A Knight on a Special Quest

My rota of shorter gamebook series has cycled back to Dave Morris’ Knightmare tie-ins. If the previous book in the series is anything to go by, the title The Sorcerer’s Isle will apply only to the novelette that takes up a little over half of the book, and the actual adventure is unlikely to take me outside of the castle dungeons.

For this venture into non-interactive fiction Dave Morris has, like Alan Garner in The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, drawn inspiration from the legend of the Wizard of Alderley Edge, though he takes things in a very different direction (geographically as well as plot-wise: the story is set in the Middle East rather than Cheshire). Treguard, residing in the city of Acre between the Fourth and Fifth Crusades, is sought out to assist with the quest for the Holy Grail after one of the sleeping knights is awakened. There are other interested parties, of course, and Treguard experiences various losses, hardships, perils and twists along the way.

The adventure includes a spoiler for the story, as I wouldn’t be being sent into the dungeons beneath Knightmare Castle in search of the Holy Grail if Treguard hadn’t already brought it here. Still, anyone who was planning on reading the novelette would probably have done so prior to making a start on the adventure, because the stories sometimes provide information that helps with solving puzzles within the gamebook.

There’s a small amount of character creation to be done, as I start with an Armour score of 1 and a Dexterity of 6, but can increase the former by decreasing the latter – the more protective gear I wear, the more restricted my mobility becomes. There is a third stat, Chivalry, but that always starts at a set total, and will change according to how I conduct myself over the course of the adventure. Obviously I need to aim for a high score, as an insufficiently chivalrous knight will have no chance of getting anywhere near the Grail.

I’ll start off as:
Armour 2
Dexterity 5
Chivalry 3
Unless I fare particularly poorly, playing the adventure should at least give some indication of what degree of balance between Armour and Dexterity works best.

It turns out that this might not be quite the dungeon-crawl I expected. While I will be starting under the castle, I may be transported by ley lines to all manner of different locations. As I prepare to set off, Treguard’s fae assistant Pickle discreetly hands me a bar of chocolate, which presumably constitutes an item of food that can be used to restore lost health when the text indicates that I can eat.

From the entrance I proceed to a pentagonal chamber, from which four doors lead on. Each door is marked with a different symbol, and in view of the object of my quest, I think it wisest to choose the door bearing the sign of the cup. After I step through, Treguard’s voice rings out, telling me it’s not that obvious, but I have chosen a path as good – and as hazardous – as any other.

A short distance along the passage, I espy a door in the left wall, and risk checking to see what’s behind it. It opens into a chamber containing a curtained podium and a white-haired hunchback, who asks for a favour. Refusal may be considered unchivalrous, so I allow him to lead me to the podium. It then transpires that he wants someone to act as judge in his mistresses’ annual Ugliness Contest. There are three candidates: the conventionally attractive but sinister-seeming Lilith, the significantly less good-looking Mildread, and the positively grotesque Alison Gross. So, do I pick the obvious candidate, choose one of the others, or refuse to pass judgement?

It may be a cop-out, but I’m not going to select anyone. This earns me a point of Chivalry, and gets me called a variety of rude names by everyone in the room. I absent myself before any of them thinks to progress to more puissant curses.

The next section provides an opportunity to eat, which suggests that I could have taken some damage if I’d named a name and caused more serious offence to the wrong woman. As I got away unscathed, I can just move on to the next choice.

Suddenly transported to a garden with high hedges, I wander around until it dawns on me that I’m in a maze and have got myself lost. At a fountain I pause to rest, and a woman beneath the water offers a challenge. If I can solve her three conundrums, she will teach me some magic. Two correct answers will buy me freedom from the maze, while one will provide only a clue. Should I get all of them wrong, I will be trapped here forever. Risky, especially as Dave Morris can be a bit sneaky with puzzles, but the sorcerous ability could prove essential later on, so I’ll chance it.

They’re all true or false questions, with tricky aspects, and having read the novelette provides no assistance with any of them. I get two of them right (one for a reason other than the one specified, as I was looking for deviousness in the wrong place, but in this instance being correct is all that matters), so a gate appears in one of the hedges. Hastening on my way, I find thick, thorny vegetation on the other side of the gate, and an Armour check determines whether or not I get through uninjured. Owing to my low score, I do take a little damage, so it might be worth eating that chocolate when the book next indicates that I may do so – which turns out to be almost immediately. While I’m still two wounds from death, there is precedent for taking double damage in a single incident, so I heal up while I know I can.

Beyond the thorns is a stream, and at its edge I find a fishing rod and bait. Stealing the rod would obviously be a bad idea, but catching a fish and leaving it for the absent angler might constitute a chivalrous act. A Dexterity roll determines how I fare at this endeavour, and even though the odds are much more favourable than they were for the previous roll, I still fail, and thus catch nothing, not even the discarded footwear that traditionally signifies an unsuccessful session of fishing.

Resuming my travels, I head down a road until dusk begins to fall. Someone approaches from the other direction, and the clanging of a bell indicates them to be a leper. Shunning him because of his illness strikes me as being a pretty unchivalrous course of action, so I don’t go out of my way to avoid him. He asks for alms, but I have no money, and recently ate the only food I had, so I can give only my apologies.

Up ahead is the Forest of Freneville (I’m not sure how I can identify it quite so specifically, but apparently I am able to discern its name). Cautiously I enter, and before long I hear indications that someone or something is following close behind me. For a moment the moonlight illuminates a face, the mouth fanged, and then a cloud plunges my surroundings into complete darkness. While there are, it seems, a few different ways in which I might escape this peril, I’ve acquired no items or spells, nor (so far as I can tell) did I encounter the individual who could be of assistance, so my only hope is to try running away from the Vampire. Can I at least succeed at this Dexterity check?

Yes, I can. He manages to wound me, but I escape with my life. The lateness of the hour prompts thoughts of getting some rest, and a failed item check leaves me with no alternative to climbing a tree and wedging myself into the fork between two branches. Following another check for an object I lack, I doze off and dream of a confrontation with the revenants of all the knights who attempted and failed this quest before me. They prick me with their lances, and I wake to hints that I have been preyed upon by a flock of vampire bats.

Nope, it turns out that the winged predators which sucked my blood while I slept are mythical birds known as striges. Regardless of my Armour rating, they were able to find unprotected patches of flesh into which they could stick their probosces, and a roll of the die will determine whether I’m merely near death or already carrion. I narrowly survive, and spend the rest of the night awake and filled with dread, my hair turning white from the experience.

In the morning I descend and find my way through to the other side of the forest, where a new trial awaits me. A fast-flowing river cuts across my path, the only visible bridge being guarded by one of those knights who won’t let anyone across unless they lop off all of his limbs best him in friendly combat. That’s ‘friendly’ as in ‘not liable to end in death unless one of the combatants is already in as pitiful a condition as I am’.

So, do I chivalrously engage in a play-fight that probably has a 2 in 3 chance of killing me, or trudge along the river bank in search of another way of crossing, doubtless with its own risks? I seek an alternative, and find only a boatman who charges a price I cannot afford. Well, then, I must fight the knight.

Unexpectedly, my low Armour score may prove advantageous. The knight finds me too unimpressive a potential opponent to be worth fighting, and scornfully returns to the pavilion in which he sits out the periods when nobody sufficiently imposing wants to make use of the bridge. I cross before he can change his mind.

Up ahead is a snow-clad moor, its only noteworthy feature a circle of standing stones that must date back centuries at least. At its centre is an altar stone, upon which I see the Grail. Before I can draw near, white-robed Ladies of Avalon block my way, checking to see if I am sufficiently chivalrous. It all hinges on one last roll of the die, and I get the best score I’ve had all adventure. With no further obstacles in my way, I reach for the Grail…

…and find myself back in Knightmare Castle with Treguard. He reassures me that I did succeed in my quest, having lived up to the ideals represented by the Grail, thereby proving myself worthy. As victories go, that's a little anticlimactic, but not unpredictable, all things considered.

So, I’ve finally won a Knightmare gamebook, though not in a particularly heroic or impressive manner. At the start Treguard indicated that there were many routes to the Grail, so it might be worth playing again at some point, to see if I can have more of an adventurous experience along the way. Still, an end to this latest losing streak is a good thing, however underwhelming the manner in which I achieved it.

Beat the Inevitability of Death

It's my 400th post here, which strikes me as being as good a reason as any to return to the topic of gamebooks it is impossible to fail. I've already spent some time going on about the more linear variety, in which the plot follows essentially the same beats and progresses to the same ending no matter what choices you make, here.

However, there are also books in which your decisions do make a difference - sometimes to the extent that a completely different adventure happens (or fails to) depending on some of the earlier choices made - but all of the endings are 'good'. Some may be better than others, but failure is not going to happen, no matter what you do.

William Rotsler's Star Trek III gamebook The Vulcan Treasure fits more into this category than the preceding one, though all routes throught the book do end at the same Epilogue section. Pedantic geeky digression: exactly what the book has to do with the third Star Trek film is unclear, as (do I need to add a spoiler warning for films from over 4 decades ago?) Mister Spock is an active member of the Enterprise crew throughout the book, even though he's basically dead at the start of the movie, and by the time he's properly alive again the ship has been destroyed, with no point during the narrative into which the events of the book could be shoehorned.

Continuity concerns aside, it's a pretty straightforward plot. The U.S.S. Enterprise discovers clues hinting at the whereabouts of the crown jewels of Vulcan, sent away from the planet for safety during the civil war centuries ago, and lost ever since. Captain Kirk and his crew investigate, at various points along the way the reader decides what happens next, things occur (I avoid using the term 'adventure' here, because in many instances that would be overselling the sequence of events), and ultimately the missing treasure is found and prompts some pseudo-philosophical waffle about what is truly of value in the universe.

I said 'what happens next' rather than 'what the ship's crew do' above, because this is one of those gamebooks where the reader has greater control over the narrative - for example, getting to choose whether or not a corridor turns out to be booby-trapped. While I'm not as hostile towards that sort of thing as some gamebook fans, it's not one that appeals to me much, either. Still, my issues with this book have less to do with the occasional immersion-breaking decision than with the fact that so many of the paths through the book just aren't very interesting.

Reader choice occasionally influencing more than just the actions of the viewpoint character is also an aspect of some of the Doctor Who-based Decide Your Destiny gamebooks. But only some - the lack of consistency across this series is remarkable. Or should that be 'these series'? There are two separate numbered runs, one set during the first David Tennant era, the other in Matt Smith's run. And only half of the Matt Smith ones qualify for mention here, as the series unexpectedly introduced the possibility of failure into the last two books.

Setting aside the books with some bad endings for proper playthroughs at some future point, the rest are variable. Some intermittently allow the reader to decide what happens, others only allow you to choose the actions taken by the Doctor and/or his companions. Some have a coherent central plot, others diversify into different and mutually incompatible narratives. Some take an interesting premise and develop it into an engaging adventure, others rely on a clichéd set-up and waste whatever potential it may still have. Some are decently structured, others give the impression that the author never really cared about continuity from one section to the next (for one particularly sloppy book I created a mini-game based on seeing how many times my character could make the same 'shocking' discovery during a single playthrough).

In a way it's appropriate - Doctor Who the TV series has at times been similarly inconsistent, with some of its highest peaks and lowest troughs close together in broadcast order - but I'd have preferred not to have the books that are just dull and uninspired. I got the original run of twelve books as a job lot, but anyone buying individual books from the series would (at least until they learned which authors' names were to be taken as red flags) have little to no idea whether they'd be getting an enjoyable (if limited) gamebook or a waste of paper and time. 

While I'm talking about Doctor Who gamebooks, I'll also give a dishonourable mention to part of Michael Holt's Crisis in Space from the Find Your Fate series. I say 'part of' because this book has a design feature I've never seen anywhere else, splitting into a 'no possibility of failure' linearity-fest and a more conventional (but still rubbish) gamebook at the first decision. Pick one destination, and your subsequent choices (and the occasional roll of a die) will have some effect on whether you live, die, or get press-ganged into becoming a hair stylist for the villain's consort (yes, that really is one of the possible ways of failing). Go for the other option, and all roads lead to the same partial victory (except for the typo that takes you to the wrong section, relocating you to another planet and the narrative strand where you can influence the outcome). Almost 40% of the sections are taken up with this 'fixed outcome' route, including a load of 'No, you've taken the wrong turning' padding towards the end of one sub-path. Crisis might not quite be the worst gamebook I've ever encountered, but I'd be surprised if any other can beat it for sheer variety of flaws and bad ideas.

Another slightly questionable fit for this post is The Mind Master, the second book in Philip Herriott's inconsistent Magic Mystery series. The book has three endings - two partial victories and one complete success - and a few less positive non-endings. Two of these are the kind of 'you messed up, so go back to section 1 and choose better' cop-out used in the F.E.A.R. Adventures series, while the other would be a proper 'fail' ending if it weren't for the way it's presented. In essence, the relevant page says, "You're in a dire situation. You can either seek help (turn to another page) or accept abject defeat." What reader, presented with such a choice, is going to pick the latter option? Well, I suppose that, since the only person available to help in the situation is a woman, a really hard-core misogynist might decide 'I'd rather fall victim to the bad guy than be rescued by a female', but really...

I've only read one of Carolyn Keene & Franklin W. Dixon's Be A Detective Mystery Stories gamebooks, and thus cannot be certain that it is representative of the series as a whole, but at the very least book 3, The Feathered Serpent, has only successful endings. A third person narrative, featuring the authors' characters Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, it frequently presents the reader with a different kind of choice than most gamebooks: on which character the narrative is to focus. There's little to no consistency between different paths through the book - the identity of the criminal(s) and even the nature of the crime being perpetrated varies from one route to the next. As mysteries, they're not that great, with clues frequently being discovered 'off-page', or not revealed until whichever of the amateur sleuths has figured things out chooses to show off how they solved the case, or villains proving incapable of keeping from confessing the moment they're confronted with even the flimsiest of evidence against them. 

Oh, and on many of the plot strands, the book's title is rather misleading. In a few instances it refers to a smuggled antique, but the rest of the time it has nothing to do with the story (beyond the fact that it refers to a Mesoamerican deity, and a separate strand of the investigation is being conducted in Mexico).

To end on a more positive note, I'll finish with Douglas Hill's Have your own extra-terrestrial adventure. This is a noirish first-person narrative, in which the viewpoint character is interplanetary investigator Del Curb, the only human to survive an encounter with the alien psychopath known as Rimeq the Renegade.

Curb is approached by the Federation Police to assist with the hunt for Rimeq, who claims to be in possession of a weapon that could destroy all life on Earth, and is threatening to use it if he doesn't get his own way. And 'assist' is the right word: the FedPol are carrying out a large-scale search for Rimeq with their own resources, but there are places that are off-limits to them, which is why they're also bringing in Curb. While, for Curb, all roads do lead to Rimeq, the fact that his investigations are just one small aspect of a much bigger operation makes a pleasant change from the 'you must undertake this mission alone for no adequately explained reason' set-up found in a lot of gamebooks.

Like many of the gamebooks mentioned above, it branches into an assortment of mutually incompatible storylines: the first decision concerns which of two very different planets to investigate, and Rimeq and the weapon are on whichever one you pick. Still, the different stories into which the plot develops depending on the decisions you make are all entertaining, and the fact that some endings are more satisfying victories than others goes a little way towards making up for any loss of tension occasioned by the certainty of Curb's surviving and thwarting Rimeq.

As I recently mentioned, inventive, nasty, and/or well-written ‘bad’ endings have been part of gamebooks’ appeal to me for almost as long as I've been reading them, and there's plenty of evidence that I’m not the only person for whom the sections describing defeat hold some fascination. Nevertheless, a few of the books mentioned above prove that it is possible to create an entertaining gamebook even when failure is literally not an option. Perhaps when I’m next killing time in the vicinity of a selection of second-hand books and chance upon a new-to-me gamebook at a ‘not sure if worth it’ price, I won’t be so quick to reshelve it if a quick perusal fails to reveal any juicy deaths.