Nye's Song by Robert S. Douglas

My apologies to the author, but I can't say I was able to enjoy this one. I wanted to: it had a great premise. Actually a splendid premise, but the writing lost me. First I had to slog through the Fighting Fantasy rules, made worse by the fact that I couldn't skip them, even though I already know them, because he makes a point of saying "things are different, but I won't tell you what. You have to read it ALL AGAIN. Bwahahaha..." Okay, he didn't say that exactly, at least not in so many words, BUT HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE.

Anyway, once you get to the actual text, something about the writing just put me off. Maybe someone else had a better experience with it, but--especially in this read-through, after gems like Academy of Magic and Final Payment--the writing in Nye's Song just didn't grab me.

There are a few things I can point out that might improve it. First off, give us a better idea of what's going on in the world. There's something about Shadow, and Blight. What are these things? Why do we care? Why is our hero fighting them? Second, try to get more into the mind of the character. I felt like... like it was trying too hard, instead of just being.

For example, early on the main character is creeping into a shadow-blighted town, gun at the ready, and right then he decides to have himself a sad moment, "aren't we all just relics? Why are we even fighting anymore?"  And I'm sitting here thinking, "I don't know, why are you fighting? Nobody ever told me! If you're so tired, go have yourself a lie down!

"On the other hand, if you're not going to lie down, aren't there things you should be paying attention to? You're in the middle of some sort of dangerous situation (apparently--no one ever told me, but you seem to think it's dangerous) so stop daydreaming and keep that gun up!"

As an author, you have to stay in character with the characters. Make sure the reader knows what they're thinking and why, and make sure their reactions are appropriate to the situation. Angsty existentialist reflections are for the time after (or before) the battle, alone with your tea in a tin cup on your dirty bedroll--not for the moment you're storming a hostile location.

Another thing, try to set the scenes a little better. The description doesn't need to be excessive, but it should be clearly established A) Where the characters are, B) Which characters are present, and C) What the matter at hand is. It seemed to jump around a bit too much.

So yeah... I liked the premise, but the writing and characterization fell flat. I think the only real solutions to this are simply reading more and writing more. Best of luck, Robert.

Final Payment by Zachary Carengo

I was very impressed with Final Payment. I can't say I pegged it as the winner, but I'm not surprised. After a certain point it was like, "okay, which of these awesome gamebooks is it going to be?" There were a lot of quality books here this year. It seemed to me to be anybody's game who would actually walk away with the award.

I thought that the writing was very strong. I was consistently impressed. There were several points (leaping out the glass window, or sliding down the pyramid shaped building) where I could literally see the action vividly in my mind, like watching a Jet Li move. No kidding dude, that was awesome!

I also really appreciated the level of quality in the dialogue and the characterization, even--no, especially--in the minor characters. There were characters who barely had more than a line or two of dialogue, but with just a few words, instantly Zachary gives you a vivid sense of who they are, what kind of person they are, and what you might expect from them. Bringing that level of character to a, well, character, in just two lines of dialogue is very impressive. I was never disappointed in the characters. Not even once.

The same cannot, sadly, be said for the setting. By two thirds of the way through the story, I was still learning new things about the world and trying to place just exactly what tech level we're at anyway. The lack of a strong setting established at the opening was very disorienting. For a strong contrast, see Sigil-Beasts, where you instantly know exactly what the setting is, who the main characters are going to be, and what's at stake. In 4 sentences. I kid you not, 4 sentences. Brilliant.

Zachary, you pulled the same brilliance with your characters. In just a handful of words you made each character distinct and vivid. Why didn't you give your setting the same courtesy?

The only other issue I had, and this is a bit nit-picky, but so be it (it's the winner, it can deal with being nit-picked): I didn't ever feel a strong sense of tension. Yes, there's clearly a lot at stake, but the main character doesn't even really seem to care. If the protagonist doesn't care, why should I? I would rather have seen something at stake. Maybe he has a whole secret life, with a family and a day job, now that he's retired, and he needs to cooperate with his new masters in order to make sure they don't have any reason to go digging and find out about his family. Maybe he wants vengeance for his partner's death back in '89. I mean, whatever it is, the protagonist has to want something. I mean really want it. Without that, the story lacks a bit of drive and engagement.

Last but not least I'd like to address the system a bit. There was both good and bad here. The skills are good, and I think that kind of skill system is excellent for gamebooks because it provides meaningful choices to the player without being too complex to manage. You just pick which ones you want, getting to state something about your character in doing so, and you're done. Bam. Easy and additive. I really like the money system. That's probably the most innovative (well, successfully innovative) thing in this gamebooks. The combat system... well, it gets points for being innovative, and it was more well balanced than I anticipated, so kudos to you there. My only complaint with it is that managing the numbers was a bit tedious. I got kind of sick of rolling a bunch of dice, squaring some number, subtracting it from some other double digit number, tracking all this, rolling again and multiplying it and subtracting it and recording that... my god. I'm here to play a game, not do arithmetic all day. This is one of those systems that might work in a computer game (although I'm not convinced there aren't better ways to do it) but in a pen and paper, solo rpg gamebook, it's just more numbers than I want to deal with. That said, I'm still impressed on the basis that it's original, innovative and creative. I've never seen anything like it before. It's an experiment, and I won't hold it against you if the experiment wasn't completely successfull. You get props for creating something innovative and having the guts to roll with it.

At the end of the day, Final Payment is solid and well-crafted. The story is just a tad bit cliche, but the writing really brings it to life. Beyond that, let's be honest--a lot of gamebook stories are derivative; it's one area the genre could really improve. I would absolutely recommend this to friends.

Academy of Magic - The First Term by Marty Runyon

Academy of Magic was excellent. I'm not at all surprised that it placed in the top three. Hell, I wouldn't have been surprised if it had taken first place. It is polished, it is creative, it's well written, it's got a great premise and a fun atmosphere, and it is impeccably balanced.

This is not one that I got to before the voting was up (roll of the dice), otherwise, I might have voted for it myself. But given that it was one of the award winners, and that I'd already been impressed with the introduction, I took the time to run a whole play through for the sake of writing this review.

Sadly, with a work this good, there's just not that much to say. It's excellent. There. Go home, wash your hands, have dinner. You did a great job.

I really liked the character creation system, based around asking questions. I did find that Mind and Animation seemed to be a little more useful in the basic system than the other options, which isn't perfect, but certainly makes sense from a story perspective. I did not figure out the mystery of who was behind the sabotage of my homonculus, but it piqued my interest enough that I'm looking forward to playing through it again later to try and find out. I also really appreciated the balance. The way the system worked out was perfect, because it seemed hard, but in actuality, statistically, was balanced so that the player has pretty decent odds. I won most of my rolls, and the rolls I didn't win, I was able to spend ability points to pass--all except one, in which case, failure turned out to be interesting for the story. Perfect.

Another kudos I have to give is that there were almost no meaningless choices. No, I take it back... There were none. I did not encounter a single meaningless choice. Bra-fucking-O sir. Bravo. The decision of where to search for components may seem, at first glance, similar to some of the "choices" I've railed at in previous reviews, but my experience was that in this case, you actually have a lot to base that decision on. You know what items you need to find, so you can try to wrack your brain and predict where you're most likely to find each of those things. The answers were surprising, but not dissatisfying. On top of that, you also have to consider the fact that you're in an Academy of Magic and where you go may have consequences beyond what items you find. For example, for my third and final bell, I chose to explore the student dorms, with the thought that I might find out more information about the culprit there. Turns out I was not wrong; I found a very informative diary. It wasn't enough for me to solve the mystery, but it was a clue, and a clue that I wouldn't have found anywhere else.

This is in stark contrast to Guild of Thieves, where every direction you go is exactly fucking the same. You could erase all the cool flavor text without changing a thing in Guild of Thieves. You would still have a straightforward, and rather boring, game. But in Academy of Magic, the flavor text matters. It matters that I chose to go to the student dorm. I encountered a school prefect there. I found a diary. These are things I would not have encountered in the dungeon, for example. It made the world feel very alive, it made me feel like I had the chance to interact with an actual Academy of Magic, rather than simply seeing a portrait of it hanging in the background.

My favorite part? The last lines of the gamebook... "The End. You can continue your adventures in the next book, Academy of Magic: The Second Term." Great job Marty! I look forward to book 2.

Guild of Thieves by Andrew Wright

I really enjoyed Guild of Thieves. Much more than I enjoyed Andrew Wright's submission from last year, Sea of Madness, which is strange, given that Sea of Madness won last year's first prize.

Regardless, I think this is a very strong gamebook, with a solid structure and a lot of flavor. The only complaint I had was that all the flavor, in most cases, seems like nothing more than colorful painting on the walls. I really liked the descriptions of all the different thieves guilds that you meet and try to conquer, but I didn't feel like they mostly ultimately mattered that much. Each guild had two numbers which mattered: their power and their wealth. Beyond that, the rest was just so much fluff.

I would have liked to see more plot and story built around the factions and each of their unique characters. Maybe this one hates you if you ally with that one. Maybe this one brings you more information, but that one brings you more power. I want consequences! Ramifications! Story!

Ultimately, I think the problem is just that this is all being crammed into such a short gamebook. To have so many dozens of unique rival thieves guilds in such a short format, each one has to be necessarily abbreviated. It's a shame, but there's nothing for it, except perhaps to cut back the non-essentials and focus more on a smaller number of guilds, with more consequence and interplay in your interactions among them--but that would be a very different gamebook.

As it was, despite inhabiting a very fun, colorful world, the gameplay itself felt very repetetive and, like in Sea of Madness, not balanced well. Fights often had a 50/50 chance of going toward or against the player. Like I mentioned in another review above, I'm here to play a game--and that means making choices. Rolling dice to see if you die is not a choice. The player should ALWAYS be able to make choices to achieve success. Otherwise, what's the point? I don't need anyone to pat me on the back for rolling well.

Besides, with how many challenges there are in a gamebook of this size... if you throw two dozen "succeed or die" dice rolls at a player, each with a 50/50 chance of success or failure, I guaran-fucking-tee you that player is going to die before reaching the end rather than fall in that 50% or above mark every single time out of two dozen. The numbers may be a little off, but the point stands.

As Dave Morris said on twitter a while back (the quote may not be exact, but this captures the gist of it) "If the reader ever reaches a death paragraph, that's a failure, not only for the reader, but for the author."

At the end of the day, it felt a little more game-y than I would have preferred, and the game itself, going around to the different districts to win over rival factions, became very predictable very quickly. The story had a lot of color, but very little of it ultimately mattered. The flavor text could have been replaced almost completely without fundamentally changing the game very much, if at all. I did like the twist at the end--a lot. But what I wish most out of this gamebook would be to see an expanded, full length version, with a few of the extraneous guilds trimmed out and the more shiny among them given a more full treatment. It's a great world--I just don't feel like I've really gotten to go visit it yet.

Hwarang and Kumiho by Leidren Sweever

My first impression of Hwarang and Kumiho was excellent. Like Sigil-Beasts, this story has a lot of color. I love using the setting of Ancient Korea as the backdrop. I love the "Flower-Warriors." How cool is that? It's such a different perspective on manliness and masculinity than we have in America, or in many western societies. I just love that take on gender roles. Very thought-provoking. On top of that, the writing is overall very good. It's evocative, reasonably well paced, and clear. Only occasional odd uses of the language pull it down slightly, making me wonder (as other reviewers have suggested) if English is a second language for this author. If so, it's still used more fluently and aptly than many native writers.

There are a lot of things I like about this entry, and also a few things that could be improved. I really like the character creation system. There's a lot of flavor that adds to the sense of atmosphere for the game, and yet it remains light-weight enough to not drag down the game experience. That said, there's a lot of skills, when you only get to pick three. That's rough. I found myself wishing either that there were fewer options to choose between, or that I could pick more. I ended up feeling more incompetent than competent, for all the things I couldn't do. That said, I went with Charisma, Sword Mastery and Self-Control, and actually wound up doing quite well for myself. Maybe I just picked well, but in the event of it, I didn't really feel incompetent at all.

I really liked the narrative frame of the old man in a village square telling the story. I found that much more rewarding than, for example, any of the three false reality reveals which, in their own ways, frame their respective stories. This narrative framework is especially appropriate since, as I understand it, this story is explicitly based on a well known Korean folktale.

I really like all the choices that you're given, and the slow process of finding out the truth. I think this is one of the more successful "solve the mystery" models that I've seen. I was in particular amused to see some of the tips and tricks used by Leidren Sweever, such as entry 16, which allows you to "ask one more question." The trick is that you can get to that same entry from a variety of different encounters. For example, at the magistrates, you only get to ask one more question if you have enough self-control to force yourself to stay and keep talking to him, whereas at the village inn, you only get to ask one more question if you have the charisma to persuade the innkeeper to help you. There's probably others out there too. The point is, all of these lead to entry 16 if they are successful, where you get to pick a topic to ask your "one more question" about. The answer, of course, is given without any context of who is speaking. I didn't even notice this at first--with the context from your prior discussions already fresh in mind, it's easy enough for the brain to substitute in whoever you anticipate the speaker is: the magistrate or the innkeeper or whoever. Very cool economy of section usage.

I did find that there were a couple of points that I thought might be errors... for example, when exploring the outskirts, you can't go to the graveyard if you have the "water" tag, and you can't go to the lake if you have the "bracelet" tag, but you get water at the lake and get bracelet at the graveyard. Wouldn't it make more sense if you couldn't go back to wherever you had already gone? Or is it the intention of the author that if you've already successfully completed one zone, you can't go to the other? If so, this reader would have appreciated an explanation of why. Are you out of time? Do you get interrupted? Why can't I go there? Otherwise, it feels extremely arbitrary.

Hwarang and Kumiho also has one other effect that I found strange, but interesting, and that is that it frequently gives you the choice of which number to go to next, as a way of generating a random result without the use of dice. It just says, "pick a number to go to next," and gives you a list of numbers to choose from.

The most obvious place to see this is right in section 1, just right there, your first choice. My mind is a little blown by this, because in principle I hate blind choices, but here the intent is so explicitly to generate a random result that I almost have to accept it. Like I may have mentioned before, a blind choice is fine if it's the author's intent to generate a random result. It should just never be mistaken for an actual choice. Here the author is clearly intending it simply as an alternate method of generating a random result, which is actually kind of cool.

This method does have some interesting ramifications. On the one hand, it gives the player the option to make sure that they get a different version of the story on each play through. For the first three play through's at least, you can pick a different section to go to from section 1, and get to see the full variety of options. In a sense, this increases replayability. On the other hand, it also means that if there's a bad result, a good result and a mediocre result, once you know them, you can easily make sure to pick the good result every time, and that is definitely not fantastic. That undermines the basis of the randomization game mechanic.

On the other other hand, this is kind of true of gamebooks already; you learn which choices are the correct ones as you try and try again, until you find the path that will get you to the end. Furthermore, how likely is it that anybody is really going to be legitimately trying the same short gamebook more than three times? Maybe that's just the right amount of randomization, without being too much. Over three playthroughs, you can make  sure to try all three paths without repeating yourself, yet you haven't played so much that you know which one is "correct."

Just one more note on Hwarang and Kumiho: I found the writing generally surprisingly good, with good descriptions and a good "flow," especially impressive coming from a non-native speaker. That said, there were definitely some grammatical issues, sentence structure issues, and misuse of words periodically. That alone is probably enough for me to not want to vote for this story, just because... by the time you reach a competition like Windhammer, a certain level of professionalism is not only expected, but required. If you don't have the skills yourself to make sure that your work is free of grammatical, spelling, and language-use issues, then the thing to do is to find someone who can help you with that. Get an editor. This is true for all authors, no matter which language you're writing in. It's just basic standards. If you want your work to be taken seriously, get an editor who can make up for the skills you're lacking, and make sure that the final product is free of basic errors. There are plenty of native English speakers who could use this advice too.

All in all, Hwarang and Kumiho was a delightful short gamebook which brought me to a setting that no one has taken me to before: Ancient Korea. We went right into the heart of one of the old korean myths, getting to take on the role of the hero of that myth.

Frankly, it's a beautiful story, and it's no less beautiful for having been made interactive. Especially for me, since I didn't know the details of the myth before hand, this was a very fun way to learn it. Great job and kudos to the authors. This was a very, very strong entry.

Massacre at Black Scythe by Mikael Bergqvist

I struggled with Massacre at Black-Scythe. I wanted to like it, but I couldn't get over the fact that I wasn't given any premise at all to work with. I don't know where the story takes place. I don't know when. For a bit there, once things got rolling, I thought we were in modern america. Then I ran into a goblin.

WTFZOMGGDSAG@!

Goblin? Really dude? BEDSER!@!?

Okay, setting aside the fact that this story could NOT decide what genre it was, what I thought it did very well (when it decided to do it) was create the creepy sense of approaching the old abandoned town, the searching for a place from your dreams, the eerieness of that whole scene. Unfortunately, this falls down later when everything becomes so wierd that there's no longer a point of reference for "normal" to compare it to.

As I commented to a good friend after reading this, for something to remain creepy or horrifying, it needs to deviate from normal in significant ways. But if there is no longer any "normal" then you can no longer deviate from it. Oddities can only be eerie when they're presented against a predictable, normal backdrop. Once the whole world is odd, nothing is eerie any longer.

That and... I apparently "shredded" my legs badly enough to lose a whole liter of blood. Let me tell you, dude, if I shredded my legs badly enough to lose a liter of blood, I am NOT getting back up again. I am going on a stretcher. To the hospital. If I'm lucky. To the morgue if I'm not. The blood-loss as hit points thing was cool for a minute, but it quickly failed in practice. I lost my suspension of disbelief right there. Nailed to a wall and left behind. Goodbye suspension of disbelief! It was nice knowing you.

Finally, the nail in the coffin, as it were (for me at least) was all the Which Door choices I was given as the story proceeded. The worst was on section 51, where I had absolutely no basis to pick any one option over another. So I picked one at random and died--totally at random. I put the book down after that. Sorry. If you want me to make choices, give me Choices with a capital C. I'm not interested in playing, "let's roll the dice and see if I die."

Gamebooks are about choice. Hinging huge consequences on random results undermines the very appeal of interactive storytelling.

That said, there were moments when this story shone, and I really hope the author can move above some of the wierder mistakes (*cough* goblin wtf *cough*) and create something really awesome next time.

Sigil Beasts by Karalynn Lee

I'm going to be honest. I LOVED Sigil-Beasts. Within the first two short paragraphs, Karalynn has already painted a picture of a vivid and interesting world. I'm imagining huge, rune-covered monsters, clashing in battles that resolve the fate of nations. This is a great premise because, not only does it have raw coolness factor, it puts a lot of emphasis on the individuals who are in charge of these beasts, which is great for story purposes.

The only place I think this story falls flat is in the later chapters. I like to try to craft each possible path of a gamebook to read like a story in it's own right--just as satisfying as if it were the only narrative path the author wrote. This is a steep challenge, and I'm not sure it's actually possible, but Sigil-Beasts falls pretty far short of that (admittedly high) mark. There were several story paths that I found very unsatisfying, with strange or unsettling endings that did not leave me feeling satisfied, like the story wasn't complete.

Just a little bit more on the system side: I felt like the rule-set was just the right length, neither too heavy nor too light, with each stat serving a valid purpose. And it was surprisingly clear and concise in it's presentation, especially for someone who (I assume?) is a first timer at this. (Is she a first timer? Has she done anything else I didn't know about?) That said, the balance later in the game got very screwy. I had trouble finding any path in which my dragon could win at the end, which was very frustrating. But I didn't explore exhaustively; I may just have made the wrong choices.

Another commenter suggested that Sigil-Beasts would have been better served as a straight narrative, either a short story or a novel. I don't want to scare the author away from writing gamebooks, because I think as a whole Sigil-Beasts was utterly fantastic, but I just want to throw out there, I would LOVE to see the novel that this story could become. Everything about the story, from the premise of the world to the cool house the main character lives in--built in the bones of his old dragon--to the moral ambiguities of the whole practice of raising and fighting the Sigil Beasts... there's so much richness and depth here.

I feel like the gamebook art could be honed a bit, as far as crafting the narrative paths and making each one satisfying, but the incredibly vivid and evocative setting and world (not to mention the clear, concise, and well-written ruleset) earned my respect. This one caught my eye from the beginning and remained one of my favorites throughout. It was a hard choice, but this came out as one of my top choices: Sigil-Beasts received one of my two votes.