Getting started in the Vulcanverse

As with a lot of open-world gamebook series, you can begin your adventures in any of the Vulcanverse books. In each case you play through your childhood, your choices in those early flashback years shaping the kind of character you're going to start as -- your skills, deity, any starting gear, and so on. It's a little more involving than just rolling a bunch of dice.

In the first four books, whichever you pick, those childhood events are more or less the same. In Workshop of the Gods, though, it's a little different. Now you're not starting in a rural area; you grew up in the biggest city in the Vulcanverse and your family and home there provide a base you can return to.

Your early-life choices in the city are different from the other four books. Having defined your initial abilities, you're then presented with a couple of opportunities to acquire mentor characters. First, when watching your uncles play a board game, you notice a strange antique coin and if you ask about it you may end up meeting a veteran who will guide you through quests in Book 2: The Hammer of the Sun. Then later, shopping with your aunts, you can ask them about the land of Arcadia and thereby acquire a mentor who'll prompt you to undertake quests in Book 3: The Wild Woods.

In both cases you get the option to ignore the cue, thereby avoiding these mentors. Game designer Ernest W Adams has pointed out that when presented in a game with, say, an interesting inscription, there's no point in giving the player the choice of "look at the inscription" or "don't look". That's a non-choice, because why wouldn't the player look unless there's some other cost to doing so? (For example, unless they're being chased and stopping to study an inscription puts them at risk.)

But I still give players the choice of passing on the mentors for two reasons. First because your decisions at this stage of the book aren't only setting your starting stats; they're also shaping how you think about your character. Do you look after your younger brother with love, or through a sense of duty, or do you leave him to fend for himself? Making that choice will determine the character you're playing not only in game terms but in your own conception. Ignoring the cues from your uncles and aunts tells us the kind of self-sufficient person you might be.

Also, not all players are going to want mentoring. You can strike out into the other regions of the Vulcanverse and just discover quests at random. That's fine if you have the time for exploration and you don't need any hand-holding. Others will appreciate being given some hints -- and if so you can pick up more hints, though of a less structured sort, by talking to the Oracle at the temple of Apollo.

When out in the world you can find companions who will travel with you. They sometimes offer advice, but usually only after you've already embarked on a quest. They don't tend to nudge you towards any particular goal. If you like setting your own goals, forget the mentors but it's still worth picking up a companion. There are a couple you can find fairly easily if you look around the south-eastern part of Notus in The Hammer of the Sun.

Mentors differ from companions because they don't accompany you. They'll look at what you've achieved so far, suggest the next stage of a quest and give you some clues as to how to go about it, then with a pat on the back or a kick in the pants they'll send you off to try it. You can return to the city and seek them out if you're having trouble. The advantage of doing it that way is you get quests sliced up into readily achievable chunks, which a lot of players prefer to just playing on till they're tired. The mentor lets you know when you've hit a convenient episode break.

So, whether you're a self-starter or whether you like taking advice from a friend, either way you should find what you're looking for in Vulcanverse Book Five: Workshop of the Gods. Still, the books in the Vulcanverse series are not self-contained; they comprise one vast connected saga.

To give you an idea of the sweep and scope of that saga, think of the Sorcery! series by Steve Jackson. That's four big gamebooks to start off with. Now add the original six books of the Way of the Tiger series. Then pile on top of those the first four of Joe Dever's Lone Wolf books. All together that lot is as long as the Vulcanverse series. Vulcan City is a good place to begin, but you'll soon need to venture into the the other realms, so start off with a couple of books and bear in mind you'll need all five to complete the full adventure.

Actions and consequences in an open world

When I mentioned on social media that Vulcanverse would be the first open-world gamebook series to be finished, somebody rightly pointed out that "finished" is a moot term when we're talking about open-world adventures. Fabled Lands, for example, is famously incomplete -- but all that actually means is that you can only explore about two-thirds of the areas shown on the map. If and when we ever type "The End" on Fabled Lands book 12, that wouldn't constitute an ending in the way a linear story ends. You can go round and round forever. That's what open worlds are all about.

Vulcanverse is different. Superficially it is like Fabled Lands, a sandbox for adventuring in, but that's deceptive. It's actually more like an open-world CRPG where you can take up quests in any order, but they feed into a central story thread that will lead you to a grand finale. Minor quests allow you to qualify for major quests, and some of those have payoffs that change the landscape of the game (literally) or win you allies who may rally to your side at the showdown with the Big Bad.

The last half of Workshop of the Gods (around 880 sections out of 1667 in total) is devoted to that endgame track, and once you complete it the game is over. You can bide your time entering the endgame, gathering everything and everyone you think you'll need, but once you're on it the structure is pretty linear. It's like a traditional gamebook from that point, sacrificing complete freedom of choice in favour of a dramatic conclusion.

I got to wondering how many quests are up for grabs in the whole five books. One clue might be in the codewords that we use to keep track of earlier decisions. For instance, if you begin your adventures in Book Five you start with the codeword Reverie. That remembers that you have a home and family in the city, and that you are familiar with the main landmarks. Titles such as Amazonian Queen or Tricked by a Water Nymph serve a similar function, the main difference being that you can see what the title records whereas the function of a codeword is usually not obvious immediately.

There are about two hundred codewords and seventy-odd titles across the five Vulcanverse books. As a quick yardstick, that might suggest around 250 quests (given that you might pick up more than one codeword on the bigger quests) but actually it's the tip of the iceberg. We only use codewords and titles when a player choice can have consequences anywhere in the Vulcanverse. All sorts of people you meet will react differently if you're the Amazonian Queen, for example.

But there are plenty of quests that don't have global repercussions, so to avoid having to check codeword lists too often we use a non-global logic filter: the tickbox. A tickbox is located "in the code". At the point that you arrive at a location, say, a tickbox could record whether this is your first visit (in which case you get the longer description) or a follow-up. Multiple codewords can be used to trigger different events each time you visit the location, as in the case of the tengu king's court in FL Book Six:

With a little extra tweaking, a tickbox can serve to filter a quest that is not yet complete, or that has just been completed, or that you completed a while ago. Here's an instance of that from Vulcanverse Book Four:

In this case, section 912 gives you the set-up conditions before the quest is dealt with and asks if you have what's needed to fulfil it. Usually you'll go away and come back later with what you need, though you might be lucky enough to have it already -- an item, a codeword, a companion, etc. If and when you do, 912 steers you to a section (or a whole subquest loop consisting of many sections) that if successful routes you back to 408 with the instruction to tick the box. At that point, you'll then go to section 1043 and be told the outcome and what reward you get. If you return to the Atlas tree later on, you'll see that the box is already ticked and so you'll go to section 1007, which tells you the new status quo that applies since you resolved the quest.

There are a lot more localized quests than globally significant ones, just like in a CRPG, so at a rough guess that means the whole Vulcanverse series comprises about six or seven hundred distinct quests. Some just earn you an item or a stat boost. Others unlock bigger quests. Each of the first four books features three major quests called labours, and when you've completed all twelve of those it unlocks the possibility to jump into the endgame in Book Five whenever you're ready.

I haven't seen a breakdown of the quest structure for something like The Witcher or Baldur's Gate, but I'm curious to know how the scope of those games measures up beside Vulcanverse. If you know the numbers, share them in the comments. And if you have a loved or loathed gamebook design feature -- maybe you can't stand writing in books, or you don't like logic gates -- let us know about that too.

Online Adventure Sheets

Tickbox and codeword spreadsheet for all 5 Vulcanverse books

Buy the Vulcanverse series on Amazon

Darkness visible -- at last

It turned into a real labour of Hercules -- sorry, Herakles -- but it was worth it because now I can say: the Vulcanverse series is complete! The fifth and final book, Workshop of the Gods, is finally available in either colour hardcover edition or in paperback. As the blurb puts it:

Vulcan City is a place of striking contrasts. A metropolis where marble palaces and gilded rooftops soar against the sky, whose walls and towers seem to approaching travellers like the flanks of mountains, where gold and jewels overflow the coffers of wily merchants, and where nobles in silk finery indulge in epicurean pleasures to rival the banquets of Olympus.

But it is also a place of teeming streets and plazas where cutthroats and spies hide themselves amid the crowds, where narrow alleyways can lead to stinking, maze-like warrens where the unwary visitor is soon as lost as in the deepest wood. In candlelit taverns you may overhear whispered secrets that can make a fortune or ruin a reputation. And here in the magnificent hub at the centre of the Vulcanverse, life is often as cheap as a trinket sold on a marketplace stall.

Meet up again with old friends and bitter enemies. Uncover long-buried secrets, hunt down thieves and murderers, wrestle with demons, cross swords with assassins, join criminal gangs – even come face to face with the spectre of your own death.

Visit the puppet shows where you’ll find hints about the fate of a universe. Seek counsel from the oracle who is privy to the insight of the gods – if you can afford it. Venture into the prison that holds the cleverest man alive, knowing that you must either befriend him or kill him. Lay claim if you can to a mansion brimming with treasures and traps. Rise in society, making alliances among the ruling factions. And attend the glittering party at Vulcan's palace, whose location is hidden from the eyes of ordinary mortals, where you will set out on a perilous journey through space and time to reach the crucial, cataclysmic battle between light and darkness towards which all your choices have been leading.

This is the city where all possibilities meet, where destinies are made, where the fate of the Vulcanverse will finally be decided.

In the Vulcanverse series, as in Fabled Lands, you can begin in any region and travel freely back and forth between the books to pursue your quests. But there are significant differences from the earlier series. In Fabled Lands there's no central storyline, whereas in Vulcanverse most of the hundreds of quests feed into a plot that builds across all five books to an epic finale that occupies the second half of Workshop of the Gods. Your choices in the books have lasting consequences, altering the fate of nations and even the very landscape. You'll develop relationships with recurring characters, both friends and foes. And you will bear the scars as well as carry the glory of your exploits through all 6115 sections (more than fifteen Fighting Fantasy length gamebooks!) and three quarters of a million words. Did I say epic? It's longer than The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit combined.

And what is your ultimate goal through the series? As you'll soon discover, darkness casts a lengthening shadow over the Vulcanverse, threatening all who dwell in the five realms. Queen Nyx, with her dread sons Death and Sleep at her side, has unleashed a devastating war that will sweep away both gods and titans and leave her the unchallenged monarch of all creation. You must hone your skills, win over allies, and gather the weapons and clues that will make you into the Hero of the Age, the only mortal capable of opposing the Night Queen.

Although technically the fifth book, this is actually a good one to start your adventures in. That way you'll have a base in the city which is the hub for all the other regions. You can visit the Oracle in the temple district to get hints, and your family will introduce you to mentor characters who can help you figure out some of the major quests that you'll need to complete.

Jamie and I are keen to hear what people think of this series. So if open-world solo roleplaying is your thing, do pick up a volume or five, embark on some adventures, and tell us how you get on.

You can find a copy of the Adventure Sheet for the book here, and the books themselves (both hardcover and paperback editions) here.

Peaks that stretch to the floor of heaven

If you've yet to start exploring the Vulcanverse, a good place to get prepped is over at the Vulcan Forged site where a fascinating new series of posts is providing an in-depth look at the lore of each region of this immersive world. This month it's the turn of Boreas, the icy mountain realm. (Part 1 here and part 2 here.)

A quick recap: Vulcanverse is an open world gamebook series. You can start in any book and travel back and forth between them. So far, so Fabled Lands. The differences with Vulcanverse are that you can explore the world with NPC companions, you get free resurrections (most of the time), and there are many more opportunities than in other gamebooks to permanently change the world by your actions.

Also in contrast to Fabled Lands, the whole Vulcanverse story builds to an epic finale in the fifth book, Workshop of the Gods, which will be released in a few months' time. I've been labouring away at the manuscript for almost a year (you'll never hear me criticize George RR Martin's work rate; I know just what it's like) and I now have over 20,000 words of notes covering the endgame sequence alone. The finished book will be around 1200 sections long, making the whole Vulcanverse series nearly 5000 sections and more than 600,000 words. After this one I might need a lie down.

Wide open worlds

The Kickstarter for Legendary Kingdoms ends in a few hours. Better get over there right now if you want to back it.

In case the title isn't enough of a hint, LK is an open world gamebook series in the style of Fabled Lands. What that means is that you can start in lots of different places, take the kind of character you want, pick your own goals, and explore the world however you choose by going back and forth between the books, each of which covers a different region.

The grandfather of open world gamebooks is Eric Goldberg, who pioneered the idea (though he may not have realized it) in 1985 with his boardgame Tales of the Arabian Nights. That seemed to me what gamebooks ought to be: a roleplaying campaign in solo Choose Your Own Adventure form.

Jamie and I pitched an open world gamebook series called Hero Quest to publishers in 1987, and later repackaged the concept as Knights of Renown in 1989, but with still no takers. It wasn't until six years later that we convinced Pan Macmillan to do the Fabled Lands series, and by then the gamebook craze was dying out. That's why we only managed the first six books of the planned twelve.

All went quiet for a couple of decades, and then like long-awaited buses came The Serpent King's Domain, Steam Highwayman, Alba and Legendary Kingdoms. And, not to be left out, Jamie and I are writing an open world series of five books for his Vulcanverse fantasy setting, and we're hoping that Prime Games's CRPG version of the original Fabled Lands books might rekindle enough interest in those that we can finally finish off the series.

Meanwhile I'd be quite keen to write the Victorian survival horror gamebook Shadow King (think: H G Wells meets The Long Dark) but I'm too averse to social media and too deficient in marketing nous to run the Kickstarter campaign needed to fund it. Fans of open world gamebooks won't be short of alternatives. It may have taken three decades for the wider reading public to catch up with the concept, but I'm betting it has a bright future ahead.