Ratings and Reviews by ChanceOfFire

Eye of the Dragon is one of the later fighting fantasy gamebooks. It is also the first (besides the very easy Island of the Lizard King) where I legitimately discovered the one true path on the first attempt. You need one key item and five optional items which can make the final challenge easier, although I found all six on my first blind playthrough.

That said, it is also pretty challenging, with lots of game overs. Ian Livingstone also installed a few anti-cheating measures here, such as cursed items which hurt you intially but later save you down the line. Tough luck to folks who peep and go back if things look hairy. I admit to fudging some dice rolls to save myself during the game, but it was kinda hard. There is also plenty of cool stuff, as well as a companion, whom you can pick up along the way.

That said, the story is garbage, even by the standards of the Fighting Fantasy series. Someone offers you information about a magical treasure and lets you retrieve it. However, to ensure that you share the spoils from its sale, he gives you a slow acting poison and tells you to drink it, as an insurance policy for him of sorts, to make sure you do not take the treasure and run. I don't know about you, but that seems like a pretty dumb idea. He does betray you at the end later, but I'm seriously not sure if a reader should have expected anything different.

There are also lots of encounters in the game which make no sense from a writing perspective. I mean, why are merchants setting up shop in a random dungeon filled with monsters. Who are they selling to? One of them is kinda pretty, so there is that. At the end of the day, this feels like a dungeon filled with random things rather than a cohesive world.

I was somewhat entertained by it, but I can't give a pass to the story and setting after so long. Bloodbones proved that you could have a strong setting and writing in the Fighting Fantasy framework. At some point, I seriously can't give a free pass any longer.

Creature of Havoc is probably the toughest Fighting Fantasy gamebook in the series. (Although Crypt of the Sorcerer is also unfairly tough in a different sort of way.) It also features the most interesting premise, as you start out as a monster with no idea of who you are, or the strange evil which is rising up around the corner.

In terms of story and writing, I think this is easily the strongest of all in Fighting Fantasy world, as you slowly struggle to discover your identity and your sense of purpose. There are plenty of ways to get sidetracked along the way, and inadvertently end up working for the enemy. Tha game's backstory makes for pretty good reading, and it is also interesting to see it getting fleshed out in the world later on.

The game's signature feature is the garbled language which other characters speak. Over time, you might find a way to translate it, but doing so is incredibly tedious and not fun at all. You will need to do the translation if you are to complete the game, so you might want to google a list or something, beacause doing the busywork yourself just isn't fun.

I think this could have been a much better novel than game, and as much as I like to complain about the writing in the Fighting Fantasy series, I think this one is a true masterpiece of story and lore. Shame it is so difficult to complete. Free read is pretty fun, however.

Freeway Fighter takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States, where a mysterious virus wipes out a large portion of the world's population and leaves a few survivors behind. The latter splits into two groups, one group which wants to be civilized again and another which prefers to live the fun life, wearing impractical clothes and driving cannon-mounted cars. That said, I'm sure there aren't a lot of people to rob in a post-apocalyptic world, so I'm not sure what all these guys really do in their plentiful free time, and who does the expensive repairs and makes the ammo.

So you join one group of survivors in the town of New Hope. An oil refinery offers you an armored tanked filled with petrol in return for some grain. To reach them, you'll need to drive through the lawless wastes in your battle car, ready to rip apart gangs of outlaws in their equally spiky cars.

By the way, this is an Ian Livingstone game, so to win this, you will need to find the one true path. Every now and then, your car will run low on petrol, forcing you to scrounge for petrol somewhere. If you are unable to do so, your car will stall by the side of the road, forcing you to walk home. I don't know, did whoever planned this mission think there would be gas stations along the way to fill up for this long roadtrip?

So you will need to find some petrol on the way, or find the important key items which will allow you to extract the petrol later on. One involves winning a really violent car race which should taken a large amount from the tank, but ehh...

Combat plays out differently here, with the usual melee combat, as well as car combat and gunfighting combat. This adds a bit of spice to the usual Fighting Fantasy formula. It's a pretty fun change from the usual knights-and-castles fantasy setting, and I liked it.

That said, winning this can be a huge exercise in frustration to find the one true path. I liked the idea as a whole, but the tedium just isn't fun.

Also, this game takes place in the United States, right? Why are we calling it petrol and not gasoline?

While Ian Livingstone tends to follow a pretty fixed formula for his releases, Armies of Death does shake up the usual figthing fantasy system a little.

You play as the commander of a force of troops, out to beat the next big bad which has emerged from the horizon. Gold isn't an issue here, as you start out with a huge amount and aren't really in any real danger of running short. You can recruit additional soldiers along the way, which might come in handy as the final battle puts you through a gauntlet of destruction before testing your troop strength. Fail, and you die. That said, it's not that unforgiving, and I managed to enter the final battle well over the troop minimums. (But well, I was pretty aggressive with recruiting troops and also uh... fudged some dice rolls.)

Still, you'll need way more than a mountain of steel to win this. As this is an Ian Livingstone book, you'll need find all sorts of items and information before the final confrontation with the big bad. Missed something? THEN DIE! You will likely need a few attempts to find the one true path, picking up everything you see and hoping that it'll be the magic item to save you from the dreaded game over. There is also one extremely annoying character who demands a huge laundry list of items for very stupid reasons before giving you the numbers you need to win. Yeah, miss one thing, and you know you'll see a game over down the line.

Anyway, this is an interesting departure from the usual fighting fantasy formula, even if you have to submit yourself to the usual lengthy item checklist to win.

Note: This review is based on the full version of Zombie Exodus with all the DLC. I bought it a long time ago, back when each extra chapter was still a dollar each. (If I recall the price correctly.)

Zombie Exodus is a pretty substantial adventure with a fairly strong use of gameplay mechanics. First written in Stone Age CoG, it came out at a time where the HG library was still pretty rough around the edges. Still, with an inventory and stat system which is woven well into the game, it does capture that zombie action shooter feel in a text game.

The gaming feedback is pretty well done, as you pick items for adventures and go out on adventures where you get to put them to use. There are encounters with a good bit of branching and which constantly test your loadout, giving you the sense that actions have impact an on the game. The game also introduces interesting variations into the challenge every now and then, such as losing most of your items or having to deal with item usage limits.

The writing was a little rough in the first two chapters, although I think it did get much better later on. There were a few parts which I felt were a little contrived, such as the game taking away your choice and making you accept a very difficult mission thrown on you when you had the option to refuse earlier ones. Still, overall, the gameplay elements are strong, and still do a good job of conveying the sense of exploration and danger in a zombie plagued world.

I had only managed to unlock a couple of endings in the game - although I know there are quite a lot of them. Some require pretty specific actions on your part.

Zombies aren't really my thing, but I did really enjoy this back in the ancient days of CoG. Ahh... the memories.

These Thieving Hearts is a lot like Freshman Magic. With a similarly long and rambling writing style with huge blocks of text, it takes too many words to tell you what is going on. Despite the fairly high 280k wordcount, it only ends up being a tedious read which makes your trip around the world feel like a drag.

With a large gang of male thieves, each with a different specialty, it's time to travel around the world on a thieving adventure. Who knows, you might find some romance on the way. Unfortunately, a lot of the characters are not at all interesting. Back in Freshman Magic, I was mildly interested in Alistair, but here, I simply tossed a few coins to pick someone, as none of the characters were the slightest bit engaging. Arthur won the multi-toss, and I managed to get him in the end. Yay? (Spoiler - click to show)Note: There was a skinny dip option at the end which was grayed out for me.

There is a good bit of sexual content, and I manged to get a happy ending with a trip to the pacific. Still, I'll say the same thing I did for Freshman Magic. Erotica isn't fun to read if it's not backed by strong characters and writing.

You get a fairly substantial selection of stats to choose from. I tried to split my focus between magic and history, and I think it got me through the game for the most part, although there were a couple of times where I hit a choice and (I think) I did not have the correct stat to pass it.

There is a good bit which I liked, such as the food choice selections and the hanging out with the guys segments here and there. Still, none of the guys in question were interesting. The premise of a heist which takes you around the world with a cool gang sounded pretty fun, but the writing just wasn't good enough to do this idea any justice.

There are better titles in the HC library. This isn't it.

'An anomaly threatens all human life on Earth and there's not much you can do about it.'

Hmm...

A short story. You open your phone and get the usual barrage of bad stuff like social media spam, bad news, ads and so on. You try to buy some stuff, wondering why our high-tech world makes things so complicated. Then, you head to work to see the usual bad emails. Also, you head to social media to do some really unhealthy stuff. (Like stuff which I personally swore off years ago, only to get dragged back into when I made the stupid decision to be an indie game dev.)

After a while, you calmly see signs of the anomaly, and talk about it someone before the curtains come down on the tale.

This short story was fairly entertaining, going through the digital hazards and drudgery of our high-tech modern world, although I wasn't really too sure what the anomaly's role in the game/story was when all was said and done. Anyway, it might be worth a read.

I am a little unsure what to make of this one. The writing and overall game design was solid. The background was used very effectively to show the amount of hair you have at the moment.

The protagonist struggles with hair loss, trying all sorts of things to no effect. At some point, they apparently stumble upon a possible solution, one which solves the problem at first but then brings things out of control in an unexpected way.

It's hard for me to review the story. As a horror story, I felt it was something which could work, although it didn't quite achieve the intended effect on me personally. I did feel weirdly grossed out at the end, rather than feeling like someone who read a good horror story.

So I'm filing this under games which I felt were good but which I didn't personally like. That said, ymmv on the story.

A short game with a good dash of fairytale tropes and some twists added to them. You are a princess, born with a curse. To hide the curse, your parents lock you in a tower. Suitors can try to win your hand by overcoming numerous perils to reach the tower and rescue you.

The writing is rough, but the story is pretty entertaining and charming if you take it for the light-hearted comedy it is. Interestingly, while the player is locked to a female character, you do get to decide on the gender of the love interest, although it is largely pronoun changes for the most part. You get a couple of choices here and there, but what I found was mostly positive and lighthearted, save an early bad end if you... decide to ignore the call to adventure.

The art and the parchment UI is simple, but also conveys a very charming vibe too.

Overall, it's a short and entertaining experience, maybe worth a replay or so.

Definitely a pretty fun and charming entry.

After a messy encounter with a witch, which results in her own broom getting smashed, the two of you set out to find a replacement. That said, your new witch companion has plenty of interesting powers which could potentially cause a lot of havoc.

The dialogue is pretty funny, and it is fun to try out the different (mostly two choice) options to see what sort of magical mayhem you end up causing. I liked the character writing and the funny impacts of the choices. The art is also solid and does a good job of conveying the story and the halloween feel. The halloween music also works well too.

It is one of the lesser rated games for the short games showcase, but I would say it's worth a look.