's being run by The Warlock Returns magazine. (I know it says on their site that it ends on January 30, but in fact that's when it started.) Take a look at the full list of items here and even if there's nothing you need you can still make a donation.

Write your own gamebook

An big announcement today from Stuart Lloyd, one of the leading bannermen of British gamebooks. I'll just hand over to him. Take it away, Stuart!

Hello all! I'm really excited to announce the Lindenbaum award for short gamebook fiction.

The award is inspired by the Windhammer competition which ran from 2008-2015. I loved entering my books, seeing other books, voting and getting feedback. To be fair, I loved every aspect of it.

So, when it was discontinued, it left a hole. Between 2016 and now, I was very busy. However, I have a bit more time now and I was also shocked when I was on an online gamebook meetup to learn that almost no one there had heard of the Windhammer competition.

If you look at the list of Windhammer entrants, you will see a few familiar names. This is basically what kickstarted a lot of careers for the new gamebook writing crew.

I would love for that to continue with the new fans we have picked up along the way so that they can have a gateway into the gamebook community. I found the chance to meet new people and get lots of expert feedback invaluable.

So, without further ado, here are the details for the Lindenbaum competition:

Entry requirements for the 2021/2022 Lindenbaum competition

All entries must be in English.

All entries must be original works incorporating unique characters and world settings. This can include real world settings, people and events as long as they aren't the property of someone.

All entries must be previously unpublished works.

All entrants must state clearly on the first page of their entries that they are the authors of the work submitted.

All entries must be provided in rich text format (rtf) and sent as an email attachment to lindenbaumprize@gmail.com.

All character or status sheets provided with entries must be presented in a simple layout that does not include complex table formats.

All entries must be spell-checked and thoroughly tested prior to submission.

The total length of the entry does not exceed 100 sections and a word count of 25,000 words.

Illustrations will not be accepted as a part of an entry except in two specific circumstances. 

Exception 1: Maps that are integral to navigation within the gamebook.

Exception 2: Graphics necessary as a part of puzzles or clues integral to the entry's narrative.

Graphics provided for these purposes must be in either BMP or JPG format and be included as a part of the RTF entry forwarded. 

Graphics purely of an illustrative nature will not be accepted.

The entry may either be a complete stand-alone story or a self-contained excerpt from a larger gamebook adventure of your own creation.

The entry can be of any genre except erotica.

There is no entry fee.

All rights remain with the author and the author can withdraw their entry at any time during the course of the competition.

An entrant can submit one entry only.

All participants must have a valid PayPal account at the time of submission. For reasons given below you must have a valid PayPal account if you wish to receive a cash prize. Account information is not required by the organisers of this competition unless you are one of the winning entrants. Only at the time of winning a prize will you be asked for your PayPal details.

Competition deadlines for 2021/2022

3rd October 2021: Competition guidelines released

1st December 2021: Entry submissions begin

1st February 2022: Entry submissions close.

8th February 2022: Voting begins.*

22nd March 2022: Voting closes.*

31st March 2022: Winners announced.*

* If there are more than 14 entries, these dates will be extended.

Voting

The prize is awarded to the entrant who receives the greatest number of reader votes. This prize relies on votes provided by readers who have read enough of the entries to make a considered choice as to the relative merits of the gamebooks submitted. It is expected by the sponsor of this competition that votes will be provided on this basis. For 2021/2022 the voting system applies as follows:

A valid vote must be forwarded by email to lindenbaumprize@gmail.com. A valid vote must nominate the three gamebooks most favoured by the voter from the competition entrants. A vote with less than three nominations cannot be accepted. A vote forwarded with more than three nominations will only have the first three accounted for in the voting tabulation.

Only one voter email is allowed per reader. All votes will be checked for duplication of email addresses.

Feedback to the authors may be forwarded to the competition sponsors at lindenbaumprize@gmail.com. All feedback given will be provided to authors at the end of competition as a part of the email notification of results.

Prizes

Winning entrant

A cash prize of £100 GBP (Great British Pounds) to be paid within 48 hours into a PayPal account of the winner's choosing. If you do not have access to a valid PayPal account the cash prize cannot be paid.

A First Prize certificate memorialising their success in the competition.

Merit awards

Two entries are chosen for Merit awards. These entrants receive:

A cash prize of £30 GBP (Great British Pounds) to be paid within 48 hours into a PayPal account of the Merit Award winner's choosing.

A Merit Award certificate memorialising their success in the competition.

Commendation awards

If there are 10 or more entries, there will be 3 commendation awards. The entrants receive:

A Commendation Certificate memorialising their success in the competition.

Gamebook writing help

If you haven't written a gamebook before, you might think that arranging and randomising the sections might be a problem. However, there are now good gaembook writing programs out there. One is The Gamebook Authoring Tool, which has a free version specifically designed to write a 100 section gamebook and export it to Rich Text Format. You can try it here: AboutThe GameBook Authoring Tool – Crumbly Head Games and Crumbly Head Games are offering a free licence to the top three winners.

A fresh start for the Year of Wonders

I resisted Facebook for the longest time. It’s not that I don’t like tech, I just don’t care for people that much. (Only kidding. I like people just fine. It’s the pet photos and soccer chat I wanted to avoid.)

Finally I’ve had to succumb, and the reason is that Leo Hartas and I needed to set up a Facebook page for our comics saga Mirabilis: Year of Wonders (If you need a this-meets-that, try Tintin hunts Fantastic Beasts with a soundtrack by Danny Elfman).

This is part of our big push to get the Mirabilis project moving again. The story was originally serialized in weekly British anthology comic The DFC, published by Random House. When The DFC folded, our story was left unfinished but our rights were tied up in a complicated contractual tangle. It took me months of increasingly desperate negotiation to find a way out of that limbo, made all the more fraught by the fact that none of the people involved in the mess would even return my calls. Luckily I knew Philippa Dickinson, the original publisher of Dragon Warriors and one of the truly nicest people you could hope to work with, who by now had risen to be the head of RH’s children’s publishing division. She pulled strings with the powers that be and got me and Leo our rights back.

Thus unfettered I could stop chewing my nails, but it was still far from plain sailing. We secured a publisher for Mirabilis, but though they did a beautiful job of the production they failed to get copies into any shops. I had to lug a couple of bags stuffed with copies to the Gosh! Comics store in London – if you bought one of those, hang onto it like a Penny Black with Queen Vic in a hipster beard, because they were almost the only copies that ever saw the light of day. The rest, I hear, went astray between the printer (in Bosnia) and the distribution warehouse (in Lancashire) and may now be propping up wobbly café tables somewhere in Germany.

So, back to the drawing board. A comics publisher reached out, but the deal they offered was like a handshake from Don Corleone. We were expected to sign over all rights in perpetuity to them, even though there was no obligation for them to keep the book in print. After the epic struggle with Random House there’s no way Leo and I could accept terms like that. As a creator, all you have is your work. You can't let other people lock you out of it.

What about Random House themselves? Well, Philippa had retired by this point, and the mildest way to put it is that having escaped the clutches of the contract we didn’t really have a lot of friends there. We were in our gulag and, at any other time in history, there we might have stayed. But this is the 21st century, right - with social media and crowdfunding and shit. So Leo and I have spent the last few weeks getting ready for a full and concerted relaunch of this mighty fantasy saga. Our plans include:

• a Patreon page where aficionados can come and pledge as little as $1 a month to help fund new instalments. Pages of the comic go up there Mondays and Fridays with higher-level backers getting access to backstage blog pieces and other goodies.
• a new website where everyone can read the comic absolutely free – just a little way behind the paid-up supporters on Patreon, who also get higher-res versions of the art.
• the aforementioned Facebook page where you can get updates on Mirabilis and any other books, comics, movies or games that we thing might interest you.
• a Twitter account with daily instalments of the comic.

And we’re toying with the idea of a Kickstarter to fund a Mirabilis gamebook. Or app. Maybe a boardgame. Possibly all three and - I dunno, a roleplaying game too? The Patreon backers may get a say in that. The exciting thing is that it's a community where everyone gets a voice.

Here’s the thing. We could really use your support – which is, after all, the whole point and rationale of what we’re trying to do now. We’re bypassing the publishers and distributors and going straight to the people whose opinion and backing count most. That’s you, we hope. The readers. Already we've got backing from Jason Arnopp, the 21st century's Stephen King, from the Jedi Master of gamebooks Stuart Lloyd, and from musician, artist & game designer Frazer Payne, among others. Good company to be in, and an absolutely priceless vote of confidence when we're starting a new venture like this. Thanks, guys.

If you can spring for a few dollars to actually fund the work, then you’re our BFFs till the sun dies – but even if not, a like on Facebook costs nothing and can really help boost interest. You never know, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

So come up to the lab

In case you missed it, Paul Gresty has been spilling the beans (human beans) over on Lloyd of Gamebooks about the hopefully upcoming story/game The Frankenstein Wars that he and I are are developing with Cubus Games. Here's a taster:

"Imagine yourself in the place of a lazaran for a moment. One morning you wake to learn that your boss has grafted an extra head to your shoulders, and given you one extra arm. He's severed your own scrawny legs, and replaced them with the brawny limbs of a champion sprinter. All because he feels it will make you more effective in your work. How would you fight the wave of madness that such a change would surely engender? Could your husband or wife understand this transformation? How could you explain it to your parents, or your children?"

The story is about using the Frankenstein process to create an army of bioengineered soldiers - stronger, faster, more indifferent to pain than any normal man. If they fall in battle - even if they're killed - the body parts can be recycled to create the troops to fight on the next day. As Paul concludes:

"The conflict threatens to tear apart the heart of Europe. And yet the damage to humanity's soul may be far greater still."

You can read his whole article here and back the gamebook on Kickstarter here.

Talking heads

There's been a slew of interviews on the Lloyd of Gamebooks site this month, and with so much going on you might have blinked and missed them. There's one with the redoubtable Paul Gresty, whom most FL blog regulars will know for Arcana Agency: The Thief of Memories, and another with the very talented Michael J Ward, author of the Destiny Quest gamebook series. Oh, and not forgetting the master of death-rock space opera, Kyle B Stiff, creator of Sol Invictus.

And there's even an interview with yours truly, in which I spill the beans (well, one or two beans, not the whole can) about a couple of new gamebook projects I'm working on with the aforementioned Mr Gresty. One of those is the ever-so-long-awaited new Fabled Lands book, The Serpent King's Domain, for which we are hoping to team up with Megara Entertainment. (Incidentally, search around on Megara's site and you might even see The Thief of Memories on sale. Be prepared to do some Howard Carter level digging around to find it, though.)

And then there's the first mention of a gamebook app that I'm helping Cubus Games to launch on Kickstarter sometime soon. This is being written by Paul Gresty based on my setting, story and characters. The picture above is your teaser.

Best of all, though, there's an interview with Emily Short, co-creator (with Richard Evans) of Versu. She talks about someof her favourite examples of Interactive Fiction (capitalized here because it refers to the specific parser-type definition, rather than just "fiction that you can interact with" which is what I usually mean by the term) and anything in the IF field recommended by Ms Short has to be worth a look.

For what we are about to receive...

In case you haven't heard, the gamebook extravaganza of the year is happening over on Stuart Lloyd's blog. All this month, he's celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first Fighting Fantasy book that started the ball rolling with a series of posts and interviews including Lone Wolf, Choice of Games, Tunnels & Trolls, Destiny Quest... and too many others to mention. Your best bet is to start here and pop back every day for at least one new post (usually more) packed with information and insights about the gamebook medium.

There's actually going to be a short interview with me in there at some point. I ought to confess that, when I answered Stuart's questions, I thought everyone's replies were going to go into one single post. In fact there are more than thirty posts in the series - a lot more - so I probably could have gone into a bit more detail. And normally it's so hard to shut me up, too. (I know, I know: the "A to Z of blogging" theme really should have tipped me off, but I don't live in this world, I'm only visiting...)

Now, can anyone say where the picture comes from?