The Ravages of Fate by Ulysses Ai

My first impressions of the Ravages of Fate were not good. Did this guy write the introduction with the heavy aid of a thesaurus, or is he just showing off? Either way, it doesn't really work. "Paining you with a dichotomy of wretchedness and remembered latitude?" Really? I think I eventually figured out what that's supposed to mean, but I took a few wrong turns in the maze first, and I think I had to fight and ogre and steal it's latitude before I could find the exit. After passing some guy teetering on the edge of madness with glee at his impending death. Don't know what his deal is. Didn't ask.

To (mis)quote the immortal words of Pierre Bosquet, "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la litterature: c'est de la folie." Or, "It is magnificent, but it is not writing: it is madness."

That said, once we're past the introduction, the author quickly abandons the thesaurus and/or pretenses, and spins a surprisingly good yarn. It turns into some of the best writing of the year, which I was shocked by, after the introduction. It's descriptive. It's vivid. And in particular, the author creates believable dialogue (such a relief after Dating a Witch!) Actual dialogue is rare in gamebooks; it's not the norm. So major props for not only attempting it, but pulling it off successfully. The characters of your three companions are the strongest part about this gamebook.

While I enjoy the story in the first half, the second half revolves around nothing so much as the fight with the big troll. While I think it's an interesting idea, and devoting so many sections to the fight allows it to be extremely dynamic and interesting, I felt the balance was WAAAAY off. It struck me as very, very hard to win legitimately. Hell, I cheated my pants off, and (while I enjoyed the fact that I had no pants) I still couldn't win!

A couple things that might help with the balance: Either reduce the starting vitality of the troll, so that he can go down more quickly, or have the attacks described by your companions do actual real damage to the troll, or both. Actually, across the board I think all the Vitality numbers need to be reduced. The fight just took too long.

At the end of the day, this is a gamebook of highs and lows. I love the writing for the better part of the book, but the writing in the background sets my teeth on edge. I love the dynamism off the troll fight and just how much can be done with it with fifty-ish sections devoted just to that, but in execution, it took too long and was impossible to beat.

If I were an editor, and this came across my desk, I would say, "Yes, after another re-write or two." It has what it takes, now the author just needs to get out of the reader's way and let him enjoy it.

Dating a Witch by Ivailo Daskalov

I'm sorry to say that this was one of the weakest entries of this year's Windhammer competition. However, it was not wholly without merit. What I like about Dating a Witch is the focus on the two main characters, on their relationship and all the dialogue. In my opinion, gamebooks are all too often shallow affairs with no real attention to character and dialogue, so having one very focused on people and a relationship was very refreshing. At the same time, this was in some ways its greatest weakness, because much of the dialogue came across as stilted and unrealistic.

It's hard to say how much of this weakness in writing the dialogue comes from language barriers, and how much from the author's own mind. Ivailo is another member of the Bulgarian gamebook community, and I really have to give him props for reaching beyond his comfort zone to try writing a gamebook in a language that is not his own. That said, I think his command of English isn't quite up to the task of bringing the dialogue to life.

It took a major leap of suspension of disbelief to keep reading past the first section, but when I pushed through and actually read the entire story, I was pleasantly surprised. It has a very engaging plotline with an interesting premise. I like romance in gamebooks (I'm a big softie at heart) so this is in some ways right up my alley. The author gives the two characters an irresistable appeal to one another, something out of the ordinary that draws them together. At first, this comes off as sappy and melodramatic, not to mention unrealistic, but I think some of that might be due to the stilted dialogue (which again comes back to language issues.) When I was able to suspend disbelief, I actually found the connection between the two characters to be very powerful.

Later on some dangerous events start happening, such as an attack by a demonic entity against someone on the street nearby. The injection of a little danger into the story was definitely a strong addition, but I would have liked to see a little more explanation of what and why. It would be nice to have that attack tie into the plot somehow, rather than just being, "and here's something else which happened."

I was amused to see the female lead's interest in gamebooks ;) A little bit of the author projecting there, perhaps? On a side note, the board game/gamebook which they play together once you get up into Lauren's apartment actually sounded really fun... I wonder, does that exist, or is it something the author made up for purposes of the story? If it doesn't exist, I kinda want to go make it...

I also liked the magic in the world. The demonologists powers, and the witch's, were both very interesting. My only request there (like so many other gamebooks this year) would be to please, please please fill the reader in right at the start. We have no knowledge of what the world is or what to expect other than the briefest of mentions that William is a demonologist. When does the story take place? Are we in modern times? Ancient times? Where? South Africa? Tokyo? Some other planet? You don't need to make a big deal of these things if they're not important to the story, but the basic questions of when and where should at least be addressed right away.

To sum it up, the powerful and mysterious attraction these two characters feel for each other at the start comes across as sappy and unrealistic at first, partly due to weak dialogue (which may be due to language barriers), but if you are able to suspend disbelief (a major suspension, I know, but possible) then the attraction actually becomes quite powerful, and it's a lot of fun to go along with these characters on their first date and see how it goes. The world is interesting, filled with magic and danger, I just wish it were a lot more fleshed out, with some sense of why these things are happening and how it all works. Mostly, I wish I could read Ivailo's work in his native language, or as translated by a capable translator. More than the other second-language authors this year, I feel like this piece suffers from the language barrier.

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.